An altar is a sacred space designed to honour your intentions, connect with your spiritual practice, and hold the energy of what you’re manifesting in your life.

Creating an altar doesn’t have to be overly intricate or elaborate, it simply has to hold intention and awareness for what you are trying to cultivate. When your intention is clear, this is when the magic is felt and ripples into your life. In this post we’ll break down how to create an altar at home for yourself, one that feels uniquely yours.

ANCIENT ORIGINS

The word altar originates from the latin word *altus*, meaning “high.” These spaces have always been held in high regard, they are sacred spaces of intention, gathering and presence. In Ancient Egypt, particularly during the New Kingdom era, it was common for homes to have personal altars, typically overseen by the women of the household. These sacred spaces held statues of guardian deities, ancestor portraits, and a variety of protective charms. Families would offer gifts such as drinks, flowers, and food to these altars as a way of maintaining a spiritual connection with their gods and seeking their blessings. Think of your altar as your own modern-day bridge to the divine.

TIPS TO CREATE YOUR ALTAR

When we say "intention," we’re talking about the purpose behind your altar. There are endless reasons to create an altar. You might be trying to cultivate a specific energy into your life – perhaps love, abundance or beauty. Or you might be creating an altar for ancestors, a specific deity or goddess, or maybe this space is for daily devotion or sending energy to someone needing love and care right now. Whatever the reason, know that every altar is deeply personal and a unique embodiment of your intention, vision and energy.

Wherever you are creating an altar at home, place it somewhere prominent or lifted high off the ground, this might be a shelf, a stool, a stack of books, or even some yoga blocks. Creating this elevation of your altar embodies this sense of reverence, and connects it to the heart of your intention.

The beauty of an altar, is that it is a vignette and a space of adoration.

Although not necessary it can be nice to drape a cloth to outline the space of your altar. This creates a boundary of protection around your highest vision for this space. You can also get creative with natural elements like flowers, leaves or herbs as borders.

Another way of bringing in your unique intention to your altar is by considering and connecting to the alchemy of the elements. The elements each hold a unique energy, and can aid in supporting that which you are cultivating.

• Water: Offers the intention of flow, cleansing, and renewal (use plain water, rose water, sea water, or essential oils in a spray bottle with water).
• Earth: Energy is associated with grounding, surrender, letting go, and boundaries (use plants, crystals, stones, shells, dirt, clay objects, silver or gold).
• Air: Allows transformation, moving on, removal of stagnancy, a clearing out of old energies, and supports space holding or taking up more space (use smokes like palo santo, sage, rosemary, or an incense stick, or place a feather on your altar).
• Fire: Is the energy of alchemisation, release, action, burning away the old in order to make space for the new (use a candle, or safely burn something daily like palo santo or a paper with your intention).

You can either connect to which element feels most aligned in this moment to your intention or you can place one of each to create this sense of wholeness.

Incorporating what feels right to you is the principle of creating a altar that is unique to you. The objects can be something you have collected from a nature walk like twigs, pinecones, leaves, feathers or flowers or perhaps something more sentimental like jewellery, photographs, quotes or heirlooms. You could place your magical tools like tarot cards, crystals, statues of deities on your altar as a way of reminding yourself to come back daily.

Connecting to your own powerful creative force is what makes the beauty of your altar uniquely yours. Notice what your intuition is calling you to do, to make the space feel complete. The options are endless, be in the seat of your intention to know what might be missing. You will know when it is complete.

Remember, your altar is a living and breathing space. It can change as you too evolve and as your intention becomes manifested. Come back to it with curiosity, keep it clean, keep it sacred, keep it in high regard. This is a way of showing yourself that your intention matters.