I am an Altar Heretic

I spent decades being afraid of my own creativity and searching for it anyway. It’s like Spiritual Lupus, being deathly allergic to your own beautiful bud. My witchy life is an antidote for Spiritual Lupus. The first step for any practice is to make a space for it, an actual place. Size is no object! It can be teeny or much much more. Some people want to make it beautiful. Certainly, this is a pleasant creative idea, getting the prettiest pictures of your gate keepers, be they ancestors, Buddhas, saints, green men, dolphins, Jesus, Mary, rocks or your personal angel.

I am an altar heretic. I make it in the moment form a very small collection of objects. I got rid of all my most imposing altar objects because they weighed down my creative energy. For me, making my altar “pretty” can be a time consuming obstacle to my practice. I want it ever changing, like my life. I want it friendly, not remote, untouchable or frozen. A homey altar welcomes me and calls me to practice. Practice is a time of being friendly with my tenderest budding self. It is a time of mindfulness and intention setting for my best health and personal harmony.

Don’t let fancy ideas about what an altar should look like stand between you and your time with divine Love. Creative freedom is the permission you give yourself- your altar is the perfect opportunity to exercise that freedom. Look around you and find unlikely objects that are already energized. That pipe wrench may be the sacred object today and tomorrow it may be replaced by a teacup. It’s all about valuing your real story and recognizing how your energy flows. Your altar is the place where you honor the circuitous walk you take towards your divine becoming. It’s not the pipe wrench or the teacup or the Buddha, it’s how they connect you to the profound, to the truth of your spectacular life.