The Temple of Memory

Attics and basements were a staple of most houses on the East Coast, where I was brought up. The attic was often stifling hot, cramped and suffocating. You would ascend a steep, narrow stairway, a storage box held precariously in hand, and deposit it in the nearest empty space, relieved to get down the stairs as quickly as possible and back to fresh air.

The basement was a different experience but similar to the attic, in that you only visited it when you absolutely had to. The basement was dark and dank and had either cement or wooden steps that creaked, leading down into the land where spiders and other creepy-crawlers made their home. The temperature was usually quite a bit cooler than the living space above. Not the cool that spells refreshing, but the kind that chills your bones and sets your teeth on edge.

Luckily, today I am only asking you to court the contents of the attic. We will save the basement for another day.

Since attics tend to be used as a place to store things that we have no immediate use for and want out of sight and out of mind, we need to move your stored memories to a better location.

Imagine that your past occupies a place in the attic of your mind. As the years fly by, memories of past challenges, defeats, upsets, and delights brought to you through family and work experiences, friendships, loves, and losses, are packed away in boxes, taped shut, and placed into the storage space in the far-reaches of your mind.

Whether your daily life routines have stayed fairly constant or you have moved many times into brand new situations, the memories have come along as a consistent frame of reference and a testimony to where you have come from.

Today, I want to invite you to make a shift in your perceptions so that your past can be opened up to, dusted off, and activated as a valuable inheritance of experiential wisdom. Your memories, approached correctly, can help fund the creation of a vibrant future, grown from the fertile seeds of your unique past experiences.

As a first step, I want you to use your imagination to conjure up in your mind’s eye, a temple, a sacred space, and put it in a location that is pleasing to you. It may take the form of a church or a temple that you have visited in real life, or a place that you have seen in a photograph, or a movie. Once the temple is formed, stand outside of the entranceway. Do not enter inside just yet.

Your stored memories will be transported to this new location without you needing to do anything at all, and they will arrange themselves inside your temple, in whatever way will be most beneficial for you.

From this moment on, your memories, whether you have held them as mistakes, heart-hurts, achievements, validations, or disappointments, will now be housed in this sacred space.

This means that whenever you visit your temple of memory, you will practice the art of Spiritual Non-Interference. You will treat yourself with great tenderness, kindness, and compassion, and will finally let certain aspects of your life alone, so that healing can take place.


Many of us can be compassionate with others but are far too harsh with ourselves. Moving your memories to this sacred temple will allow a new kind of light to permeate your soul.

Your past is not gone but it has been boxed, labeled, hidden, discarded, and abandoned in your memory. Relocating your memories in this sacred temple will allow the wounded places in you to experience incredible healing.

Begin to soften and open to newfound levels of warmth in your soul.

Stand in front of the entrance into your sacred temple.

Step through the doorway and position yourself in the center of the room. Take in all that surrounds you.

Know that at this very moment, you are surrounded by the multiplicity of all the directions you have traveled.

The circle of your life is being brought together right at this moment.

You are standing in the presence of timelessness. From this sacred point of view, your past, your present and your future are here and now.

This present moment is pregnant with your freedom to choose. Choose to own your freedom to embrace all that is beautiful about your life.

It is beauty that will save us in the end.