How to build an altar.

How to build an altar.

I have a whole months worth of assignments and such about altars in my book, The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice.

Altars are movable feasts. 

They are not fixed permanent things (that is a shrine) but allow doorway of energy in your home at that point. Building an altar must have a purpose. If you are looking to draw specific traits or an outcome from an altar (For Athena that could be wisdom, hunting for a job or item, single-womanhood, protection during military service).

Then you clean it carefully first with concentrated water, you might smudge it with incense dedicated for the God/dess, spirit or fae. Then a cloth (a clean one, maybe even made, especially for Athena Goddess of weaving for the purpose) cover you surface.
A large candle carved with the name of the God/dess and a dedication might be all that is there. Some flowers (changed daily) and some incense might be all you keep on it while you sit and tend your altar for a little while every day.  

The focus of an altar is to draw you, remind you, re-shape your thinking from a fearful space to a positive one.
The more things you add the more confusing your symbolism might be. Simple and from the heart is far more effective than expensive or elaborate without knowledge. An altar should change as what you need changes. It should be tended as an act of devotion and love. 
You can build an altar for a day, and evening (you need to put your tools somewhere), a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Yet it should not be longer than that.

A shrine.

A shrine is a determinant tended space for your sacred direction and thoughts. Multiple images of the same Deity or spirit can be placed there. It again needs regular up keep but is separate from your magickal working space. It requires tending, regular cleaning and offerings from food and wine, to flowers or other important objects (shells, stones, feathers, bones, jewelry). You may keep objects there but it is not somewhere you "work" at magickally. You might pray, sing, or meditate at your shrine but it is a private act of devotion. It is not an altar.


An altar is a a temporal space. One that can be an art form in the right hands. It is part play, part ritual, part art instillation. It is an elevation from the ordinary. I connection to an aspect of the Divine. It is more important what is missing than what is there. No coffee cup, no items at all that haven't be cleansed, consecrated, and dedicated to the purpose you have set. 
This is the sticking point in my temple and home for a large altar as the only we have is the coffee table and sooner or later someone leaves something that shouldn't be there! Then you have to start all over again! You also have to start again if you find the dog standing on it eating your offerings!

    

I hope that clears up some altar based questions and the like!
Bright Blessings xx
Don't forget to buy my book! You can also visit my shop Lucy Drake & Co for hand made artisan magickal goods.