This is a shot of the whole setup. Again, crappy picture. Sorry.
This is the central image on my altar. She's a Japanese cloth doll from probably the 1950s or 1960s. She's entirely fabric and has a wire armature and separate, articulated fingers. When I first started exploring my spirituality, I used her to represent Benzaiten, the Japanese version of Sarasvati. That's how I got started down my path to the Buddhadharma. I still see her as an image of Benzaiten/Sarasvati, but I use her more generally to represent all the Buddhas and the Buddha Jewel itself.
In front of her, you can see my wonderful brass censer. I got it at the same place I got her - an antique market. The matching faux-wedgewood vases are also secondhand, but from a different store. You can just barely see two of my offering dishes in the very front (the two unglazed earthenware cups). They were from Japan and cost 100 yen each. You can also see the other major holy objects in this picture, but I'm going to talk about them in my next post.
