Creating Altars At Home: A Landing Pad For What Matters

Welcome,

I'm Jocelyn.

This is about altars and creating altars in your home,

In your spaces.

And when I say alter,

I don't mean an idea of perfection.

I mean something that's heartfelt.

That is a landing pad for the things that you want to bring awareness to in your life and it might be that you bring awareness to it gratitude,

Remembering,

There's all kinds of reasons you might want to have an altar.

In this video,

You'll see a little bit of my altars just in this space that you see right here.

I have altars outside and we have altars in our mixed living areas in the house,

But this is in my space.

So you can get an idea of kind of how I have set up small altars in my home.

There are lots of reasons to have an altar.

You know,

It might be that you have an altar to honor your ancestors,

Right?

Or to work with a specific energy in your life.

You might have an altar to bring good energy into your house,

Or you might have an altar around something you want to manifest,

Right?

There's all kinds of reasons that you might want a little bit of sacred space,

A little bit of sacred landing pad.

The reasons that we have altars are to remind us.

To having a remembrance of awareness.

To be grateful for reverence.

It also develops a relationship with what you have that altar for with you and your energy.

So an altar can be placed anywhere.

It can be small.

It can be large.

There's really no definition in what exactly you have to create.

I always say create it with your heart.

Create it with your higher self.

But it does it can be anywhere it can be on a table it can be in a space in your room if you look you can kind of see i have a bit of an alter of my artwork Right.

And those are specifically around my bed.

So a lot of that's around my dream space,

My dreamscape.

So it can be small,

It can be big.

And each altar will have different things.

And when you create an altar,

You're going to follow your own.

.

.

I want to say guidance,

Your own guidance,

Your own intuition,

Your own feelings and knowings about things and what makes you feel good when you put something on your altar.

If it feels good,

You're going to keep it.

If it doesn't,

You're going to change it,

Right?

Some of the things that you might think about putting on an altar or the ways you might.

.

.

Kind of jump into gathering for your altar would be to think about the elements,

Right?

Sometimes we put pieces of elements in different altars.

You have water.

Water which is really close to emotion as well.

So you could put anything around water on an altar.

Water being literally a bowl of water or a seashell.

It could be a picture of the ocean.

It could be a piece of coral.

It could be,

You could have a fish on your altar,

Right?

However you wanted to do it is all up to you.

You could do fire,

Right?

Fire is our creativity,

Our birth cycle.

And fire,

You might have a candle or an incense.

You might have a red ribbon.

You might have a picture of a flame or a bonfire,

Right?

It really is up to you.

If you're looking at earth,

You might have a potted plant with a little bit of soil.

You might have a branch,

Right?

Thinking of branches,

I have driftwood for water on one of my altars downstairs.

You know,

For earth,

You also might have a picture of a tree or you might draw something,

Right?

Or maybe you have a piece of charcoal that you do art with.

You know,

All of these things can be elements on your altar.

For air,

You might have a feather or a picture of the sky.

I'll show you in my video later,

My daughter made me an altar and put a bubble stick on it with bubbles so we can blow bubbles together over the altar,

And that's air.

There's lots of ways to play with your altars.

Whatever you decide to create for your altar,

For your landing pad.

You can think about what elements meet that.

What elements meet that?

Water,

Fire,

Air,

Earth,

Right?

You also can think about symbols.

What symbols do you associate with that thing that you're creating the altar for?

You can draw a symbol,

Find a symbol.

You can think about colors,

The colors that are meaningful for you for what you're creating that altar for,

Or colors that you just see when you think about that thing.

You can bring photographs or artwork.

You really,

It's really an endless world to play with altars.

One of the things I would say is when you're creating an altar before you create it I like to write about what I'm creating that altar for.

I like to write about it.

I like to put it down.

I get to stream of consciousness and just write it so that all of a sudden I just get all of the stuff out about that thing.

And then I try to find some threads in my writing.

That's one way that I approach an altar.

And then after that,

I don't usually just say,

Okay,

I'm going to set up an altar right now and go create it.

I have the intention of setting it up.

And I'll walk through life for a few days.

And I'll notice things.

And I'll say,

Oh.

Wow,

That's something that could go on that altar.

Or,

You know,

I'll find something that ends up being on that altar.

And I will gather,

Like if I'm looking for photographs,

I'll gather photographs throughout a week and see what's still calling me at the end of the week.

The beautiful thing about an altar is that once it's set up,

It's a reminder.

It pulls us to remind ourselves to be aware of what we're calling into our life,

Right?

And it's also,

You can have an altar for protection,

Right?

An altar for relationships with your ancestors,

Which I do have an ancestral altar and I'll show you.

And I have very personal things on that that are personal to the people who have left me.

So yeah.

And then once you have your altar set up,

It's a beautiful way to work with that energy that you're calling in into that landing pad.

So you can put something on your altar that you have to take care of.

Or maybe you have something that you have on an altar that you add to.

Right.

For a while,

I had an altar where I would add a clove each day into a dish.

And then I had an altar where I had a letter that I had written.

You know,

I oftentimes write letters or write words and put that on my altar.

And sometimes I go and I just try to find the right,

Maybe I'll have a color in mind and I'll try to find that right shade in fabric and I'll take a ride that week and see if I can find something,

Even if it's at like a thrift shop,

Just the right color.

It becomes this beautiful journey.

And then when it's set up,

I don't just stop there.

When it's set up,

I let it go,

But I check in with it.

You know,

I check in with it.

Do I want anything more?

Is there something that needs to change?

Maybe a cut flower or something I want to add or take away.

And when it's time for an altar to come down,

And I've done this many times because I do altars around my artwork.

So when it's time for an altar to come down,

I take it down with reverence.

I take it down with reverence and I give it its space after.

And then when it's ready to be used again in a different way,

Like say it's a table,

I just,

I give it its space first and then I go back to where I want it to be.

I have really enjoyed the work with altars.

Having them in my space.

Feels like I have support in my space.

And it holds me in ways that energetically it holds me,

It holds me emotionally at times,

And I develop a relationship with these altars.

Yeah,

So I hope I just inspire you a little bit to have fun with altars.

You'll see,

I'm going to show you a video,

And in the first video,

I'm going to show you an altar that my daughter gave me for my birthday.

She was eight at the time.

And we were talking about animal spirits.

And she really loved it.

And she said she came up with these animals that are part of my animal spirit team.

And I said,

Wow,

That feels really great.

And I went upstairs and did some stuff,

Went downstairs.

By the time I came back up,

She had set up an altar as a birthday gift for me.

And we work on it together.

We use that altar as a dream space.

I'll show you the video.

But she has all these pieces that we do together.

So we light the candle together.

We blow the bubbles together.

We touch the peace together.

And it's part of how we enter to our nighttime and are protected in our dreams.

You know,

Even kids can make altars.

And you know what's interesting is that I'm sure that you have altars all over your house,

Little landing pads for things that you may not consciously have created,

But they are there.

And the last altar I'll show you in this video,

And it's right over there,

Actually.

I did not mean to set up,

But I have noticed that it is an energetic hotspot in this room ever since I put everything together in that space.

And so it is an altar.

It is a landing pad of life force in this room.

So you'll see that at the end of the video.

Let me show you that video,

And I'll walk you through what is going on with it.

So this is an altar that my eight-year-old made for me,

And it's for my animal spirits.

Those sunglasses are my parents who passed away in 2021.

There's a little bubble wand and a feather.

And each of these drawings is different animals she believes are part of my animal spirit team.

And she drew them and put them up there for us to work together with them.

This is my ancestral altar,

And I have,

Of course,

That's the perfume of my mother's and a picture of my mother and father,

A piece of artwork.

I have some crystals,

Flowers,

I have the angel cards,

And I have all different little pieces I've put throughout the time.

I have plants there and pieces of artwork that my daughter has done.

This is my altar for my book,

The Midnight Carnival.

And so I have the book there,

Two tuning forks,

One of the really important pieces of artwork that I've had in our house,

My own stuff.

I have a crown chakra necklace,

And this is a piece of artwork around what I want to do with my book.

And it's all around nested expansiveness.

So I have that title right on top.

And this is lit up.

It has that carnival energy to me.

And then this is an altar that I have,

And I didn't even realize I had this altar.

It is all flowers at my window around the chimes.

I love these flowers,

And I work so hard to keep them happy.

So those are just some altars that are here in my space that I use for so many different things in this space.

But I just,

I hope I inspired you.

I hope you go and create and create alters with your family,

With your partner,

With your loved ones and utilize them and allow them to be conscious awareness in your life.

Really consider that idea that an altar is creating a landing pad for the energy that you want to work with.

Right.

It's like that invitation.

It's the energy that you want to work with.

And whether it be intention,

Abundance,

Manifestation,

Ancestry,

Protection,

You know,

It's taking an active role and creating a beautiful landing pad for that to come into your life.

I'm so glad you joined me today,

My friends.

I'll see you next time.

Namaste.