With two principle Gods as patrons, Esus and Eris, I decided to make my home shrine/altar representative of as many of the Gods and Goddesses in my pantheon as possible. It's been a long road to get it fixed up, and I'll take you through the process my altar has gone through.
When I attended my first Summerland Gathering (6th Night Grove's festival), the Arch Druid, Skip Eillison (website), gave a presentation on daily devotionals. From this I took two things: a) the notes that would eventually become my own ritual outline for daily devotionals, and b) ideas on how to set up a home altar.
When I got home, I made up a list of things to get, as well as a list of things to think about. Among those things were the following:
I have 2 white cats. Need to get a white altar cloth.
How do you keep cats from knocking stuff off an altar?
Use 3-wick candle for triple flame.
Location?
As you can see, I had some limited ideas for what I wanted.
At the time, I was poor, though. I didn't want to buy expensive things
for my altar, but I needed three central things: an unscented 3-wick candle, a
representation of a tree, and a well. I also needed something to hold
offerings in. Here's what I ended up with:
The altar could be moved or put away if I so desired, and I had placed a rug in front of it so I could kneel in front of it. The altar cloth is a simple dishcloth. Unscented 3-wick candles don't exist, I think, so I opted for 3 votive candles which have lasted me until just today (12/28/02 - a good year and a half). The well is represented by a plastic bowl made by Ziploc, and the tree is a stick I had been using for a wand for years. The offering cups are made of dixie cups chopped in two.
I always put the altar away after finishing a devotional (I didn't want the cats to knock the candles off or run off with the tree).
I used this particular altar (in this form) until Yule 2001. At that point, I had a real job and could afford nicer things.
I was wandering through Target a couple of days after Christmas in 2001, browsing the after-Christmas sales, looking for a deal on a tree for my altar. While doing so, I came across a nice little brass business card holder that looked like a tree. I snatched that for 4 dollars. I also found a pair of golden apples, one of which I use on my altar to represent Eris and one which was sacrificed during my Dedicant's Oath.
Later that day I also purchased a cauldron for a well, a necklace with a
representation of Cernunnos on it, and a censor for incense from Psyche at Fly
By Night, and placed those on my altar as well. I
also decided to go from a temporary altar to a permanent one, and cleared off a
shelf on my bookshelf in my room. The result looked like this:
My sacrifices also started improving at this point. You'll see the bottle of beer above the altar, which is called "Dead Guy Ale". I love to use it for Outdwellers offerings, and they seem to enjoy it. Also, the mortar and pestle are new in this picture.
I recently moved my altar from the second shelf to the top shelf of my bookshelf. Having a permanent altar helps to keep me in the swing of daily devotionals, and keeping it on the top shelf also keeps away the cats (who I think still like to hang out up there when I'm gone). New on the altar, you'll immediately see the following items are new: the statuary, the candles, the torc, and the second shelf.
The statues are from the Gaulish pantheon, and each has a meaning to me. From left to right, they are Sequinna, Brigantia, Cernunnos, Epona, the Matres, and Taranis. The statues all come from Sacred Source, an excellent source for deity statues, but it seems they've been cutting back recently on Celtic things (thus why I can't link to all of them). Each statue has a candle with it, and on Wednesdays, when I pay homage to the entire pantheon, I light those candles.
Eris is still represented by the golden apple, but no representation of Esus is yet evident. I don't know when one will be, for I'll probably have to create it myself.
The torc was a gift from 6th Night Grove, given when I gave my Dedicant's Oath at Summerland. It forms the centerpiece of my altar now.
Below, you'll see a few pictures of the altar Dec. 26th, 2002 (some sections
are clickable so you can view a close up of that section or see around corners):
The shelf below my altar includes some items that I don't use every day,
including some other God/Goddess statues:
On the second shelf, you can see (from L to R): a Barbie doll from a McDonald's Happy Meal (represents Eris sometimes), a black candle for banishing, a representation of Mithras, Merlin from The Sword in the Stone (also a happy meal toy), a wizard statue, a statue of a raven (The raven is used as a gatekeeper for Three Cranes Protogrove, ADF), one of the Dagda, the censer that used to be on my altar proper, and my pocketwatch, which is probably there because I didn't have anywhere else to put it (I had just moved everything). In front of those, you'll find an axe (representative of Esus), a ceramic bowl given by one of my friends from 6th Night, and my bonsi book (I hope to replace the business card holder with a real bonsi).
Finally we have the third shelf that really isn't part of my altar:
The two blue jars are where I keep my grain sacrifices (the one on the left is where I keep unsacrificed grain and the right is the bin the grain goes into until I can take it outside and give it to the earth). I have some spare candles and candle holders on this shelf in case I need them, as well as the nuts and bolts of an altar (candle "glue" to keep the candles standing, a water pistol to keep the cats off the altar, a flashlight for those dark rituals when candles just aren't enough, and a woodburner for carving runes). Yes, that is a copy of the Necronomicon right next to The Satanic Bible, The Gnostic Gospels, and the Book of Mormon. This particular shelf started out as the shelf for books I had little respect for or that had little relevance to my own practices (you'll find the shelf of books I have no respect for or that had no relevance to my practices below it), and I did little to change the books on my shelves.
The above three photos and explanations deal with my altar format on Dec. 26, 2002.