Someone just asked me about altars, and I had so much fun answering, I thought I'd make a whole post out of it. I even asked my community what questions they had. So here's what you need to know about creating a powerful altar.
What do you use your altar for?
Altars are a beautiful way to bring grounding and spiritual elevation to your space all at once! It's a sacred space to honor and uplift whatever energy you want to focus on. This will look different for every person.
What do you keep on your altar?
I have a few altars with plans to make even more after I move and have more space. My main altar is my seasonal altar I change every solstice and equinox to match the energy of the new season. I definitely recommend this type of altar for anyone who is new to this spiritual practice or who is deconstructing from religion and was taught that altars are bad. Because it's really not that different from decorating your hearth with flowers and eggs for spring, pinecones and pumpkins for fall, etc. It's more than decorating though. The most important part of an altar is your intention. What energy do these seasons bring? We've just entered summer in my part of the world, so think of what summer feels like...energy, travel, family, sunshine, heat. How do you want to anchor yourself into these energies internally? For example, fill your altar with summery things like lemons, which enhance magick and offer protection. At your altar, sit with those lemons, touch them, feel their energy, ask them to partner with you to protect your home. Send travel protection to your loved ones. Speak out loud whatever magick you want to enhance in your life. If you're creating an altar for a deity, find out what their correspondences are, and fill your altar with offerings and symbols as a way to connect with and honor them.
How often do you spend time at your alter?
I'm going to be super honest with you. When my home is clean, I spend time at my alter every morning. But when my home is a mess, I don't...so...I don't mediate at my alter very much. 😂 With my seasonal altar, I meditate with it as I put it up and usually for a few days after, and then I have a hard time keeping up with it. Also because if I'm up, my kids are up, and it's hard to focus. Before baby came, I meditated A LOT more than I'm able to now. So it fluctuates. My deity altars, though, I'm pretty regular about. I meditate and enter ritual with Hecate at her altar every dark moon. I also refresh it at that time. I light my Hestia candle, which I see as an altar all on its own, every day, and I sing to her and invite her to warm and bless my home with her energy. This is one of those things that looks different for every person and every altar! Don't beat yourself up if you're inconsistent. You're human, it's okay.
How do you energy cleanse your altar?
Before you set up an altar, make sure you cleanse the space. You may be filling your altar with physical items, but this is all about energy. So cleanse to get rid of old energy that might muck up what you're trying to create. At the same time though, the physical affects the energetic, so even giving your altar a good physical cleaning is great. You can also cleanse the energy with your own energy, by changeling light to push out old energy. You can use sound, words, burn cleansing herbs that have been sourced ethically, sprinkle salt, or add essential oils to your wash. I also love to "activate" my altar by burning a bay leaf or a candle right after I set it up.
Where should you place your altar?
Altars can be placed anywhere, but I'll make two groups...covert and in-the-open.
Covert.
Maybe you live with conservative family who aren't supportive of your practices, maybe you just want your altar to be private, maybe you have destructive cats or kids. So you need a private, tucked-away altar space. Here are some ideas:
-Altar in a jar. This can look like you just put together a "vibe" jar as decor, or you can keep it in your underwear drawer and pull it out every morning to meditate while you get dressed.
-Altar in a briefcase. This can slide under your bed, under your seat in your car. Nothing interesting to see here, only business...
-In a shoe box in your closet.
-If you live with incredibly intrusive people, you can have a digital altar on your phone that's hidden by an app or password. Make a collage or photo album with images you'd want in your altar. Pictures still hold frequency and work all the same!
-Seasonal "decor" on your mantel. To everyone else, it looks like decor, but to you, it's so much more.
Now, out in the open places:
-Fireplace mantle
-Dresser
-Garden
-Bookshelf
-My seasonal one is on a bar top.
-I'm planning floating shelf altars in the new house.
Any surface works. Just respect the altar as a sacred and set-apart space.
Is there are wrong way to do an altar?
A couple things. The first way to do this all wrong would be to only have an anesthetic altar, which means you'd make it all pretty pretty but forget that you're the most important part of the magick. An alter with a rock you found on the ground, an old photo of child you, and some acorns, paired with your energy and intentions is MUCH more powerful than an altar covered in a velvet cloth, huge expensive crystals, tarot cards, a golden chalice, and the skull of a unicorn, paired with none of your energy and intention.
Another wrong way to make an altar is to fill it with things that are sacred to closed practices for which you're not a part of (like Hoodoo, for example). There's a lot of talk out there about which practices are closed. There are also a lot of white people speaking over people of color and spreaking false "woke" information. I'm not going to be one of those white people, and the labor is on you to find out what these practices are. It's right for you to do this. Please do your research and make sure you're listening to the people in these cultures. Learn from them. Respect them. Do the work on yourself. And if you get it wrong, and someday you post a picture of your altar or your practice, and someone in a closed practice says, "Hey, you shouldn't be doing this. This belongs to us," then please just learn from it and do better. It's okay to make a mistake, but just don't stay ignorant.
So there you go! Tell me...do you already have an altar, or are you just starting out? What kind of altar do you have? I'm so curious!
If you're looking for more witchy magick, paganism, unschooling, and shadow work tips and inspiration, join me on Instagram and in the private Facebook group, Of Shadows and Light - with Jessie Mullins.
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