Greetings everyone! I was looking for a small altar or tiny temple where I could place my collection of small brass Buddha statues. I have many little Hindu Gods and Goddesses about 1.5″ tall and I wanted little shrines to display them. I looked around and could not find anything small enough, so I designed my own!
This project uses 1/8″ thick proof grade plywood on my Glowforge laser cutter. Mine is made from Cherry plywood with a luscious deep red color to the grain. Due to popular demand, I now offer my SVG file for those who have access to a laser cutter.
The SVG is made in color because Glowforge can see color. For some weird reason the Glowforge defaults engrave and score settings to draft quality, so we have to manually set engrave and score to HD or High Definition Quality for best results. Depending on your laser cutter you may have to change the order of tasks. The laser settings and step order for this design are:
Once your parts are laser cut it is time to assemble your tiny temple.
Put the Base in front of you, flip it so the JEMTOY logo is on the bottom (so you can’t see it.) Position the two front holes facing you.
Stack the Floor on top, making sure the 4 little holes line up and the laser scored line can be seen.
Insert the bottom tabs of the Window into the back two holes in the Floor and Base.
Do the same thing, insert the Front Door into the middle two holes pegging through the Floor and Base.
Insert the two little Railing pieces into the two little holes remaining on the front creating a mini staircase into the Door.
Slip the 2 Walls onto the tabs protruding from the bottom edge of the Window and Door.
Slide the 2 grooves in the Roof down onto the pegs at top of Window and Door. Push them down so there is a clear groove (for Garuda) on top.
Each Wall has pegs at top to set a Wing. Each Wing arches over the Door or Window.
Hold the top together and put Garuda in place to hold it all together. Garuda fits in the top middle groove in the roof. The openings along the bottom of Garuda snap in place sandwiching the Window and Door to the Wings. NOTE: Do not push on the long extended fragile parts of Garuda, they might break making your tiny temple a little ruin.
The tiny temple will hold most statues 1″ – 1.5″ inches tall. The project could also be a wonderful Fairy House or Spirit House – and you leave it empty for tiny visitors to camp out in when they pass through! If you have a big love for all things small, this is a great project to make with a kid.
Watch how I made the Wiggly Loaf House: from designing it on Inkscape to cutting it on Glowforge and gluing all the pieces together. You can win this house if you are hardcore enough to play the Wiggly Loaf game until you unlock at least one of the bonus characters. It’s a free download for iOS or Android phones. Check out WigglyLoaf.com and click on Contest. Good luck and enjoy the game!
I love dice! Until someone throws them right off the tabletop and the dice get lost. This made me wonder if I could come up with variations to the way we traditionally depict dice. For that, I turned to Inkscape, the Glowforge Laser Cutter, and my imagination.
Interested in a Glowforge of your own? Save $500 when you purchase a Glowforge through this link: https://glowforge.us/m/TELJNVZZ
The divination set comes with a 6″ x 7.5″ laser etched Oracle Board and three Was Scepters to cast across the board to conduct a reading. The board is shaped as a vessel that represents the heart and its contents. Let us weigh your heart, and see if the oracle can lighten its load with entertainment and enlightenment.
Set the Egyptian Oracle Board facing you. Hold the three Was Scepters in your two hands, shake them up, cup your hands over the top of the board, and release them so they all land on top.
There are three different Was Scepters included with the set:
The one representing the past is the wavy snake shaped scepter.
The straight one represents the present.
The one that fans out into a papyrus shape on top is the future.
The Egyptian Oracle Board is divided into stations. The Was Scepters have two ends. Once dropped, the scepters top and bottom ends will point to six stations on the board depending on how they land.
Start the reading from the station where the bottom end of the past scepter lands. Now read the station where the top end is. From there move on to the present (from bottom to top) and future in the same way. This gives you six points of reference within three time frames to pull your reading from.
All forms of divination take a bit of practice. Combine what the board reveals and your own gut feeling. Divination is a form of theatrical improvisation because divination must come from the gut and be spontaneous. It takes practice to open your intuition, believe what you feel, and dare to speak freely. Practicing divination will make you a better person.
Get good at dropping the Was Scepters and reading them to yourself before you move on to doing readings for others. You can practice on your cats. If you don’t have a cat, you can practice on a pretend cat. Or maybe get a dog. A dog would never jump on the board like a cat might. They’d jump on the board like a dog would. Dog wood? No. The board is made from maple ply, but I digress.
The Stations of the Egyptian Oracle Board
Right Eye of Horus (The Sun) – Your public persona. Role in society, role in family, role in business, social circles. Ambition, or lack of it. This is actually the eye you see on the left side of the board, but it is Horus’ right eye because he’s looking at you… got it? (I just remember sun is on my left, moon is on my right.)
Left Eye of Horus (The Moon) – Your secret side. Stuff inside you don’t let out. Is there something wicked waiting in the shadows or is that a glimmer of hope I see in the dark? Whether you like it or not this is probably the true you. What could be keeping it from getting out? And how can we get it to go back once it does get out? Art, writing, poetry, creativity… it’s all here. Lurking.
Rebirth – DEATH. Things end, but something always begins because of that ending. Remember the dead hippie dude sang: We’re all one and life flows on within you and without you. Be aware of new doors opening, especially as you lose what you once had. Life is big changes. Those who can reinvent themselves win. Thank you dead hippie dude.
Trade – In the balance of life we all must give and receive. What are you trading and what are you getting? Business, social relationships, the concept of trade pops up in lots of situations. Lack of balance, debts owed, supply and demand. Are you at balance with the universe?
Ankh – LIFE. There is one eternal life but many bodies. Our bodies all share in this one life. Welcome to the here and now. Pleasure, plenty, and the good life is what we all desire. You’ve got it or you want it. Go get it. Protect it. Keep what you have. Get more. Most of life is how we see it. Live now or forever rest in peace! What? – It don’t all make sense and it’s not always fair, but that’s life.
Family – Our chromosomes are programmed for us all to cower in our caves clinging to each other hoping we can all cope with whatever horrible terrors are presently outside waiting to eat us, or worse. We need each other. This is why family is important. Raising your own child can be an amazing life experience. On the flip side family pressure can be so powerful it is hard to live life your own way if you don’t agree with everything your family does. We were all born, so at one time we all had a family. We also collect our own family as we go. What family means to us can vary and be very complex. The desire to keep a family together, or to break away from one, can be intense. This is all that and more.
Education – Challenging your brain to learn something new can happen anywhere. A nearby lake side trail, local library, a talk with a wise elder, world travel, school, or YouTube tutorials are great places to learn something new. Education could be school or some other adventure where you learn a lesson. Hopefully it’s a good one. Some lessons hurt, so be careful.
Opportunity – An image of Horus riding a crocodile. There is usually some amount of risk involved with all of life’s opportunities. First you have to see the opportunity, and then you have to say or do something to bring the opportunity to your benefit. It’s risky. Sometimes these opportunities can go very wrong. I say it’s always better to get in trouble from trying your best, than to get in trouble from doing nothing as life passes you by. Keep your agenda pure of heart and go for it, but look out for the crocodiles. They don’t care about your agenda. They think you taste good and they’ll take any opportunity to find out. What sort of vulnerability does your new benefit bring?
Career – Some people like the idea of a life long career. Some wish they had one. Some hate what they have. A long and successful career can gain you respect, power, and standing. Or you could mess it all up and become a scum bag.
Ka – This is your SOUL. Spiritual matters, religion, after life, bucket list stuff, worshipful, thankful, (or fearful) of the divine. Sometimes we are driven to do something to appease our soul. Whatever that means… but you know it when you’re doing it, because it matters that much. You could also be searching for your self. Wondering who you are. Soul searching is serious stuff.
Struggle – Life is struggle. Keep fighting. This is not your time to give up, even if you might want to. You can do it. The board believes in you.
Truth – There are times in our lives when we come to moments of great awakening and awareness. Some small piece of the puzzle comes together and what was once a mystery now makes sense. Truth can be elusive. This can also mean the search for truth. The need to know. Something missing. The passing, withholding, transferring, or destroying of the truth is the power of writing history. How does your story go? What is your truth? Does it fill you with joy or pain?
Here is an example reading:
Your past #1 begins steeped in Education, which has set you up for some strong #2 opportunities gaining you public respect and perhaps even a power position. Your #3 career has become your very #4 life, and by working hard for a fair wage you have turned your #5 opportunities into a good life, full of the good things #6. However, you find at times that your career is taking over your life, blocking your happy future from being complete. Perhaps there is something left undone, maybe more to life than work, work, work?
How I came to this reading:
So I started where the wavy past scepter #1 bottom end rests at EDUCATION and the #2 top rests in between OPPORTUNITY AND THE SUN (Horus’ right eye).
I move on to #3 the present scepter which starts at CAREER and #4 ends at ANKH (Life).
The future #5 rests at OPPORTUNITY and #6 ends with a happy ending at TRUTH.
I do notice that the present scepter is on top “blocking” that happy ending, so there is room for an even happier ending if you focus and unblock what your life needs to get there.
How this all came to be ~
A LONG TIME AGO in an era we call the 80’s, during my undergrad at Maryland Institute I studied under the truly amazing Egyptologist, world traveler, actor, author, and artist, Bob Lienhardt. In one of the many classes I took with Bob, I did a project that involved some research into the Temple of Thoth as the origin of Tarot cards.
The ancient Egyptian Temple of Thoth was popular because one could get a direct answer from the oracle. They would enter a circular room with many painted symbols on the walls. The priest would drop yarrow stalks and then divine the answer from however the stalks landed and pointed at the symbols painted on the walls.
Traveling gypsies passing through Egypt replicated the temple symbols onto decks of cards for easy transport. Reading fortunes became a way for them to earn money while traveling, and the tradition of Tarot cards spread across Europe.
Because the Egyptian oracle is powerful magic, I wanted to create an experience closer to the ancient Egyptian divination method, but I needed to compress the experience into something smaller than a gigantic Egyptian Temple. For my class I had made a hand painted divination board that has since eroded like all great ancient relics eventually do. Here in my new and improved laser etched wood design I have merged the wisdom of the past to the needs of the present to bring you a divination board inspired by the Egyptian Temple of Thoth. It is hard to believe I began work on this project over 30 years ago. It is my hope that the Oracle Board both entertains and enlightens you.
The Egyptian Oracle Divination Board is available at my Etsy Shop, where ever that is. Look around, it’s gotta be here somewhere. Maybe we should consult the board. Oh there it is, it’s up on top of the page. Where it says, Etsy Shop. Thanks so much for checking out my art work.
