A year ago, after a couple trips to Lake Superior, I posted how I had begun there a regular practice of creating earth altars—how energizing it was to create them, why and how I created them (as an intuitive co-creation with the life around me and anchored by an intentional blessing), and why I saw each one as “a love offering, a blessing prayer, a piece of art, and an exercise in letting go.” (You can find that blog post here.) In my newsletters I have periodically shared some of the altars created since that time.

This year I created three earth altars during my 11 day trip to Lake Superior, and I’d love to share them with you.

The first one, made several days after I arrived, was an expression of gratitude—for the lake, for the woods and flowers, and for all the blessings in my life, especially my luck to be there.

The same day I made another, in gratitude to the lake and all the waters of the world.

A few days later after a stormy night I made an altar dedicated to Resilience, the strength and adaptability I saw in the flowers blooming among the winds-scoured rocks, the jumbles of driftwood lying here and there, and all the life that persisted here, including birds, insects, lichen and the rocks themselves.

As I explained last year, as much as I enjoy blessing the landscape with Her own beauty, I also love observing how She takes it back into Herself.

While the water altar changed very little over the time I was there—here it is a week after its creation—the other altars gradually became almost indistinguishable from their surroundings.

Here is the Gratitude altar at various stages.

2 days after creation

3 days after creation

4 days after creation

And the Resilience altar:

2 days after creation

1 day after creation

3 days after creation

I find beautiful all the stages of these altars. Like the beauty in each of the seasons of the year. (Hmmm…can I apply that to my own aging self?)

What has been delighting you this summer?  I’d love to hear.

(Please click on each photo for a larger, clearer version.)