Marisa Cranfill
Did you know that Spirit House Connection has the world's largest collection of geourgous professional photographs of spirit houses from all over Thailand? (At least the I know of!) Photographer Frank Fuller and I travelled for 3 years scouting out spirit houses from rice fields to nightclubs. With over 10,000 images of spirit houses, I had to decide how to catalog them just for you. I did this through the slideshows that appear in the SLIDESHOWS
READ MOREMarisa Cranfill
The home made spirit house looks content with offerings amidst a piles of tires on an empty plot of land. Here is the full view:
READ MOREMarisa Cranfill
The local Thai spirit house embodies a sense of transcendence and humility. I love this shot by Frank Fuller.
READ MOREMarisa Cranfill
Spirit house hunting in Luang Prabang is easy: do some qigong and open your third eye (so you can see the spirits), drink lao coffee (because it is delicious), get on a bicycle (the best transportation in Lao) and meet the land guardians! I found this saarn phra phoom style spirit house guarding the workshop of a man who makes khon masks used in the Hindu epic play called Pra Lak Pra Lam, the Lao Ramayana. &n
READ MOREMarisa Cranfill
After three heavenly weeks in Luang Prabang, my understanding of spirit houses has raised the roof. (Pun intended) “Lao is medieval; it’s not renaissance. Thailand is renaissance.” The Prince of Lao - an extraordinary artist and cultural preservationist – asserted in response to my probing questions about the local spirit houses. I could tell he was getting a little frustrated that I continued to compare La
READ MOREMarisa Cranfill
You just know when a spirit house has got it; that certain something, like the magnetism of a supernova – a rare charisma that causes you to stop dead in your tracks and take a closer look, or at the least, save a snapshot of it in the little box of treasures folder of your mind. The first rule of spirit house success is that it can’t be truly powerful without a power source. A daily blast of sunshine, root systems th
READ MORESpirit house hunting is kind of like looking for the perfect stone in a river. None of them are alike, and all of them have their own characteristics worn by the elements of nature. But once in a while one in particular beckons us to come hither and bend our knee. This happened to me on a recent trip to Chiang Mai- there it was with a soft sunlight shining down on it- the Zen Thai spirit house. Set in a graphic garden in front of a boutiqu
READ MOREWhat is so great about spirit house hunting is that you never know what you’re going to find. Hiding inside the make shift entrance of this construction zone, I came across this astute and simple spirit house. Made of corrugated sheet metal and stuck on top of a wood stick, this style of spirit house is called san piang da meaning “eye level abode” because of its height. The san piang da are temporary dwellings for the land guar
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