Altars ALL OVER the house ~ something to consider

Working with Owl

Ahhh yes! Working with an altar can become a juicy, tangible way of working in our personal spiritual practice. They bring us a physical place to tend to. It works with the powerful subtlety of symbols directly speaking to our subconscious. On a left-brained, scientific side of things, an altar brings together electromagnetic frequencies of items and the energetics of thought, intention and emotion - to generate a specific vibration - which in turn affects the world around us and our physical, emotional and etheric bodies.
Nice huh!
Let's look at a couple things before we consider how many altars we might want:

• An altar is created with careful energetic intention on a designated area.
• The items used could be thought of as energetic or spiritual ‘power houses’ such as specific crystals, images of deities or photos of deceased relatives, stones from significant and relevant places, plant medicines and dried herbs, all of which carry or support the intention.
• These power houses are placed with deliberate care, in an arrangement of some significance, or harmonious pattern.
• Altars can be created for many reasons, some examples are: 
  ~ self healing & development
  ~ to honour and work with the qualities of a deity, season, totem, power animal etc 
  ~ to facilitate prosperity
  ~ calling in a harmonious relationship
  ~ supporting a desired outcome of a situation
  ~ to help remedy an illness
  ~ change the feel of a living space

An altar brings the individual energies of the objects together with your intention, to create a unified energy source that keeps “working” on its purpose once it has been set. We can think of it like turning on a 100w light bulb with the light emanating and filling the room. Power on! Yet like a bright light, generally we don't want to leave it turned on ALL the time. Times of rest are needed, of peace filled soft light, like turning off that light bulb when not in use; or resting our body after an energetic workout routine. There may come a time where the energy begins to feel “stale” where smudging and cleansing the altar items will bring a freshness to the energy, but if we are carefully tuned in, we can feel when the need for re-charging, refreshing, or simply a break from the constant affect an altar can have on our living space is needed. A rhythm of working and resting is good spiritual and energetic maintenance. Rest times provide us an avenue for integrating the work being done. We can create this rest by periodically laying a cloth over it, or by fully dismantling it when it's no longer actively being tended to and worked with.

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Invoking swift yet gentle change

It is a beautiful way of working, one that our human tribe has been inspired by for longer than anyone can truly tell. Often I hear people mention having many altars around their homes, or the jubilant desire to create many. To me, this signals a caution to look at - it can end up feeling like a bit like a home with every single light on, with a whole lot of energy beaming out from many points around the house. If we go further and imagine each light bulb has a different intense colour; like each altar might have a different intention, the effect could be rather overwhelming, confusing, or even conflicting. It can become a lot to mindfully tend to on a practical level. A lot to feel. A lot of energy coursing through the night while you sleep. 

In many traditions an altar or shrine to one's ancestors is tended to for our beloved deceased. Some ancestral altars or shrines are actually kept in a cupboard, special box, or are only created during certain times of the year, due to the added feel of "company" or a sense of more personalities within one's home that may stem from such altar work. For myself, I have an altar for my personal work, or work on behalf of a friend, client, or family member, and we have a shrine for our Ancestors. To me, this is plenty to work with. My altar changes and refreshes as I do, as my practice does, and is definitely something I feel sensitive about when I have company over, especially because it is in our main living space. With energetic work like this the fields of those present may be affected and can contribute or interfere too (lets face it, lovely energy and beautiful objects are attractive to touch!) My preference is to lay it to rest and keep it covered when guests are over. It is a place of personal work, not a conversation piece.

Just these two power centers within our house create plenty for me to tend to, work with, and live in the energy of. Other people may have a different threshold - but it is interesting to me to consider the call to have many altars all over one's home as instead a call to work more deeply with just one. Consider too if you are one called to have many altars, what is your nervous system is experiencing - would more energy sources around a hyper-vigilant, excitable person create a harmonious feel or overwhelm? If you struggle with learning to rest, pause, think things through, would more power sources help or hinder? Do you tend to have lots of fantastic ideas but burn out before seeing them to completion?  Does the dedicated time spent with each fit practically into your day-to-day? Would many shrines, places to honour, to experience gratitude at, and leave offerings with,  fit the bill instead of more altar work? Having altars ALL over the house is really something to consider!

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