The Palatial Cave

Allowing Guidance to Stretch You

Sanctuary can be external and it can internal. It can be found in a crowded noisy city and it can be found in a remote utterly deserted landscape.

One can create a sanctuary anywhere out of anything with intention. And that concept of sanctuary is a matter of perspective, so ostensively it is personal.

My sanctuary was suggested to me by Spirit guides out of the blue and I didn’t even know at the time that it really was Just what I needed. The guides said, “you will build a fort.”

That made me chuckle.

“It will be in your forest.”

My forest is my backyard – in a typical residential neighborhood – it is heavily treed with old growth hemlock, spruce and some willow, elderberry and alder, wild blueberries and mostly a brutish shrub we call devil’s club. Also lovely mosses everywhere. It will remain natural until I no longer live here.

Devil’s club is beautiful to look at from afar. In the summer it has gigantic (like bigger than your head) leaves with huge thorns on the underside of every leaf. The stems are woody and also covered in sturdy thorns.

In the fall the leaves turn beautiful gold and the overhead flower stalks develop neon red berries. In the winter the woody stems stick up out of any amount of snow we get (and we get a lot of snow here) and those sturdy thorns are still at attention guarding my forest as only the best sentinels can. I have torn many clothes on those prickly clubs.

So while my forest is not an idyllic parkland it is where I live and where I did it fact, have the leave to build a fort. The guides elaborated on the form of my fort.

“You may build your fort out of sticks or rocks or what is about and it may be very small. It can be as a cave where you crawl into it or it can be bigger. You need nothing in your fort except perhaps a candle.”

At this point I was quite amused and knew I would not build a fort where I crawled in. It rains a LOT here. There is standing water in places; hence the mosses.

So I had to ask why I need to do this.

“You do not have to do this but it could be your sanctuary. A quiet place for you to meditate and a place for contemplation.”

Okay, now I get it! My household is noisy in normal times but when the guides came through with this suggestion (2020) the world was locked down. It was the perfect time for projects like home improvement.

Home improvement is in other words power tools, banging, sawdust, heavy lifting, noise, more noise and sometimes terse discussion. And during lock down there was little reprieve except a walk around the block.

Perfect time for a new sanctuary.

But I would not clear any part of my beloved forest. Whatever I created back there had to fit into the trees and devil’s club.

There was a small clear space at the very back of the lot where a huge cold-frame and strawberry patch used to be. Used to be. Little did I think that when I put the strawberries in that bears would be attracted to the area. I and my young daughter didn’t want to go back there very often and the strawberries got overrun by the mosses and ferns and the cold-frame became a victim to entropy. The perfect spot for a fort.

There was a lot of spare pieces and parts of construction materials around due to our perpetual home improvement, though I was to discover not quite enough. The idea forming in my head was not a cave to crawl into. I was envisioning a very sturdy small room of creative shape.

Not a she shed. Not a tiny house. A Palatial Cave.

Very small. The guides said I needed nothing but a candle but I did want my 25 year old rattan meditation chair with matching rattan footstool. Yeah, I know, sounds fancy, but that chair really is the sanctuary. That chair can be imagined as my sitting place no matter where in the world I am.

The thing is, at the moment my sanctuary chair is right in the middle of the home improvement. So I began to draw out my Palatial Cave just big enough for the chair and tall enough to stand up.

The guides also said, “you have all the skills to create what you need and whatever you create it will have dignity.” That induced another chuckle. My husband and I built our house like a patchwork quilt. First the basic square then adding a room here and a room there over the years. We were no strangers to home improvement, done our way.

With the current project in full swing my husband had no extra time or energy to put into the Cave. No problem, I’ll do it myself!

Summers go quickly in the north and it was October before I had a plan and collected materials for my fort. Octobers cold and dry weather encouraged me. So did the very cool free door I found on the roadside.

I found different bits of insulation to use. It didn’t have to all be the same I just didn’t want bare walls for my winter meditation sessions. I installed controversial vapor seal. I also repurposed some sound-proofing which also added to the insulating value while dampening neighborhood sounds; this is Not a shed, it’s a sanctuary.

So, bit by bit, with a lot of consultation and occasional help with heavy lifting from the household main carpenter I built a Palatial Cave. When I got to the roof though I was stumped by some of the math and thankfully my husband could step in.

 

We put ice shield on the roof but to this day there is no roofing on the Cave. It’s covered with a heavy tarp to protect the ice shield, tied down to the footers. I keep looking for free roadside bits of metal roofing from other construction but nothing has showed up yet. I’ll even use different color panels if I have too; I don’t think the dignity would be affected by a patchwork sort of roof.

And so, the Palatial Cave was created and I use it once or twice a day on average. It is indeed my sanctuary. No one goes out there. I can count on one hand the number of people who have visited it – by invitation.

I repurposed two totems I had in the garden for years. They were starting to crack and get worn but make terrific support posts for the little porch and roof. The next summer I painted it and put in real stairs – now those were a challenge!

I did have to get a little heater which keeps it warm enough for an hour. I’ve been out there. in -12F and it stays warm enough but I am dressed for it too.

Once again Spirit has guided me towards exactly what I needed to thrive. I would never have thought to build myself a separate sacred space. I would never have even entertained initiating it mostly on my own but Spirit reminded me I have the skills or can acquire them through the experience.

This stretched me and it also gave me confidence. Sure I had help but I was out there alone a lot of the time and I made the decisions and I had a vision inspired by Spirit. It was a wacky idea at first but I am So glad I put Spirit’s suggestion into action.

I feel truly blessed for the guidance. I also feel that I have indeed created a sanctuary of dignity.

The Palatial Cave.

Embrace the Mystery.