Altared Awareness: Tips for Creating Your Sacred Space

A table setting worthy of Pinterest. The mise en place for that new recipe. Your lovingly arranged portrait wall or collection of favorite rocks.

These are all altars. We intentionally arrange items to create or reinforce a feeling in a place, whether it’s a seasonal effort or something curated over the long term.

My worship altar, in contrast, is my signifier, representing me across the realms, at a moment in time, and in relation to the powers I’m working with. Though that sounds awfully esoteric but it’s just about declaring these three things:

• This is me

• This is the work I intend to accomplish

• These are the resources I will use

This is me

Think of how a particular composition of light and color distinctively identifies an artist. Or how a Tchaikovsky symphony is immediately recognizable. In a more everyday sense, think of the way teachers and librarians change bulletin boards and displays for different months or seasons over the year to generate thought and interest in specific topics.

The point of an altar is that it serves YOU and represents YOU. What pleases you to gaze at? Do you like to change how things look around the wheel of the year? What is the theme of your current phase of personal and spiritual growth? Is there something you’re focused on learning?

Personally, I change things when I want to shift my focus. Sometimes that coincides with a high holiday but sometimes it doesn’t. My faith pushes me toward quality of practice rather than a specific orthodoxy but there have definitely been times in my life when I was very invested in having a new altar set up for each cross-quarter of the year. Life changes – we all change – and so your altars are going to change too.

This week, I’m changing over from bronzes and deep greens to pinks and soft yellows as I look forward to the first blush of spring where I live. Other things on my altar change, too. I nearly always have a rabbit figurine of some kind because I love rabbits. I also enjoy having little fiddly bits that catch my eye, or that will sparkle and shine to delight my senses.

Because my practice is Druidry, I have something to signify each of the powers: Ancestors, Nature Spirits, and Shining Ones. (I’ll come back to this.) Elemental representations will also include land, sea, and sky in no particular cardinal direction.

Depending on the season or my current work, one or another of those might be more prominent, but I personally try to make sure I’m not excluding any of those basics. It feels unbalanced or even rude to me, to do otherwise. Your mileage may vary.

This is the work I intend to accomplish

You’ll want on your altar, or within close proximity, the tools you use most often or for a particular working. My little bag of ogham sits on my altar because I pull omens every day as part of my morning devotions. That daily practice also includes lighting a candle and dipping my fingers in a chalice of water.

When I am making specific offerings, those are on the altar too, in the measurements desired and frequently in the order I’ll use them so I don’t have to think about that once I’m in “ritual mind.” It bothers me to have to step away in the middle of my work to fetch or fiddle with anything, even just a box of matches. I see everything all set up and something just clicks in my brain.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread

from The Song of Wandering Aengus, WB Yeats

These are the resources I will use

When I say resources, I’m talking less about items and more about allies and powers acting in your favor for the work of the day. Some of those instances might include:

• On my altar, I have representations of and sometimes offerings for deities I work with regularly. When I refresh for early spring this week, for example, I’ll put out a print of The Song of Wandering Aengus (W.B. Yeats), gifted to me by my friend Beth. The imagery and recitation are valuable in reminding me of the return of light and warmth, and the presence of sweetness in my life in any season.

• As we get closer to Samhain, I’ll include things to specifically invite the Ancestors to be active in my life. Symbols can be very general for the Ancestors as a group, but I’ll use something more personal or elaborate if I’m calling on a specific Ancestor – such as some jewelry received from my great-grandmother or a small vial of coffee syrup for my mother.

• If I’m doing a lot of work with Nature Spirits, then I’ll have feathers and bones and the like. I’m particularly fond of a small horseshoe crab shell that’s mostly intact, whenever I need to reach for the wisdom of the ocean from deep in the American Midwest. Sometimes, seeing both the coyote teeth and the rabbit fur remind me of the balance of predator/prey relationships and how those might be embodied in me. Right now, I’m doing some wildlife and ecological gardening, so a lot of that action happens outside instead of at my home altar.

I also have a few references nearby because, in any given situation, there might be subtleties to correspondences, mythology, or natural systems that I’ll miss unless I take the time to consider my sources more deeply. I am fortunate to have access to the work of some great minds and I’m frequently grateful for the insights that add to my own default interpretations.

What's next?

There is always more to learn, and I’ve never created the same altar twice. I find my altars offer me a dynamic balance of stability and change over time, and I haven't yet tired of creating them for myriad purposes. However you choose to approach the altars in your life, I hope they bring you joy and help you reach toward a deeper relationship with your spiritual life.

Show us your own altars! We'd love to showcase your creativity. Comment below with your own ideas or photos.