Lammas Altar

So this is my altar for Lammas:

Like most of my altars, it has my usual suspects towards the back, such as my element jars, Tibetan singing bowl,and God/Dess candles (red for God, amber for Goddess).

The altar cloth I am using is an orange/gold/blue scarf, which I think shows the transition into the harvest season.

I moved the incense burner towards the back and have been using incense for my offerings this month.

Below that, I have my yellow offering bowl with a bit of flour in it to represent the first harvest. I wrapped my prayer beads around it, which you can see as the gold and black beads around the bowl.
The left of the bowl has my ceramic wheel of the year, with Lammas almost at the top.

The right of the yellow bowl is a small heart shaped box, which I found for a dollar at Michael's craft stores. I am using it to hold my two of my pendulums, and will be painting it later so it looks nicer.

Rose quartz on the left, carnelian to the right

On either side of the altar, I have a few stones, which I chose by using my carnelian pendulum. This is my first time using my pendulum to help me decorate my altar, and I really enjoyed it, so I will probably do so in the future. Because I used my pendulum, the stones I put up there are not necessarily just for Lammas, but also to help me out personally.

Another part  of my altar that reflects my personal life instead of the holiday is the Tarot card I placed down in front.

I started working at my new job yesterday (and its going wonderfully) and I put the Ace of Pentacles down to reflect my financial growth, as well as to help motivate me to get working! I put a chunk of raw clear quartz on top to amplify the energy of my altar as a whole.

Changing my altar from Litha to Lammas really gave me a sense of calm, like I was shaking out the cobwebs a bit. I think having my pendulum help choose the crystals helped create this sense of calm, and I also like how I focused a bit more on my personal life, rather than just choosing symbols for the holiday.

I hope this helped give you some ideas for your altar. Thanks for reading!

Litha/ Midsummer Altar

Litha/Midsummer was Sunday, and here it was a very rainy day, and also my boyfriend's birthday, so I didn't do too much for it. I baked a cake and kind of dual-purposed it as a birthday cake/ sabbat cake, and I lit some Amber incense as an offering (which smells so good!).

My altar was thrown together kind of haphazardly, but I really liked how it turned out!

My altar is very  summer-y, since it is for Midsummer, and so the colors and items reflect that. I used a green and gold scarf I have as an altar cloth, and kept the usual constant items on it, such as my singing bowl, prayer beads, God/Dess candles, and element jars, I added an incense burner to it, and may keep it on there as a constant as well.

I divided it up into sort of a God side on the left, and a Goddess side on the right. So on the left:

I have a stick to represent masculinity, the Sun card from my Original Rider-Waite deck, my carnelian pendulum, and my wheel of the year. On the right:

I set up my crystals in a sun-ish shape. I chose stones that I felt reflected the season, so there are a lot of greens and earth tones, such as fluorite, jade, red jasper, malachite, Botswana agate, smoky quartz, etc.

I put a yellow offering bowl in the center, again to be reflective of the sun.

I hope you had a great Summer Solstice, and a great rest of the week!

Happy (Belated) Beltane!

Since I have been running out of things to post and graduation is impending, I will be cutting down to posting once a week. I will hopefully return to me twice a week schedule once I get settled into the 'real world.'

Beltane was Friday, and it was probably my favorite Sabbat so far. It was also the first Sabbat I celebrated last year, so in a way, it was my 'Pagan birthday'.

For me, Beltane is the beginnings of Summer and so my altar reflected that.

Beltane is a time of flowers, and so I have a purple floral altar cloth, and I kept my Ostara flowers on there as well. I have my standard altar items towards the back. My elemental jars (feathers, chili powder/ashes, terrarium, and water), my Tibetan singing bowl, a red offering bowl, and my God/Dess candles in the center.

In addition to the basics, I added two candles as the 'fires of Beltane' since it is a fire festival. To the right, I have my prayer beads, some stones I found at my favorite places, and I also added a penny to represent my spirit guide. I put a small fairy pendant there to represent nature spirits, another common theme of Beltane. On the right is my ceramic Wheel of the Year, and a photo of my boyfriend and me.

Around the offering bowl, I put crystals that I felt were appropriate. These are fluorite, tiger's iron, red jasper, citrine, clear quartz, mookaite, rose quartz, malachite, and jade.

For Beltane, some friends and I went for a walk in New Germany State Park, and just explored the trails.

Then, I had friends over for a potluck dinner and Tarot readings.

We had so much food, and all of it was delicious. I am so grateful to everyone who celebrated with me.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you had a good Beltane as well!

Altar Terrarium

So a while ago, there was a post floating around on Pinterest with an idea for creating an altar out of four glasses, with each one representing the elements. You can find that pin here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/325736985520228599/

As you have seen from past altar posts, I have adopted a similar idea by using four jars  and having each one contain something that reminds me of that element. I use ash/chili powder for fire, feathers for air, water for water, and a small terrarium my little sister made me for earth.

Well after almost a year, I have officially pronounced the terrarium dead. Here's what the old one looked like:

 Pretty Dead

So I figured it was time to remake my altar terrarium. When my sister made the old one, she put this little nut she found in it, and I decided to keep it to help tie the old one to the new one. I also kept it because it looks really cool, kind of like a heart or a skull.

After pulling that out of the old terrarium, I went down to the arboretum at school (which is lately where I've been spending all of my time). I thanked the earth for what it had given me, and then I emptied out the jar. This is how the jar looks when its empty:

After emptying the jar, I put down a layer of gravel so that there is a drainage space in the jar:

 I tried to mix up the size of the rocks used so the rocks on top are a bit larger than the ones on the bottom of the layer. After that had been done, I went to a spot I was sitting at the other day, because I knew there was moss there that I could use.

I thanked the earth again, and took a small bit of moss, and carefully arranged it in the jar. Its easier to do it in small bits, instead of trying to fit a whole piece down in the jar.

 Then I came home and carefully wiped the dirt from the inside of the jar so I could see inside of it easier. After that, I positioned the nut from the previous terrarium, as well as a piece of clear quartz.

That's it! I hope it will be happy on my altar. In addition to this terrarium, my friend made me a cactus terrarium as a gift the other day, and I love it! Here's a picture of the one she made, but it doesn't do justice to how it looks in real life:

 She recently opened up a shop on Etsy to sell her handmade witch-y items, such as wire-wrapped crystal pendants. If you'd like to check out her shop, it can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CostumeWitcheries?ref=shop_sugg

Have a great day!

Ostara Altar

Ostara is next Friday, but since I am going home for Spring Break during that time, I wanted to show you my Ostara set up today.

Ostara for me is the celebration of the Spring Equinox, Winter has ended and the earth is warming up again. So my altar is very Spring-y to reflect that.

Along the back I have my element jars: feathers for air, chili powder/ash for fire, a terrarium for earth, and water for water. I have them separated based on my duotheism, with air/fire for God and earth/water for the Goddess. Between the two of them is my Tibetan singing bowl.

In front of that I have my God/Goddess candles to represent them and spirit.

I have a yellow offering bowl between the candles, and center on the altar.

On the left, I have a little yellow bird to represent the birds returning and starting new life, and my ceramic Wheel of the Year.

Next to that and in the center, I have a bunch of faux daisies and butterflies again to show the life beginning to grow. In front of the daisies, I put out some crystals. I chose to put out clear quartz, fluorite, rose quartz, jade, malachite, Botswana agate, and citrine.

And finally, I have my prayer beads set out on the right of the altar.

This is probably one of my favorite altar set ups that I've done so far. I have some fun ideas planned to celebrate, and I will share that with you after Ostara! For college kids going on Spring break, I hope you have fun and be safe!

Witchery to Help Study

I am terrible about studying. I really don't study, but somehow I always get really good grades.On top of my lack of studying, I have really terrible senioritis. I don't usually worry about it, until I have an exam, and then there's this mad dash to try and absorb as much information as possible for the test. Yesterday was no exception: I had my first human resources exam.

I needed to study, and to help me stay focused I decided to come up with something quick I could perform before studying. This is what I did:

Materials:
Tea (Or beverage of choice, I used Holy Temple Chai)
Green fluorite
Red jasper

You can substitute whatever stones you feel would work best for you, I chose green fluorite because its good for helping students, and red jasper because it helps me feel focused.

First, I made my tea:

Then I sat in front of my altar, and placed my tea on it. I lit my God/dess candles. I rang my Tibetan singing bowl, and focused on clearing my mind and concentrating on what I needed to do.

After ringing my singing bowl for a bit, I returned it to the altar. I placed some tea in the offering bowl (which you can see between the candles) and I asked for help in focusing on my studies. Then I moved the tea to the center of the altar and held the red jasper and fluorite above it while charging the tea with my intent to focus on studying.

Once I felt like it was sufficiently charged, I took a sip of the tea and said thanks. Then I moved the tea and crystals over to my deck, set a timer for 30 minutes, and studied. Whenever I began to feel flustered about not finding my information, or distracted, I would drink my tea to re-focus.

And that's it! It worked pretty well, usually I can't focus on anything business related for more than five minutes, so going for half an hour was an accomplishment for me.

What do you do to help stay focused?

Imbolc Altar

Imbolc is on Monday, so for today, I will be showing you my Imbolc altar! Imbolc is the halfway point between Winter and Spring, and it is the celebration of lambs returning. Signs of nature are slowly popping back up, and the days are beginning to grow noticeably longer.

The main part of my altar is the bowl of dirt and salt in the back. I use this to represent the earth and the snow on the ground, and I put three candles in it to signify the warmth returning to the Earth,

Next to that is the Tibetan singing bowl that my boyfriend got me for Yule. I use it for meditative purposes, as well as to clear out negative energy. I used to use incense to cleanse my room, but I moved my birds in, and incense would mess with their respiratory systems.

Then I have my four element jars, feathers for air, chili powder/ashes for fire, a terrarium my sister made me for earth, and water for water.

Between the jars are my God and Goddess candles. I use tealights, and have a red holder for God, and a yellow/clear/amberish holder for the Goddess.

Candles Lit

In front of those is my offering bowl. My Mom had little dipping bowls that she gave to me. I am using them for offerings, and they are absolutely perfect.

On the left is a snowflake that my boyfriend painted for me, which is there to signify the snow that is on the ground, but will be melting soon.

On the right are two rocks I found at two of my favorite places, Swallow Falls State Park in western Maryland, and Camel's Hump State Park in Vermont.

In the very front are my crystals. For Imbolc, I am using clear quartz, Botswana agate, rose quartz, amethyst, citrine, and red jasper.

My altar cloth is light pink with brownish green spots, which represent new growth.

I am very excited for Imbolc, because it means Spring is coming, which is my favorite season! I'm also using it to make some early Valentine's Day gifts for my three best girl friends.

What's on your altar? Are you doing anything special for Imbolc?