About Altars

Oh yes, You've read all about these. If you feel you already know everything I'll understand if you don't want to finish reading. However, you may also know something I don't (that you could contribute as a comment) or think of something I don't.

So altars... what are they for? An altar is a place where you honor your beliefs. You can use the area to meditate, and many use their alter instead of a circle for small or simple spells. An altar is also used as a worktable when a surface is needed for magickal workings (like blessing water or making a satchel). It is mostly used as an area set aside for the elements and the god and goddess and provides them with a place they can visit and rest at any time. If you are unable to have one (due to lack of space or countless other reasons) then an area in the room that you can keep clear of clutter and mundane stuff will work as well.

Some have permanent altars, one that is never taken down, and some have temporary altars, one that is set up only when needed. Either one is fine, you know what you can and cannot do. You don't need a special table created just for being an altar, any surface will do. Myself, I have used; A dresser, a desk, a headboard, a bookshelf, a floor, the ground (outside), a nightstand, my bed, a card table, a cabinet, a side table, seat of a car, trunk of a car, picnic table, and a coffee table.

When setting up your altar it is important to cleanse the area first. Most do this by smudging, or washing with salt-water, or sweeping (the air, not the floor). Let's pretend (again) that you have NOTHING in your possession that you can use to cleanse with. (Even though I'm sure everyone can get salt-water, it's not ideal for carpets or beds, and not everyone can get incense or has a besom.)

Place your hands flat on the center of the area you wish to cleanse, imagine the area full of murky gray smoke. A white light flows into you and out your hands to create a pool of white light around your hands. The light expands and clears away the smoke until it is full of nothing but the light. Now your area has been cleansed!

The set up of an altar is easy to remember, the tools go in the direction of the elements they correspond with. (Remember the circle? North-Earth, East-Air, South-Fire, West-Water, Center- Spirit). The God and Goddess go in the center, slightly behind spirit (if you include it), almost as though spirit is a person visiting a king and queen! You can find a list of tools and their correspondences easily with Google, so I'll save that space up lol. You can also find images of maps for setting up your altar as well (most mapped out facing east), but for reason's you'll see in the next post I wanted to point out where each element is represented in your altar.

Many altars face east, to welcome the new day. However some alters face north to honor the Earth we celebrate The choice is yours, but no (or very few at least) altar ever faces south or west.