Altars Made Easy: A Complete Guide To Creating Your Own Sacred Space (Paperback)

by Peg Streep (Author) "On top of a small table in the living room of a garden apartment in a small Eastern city sits what appears to be a..." (more)
Key Phrases: altar building, creating sacred space, Native American, Virgin Mary, Kuan Yin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Altars are everywhere. In executive suites and private homes, in restaurants and gardens – whether religious in focus or not – people are reinventing the altar in new and imaginative ways. From a simple cherished photo surrounded by candles and shells that serves to attract the eye and draw the mind into gentle contemplation, to a more elaborate expression of personal style, altars bring peace and a place of beauty into daily life. In this first complete handbook on altars, Peg Streep shows readers how to use specific materials, colours, symbols, imagery, scents, crystals, music, and more to create their own personal altars. Streep covers the history, symbolism, and different types of the altar and provides detailed and fully illustrated guidance for anyone to create and enjoy sacred space. A discussion of offerings and rituals, along with a handy resource section, make this volume definitive, Altars Made Easy, makes the process simple and fun.

From the Back Cover
The art of creating sacred space . . .

The first complete book on altars and altar building. Altars Made Easy explores the creation of sacred-in the home, in the office, in the garden, even in temporary surroundings-as a powerful tool of transformation and spiritual development. What is sacred space? It is a place where, as Joseph Campbell put it, wonder can be revealed.

In a single volume, the rich background of history, humanity's first altars, sacred places, and most ancient mythologies illuminates contemporary altar building. Learn, step by step, how to create altars that focus energy and reflect the spirit, including:
Understanding the language of sacred space
Creating altars for special needs
Choosing materials, colors, and statuary
Empowering your altar with signs and symbols
Energizing sacred space with light, smoke, and scent
Using gemstones and minerals
Drawing on the power of totems and guardians
Building outdoor altars, and much, much more.

Altar building is a creative process that frees us to make use of the affirming and empowering aspects of change. Beautifully illustrated, this volume contains a full resource section and is filled with examples to help you create sacred space. Altars Made Easy offers a full understanding of the power that symbols, objects, colors, and your own unique personality can bring to the altar you can create and re-create for meditation, reflection, prayer, and relaxation.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (October 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062514903
• ISBN-13: 978-0062514905
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #461,157 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, May 2, 2000

By	Shelley A. Grabowski "shellblossom" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was great! It is filled with very useful ideas on making your own sacred space. I have never seen a book filled with so much information on multi cultural items, colors, stones/gems, flowers, animals and more items, with their meanings, that you may use on you own alter. This book is a must have for anyone looking to make their own alter or sacred space, or someone who is just looking to educate themselves on the meanings of a lot of items used on alters. The only drawback was there wasn't enough drawings. The ones used were great but I would have loved to seen more. I just couldn't get enough. This is a book you will truly enjoy over and over again!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rather Dull Book, April 2, 1999

By A Customer

Disappointing. In my opinion the title is misleading, it's more compendium of objects you might use on your altar than a "complete guide." Illustrations are only line drawings, paper is very cheap. I don't get the sense of quality that the subject deserves. Some helpful information.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe trees were actually cut down to publish this, January 4, 2005

By	Marla Bunker (NYC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're sufficiently interested in having your own altar that you're perusing books on the subject, you probably already know 'way more about the subject than you're going to get out of this book.

There's little real information or insight about altars, per se. It's mostly the same filler on what gem, what animal, what deity, what color candle, etc., symbolizes what, as you'd find in every other "spiritual practices" book on your shelves at home.

Altars are beautiful almost by requirement and some decent photos would have been great. Instead you get a couple of unengaging drawings on what appears to be the sort of paper formerly reserved for Big Chief notepads.

Don't bother.