Re-Altar Your Mind

Alright guys, I'm back again.

This time I've come to post an update about my altar.

Through a series of events, I've inherited a new altar, so naturally, I had to set it up. It's really a two-tier coffee table type piece, but I decided to put it on top of what I was using for my existing altar, so I now have a 3-tier altar. I'm pretty pumped about that. Here's what it looked like after I cleared off my old altar and started to set this one up.

I was a bit worried it might be too tall, or that one of our cats might get on it and then knock stuff over either by jumping down or by being a little shit, but I did a shake test and I think it should hold up ok. Here's what I've done:

 

So I know it's a bit difficult to see everything from those photos, so I might eventually do a video run down, but for now I'll just explain it here. 

My over-all inspiration was to do a kind of upper, middle, and underworld type-theme, while keeping the bottom tier a kind of meditation altar, and the upper portion a sort of working altar, with a bit of an overflow section in the middle tier. 

On the bottom, I've got several Ganesh statues. Since he's the ruler of the base or root chakra, I felt that it would be appropriate to have him sitting down there. I've also got my sandalwood mala beads around that wonderful sage candle I talked about it my first altar post. I put the lighter there because I figured that's where I'd be using it the most. I also have my covered incense burner down there, along with a small clear quartz sphere, a small silver-sheen obsidian "letter opener" I got from Mexico that's got something carved into the handle (I can't remember who it is, though I know its Mayan), as well as a small stone bowl (I intend to fill it with sand so I can burn Japanese-style incense in it), and the bottle with the crushed up flowers I mentioned in my previous post as well. I also hung the sugar skull on the wall for this section. 

The middle section has my athame (mostly because it's at a great height when you're standing), the other stone bowl for burning Japanese-style incense or resin incense on a charcoal disk, a purple goddess statue I've had for a long time, a small paper fan with an image of "the great wave off kanagawa" on it, my collection of small Buddha statues, a statue of the sleeping Buddha, and it's got a goddess print from a local artist hanging on the wall. 

The top tier has two white mini candles in blue star-shaped holders, a small silver chalice with a pentacle etched in it, that wonderful smelling candle I recently bought sitting on a piece of slate, a small stone offering bowl, tingshaws, a small glass bottle with a pewter floral design on it, the Invocation smudge spray, a clear quartz point with small pyrite inclusions, and some sand dollars I picked up from a local beach last summer. Hanging on the wall above this section I have a framed atlas moth, and a leather luna moth art piece (it's hand-worked hand-painted leather on a section of some kind of tree bark). 

Compared to my last altar, there's a lot of stuff on it. I'm sure I'll re-work it again at some point, as I pick up new things and whatnot. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, considering I wasn't expecting to get a new "coffee table". 

Sorry for the wall of text, but it gives you a least a bit of an idea of what I've got. I might make a video about it sometime soon, though, to give you a better idea of how it all works. Ciao for now!