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The altar is a very important part of the Wiccan religion. It is a place we honor Spirit, do our spell work and perform ritual. The altar and it's surroundings should be a place of peace, calm, love and divinity. There should always be a mutual respect and love - of you for Spirit, and of course, Spirit for you. There are traditional ways of doing things, such as the left side of the altar is dedicated to the Goddess, and the right side the God. Here I'll share with you more of these traditional things. However, if something does not feel right to you, or something different seems instinctual to you, then that is probably what you should go with - your instincts. I encourage you to find what is right and comfortable for you and to go with that rather than trying to conform yourself to what others may say is "right." Do what is right for you. Do remember, though, that much of this, as with anything else in Wicca, can also vary tradition to tradition, and should you chose to be part of specific tradition, it may be best you do what is taught as part of that tradition's way, for what be the reason to chose a tradition if you aren't even going to follow it? Many chose to put their altar in a specific direction, traditionally facing North or East. Also, the tools on your altar have properties that are either masculine or feminine, and correspond to a specific direction. You may want to place your altar in a specific direction as well, and to place your tools on the altar in their corresponding direction (ex: athame is masculine, goes on right side; it also corresponds with fire, south, so would go on the south side of the altar.) It's important you chose an altar that is a good height and size for you. Think about how you want to perform ritual. Do you like to stand up? Or would you rather to kneel at it? Do you plan on doing lots of spell work, in which case you may need a rather large surface area? Or will it be for humble honoring of Spirit? It is okay to have more than one altar. Many have one for general honoring Spirit, and another for spell work and ritual. A good place to find altars are antique shops, garage sales or if you like, a furniture store. Often a coffee table, chest, dresser, side table, desk etc. serve as wonderful altars. Or you may be able to find a local metaphysical store that sells altars. Having one made may be expensive, but if made well, could be a wonderful investment. Your altar even need not be a table. It could be a simple cloth laid out on the floor with a few candles and pentacle and tools when you need it, then tucked away in a box when not needed. I've heard of using large rocks, tiles, window sills, boxes . . . the possibilities are endless. Be creative or traditional, but feel comfortable, safe, secure, at peace and in touch when at your altar. Those are the important things. There are also endless possibilities when choosing an altar cloth, if you are to chose one at all. But a good idea, especially if you have a nice, expensive cloth, is to also have what is called a "work cloth" to use when burning candles and doing spell work and ritual, so you don't ruin your nice cloth. Just place the work cloth on top of the regular altar cloth and it can be removed during regular meditation and honoring of Spirit or when the altar isn't directly in use. Also, I have found place mats serve well as work cloths, and you can even get them in a wide variety of designs and themes. It's nice to have cloths of many colors if you like to add extra correspondence to your magic and ritual, or for each Sabbat celebration. You don't have to be an expert with a needle and thread to make your own altar cloth either. Simply go to your local craft store and pick up some fabric you like. You can get nice, but rather inexpensive fabric in the scraps section, if you like. To many, consecration of the altar is important, and I think it should be. It clears it of any negativity and instills it with the blessings of Spirit so it can be a more peaceful, comfortable place for you to be at. You may also wish to consecrate the items on the altar to keep the entire area free of negativity. You never know who handled, or in the case of used furniture, owned and what they used the altar for in the past. So by now you're probably wondering, "what the heck do I actually put on the altar?" Let me show you some examples of different altars first, then I will get into explaining. 
As you can see, the altars pictured above are all a little different. The first one has two altar cloths draped over it. Their tools are on the altar, and looking at their placement, we see that they are placed traditionally with the left side dedicated to the Goddess and the right to the God. Notice there are pictures on the wall above the altar. It is not uncommon to have direct visual representations of Deity present at the altar as well. Pictures and statues are great for this and can look really beautiful and add a special Divine presence to the space. The second one is outside and has no altar cloth at all. Again, placement of the tools and altar devotion to the God and Goddess are done in a traditional manner, and this is made even more obvious by the small Goddess figure she has on the upper left-hand side. The elements are also present in their corresponding places as well; we see Air, Earth, Fire and Water all represented at the altar. Finally, you will notice the third one is a picture of an entire room. Some people are lucky to have an entire room to devote to sacred space, ritual and worship. It may be hard to see the altar in this room as it is far away, but if you look closely you will see there are no tools present on the altar, but the elements are. There are many who chose not to keep their tools on the altar, but keep them away until they are needed. Also notice that this one is low to the floor, obviously to be kneeled at, as opposed to higher up like the other two to be stood at. This one also has an altar cloth. So there are many ways to set up your altar and do things. Like I said, do what you are comfortable with and what is instinctual. Try and be creative in how you present it and find little ways to make it meaningful to you. Also, the altar is sacred and is to be respected. Do not place anything on in which should not be there. Use common sense here - your laundry doesn't belong on the sacred altar. And don't think these are the only possibilities either. You can make a wall altar, with things on shelves hanging on the wall. Inside altars, outside altars. |
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