Altars, altars everywhere
By Barbara O'Neal
Recently, I dragged Christopher Robin to a small art gallery in Manitou Springs, where they were having a show of altars. I admired them, one after another, puzzling out their messages. Some were crude and rough, some quite elaborate. CR said, "This is just what you do."
As will so often happen, the obviousness of a thing slapped me in the head. Yes. Of course I do. I make altars out of everything. Altoids boxes are excellent. Cigar boxes. Niches in desks and corners, naturally.
Altars in all forms fascinate me, from descansos erected on the side of the road to honor the dead killed in car accidents, Buddhas covered with dollar bills at my local nail salon, the altars piled high with crutches and requests scribbled on a photograph: "Save Ricardo." A friend and I drove down to Chimayo New Mexico in December, to one of the only pilgrimage sites in North America. There is a deep well with holy dirt that people collect to spread over the sick to heal them of their ills, and an altar to Virgin of Guadalupe, but my favorite is a little stall devoted to Santo Nino, who is a little boy saint dressed in a pilgrim's cloak. He is said to wander the area healing sick children, and wears out his shoes, so people bring him new ones, child shoes. His stall his littered with them, and it's possible to hear the whispers of the prayers rustling the air. Who is more earnestly praying than a mother for a sick child, after all?
Honestly, Santo Nino and his shoes give me the creeps a bit. I really would not want to run into him on a dark night, his cape flapping, his cocky hat clapped down over his hair. He reminds me a little too much of Chuckie.
One of my favorite kind of altars is descansos. Not everyone agrees with me, of course. Many states have fights over when to leave them up, when to take them down. The can be a little creepy, too, I guess, those constant reminders that you are not as safe as you think you are. They are common in Colorado, and in New Mexico, it's against the law to dismantle them. They become entrenched parts of the landscape, as this one has--
--so well-tended over time that they become a part of their world. It's a loving tribute, a determination to remember the dead as you would wish to be remembered. This one was decorated for Christmas.
I make altars of all sorts all the time. They seem to sprout wherever I am. In my study, there are two. One is tucked into a niche of my desk. It holds blue jay feathers in pottery jars and egg-shaped rocks and a large Ganesha statue piled with American quarters and pound coins and Euros from a handful of different places. Last summer, I added a bottle of water taken from the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, where I waded in the waters to see if it would heal the torn meniscus in my knee. It was not healed but I did manage to walk 100km of the Camino de Santiago afterward, so maybe it was a miracle.
The other altar is quite Catholic in aspect, with a Virgin of Guadalupe covered with rosary beads collected from my travels, and a very special one my teenage son brought back from Barcelona when he went with a class trip. It is he who provided me with the Virgin, whose halo used to light up with laser lights until I lost the cord. Still, she has a pretty face andI like her very much. She holds all the photos of people I give her without complaining.
Altars often make their way into my books, even inspire them. For awhile I was fascinated with the tiny rock star altars that were showing up here and there in tourist shops. When I found a dollar bill that said, "Tupac is alive!" I made one to honor that little bit of magic.
Making it helped me puzzle out the story of a lost young girl in A Piece of Heaven (which has maybe the most magic realism of any of my novels, aside from The Lost Recipe for Happiness). The altar and bill showed up in the narrative. A double descanso in Chimayo helped inspire Lost Recipe. One I saw along the Camino keeps showing up in my new book--crude and cold, but somehow I have not been able to dislodge it from my brain. I would have spent the entire day there, reading the walls and prayers and petitions. It plays an important role in the book.
The day we saw the exhibit of altars, Christopher Robin and I wandered around Manitou afterwards. In an antique store, and he found an old teak jewelry box for $20 and gave it to me for a project. It has Chinese mountains on it, and green Asian fabric inside. There are mirrors, very intriguing. Three days after he gave it to me, I found a passport that had been lost for more than three years, so that went inside. I suspect it will be a travel altar of some kind, but that's not clear yet. We shall see.
I have no idea where this fascination comes from, but maybe we don't always have to know everything. I just love them. That's enough.
Have you ever seen an altar that spoke to you? Do you have a passion for something a little offbeat?
