Think of your soul flame as your life energy surrounding you and forming your aura. At the center of the aura is you, which is connected to the spirit world since you are alive. However, think of yourself as a window. If you are a secular non-spiritual person, you are like an opaque bulletproof glass window, because you will not see through it to the spirit world, and nothing will pass or go through. If you are religious, it is like a transparent window that you can see inside of. People who are spiritual are like open windows with a screen, so they feel the wind of the spirit world and hear what is going on outside the window, but they can’t go through and only small spirits and deities can pass through them. A person who has had a third eye opening or a large ego death is like an open window, and anything can pass through them into our world.
As a human, you can work on opening (Or closing) your portal to the spirit world to see what balances you, or you can go towards other living things that also serve as portals. Trees, animals, plants, and even fish who are alive, work great as portals because they are free from ego. Talking to trees or plants allows you to energetically read what the souls of those organisms are attempting to tell you, and it also allows various energies to cross over from the spirit world and interact with you in different ways. Because you are interacting positively with the plant or animal, you will attract spirits of good intention.
For this reason, even a small plant or a goldfish can make a makeshift shrine as long as you are willing to care for it. Even objects with spiritual energy such as cowries, seeds, or incense and water have a kind of capacity to serve as portals if you simply intend to use them in that way. However, polluted nature attracts polluted spirits to enter your life and bring baggage to you. Animals that are mistreated cause evil spirits and ghosts to pass through them into our world in addition to the karmic backlash for the person doing it.