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!

Happy Ostara!

I had a very snowy Ostara here on the East Coast, in fact, the ritual I was going to attend was cancelled because of the snow, unfortunately. I didn't let that deter me though, and I still had a good day!

Made with Shasta Daisy Seeds

My plantable paper turned out a bit more crumbly than I had intended, so I will probably put it in a bag and give to my friends, and try again with another batch to put around campus.

I also made "Honey Fry Bread," from a recipe found on Tumblr and for some reason it won't let me post the link to the recipe. I am sure you can find it online though.

I listened to The Chieftains while I cooked, which made it even better.

When I get back to my apartment I will celebrate some more with some Tarot readings and other fun stuff with friends.

I hope you had a great Ostara!

Plantable Seed Paper/ Ostara Plans

Ostara is Friday, but since I will be out of town for most of that day, I decided to start early by making plantable seed paper. I made mine by following the directions given here:

http://gardentherapy.ca/seed-paper-v-day-cards/

Right now it is setting out to dry, and once it is done, I plan on cutting little hearts out of it and writing "Happy Spring!" and some positive affirmations, and placing around campus to hopefully brighten up some people's day.

The reason I won't be around much on Ostara is because I am going to visit my grandparents. The Unitarian Universalist church in my area is doing an Ostara ritual at 7, so hopefully I will be back for that, and talk about that a little here on Friday's post.

In addition to that, I also want to make Honey Fry Bread, which is a recipe I found on Tumblr,and I will share that with you once I make it/ if it turns out okay.

I am also thinking about setting up a get- together to celebrate the Equinox once I get back to college, but I have no idea what to do, and I am a little nervous about preparing an actual ritual.

If you have any ideas on what I should do, please let me know! Thanks for reading!

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!

Creating a Sacred Space

I woke up this morning having absolutely nothing to write about. I finally settled on venturing back into the arboretum to play my ukulele and leave some offerings, and write about that.

So I grabbed my uke, some bird seed, and a blanket and walked down to the arboretum. I found the circle I was considering using, but with all of the melted snow, it was a muddy mess.

I walked up the hill to a reflective area set up in the arboretum, and as I began to setup my stuff, I received a text from my witch friend (I'll call her L, because I feel like there are a lot of people I talk about, and it can be hard to distinguish,) asking if I wanted to go for a walk in the arboretum. This was extremely coincidental, seeing as I was already there and I told her that of course she could join me.

A few minutes later L arrived, and we talked for a bit, until we discussed the circle she showed me earlier that week.

Remember this one?

Anyways, L's friend had made a circle near this one to combat any negative energy. I asked if I could possibly use this space for Esbat/Sabbat rituals, but I told her I felt weird using it, since it wasn't a space I had created. 

L mentioned her desire to create her own sacred circle in the arboretum, and I told her that we should make one while we were already there!

We wandered a little off the path and found a natural circle of trees which we decided to use. We moved some dead logs to better define the outline of the circle, and pushed all of the dead leaves out of the circle and onto the perimeter. I set a stone in the center to place candles on.

Here is a picture of it- but it doesn't do it justice

Some plants we found growing beneath the dead leaves

Once we set up the physical space, we left to grab some of our rituals tools, such as incense and candles.

We returned with three of our friends as the sun was setting and we performed the ritual right as it grew dark.

L created the ritual, and so I don't feel comfortable posting it here as it is not strictly mine to share. But I can say that it was beautiful, and everyone agreed that it felt very safe in the circle.

I will return tomorrow to work on my craft, and to better define the outline as well as help my friend with his first bit of spell work.

I am very pleased with my sacred space, and I am excited to begin using it!

Wheel of the Year

Way back in November, I went to a Paint- Your- Own Pottery Studio for Small Business Saturday (the small business version of Black Friday) and they were giving each customer a free ornament. Since I went with my boyfriend, we got two of them, and he gave me his.

I took mine home to design later, instead of painting in the studio. I knew I wanted to decorate it for my altar, but I wasn't sure with what until a few days again. I decided to put the Wheel of the Year (or the Sabbats) on it, so I can turn it as the wheel turns, sort of like my own way of cycling through the seasons.

First, I traced out what I wanted with pencil. I used a spaghetti jar lid to get the circle on it, because I am atrocious at drawing, especially when I have to make a perfect shape, like a circle.

I used a ruler to create eight sections, one for each Sabbat. Then I decorated each segment with things that remind me of that holiday, such as a May Pole for Beltane, and skulls for Samhain. Once it was traced, I outlined it with Sharpie:

And then colored it with colored pencils:

I'm very happy with how it turned out, and it looks better than I expected it to. Right now its sitting on my altar, with Imbolc/Ostara facing up.

I also created a very early Ostara altar, but I'll do a post on that once we get closer to the Spring Equinox.

So that's my "Wheel of the Year"! I still have another one of the ceramic ornaments, and I was thinking about doing a God and Goddess theme on it, maybe with a Moon and Sun or Moon with Antlers or something.

Do you have any suggestions for what I should put on the second one?

Happy Imbolc and Spread A Day 2!

Hello, and Happy Imbolc! I hope you are enjoying your day.

My Imbolc involved finishing up a Valentine's Day gift to my girl friends, making a Brigid's Cross, cleaning my apartment, tarot, and making a cup of my favorite tea.

My Brigid's Cross

I made my Brigid's Cross out of pipe cleaners because they were cheaper, and I have no idea where to get rushes from.

I found a tutorial on making Brigid's Crosses out of pipe cleaners here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-St-Brigid%27s-Cross-with-Pipe-Cleaners

Today I also completed Day 2 of the Spread A Day challenge on Tumblr!

Arcane Mysteries and Ragabash Witch have created a Tarot challenge, which involves doing a Tarot spread each day. My Tarot skills are pretty rusty, so I am using this challenge as an opportunity to improve my reading abilities.

I hope you all have a great Imbolc! What are some things that you did to celebrate?

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?