Home Again

Well, things have settled down a bit, and I'm back in my apartment, for a few days at least. My grandfather is finally up and about after his knee replacement, doing very well.

While at my grandparents' I was not only helping out with the household needs, but I was also swamped in work, and I came down with a head cold, so not too much time for other activities. But, I did manage to get the altar built!

It's not quite what I had in mind, but I figure I can always add to it as needed. It was quite the undertaking to haul the larger stones out to this spot. (It perhaps looks a bit taller than it is? It's meant to be knelt at.) There was a lot of sweat, some blood, and... well not tears, but germs, from coughing all over them. So, that's great.

I only finished assembling it last night, despite the stones sitting around for what, a week? But with it being the sixth of the lunar month, Artemis' day, and the Thargelia festival, I figured I must get it done.

Thargelia is a festival dedicated to Artemis and Apollon. In antiquity is was a festival to celebrate the new shoots of the spouting harvest, and a time to drive away all bad things, purify, and welcome in good things. The agricultural aspect of the festival doesn't fit in very well with life in New Hampshire, as farming wise, there's not going to be any planting for another week or two. But foraging, there are thing starting to come up, like fiddle-heads.

The purification aspect worked well with finally getting the altar built. I went out a bit after sunset, with the moon already high in the sky, and washed the altar down with blessed water. Next I took barley, and sprinkled it on the altar and the space around it. Finally, I burned a mixture of patchouli, mugwort, and rosemary and carried it around the ritual space, and fanned the smoke to the altar.

I dedicated the spot generally to all the Gods who bring good things, and then more specifically to Artemis, Hekate, and Selene, who will be seeing the majority of worship here. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, I'm only in my apartment for a short while, as I plan to go back to my grandparents' next weekend for the full moon, which brings the Rite of Her Sacred Fires for Hekate. (http://hekatecovenant.com/rite-of-her-sacred-fires/) I am not a member of the covenant, and have not done this rite in years past, but this year it seemed appropriate. There's just something about many people, from many traditions, coming together at the same time, to do the same ritual in honor of a deity they all feel called to.

Altars, Revisited

This week's Pagan Experience prompt is any topic beginning with the letter A, or B. I thought it might be a good time to revisit the subject of my altars, which I last photographed and posted about as part of the Pagan Blog Project a bit over two years ago now. There have been a lot of changes since then - although I still have a lot of different shrines and altars, that hasn't changed a bit! (So yes, that is your warning that this is going to be an image heavy post. Clicking any image should make it larger.)

Artemis' altar has changed quite a bit, it moved into the kitchen, and is now a much more active place. I still enjoy worshiping Artemis outdoors, but the indoor altar has been immensely helpful to me, especially during these icy winter months where it can be hard for me to get out as much. Here the altar is lit for my morning prayers. My partner is a bit sensitive to incense smoke, so the oil warmer on the right replaces regular incense use. When I do burn the incense stick on the left, it's just for a few minutes once a week or so, long before they wake up. With the incense stick are some bird feathers I've found - lots of turkey feathers, but some duck, blue jay, and others, too.

The hearth shrine has also changed a good bit. I moved it onto the top of my oven. I was a bit worried that the heat/mess from cooking would harm it, but no issues these past few months!

The center plaque is a historical image of Vesta and Pales, but for my practice I am using it to represent Hestia and one of her sacred animals, the donkey, and the snake becomes the Agathos Daimon, or the good spirit, who is also represented by the little caved snake on the bottom right. Next to that, although hard to make out, is a dragon to represent the household guardian spirit. On the left side is Tykhe (Roman Fortuna). In the very near future there will also be a small statue of Apollon included on this shrine.

Also in the kitchen, where the old hearth shrine used to be, is Hekate's altar. For quite a while I was setting up a temporary altar on her sacred day each month, but after moving my hearth shrine I figured it would be best to set up a more permanent place for her.

It's quite a simple area, two candles to represent her twin torches, a small offering plate, and two animals associated with her, a black dog and a horse.

Below that is a second shelf that is mainly used only during her monthly festival, but there is a small bowl there which holds some more object offerings.
Below those two shelves is my ancestor shrine, which I didn't take a picture of this time around. It hasn't really changed much, but there are no longer any deities on that shrine, it's just a place to honor my ancestors.

Then there is an altar for Aphrodite (center), one of her children, Hermaphroditus (left), and the Kharities (right), or graces. I usually like to keep altars more on the tidy side, with little clutter, but this one feels best when it's busy! The altar is covered with objects and animals sacred to these deities. On the far left is a reed diffuser, so there is always a pleasant scent surrounding this altar. I would love to do more with this altar, perhaps getting a potted plant or desktop fountain for it.

Finally, there is the seasonal altar. During the growth and harvest seasons (May through October) Demeter sits on this shrine, but during the colder winter months it is Hestia. The altar is currently decorated for Imbolc, in white snowy colors. Even though Imbolc is still the dead of winter here (we're about to have a big snowstorm, actually), I couldn't resist having a little greenery on the shrine, but the flowers themselves are a bit like snow.

Creating Aphrodite's Altar

Often I tend to favor somewhat simpler, clean altar designs. As an example, for a long time Artemis' altar was simply a statue of her with two candles on either side, although it has grown a little bit in the last few months. However, I feel like that sort of altar doesn't really fit with Aphrodite. I feel her altar should be one that easily engages all the senses when at it.

So I started thinking about the visual aspect first. I have a white statue of Aphrodite that will be in the center of the altar, but I am thinking of painting some of the details of the statue with gold paint so it stands out a bit more. Unlike my other altars, which tend to be kind of flat and symmetrical, also I want to play around with different heights, colors, and styles. 

I also knew scent would have to have a focus. I will likely burn incense at the altar at times, but I think having one of those reed oil diffusers on the altar would be a nice way to have a constant scent that's also not overpowering - perhaps something in apple blossom?

Those are probably the easier ones, though. I started thinking about things like sound... I do not think my rattle or a drum would would here. I thought about getting a little desktop fountain, or wind chime, or something like that, but couldn't quite find what I had in mind. However, I ended up finding a little silver hair stick with bells on the end of it, which seemed quite fitting. I will probably actually use this as the primary way of cleansing the altar space. (I still need to write that post about cleansing with sound at some point...)

And touch? Well, having a variety of things on the altar to interact with should cover that... candles to light, incense to place, the bells to ring, and perhaps putting on a silk wrap before beginning any ritual? I think the details of that will come together a bit better with time.

Taste is the last sense to cover. This was an interesting one to think about, as I was not originally intending to have food offerings be a major part of the day-to-day rituals done at this altar. (Also, I do not usually consume the small food offerings I make. Shared meals tend to be for more special occasions.) However, I think there are perhaps a few ways I could go about including something like that, but again, I'll probably have to wait for everything else to come together to see what would work best.

Het-heret / Hathor's Shrine

As I mentioned in my last post, I am planning a shrine for Aphrodite. Part of that planning was figuring out the best location for it. It could go in a small corner of the front room, or it could go in the office room where I spend most of my day, and usually have a bit more privacy... but that's where Hathor's shrine is currently located.

I knew the second location would be much better, but of course it means moving or dismantling Hathor's shrine. After giving it a lot of thought, I've decided that for now it would be best to dismantle it. It is important to me that I still honor all the Egyptian gods who were a large part of my life for so long, but at this point it makes more sense to me to do that as an actual yearly festival of sorts, instead of keeping a more specific shrine that no longer sees a lot of use.

So that's on today's list of things to be done. It's a bit of a sad moment, it's the first time in many, many years that there will not be a shrine to one of the Egyptian deities in my home, but I know at this point it's the best course of action. An inactive shrine doesn't do anyone any good, after all...

Rearranging the Shrines

I've spent the past few weeks (yeah, weeks, it's been a slow process) trying to bring a bit of new life to my shrines. Either they'd grown a bit stagnant, were no longer relevant, or were just in bad locations which meant they weren't getting the proper attention. I've found that often shrines and altars grow and change on their own with use, but sometimes they just need a total overhaul.

This was all originally prompted by the changes I wrote about in my last post, About halfway through that whole process my hearth shrine just started to feel off. I decided to move it to a different place in the kitchen, and I tried a lot of different arrangements, worked with different materials and styles, and nothing was clicking for me. Eventually I realized what needed to be done, and it's coming along... okay. I'm having a hard time deciding exactly in which spot it would work best.

I've decided to move Artemis' shrine into the kitchen where most of the others are. Right now I'm looking at other statues of Artemis, and considering maybe using a framed picture instead, since the statue I have right now doesn't fit the space well. I'm also debating which of two spaces would make for a better hearth shrine and which a better shrine for Artemis. Unfortunately I only have one "large" spot, so I need to decide which requires more room.

I also felt it was time to establish a proper shrine to Hekate, rather than just setting up a temporary one when needed. That's coming along rather well, as it was really just a matter of clearing off a spot that wasn't really being used for anything, and putting the 'temporary' items up. Again the issue is that I only have one large spot, and I'm not sure the small shelf where I've decided to put Hekate's shrine into will be big enough for what I generally use it for... I may have to continue using part of the hearth altar for some of Hekate's festivals. For day to day use, though, the small area works well.

Last, but not least, I took away the pillar candles from my Hathor shine and added in some new tea light holders. Oh, and I bought a beautiful new offering dish! Still in the mail, but I'm excited to add it in. Hathor's shrine is by far always the easiest shrine to maintain, perhaps in part due to location, perhaps because out of the deities I currently honor regularly, Hathor has been around the longest. I've had many years to experiment and discover what is appreciated.

A is for Altar

The dictionary defines an altar as an elevated place or structure, as a mound or platform, at which religious rites are performed or on which sacrifices are offered to gods, ancestors, etc., which sums it up fairly well.

While specific traditions may have certain requirements of how an altar should be set up, generally speaking altars come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and can serve many different functions. They can be outdoors or indoors, in any room of the house (yes, even a bathroom might house a small purification altar, or an altar devoted to water in the shower). Altars can be big, small, formal, informal, hold only a few items, or be covered in things, they can be obviously altars, or quietly fit into their surroundings. The altar may be kept in a busy spot in the home, where it will be seen often and always be bringing your faith to the front of your mind. Or it can be kept in a more quiet location, for privacy, or to keep it from being bumped, touched, or whatever else. An altar can be out in the open, or kept in a small cuppboard. It can be a permanent altar, or one that is only set up when needed. An altar can change with the seasons, can be devoted to a deity, a place to honor ancestors or spirits, a place to do ritual workings, a place to meditate, make offerings - many will be a mix of a few things.

Basically, what I'm saying is, what an altar is? That's up to you. You may choose to not even have one, and that's fine too if that's what works for you. Personally though, I keep a few different altars in my home...

Artemis' (indoor) altar is fairly clean and simple. A statue of her, two tall tea light holders, and two small offering bowls. Usually one for food, and one for liquid, but occasionally I will put some salt into one of the bowls and use it to burn an offering of incense. Sometimes the altar is decorated with flowers, evergreens, or other plants, but most of the time it's just as it's shown. This altar is in the living room.


Then there's the hearth altar, kept in a corner of my kitchen. The top section is devoted to Westya, a hearth goddess. The candle's flame represents her, a symbol of the hearth fire. The candle sits in a small bowl that has some non-perishable offerings in it. Those offerings get changed each new moon, and are usually related to the season. Ground corn around Lammas, or pumpkin seeds at Samhain, for example. The two little plates are more offering bowls, for the daily devotion done at this altar. In front is a smooth flat stone, to be used in spirit-flight rituals as a hearth stone, a stone to help one come back from journeying.

Below that is not really an altar, but more of a little working space of odds and ends. Mortar and pestle, candle snuffer, shell filled with bits (such as a piece of sea glass, a penny, a key...), bowl of bits (such as birch bark, dog hair, a feather...), blessed candles, ritual oil holder, salve holder, a charm of berries, some stones... This space changes often.

Then on the next down is the ancestor's altar. A statue of Yinepu (Anubis), a deity of the dead. Many of my ancestor items are currently packed away from when I re-arranged my altars, I need to get them back out sometime... Meanwhile, the main points of the altar are two offering bowls for the ancestors, and one for Yinepu. (Below that are two more shelves, storage areas.)

Next to this altar is a cabinet where I keep my tools and some supplies, like candles, incense, oils, and the like. Some people like to keep their tools on their altars, but since these areas are rather small, I keep them safely in the cabinet when not in use.

Finally, there's the newest of the bunch. Just set up a few days ago, actually. Hidden away in the corner for a bit of private space, low to the ground so I can sit in front of it. Just a little working place, a place to meditate, do shamanic work, small rituals, and so on. To the left of the altar is a sistrum (a sort of rattle), on the top is a little wooden frog noise maker, incense, a beeswax candle with some moonstones and a sunstone - all for Artemis, then a few different objects for the elements.

The row below that is still a bit empty, but on the left is a box of small ogham staves, in the center I'm working on a space to honor my spirit helpers, and to the right is where I'm currently keeping my wildwood cards (and where I will likely keep a small area for my 'weekly' card study). Below is just some storage right now, a journal, a shawl, and a box of supplies. I plan to be doing the bulk of my indoor work at the newest altar, so I am excited to see how it will grow and change as time goes on.

Beyond the altars shown here, I also maintain a few outdoor altars (yes, I really like altars...), but I think I've rambled on long enough for now, so those are probably best left to another upcoming project post. 

(Altars are also the prompt of the week over at Pagan Prompts.)