Your altar is beautiful! I was just wondering how you approach setting one up? I'm looking into it as I've just started my journey and learning about witchcraft. What do they need?
Squeee thank you! It will be better when I get my own place and can have a seperate altar and desk space as currently I have to take everything non-altar related off my desk to fit my altar on and it’s a reaaaaal pain! BUT THANK YOU!! You can set an altar up anywhere you like. If you’re like me and haven’t got much space you might have to use your laptop desk space or the top of a chest of draws or some people even use windowsills. If you have room you could get a seperate desk/table or even put up a shelf on your wall (my friend uses a shelf.) Some people have altar ROOMS (the dream!) So if you can do that do it! I’m a fairly thrifty witch at the moment, so other than gifts people have given me I only have the very basics, which are:Elemental representations- you can use four coloured candles (green for earth, white for air, red for fire and blue for water) or you can do what I do and use stones/nuts for earth, a feather or insence for air, a tea lite for fire and a sea shell/dish with water in for water. There are plenty of other things you can use too, stones with the element signs on, you can even draw them on bits of paper if you want to! I set mine up so Earth is in the North, Air is in the East, Fire is in the South and Water is in the West. Thats the co-ordinate correspondances of the elements.Candles/statues for devotion. If you follow the God/Goddess or Lord and Lady or you have your own spirits/gods/godesses or other that you like to work with, people usually have candles or statues set up for them at the back of their altar. They usually have offering bowls/plates and chalices too, to put offerings in as thanks for the work they do with their various devotions. I do not work wth gods or goddesses, instead I worship the elements, the universe and the moon. As you can see on my altar I have a moon and two statues of elephants (one black one white), which represents the universe for me. If you don’t know who or what you worship yet do not worry, these things come in time.
Everything else is relative. It’s all about personal choice. Some people use altar cloths wth the pentagram or pentacle on. Some people use Athames and/or wands. Some people like to have lots of candles, others don’t use them at all. Some people include all of their boxes and jars as part of their altar, some store their spell ingredients in draws underneath or beside the actual altar. Some like to add devotional statues for their animal guide or vessels for spirits, some people decorate with personal things like photos or pretty things like ribbons and flowers. Some people decorate their altars with skulls and dragons. Some people change their altars with the seasons or holidays (Imbolic altars, Yule altars, etc). It really all depends on you. You can put anything you like on your altar because it is YOURS. Thats the beauty of Paganism in general, you choose and follow your own path. If you feel it fits or it should be there, then it goes on. If you change your mind, take it off! Easy!I hope that helps and wish you all the best with your journey! Enjoy it! XxxX