A home altar can be a source of support to us in our healing process. If we arrive at a crossroad on our path or feel heavy energy around an issue in our life, we might build a temporary home altar to provide extra support and spiritual guidance.
Altars can do many things, but at their simplest purpose, they are a place of focused energy. They can support us in our healing, they can be a place to meditate and gain clarity, they can honor the spirit guides we work with regularly.
Altars can also be used as a source of energy. For instance, if we have an important or difficult meeting scheduled at work, we could build a temporary altar to support us. Just before our meeting, we might take a moment and meditate to connect with our altar. During the meeting, if we felt our energy flagging, we could consciously source from it to help us stay in our center.
Many spiritual traditions honor the four elements – earth, water, fire and air. A temporary home altar can be as simple as one item representing each element. For example, a stone might represent earth, a decorative bowl filled with water might be the water element, a candle might represent fire, and a feather might represent air.
Building an altar is a beautiful ritual which also helps create sacred space in your home:
- Choose a location for your altar. A temporary home altar doesn’t need a lot of space. It can be located anywhere in your home – on a TV tray, in a windowsill, on a shelf, on top of a dresser or outdoors in a garden.
- Determine the intention behind your altar. Focus on your intention while building the altar to help imbue the altar with that purpose.
- Allow your intention (and your intuition) to guide you in choosing items for your altar. What wants to be included on your altar? An altar can be very simple or very involved, but each item should have special meaning. Items commonly included on altars include:
– some kind of textile as a basecloth
– pictures, artwork or items with special meaning
– spiritual talismans such as animal fetishes or mirrors
– power objects
– rocks and crystals
– flowers
– candles
– nature objects such as acorns, feathers, twigs or stones
– a bowl of water
– pieces of paper carrying a written intention or prayer request
- Allow your intuition to guide you in the placement of the items. Place one object on the altar at a time, and feel the energy of the altar shift as each item is added. Adjust the placement of the objects until it feels right to you.
- Dedicate your altar by stating your intention for it, and then say a prayer from your heart asking Spirit to bless your altar.
- Begin using your altar for its purpose – a place to meditate each morning, a place to source energy from when needed, a place to honor your spirit guides. Repeated use of an altar strengthens the connection we have with it.
- Remain present with your altar, and know when its purpose has been fulfilled. Dismantle your temporary altar with gratitude and respect when you’re complete with it. Or, you may choose to turn it into a permanent altar.