How To Create An Altar For Your Home
Do you have a designated sacred space in your home—a place that holds things that are meaningful to you and represents your spiritual connection? Creating an altar at home for a spiritual personal growth practice can be an incredibly powerful and meaningful way to deepen your practice.
What is an Altar?
An altar is a place where we go to connect with something bigger than ourselves. It’s a physical representation of your spiritual practice and can be used as a place to focus your inner work, set intentions and goals, and to reflect on your spiritual journey. Your altar at home represents our unseen connections with spirit and the spiritual world. It can also connect us into the divinity that exists and is present in our physical world.
Altars in The Home
In an era where spirituality is deeply personal, it’s powerful to have a place that represents what you believe in—to anchor those belief systems down into a tangible space. By creating a space in your home dedicated to your spiritual growth, it also allows you to connect into this piece of yourself every day.
If you want a garden to grow, you must tend to and nourish the soil. If you’d like to deepen your spiritual practice, tending to the altar within your home by updating it regularly, allows you to create a disciplined, devotional practice.
Ultimately, we want to create an altar in our homes that represents the altar within our hearts. What we value, what we honor, what we are wanting to create a deeper relationship with, and what spiritual elements we are calling on to help us on our journey.
Where Should I Put An Altar?
An altar can be placed anywhere in or around your home—on top of a dresser, on a windowsill, in a closet, or in its own designated space.
Ideally, you'd like your altar to be where you go when you tend to your personal growth and spiritual practice. This could be a place you meditate, pray, draw oracle/tarot cards, write, reflect or journal. If there’s no one place you use consistently, having an altar anywhere around your home is better than not having one at all.
Some Considerations
It’s helpful to consider the layout of your altar and how you will use it. Do you want it to be a place dedicated to:
the past? Create space to honor your lineage, ancestry, and journey to this moment
the present? Create a space to sit for prayer, meditation, healing, or self-reflection
the future? Create a place that fosters creativity, inspiration, and visualization
What Should I Put on My Altar?
Your altar should be a reflection of your spiritual practice, desires, and devotion in regards to your connection to something bigger and mystical. Ultimately what goes on it will be completely up to you. Think about any symbols or items that represent your spiritual practice that you would like to include.
It’s also powerful to include something on your altar from each of the following five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.
Earth: Crystals, fresh flowers, seasonal plants or seeds, essential oils, flower essences, plant extracts, herbs that align with your spiritual or personal growth practice
Air/Wind: Feathers (can also represent levity and lightness of being), images of birds, butterflies, or animals that fly, smoke from incense, sage, candles or burning herbs
Water: A cup or bowl of regular or infused water, representations of water, figures of water animals, or something that comes from the water (shells)
Fire: Candles bring in the element of fire and different candles have different meanings, for example white candles represent spirit
Spirit: Any representation of a higher power or spiritual helpers that you work with including gods/goddesses, religious figures, ascended masters, angels, etc.
Other things that can be added: anything that is sacred to you, something representing the stars/cosmic energy, anything representing your ancestors or familial roots, any divination or spiritual tools like mala beads, pendulums, oracle/tarot cards, etc.
Take It Deeper:
In addition to the physical elements of your altar, it is important to connect to it on an energetic level. Before using your altar, take a moment to sit in meditation and set an intention for it.
You could also use smudging with herbs or incense to cleanse and purify the space. Create a ritual that you do every time you sit at your altar also helps create more impact. This could involve lighting a candle, chanting a mantra, or offering a prayer.
Your altar is a personal space and should be respected as such. Spend some time getting to know and understand it, and allow it to be a source of strength and guidance. Like any relationship, the more you spend time with your altar, the deeper the roots of your relationship with it will grow.
Want specific personal recommendations?
LEARN MORE ABOUT SPIRITUAL MENTORSHIP:
For those ready to elevate and expand their lives through deeper connection to themselves, others, and the spiritual world. Learn how to honor and trust your own intuitive guidance and set aside self-sabotaging patterns for emotional and spiritual growth and expansion.
Your Intuitive Guide / Kristen Rice
My name is Kristen Rice and I’m a clairvoyant seer trained in behavioral health who offers akashic record readings, human design deep dives, and sacred soul-tending through my signature coaching programs.
I’ve spent over 1500 hours holding space for growth and transformation, and it’s truly an honor to be invited into each healing journey. I believe every person, no matter what you’ve experienced, can find joy and belonging.
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