#secular altar

[triplevirgo]

a corner of my altar in the sunlight 🐚🌊✨

[primraisa-blog]

Little section of my altar with a view of some of my favorite essential oil lotions and sprays tucked away in the empty space on the side. It's not much, but it's mine. 🔮✨

[witchwayjournal]

🌿✨ My altar. For all magikal practices. I don't have deities that I include in my craft, but I'll use this space for creating sigils, spells, and any other witchy things. I'm a broom closet baby witch, so this isn't nearly as particular as I'd like it, but it'll do. I'm so proud🌿✨

[triplevirgo]

Hey! I'm new to magic and what not..(I always believed it was real when I was younger but grew up in a Christian household.) While I still hold beliefs in god, I've realized my sensitivity and longing for learning to work with positive energies and find help from the earth. I do consider myself a green witch. I was wondering what the function and purpose of an altar is and whether or not an altar is necessary to practice? Especially to someone who doesn't worship deities.?

thanks for this question!

for me personally: i currently consider my practice secular, and instead connect it to the way my own energy and the energies of the universe around me interact. so when i set up my own altar space i wanted it to be somewhere that would help me connect more fully to those energies.

it can be hard to put yourself in a spiritual mindset when you’re in a really mundane setting, like your bedroom, so often an altar or a shrine is simply a place to remind you of your higher/deeper context. maybe you would consider having a crucifix on your wall a similar analogue, or a nativity scene - physical, artistic (and therefore emotional) representations of spiritual symbols. a lot of what goes on my altar simply provokes a certain emotional quality, things that represent how i connect to energy in meaningful ways. and because of these layers of meaning, and the attention i direct to this space, and the time i take to sit there and meditate, i believe that it is the most charged conduit i have to connect with my own spirituality and to funnel energy into my work.

none of this is devoted to any deity or higher power, particularly. at its simplest i would say it is just an altar to myself. and i definitely don’t think there’s anyone who would tell you that an altar is mandatory to do anything at all, especially if you feel that you are energized by, called to, or enjoy connecting with the earth in other ways.

i don’t know exactly how you feel about all this, but i think it will be interesting for you to consider the relationship you have between christianity and nature, and how god informs your faith in nature, and vice versa. and maybe you will come to find some part of your beliefs that feels worth honoring with a physical space. but you are going to choose whatever feels and works right for you!

[triplevirgo]

my altar has stayed this way all week and i still feel the effects of its calming, lifting influence. a simple crystal grid and some leaves from my new patio 🌿💎

[primraisa-blog]

New Beginnings ✨

🍃instagram.com/raspberrycreme 🍃

[triplevirgo]

it's been a terrible few months. life has been too immediate and tiring for me to pay much attention to my interests, and then the election happened, and honestly i've just avoided looking too closely at my own sadness for fear it will all just fall apart. but this week's full moon was a good time to clean my altar and pull out all my crystals and my tarot decks to cleanse and charge. i hope i can make some time this week to do a little reading with myself. peace and strength to all of you in these stressful times 💕

[lutestringwitch]

I finally found the right container for my sand garden altar!