How Would You Design an Altar?

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SpiritTalker
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How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by SpiritTalker »

This is my half penny’s worth ...

Some Things to Think About
(Re: indoor altar space)

1. What type do you think you'll use?
. The devotional or shrine type of altar is a place for contemplation, prayer & offerings. The likely items would be incense burner, candle-lite, offering dish & any written meditation or prayer guides, your journal to record in, prayer beads; possibly music and Deity symbol. Humor is also welcome to many deities.
. A divination work place needs space to lay out your cards or toss stones. You may want to burn inspirational candles & incense and will need room for these to safely burn. You need enough light to read by & properly positioned for mirror, water and crystal ball gazing. If you read tea leaves than aN electric hot-pot boil water, and the tea fixings are needed. You might want a divination-reading journal to record in.
. A work table for spell crafting can get messy with ash, herb & wax spills. Using a box lid, serving tray or baking sheet can contain the mess. The hands-on working tools like a knife & small cutting board, scissors, mortar & pestle as well as any ritual tools desired will all be jumbled together. A burning bowl with a safety lid to smother flames is essential. You'll want some off-table storage space for supplies like herbs & art-pens & parchment or craft paper, & pouch & poppet felt.
. A minimalist zen-space with a scented candle, a found stone & glass of water can be a restful retreat & still represent Nature's land, sea, sky & fire.
> For those in dorm living battery candles come in taper, pillar & tea-lite styles and smokey incense can be replaced by DIY aerosol mist. The elemental symbolism is maintained.
. Instead of an altar you might do a reading/meditation nook or corner.

2. Use what is really available
. Tables, desks, night stands & dressers, a piano bench or flat top chest are nice if you have them & it's lucky if they're on a north or east wall but not mandatory. A folding tray table or bed-tray can be easily moved around & give some height. The padded, storage box footstool that my feet are resting on as I type this has possibilities. A cardboard carton can be repurposed with some DIY covering. A cloth on the floor is quite alright. Use what you have & make it work. Thrift store finds of a flat style brief case or “over-night” suitcase can work for portability.
. There’s no rule that gear has to come from specialty new age witchy shops.
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Re: How to Design an Altar

Post by Firebird »

I like building them on the fly, from whatever I can find in nature.
I frequently find myself out on the trail and without a tool or any altar items other than my floral blade.
So I'll use feathers, and stones, leaves and twigs, acorns or pine cones, what ever is interesting. Then when I have finished my work I leave the setting for the fae to dismantle at their will.

I would like to share an insight I had where the colors in the circle are concerned. There are a basic 6 colors in the color wheel and when you add white and black you have a base color for each holiday.
Starting in the Midwinter and the direction of North,
North is Black: the Winter Solstice/Yule, time of the longest and darkest night, rest and deep reflections.
N-E is White: Imbolc, time of the bride and purity, initiations.
East is Red: Vernal Equinox/Ostara, time of life renewal, the dawn of the day.
S-E is Orange: Bealtaine, time of creativity, ringing in the summer.
South is Yellow: Summer Solstice/Litha, time of longest and brightest light, greatest energy shining through solar plexus.
S-W is Green: Lughnasadh, time of the green man, fulfilment, leisure and greenwood marriages.
West is Blue: Autumnal Equinox/ Mabon, time of turning within, searching the inner waters of the self.
N-W is Purple: Samhain, time of death, highest insight, spiritual epiphanies.

bb, Firebird
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by SapphireRoad »

No wonder you're a High Priestess FireBird since this is so elaborated!

Do you think this wheel of year correspondence could be used to seal a circle cast, the 8 folded way?
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by BlackMirror »

I separate altars from shrines. I have an spirit shrine where I honor my dead, ancestors, spirits and wights. No work is done there. Then I have a work area/ altar I set up when needed. I also have a small shelf in my bedroom that I would call an altar I put working items on. For instance I put poppets, dream bags and my alchemist water on there. That way I can take down the altar but have things out.
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Re: How to Design an Altar

Post by SapphireRoad »

firebirdflys wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:32 am I would like to share an insight I had where the colors in the circle are concerned. There are a basic 6 colors in the color wheel and when you add white and black you have a base color for each holiday.
Starting in the Midwinter and the direction of North,
North is Black: the Winter Solstice/Yule, time of the longest and darkest night, rest and deep reflections.
N-E is White: Imbolc, time of the bride and purity, initiations.
East is Red: Vernal Equinox/Ostara, time of life renewal, the dawn of the day.
S-E is Orange: Bealtaine, time of creativity, ringing in the summer.
South is Yellow: Summer Solstice/Litha, time of longest and brightest light, greatest energy shining through solar plexus.
S-W is Green: Lughnasadh, time of the green man, fulfilment, leisure and greenwood marriages.
West is Blue: Autumnal Equinox/ Mabon, time of turning within, searching the inner waters of the self.
N-W is Purple: Samhain, time of death, highest insight, spiritual epiphanies.

bb, Firebird
As an eclectic I approve of sealing the circle 8 ways, also call Gaia to seal below, Ouranos to seal the sky, something personal to seal the middle which I implemented into emergency way of quick protection: 8 garlic cloves to quarters and cross-quarters, 9th garlic in the middle and you get some quick fix for the space.

How much do you, in your practice, implore that circle be fully made physically? Is this 8-quarter way sufficient from your point of view?
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by Eleanora »

I'm a long ways away from designing my altar because there's other things I need to learn before I can do that because I want to make everything by hand lol.

I found a nice couple of acres for sale I want to check out. No buildings or anything, just forest and wilderness. Currently I'm learning how to flintknap and craft primitive stone tools. My dream is to essentially walk into the forest butt naked and rise through the stone age to the industrial age all on my own using nothing but natural materials lol.

My altar will probably be a big flat rock propped up on a clay mound in an underground hut lol. Need to learn more about textiles, blacksmithing and candle making, parchment making, natural pigments, leathercrafting, bookbinding, etc, etc. I basically want to create a homespace where everything was made by me and infused with my energy along with my blood sweat and tears lol. Just feel personally like that's the "right" way to do it. Too uncomfortable using power-tools and unknown man-made chemicals on my eventual magical working tools. Plus I want to make sure it all comes from willing donors, i.e. I'd like to ask the tree's permission before turning it into building materials and sheets of paper, then if I feel a happy uplifting feeling from the tree, I'll return in 24 hours to collect. Gives it time to remove it's essence to the next stage of existence so that there's no pain when I come back to play lumberjack lol. Yeah, I can talk to trees and animals telepathically. People too, but most of them don't usually say anything to me telepathically intentionally, they're just thinking really loud and their inner voice CARRIES lmao...it's kind of annoying. =-P

Really glad I can't hear thoughts word for word; it's already hard enough to sleep as it is lol. For me it's more like feelings, sensations, and emotions blended up with flashes of images and short little video clips. First found out I could read minds from my first grade teacher when I was a little kid. She always told us stories from when she was a little girl, and one day I was asking her about one of the details or something, but also happened to mention the dress she was wearing in the memory, but she hadn't told the class what she had been wearing, but I somehow saw in my minds eye exactly how her memory played out. It freaked her out. Whole town was super religious. My parents homeschooled me starting after second grade because I'd become a target. ...I don't really like people anymore lmao. XD
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by SpiritTalker »

Psychic reception seems normal to me and as a kid I’d thought everybody did it. I just took it for granted like breathing, and hardly mentioned it. Jr high was a rude wake up. I’d seen my science teacher’s aura flux with reds and told my friend Mr N’s lights were all funny. My friend didn’t know what I meant. Shortly later Mr N had been rushed to Emergency with a ruptured ulcer (eew) and word got around about what I’d said. So in one day I’d learned about social pressure and that not all kids see, hear, feel empathic vibes, OOB etc., you know the list. I’ve silently stared down my share of shyte-arse bullies, grrr. A school librarian introduced me to the subject of parapsychology.

Back in college some friends & I formed a psi study group. We also wanted to form a psychic center on our own land, build it ourselves, etc. sinking our selves fully into the experience, similar to your wish to fully experience the living Land. I’ve used walkIng ley lines to feel Gaia’s pulse at seasonal changes.

Organically building an altar with your awareness of the life force is awesome. To me that’s ‘zakly what the Elements shout out. I use an astral construction of a sacred space in Nature & visit in light trance meditations. Rae Beth’s Hedgewitch books have been some of my favorites. She calls the astral construct the Place of Power.

My physical altar changes often.

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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by Eleanora »

Same here; never thought there was anything weird about me as a kid until I was about eight; that's when I connected the dots that I should keep certain things a secret. Til then I was pretty much like a blind kid that didn't know they needed glasses and just assumed the whole world looked blurry for everyone else too lol.
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by Corbin »

My shrine changes as I change, becoming more fussy, cluttered and then and more ordered and minimalistic in turns, the act of clearing and tidying it (replenishing and polishing) a devotional act. It is very much my hearth and physically represents elements of my 'working altar'. When it's a mess, it usually indicates I'm probably in a rut. My shrines like a weather vane ;).

Erm... About that... I'm a dionysian practitioner, written ritual structure simply holds no 'magic' for me. I don't get on with setting up physical altar/workspaces personally because I work most effectively 'setting up the scene' / raising the task and allowing things arise instantaneously, through Intuition and imagination (I research everything to the hilt, think about stuff till that's exhausted, find an emotional anchor... then... loosen my grip, confident that on a subconscious level it's waiting for the opportunity to be communicated.

Tools are often too much distraction for me when 'working' - setting them up, fussing with them... I lose focus... so my shrine has many tools to hand should I, in the spur of the moment, require them.

My working altar sits in the depths of my mind on the astral (or more properly etheric I suppose) and I access it within psychospiritual practice and trance.
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Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by Firebird »

SapphireRoad wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2020 3:42 pm Do you think this wheel of year correspondence could be used to seal a circle cast, the 8 folded way?
SapphireRoad wrote: Mon May 25, 2020 5:48 am How much do you, in your practice, implore that circle be fully made physically? Is this 8-quarter way sufficient from your point of view?
I'm sorry I never really got back to you. I wouldn't say I seal the 8 directions in this way, just more of a color correspondence to the 8 Sabbats of the year as a visual enhancement.
And no, I do not always set a physical boundary. Sometimes I do if I have lots of rose petals or an abundance of dry leaves, The 8 candle would do it but that's not how I (personally) use them. More usually setting a metaphysical sphere or bubble as a space to work within. Like casting as a regular circle would be on the plane of the earth in a deosil manner but also east to west over and above and below as well as south to north over above and below, creating the sphere.

As far as the altar it could be anything. I've had a giant stump in the backyard of my old house, one I could stand on, that was a favorite. We've used the whole picnic table along with the benches, a solid oak slice on top of wooden ritual tool chest, old oak desks, slate or sandstone slabs, cloths on the ground, or just the ground! I frequently use my fireplace as an altar and I paint little portable altars, I use a small round one with a picture of the sun and moons painted on it the most.

I like how Corbin mentioned when his altar gets cluttered he feels in a rut, very insightful. I do find cleaning up the one in the house (which is a nightstand with beveled and etched glass doors and one drawer) to help re-arrange my frame of mind, I must get in a rut frequently, because sometimes you can scarcely see the wood! LoL :oops:
BB, FF
“There are things known and things unknown and in between are the Doors.”
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“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
― RWEmerson
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Fayanu

Re: How Would You Design an Altar?

Post by Fayanu »

I kind of have an unusual altar which also changes depending on my living situation
at the moment I have my Deity figures some electric candles and some stones on a nightstand and a shelf above my spells/prayers I mostly do verbally I’m just not the kind of writing type
My cards or other things I have to do physically i do on my bed because I only have one room and my bed is the place where I feel the most safe and protec
But hopefully I can move in with my partner where I will have a bigger room and then I can have more space for altars
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