My altar

Dianne Sylvan of “Dancing Down the Moon” posted pictures of her altars and invited others to do the same. Her altar is gorgeous and mine is sort of plain and cluttered by comparison, but it’s mine and I love it so there. It’s in a corner of my bedroom, and it’s the top of a (trash-picked) bookcase. The bottom two shelves contain all the Druidry and otherwise spiritual books that I use on a regular basis, as well as my various journals and notebooks.

The four colored bowls are for the four elements. When I actually do ritual they get placed around the room at the four quarters, but in the meantime and for normal daily meditation they sit on top of the altar. The blue one is always full of clean water. The green one contains a bit of dirt from my backyard and a stone from the summit of Agiocochook (one of my personal most-sacred-places.) The yellow one has sand and is used for burning incense. The pink one also has sand and a tea-light. The bowls came from a little store in Chinatown and came as a set, in conveniently almost-correct colors. I would prefer that the pink one was more of a red, but the pink is close enough and actually looks pretty red by candlelight. They were still a nice find. The bigger black bowl is my scrying bowl. The sort of dowely-thing poking up in back is part of my spindle, the very small dish contains herbs for offerings, and the little crystal owl is one of my personal Goddess icons. The big crystal ball is a big crystal ball. The dried plant matter in back is mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) gathered this Solstice at our Grove ritual site. I burn a little bit of it at a time as an offering – whatever is left by next year will go into the Solstice fire.

The more cluttered lower shelf is more of a storage area. It holds a box of balsam incense (my favorite for ritual,) a homemade felted bowl holding some knitting tools – most of my knitting stuff is kept in a big wicker trunk, but a few little things stay on the altar as a reminder that this is part of my Druidry work. I keep my latest work-in-progress there, too, but I moved it for the picture because it made the picture too visually cluttered. The little green silk bag contains my prayer beads. My stone and crystal knife and my copper and gemstone wand are there, and a statue of Artemis, a couple of turkey and owl feathers found at various significant times, my Crane Bag, some essential oils, and one of my tinwhistles are there as well.

I love altars, and would love to see what others have done, so I’m repeating Dianne’s request – post altar pictures? pretty please?

About these ads