#pathandpractice: altar cache

[ofcedarandbone]

Theo's Cache: Pocket Deities

Acquired via: Handmade

I've made a few iterations of these little pocket deities, desperately trying to give a face to the gods I've been learning to work with.

From left to right: Hel, Freyja, Eir, Höðr, Nanna, & Baldr.

[carbon-heart]

Altar Cache #2: Saining Water

This bowl, obtained from Ceramics class, is now used to make silvered water. This is a key step in my spiritual hygiene routine; a quick and easy way to cleanse the self on a regular basis. I set the silver disc in the basin, pour water through the hagstone, recite words of power over it (usually something from the Carmina Gadelica) and then use it to wash my hands and face.

[sagittariuswitchery]

What’s On My Altar

My Magic Apps

Solar Watch

This app is great for the exact timeframes for the Sun phases at a glance.

Weather

Pretty self-explanatory 😅 As a Sun Witch, it’s important for me know not just about the weather where I’m casting, but I also utilize the UV index in my work.

Spotify

I use music in most of my rituals and spells. Mostly binaural beats & frequencies of the planets, but I also have devotional playlists and playlists I make for different intentions.

Apple Books

I’m a big e-book girl, so lots of my reference books are in my digital library.

Pinterest

Here’s where I make my digital altars. Living in a one bedroom apartment I share with my Christian boyfriend, I can’t have all of the devotional spaces I’d like to in the physical sense, so I’ve curated some nice digital spaces that make me feel more connected to the spirits & deities I work with.

Night Sky

Definitely my most used app for magical purposes is Night Sky. I love stargazing, and this app shows me all of the stars, planets, constellations, satellites, and the ISS!

Solar Activity

This app gives a lot of info on solar activity, like solar storms and solar flares. It also offers forecasts, so if there are strong solar flares, I’m able to track it and utilize that activity in my spellwork.

Planetaro

Here is where I keep track of the planetary hours.

Files

My forever grimoire is mostly digital documents I create digitally to be printed and added to my binder. I have lots of notes and references saved in my grimoire folder, as well as some digital spells.

Co-star

This one is mostly just for fun. I love to read my horoscope while I’m drinking my morning coffee. Lots of my friends are on the app, so it’s nice to check up on them, too.

Fools Dog Tarot

My friend @web-witch recommended this app to me while I was traveling, as a tool to utilize covert tarot magic on-the-go. I really connected with this app, and have done some really accurate reading using it.

Insight Timer

Meditation is one of my favorite activities, and I’ve used a lot of mediation apps over the years. While I wouldn’t say it’s the best for beginners, I do think it’s the best for witchy meditations. I’ve found pathwalking guides for the Wheel of the Year, different planets, & Moon phases.

[apiswitchcraft]

catalogue of my witchy tools

thank you to @ofcedarandbone for coming up with this idea for the pathandpractice community!

SELENITE CRYSTALS

i got most of these from various local metaphysical shops, but the tower is actually from home goods lol

in this section i'm including my selenite cup, sticks, little stand (yes those are my teeth, lol), and giant tower. i like to put an herb bundle (usually cedar or rosemary) in the cup to keep it charged and cleansed, and the sticks and tower are just placed loosely in a circle around my other tools.

CAULDRON

i got this from amazon but i've seen them in a lot of witchy stores

i bought this for my hades ritual on halloween, but i've been using it for other things too! before, i was just burning offerings in my mortar and that worked out okay for me, but this is a lot bigger and more fire safe! also it has a handle so i can actually move it around even if it's hot.

MORTAR AND PESTLE

my friend got it for me for christmas but it's from amazon. i've seen a lot of these in a variety of stores, including home goods lol

i use this pretty often for burning small amounts of herbs or crushing them up. this is useful for getting big ingredients into small bottles, and for making them a more burnable size. last notable time i used it was to crush up some dried pomegranate rind for my ritual with hades.

INCENSE HOLDERS

i got the black one from a metaphysical store and the white one from walmart!

i like incense holders that specifically have a little cup or reservoir so that i can use the incense ash later if i want. i commonly use it as a base for spell jars alongside salt!

i try to burn incense fairly often but i do have several roommates (human and cat) and i worry about the smell bothering them

HERB BUNDLES

i made the biggest one, but the other two are from the local metaphysical store again!

everything i have here is cedar, but i've also made lavender and rosemary bundles in the past. i would say that rosemary is the easiest to work with (long needles, grows in long strands), with cedar being somewhere in the middle (usually grows in long strands but is fragile), and lavender being the hardest (the actual lavender flowers are only on a portion of the stem and the buds like to fall off).

HERB ORGANIZERS

i got the little bags and containers from amazon, but all the herbs are from various foraging expeditions and metaphysical stores

oh. my god. i cannot tell you how much my life has improved since i started using this. now, the boxes are a little small, and i couldn't fit all of each kind in them, so i do still have a milk box with my leftovers for refills. HOWEVER, the convenience of being able to pull down just a couple boxes and easily look through each one (they're sorted alphabetically too) without having to worry about spilling or having things go everywhere is SO nice.

this is functionally similar to an apothecary cabinet, but since i didn't really have the money or space for all that, i just went with some cheap organizers on amazon. in the future though i hope i can upgrade!

LAVENDER JAR

lavender from assorted places, jar from dollar store

one thing to know about me: i love working with lavender. it smells amazing, it has great properties, and it's a really beautiful plant that pollinators love. i have more in my herb stash that i keep in a cool, dark place, but i keep this little bit on my altar for easy access!

GRIMOIRES

both journals are from barnes & noble

okay unrelated but i took an art history class in high school and i'm Obsessed with the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements. thus, when I saw the van gogh journal on sale for less than ten bucks i SNATCHED that bitch up. the monet journal came after and it was a bit more pricey since it's leather, but seeing as i'm going to have these for a while i didn't mind. i hope to one day create a grand grimoire i can pass on to future generations based on these and future editions!

LITTLE ANTIQUE SPOONS

for some reason, whenever i go to a thrift or antique store, i can never stop myself from buying these little souvenir spoons. they've actually become really useful over the years, as i often use them to stir my herbs while they're burning to make sure everything is covered, or use them to portion out spell ingredients. they're great for witchcraft because i know they aren't getting used for anything else, and i don't have to worry about contaminating them.

FEATHER QUILLS AND INK

recent additions! i've had some india ink stashed away since giving myself stick and pokes as a teenager, but i just got my hands on this "Bat's Blood Ink" for hexing and made myself some feather quills out of feathers i had (raven and barred owl*) and nibs that i bought with the ink. i don't use the quills to write in my grimoire since the ink tends to bleed and my handwriting still sucks, but i intend on using them in future hexes/curses!

*these feathers were acquired ethically and were not bought or sold. the raven feather i found on the ground, and the barred owl feather was from my biology professor (who has the correct permits!!)

PENDULUM HOLDER

skull from an antique store, pendulums from various metaphysical stores, etsy, and even amazon

i'm not entirely sure what type of skull this is, but i think it's deer. i also believe from the several numerical markings that it was once part of a specimen collection at a museum or school, but that's unconfirmed.

i like to keep my pendulums near the sun, since they seem to like it, but not in direct sunlight, since the UV can fade the colors of certain crystals.

SCRYING MIRRORS

ebay and gift

omg i nearly CRIED when i saw this beautiful vintage narcissus mirror on ebay. i think it used to have a door on it, since there's sign of an old hinge, but i don't care and it was totally worth whatever i paid for it.

the one on the right is actually an obsidian pocket mirror that i got for christmas last year! i have yet to use it (i suck at scrying), but it's still really cute on my altar.

HERB WATER

i got the bottle from a thrift store, it's just a plant mister

i use this to cleanse myself if i'm having a hard sensory day and don't want to put oil on my hands. it has a few different herbs and i'm honestly blanking on all of them but i do know there's at least rosemary and lavender in there!

DEITY OILS

deity oils are really popular for certain rituals and honestly they're a lot easier to make than you'd think! google recommends a 2% dilution of essential oil to carrier (i use olive oil), and then i just throw in assorted herbs and leave it to sit for a while!

the one on the left is for aphrodite and has jasmine, neroli, bergamot, rose oils, as well as various dried flowers added.

the one on the right is for hades and has primarily woody scents with clove and cinnamon as well, with dried cloves and mint added.

[yorubaby]

Rue's Altar Cache: Copper Hoop

I was gifted this copper hoop by my wife.

I love to use it in a lot of my work to amplify the power of what I'm doing! I also love using it for spirit work and portal purposes too. 💫

[wyrd-wyrm]

Altar Cache

Pat 3/7

Mjolnir on a cord beaded with Tigers Eye

The actual Thor’s hammer pendant was one I had gotten at a metaphysical shop back in 2019. I had broken my previous one, funny enough, playing a video game where I was smacking enemies with a hammer. 

Well the cord wore out so I decided to make it a new one, something more decorative instead of something I wear.

[nymphenae]

Hunter's Breath;;

My first spell jar, it smELLS SO GOOD. I remember when I first got it? It smelled of all the herbs within. It's what keeps me safe when interacting at my altar.

As the Hunter's Breath, it much like the Hunter, is not afraid to push a knife, or loose an arrow into those that seek to harm me.

[midwestbramble]

Altar Cache

My altar is on a built in desk in our loft space. It faces northwest simply because the window it’s in front of faces northwest. It’s also the same direction our storms come from (most of the time).

The altar cloth gets changed out seasonally and I have decor for it that’s seasonal as well. At the moment I don’t have much for winter, though my kids and I will be making some crafts this winter and I think some of them will be good for the altar as well. I will also add items for my animal that I’m working with for the year. It just changed but the last animal was snake and I had some snake charms gifted to me from a discord swap that sat there and were used in rituals with snake.

Let’s get into the constants.

Cards

Up against the window are the cards I drew for various reasons. From left to right we have, my card for December (from the Wildwood tarot), my card for this lunar cycle which I call the weavers moon (from the Seasons of the Witch: Samhain oracle. I’ll change to the Yule deck at this next new moon), my major arcana card numerologically for the year which started at my birthday (from the Line Strider Tarot), and my animal card for 2026 (from the Woodland Wardens Oracle). The animal card will fade so it moves spots throughout the year. I leave them on the altar as reminders of the messages I gain.

The two on the left get worked with on each quarter of the moon by doing readings around their meanings to gain more insight. The major arcana card gets reflected on each season, and the animal card is more of a visual reminder to actually working with the animal.

Skull

This is a plastic Halloween decoration I’ve had since I was a kid. I use it now as a reminder of the ancestors and use it in certain rituals as a replacement for a real skull. I do not have the money to get a real human skull ethically. Plus this guy went with me to college and was a big part of our shenanigans. He deserves his spot.

Casting Set

I have been working on building a charm casting set and so far this is all I have. A 5 yen piece from a trip we took to Japan in 2019 and an obsidian piece with vegvisir carved on it. They stay here so they don’t get lost and as another reminder that this is something I’m building.

Incense burners

I got these pretty early on in my practice. The cauldron is for loose incense and works as a thurible. The incense burner in the middle is from a subscription box that no longer exists. The top slides back to hold incense sticks. I bought the wolf one because the other didn’t catch the ash from longer incense sticks. I mostly use the cauldron now, but I recently finished my seasonal incense sticks that I was also getting from that subscription box. They will be put away soon once I start blending loose incense for the other seasons (winter has been done for the past several years).

Offerings and Libations

When i do ritual indoors, i put the offerings and libations into the bowl on my altar and then either pour it out doors later or dispose of it properly (depending on the offering). The drinking horn I use as a ritual cup because I feel safer throwing it into my bag for rituals in the woods than a glass cup. I also just like the way it looks and feels in ritual in comparison.

Grimoires

The leather travelers notebook is my current grimoire. I’m beginning to outgrow it so the papers underneath are the finished signatures for the new book. It’s going to be a bit more junk journal style. On top of them, you’ll find my playing card deck I use for yes or no questions and questions I don’t want to ask the tarot cards. I grew up reading playing cards so it feels more natural for me to grab it than the tarot and oracle cards. There’s also a skull candle I bought on a whim and used in an ancestor right at one point. It just doesn’t fit in my candle storage.

Storage

This is a spice rack I found at an antique store. I use it to store spell ingredients such as rusty nails and the witch balls I make on Friday the 13th. On top I have my childhood rosary made from rose petals by nuns. It has been closely related to my grandmother in my mind since I was a child, even though she died long before I was even a thought. There’s also a bone I found in my driveway one day. Next to the spice rack is my mortar in pastel for when I’m mixing herbal blends.

I have other storage around my craft room for bigger items but this is for things I continually grab for.

Bottle

This is a bottle I got from a local artisan. I use it for water offerings when I’m on hikes. I often go for several hours so I take a water bottle for me and one for the spirits (being this one). It stays on my altar when not in use.

Conclusion

That’s my altar. I like to leave space in the middle for when I’m doing readings or workings. I have a few other altars around the house, such as my ancestor altar and my hearth spirit shrine. This is my main indoor working altar though. I’m hoping to finish my garden altar this year.