| Your Altar |
| Contrary to popular belief, an altar is not a "must have". I spent many years working not only without an altar but also without tools. The tools serve as props, they can be used to represent dieties or elements or they can be use to concentrate your own energies. If you feel you need an altar and tools you need to at least know what tools to get. Everyones altar is different but they are all set up pretty much the same way. The tools you will want for your altar should be ones that "call out" to you. For example if you are looking for a chalice don't just buy the first one you see. The tools you are meant to use and that will provide you with the highest concentration of your own energy will find you. Personally the only real tools I have so far are my athame, goddess statue, and bowl. (With the exception of my 35 gallon cast iron cauldron, but that won't fit on my altar <:)>) The most common tools found on an altar are: athame, chalice (wine glass), bolline, pentacle, wand, bowl, illuminator candles and elemental candles along with a statue of your diety. Your altar can be any flat surface you choose as long as there is room on it for your tools. If you are living in a small apartment or with people who don't understand witchcraft you can even use a cardboard box flipped upside down. Your altar should have two cloths on it. One to be your altar cloth and one to be your working cloth (the one that gets wax and incense all over it). It is also good practice to have a third cloth to cover your tools when not working so that they won't absorb the energies of curious minds who like to touch things. When setting up your altar always place the pentacle in the middle with incense behind it and your diety behind the incense. If you choose to use elemental candles place them in their elemental directions and place your tools wherever you feel comfortable if you don't use elemental candles place your chalice with water in it in the proper elemental direction. Place your wand in the direction of air, bowl with earth in it in the direction of earth, red candles or lava rock in the direction of fire, finally place your athame and bolline wherever you feel comfortable as you will be using them most. Another way to set up that is actually alot easier and I have found works quite well is as follows: Make sure you do have representation of all 5 elements : earth, air, fire, water, and spirit ( these can be bowl of dirt, incense or feather, red candle or lava rock, chalice of water or seashell, and white candle respectively). Place your God candle or statue in the upper right hand corner, Goddess candle or statue in upper left hand corner, pentacle in the middle with incense right behind it and illuminator candles on either side of the incense. As for the earth, fire, water, spirit and any other tools you use place them wherever is the most comfortable for you. I have found that as long as the elements are represented, it really doesn't make that much difference where they are placed. This comes in especially handy when you have your altar up against a wall or in a very small space. As for the direction you altar faces normally north or east are used but any can be acceptable depending on your work space. You can also change the direction with the ritual you are performing. |
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