Altar Updates!

Hello to my handful of readers!  I wanted to do a quick post with updated photos of my altars.

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First, we have the “skully altar”, which is built in homage to the Ghede, the Cemetery, etc.  We have “Bob the skull” on the back left (thank you Harry Dresden!).  For some reason, my cat hates my Baron Samedi figure, she keeps knocking it and the votive candles to the floor.  Thankfully, nothing’s broken yet!

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This second photo is the HUGE update to my Buddha shrine.  The giant sized Quan Yin was an antiques mall find in Chattanooga, TN, for a whopping $18.  It has a small chip in the front, not even visible on camera, and I don’t mind if my statuary has the occasional nick.  At an adjacent antique store, I also found the Buddha head in the back right corner.

The altar had a bit of an update, as I was unpacking a few of my things, and found one more Buddha to add to the collection:

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That’s all for this quick update.  Do you have a spiffy altar you’d love to share?  Leave a link below, or use the Contact form to let me know, and I’ll do an Altar Photos post sharing your photos!  Namaste 🙂

Altars, Shrine & Supplies

So I finally have some nice little places for an altar, a shrine and to store my books and supplies.

Here is my altar to the ancestors as of May 2013. This is an exercise in thriftiness. The candle holders are either thrift store purchases, clearance purchases or from the dollar store. The card in the center is “Baron Samedi” from a collectible card game. The altar cloth was a gift from my friend Brigidt.

Beneath the altar, the shelves contain (left to right, top row): Small treasure chest (thrift store find) on top of cigar box. Stack of candles in the back, next to my spare Buddha (too big to fit on my shrine), and a stack of tarot cards and runes. In front are my dollar store spice jars with the spices Brigidt sent me, and a roll of hemp yarn. On the bottom are books, boxes, altar cloths, candles, jars, stones and spare tealights.

Small shrine to the Buddha in front of my tv, between the television converter box and the bluray player. Hey! It’s the only space I could find! The burner on the back right was a gift from Baron Cimitiere, the silk pouch contains a mala purchased for me by Shadowpraxis, and blessed in a Pure Land temple in NYC. “Altar cloth” is just a reed placemat.

After I set up the shrine, Gaz was thoroughly unimpressed.

 

Temporary Altar and Shrine

This week, the Greek evil eye amulet arrived from Etsy, and the cord came a day later.  Unfortunately, the cord broke an hour after I started wearing it.  Kinda pissed about that.  A bit of epoxy later, I think it’ll hold this time, don’t you?  I emailed the vendor, so I’ll see what they have to say.

Tonight I decided to cleanse and charge the new pendant in a small, improvised ritual (when are my rituals NOT improvised?).  Something small on my coffee table.  Afterwards, I was eyeing my Buddha shrine.  I’d been wanting to replace it with an altar, but the space was so tiny – it’s a shelf only about 1.5 feet by 1 foot.  In the three shelves under it are books, books, books.  I decided while I let the pendant charge, I was going to re-do my altar.

I was able to take the books that were on the second shelf down and make them fit on the lower shelves, and I relocated  my Buddha shrine to the second shelf.  On the top shelf, I used some of my new thrift store finds, and a few old items, to make a makeshift altar.  I’m still building it, and a lot of tools are missing.  The four elements represented, at least, and a small skull as well.  Btw, yes.  I love candles.  I need some nice red and black pillars.  At least Halloween is coming up!

 

I felt kind of guilty relegating Buddha to a different shelf, so I tried my best to move it exactly as it was before.  There are my statues, my bone mala (A gift from Baron) my bodhi seed mala (in the yellow pouch, blessed in a Pure Land Temple in NYC), and a place to burn incense.

All in all, I really like how things are set up for such a tiny space.  I’ve been talking with Baron about getting me a small 3 shelf bookshelf, so it would have a larger top for me to set up altar space on, as well as shelves below for books, supplies, etc.

Right now, I’m also looking for supplies that I’m currently missing for my practice, such as:

• Ritual Knife or Dagger (I have found a deer’s horn online shaped like a knife or wand, which if I can wrap one end as a handle, would work perfect for me!)
• Mortar & Pestle – I’d like to learn to mix my own herbs for both medicinal purposes, incense and spellwork.
• Sewing Machine – yes this sounds kind of weird but bear with me.  I like to sew, and I used to make these kickass tarot card cases out of fabric.  I’d love to make more craft projects (pouches, poppets, altar cloths, robes, etc.) and some are just too damned big to sew by hand!
• Bones – I like the idea of natural objects on my altar, and bones are key.  Whether they’re skulls, vertebrae, phalanges, I’m not very picky.
• More Books – Who can’t have enough books??
• Pseudo-Cauldron – I would like something made off cast iron, but I don’t want it to be cauldron shaped if I can help it.  Seriously, I really steer clear of all the witch stereotypes. Cauldrons are one of them.  So are wands.  That’s another blog  post though.

If anyone finds any of these items for cheap, preferably used, rescued and made out of natural items (horn, bone, wood…)  please let me know?  I’m keeping my eye out on Freecycle and CraigsList already.

Thanks and Namaste!

Thrifty Pagan Episode 1

I love thrift store shopping.  Every since, in my teen years, I first discovered the Goodwill down the street from the Boy’s & Girl’s Club (my home away from home) I’ve had an addiction for buying other people’s cast offs.  Clothes, shoes, furniture… people give away the damnedest things!

Today Baron, his daughter and I decided to hit three of our local thrift stores.  There are more, but they’re a bit further out than we’d like to drive today.  Conserving gas and whatnot.

Right now, my altar is sparse – actually pretty non-existent.  My utensils are in another state, leftovers from a move gone awry.  So I’m on the hunt for a new altar set up, and I love the idea of “rescuing” thrift store items and using them as pagan staples.

Things on my search list are candle holders, a mortar and pestle, a sewing machine (for sewing pouches, mojo bags, tarot bags, altar cloths, etc.), some kind of knife/athame/boline, bowls or plates for offerings, and statues.  Today seemed to be “candle holder day”. (Photograph below)

First stop – Salvation Army.

This is the second largest of the three, but the most organized.  They also don’t tend to have much in the way of knicknacks or things that would I would consider to be… altar appropriate?  Just nothing that would work for *me*, but of course, ymmv.  There, I found a pair of talk, chunky, elaborate candle holders ($6.99 for the pair), a small, elaborate candle holder ($2.99).  There was also a small plate-style pillar holder shaped like a sunburst which I couldn’t pass up ($1.99).  Actually, I think that same sunburst holder was there a month ago (but the moon one is mysteriously absent).

Stop #2 – St. Vincent DePaul Shoppe.

Very small.  Very cramped.  Great deals on furniture.  A little sloppy on the chotchkes.  They had a lot of dishes and glassware, but nothing that really suited my needs.  Probably won’t be going back there unless I decide I need to replace my sofa – which will probably be sometime soon.

Third and final stop – the thrift store with no name!

Ok, so Baron doesn’t remember the name of the last one we went to, and I never knew, so yeah.  No Name Thrift Store.  It’s the largest, messiest and smelliest of the stores.  I don’t like being in there for long, because it’s hot and funky, but I can usually find something neat here are there.  Baron found a skull, but it had a huge hole in it’s forehead, so I passed.  I can get a whole one on Amazon.com for relatively cheap.

While poking around their severely cluttered shelves, I found a single wrought iron candle stand that I thought would match a pair that Baron already has at home, so I picked it up ($3.80).  There was also a small brass bowl that I saw, and asked about the price – they tried to tell me it was $5.  I told them no way was I paying $5 for a tiny ass brass bowl.  They double checked, checked what colour tags were on sale, and came back to tell me it was now $2.  I thought that was a much more reasonable price, so I bought it.  Now… I just need some brass cleaner!

Bonus stop – TARGET!

We had to go to Target to get some cat food.  While I was there, I hit up the candle section and bought 3 small unscented pillars ($6.99).  I saw two cute little red votives that I had to have ($.99 each).  I already have two bags of votive candles here to use with them.

All totaled, I spent $17.77 on thrift store purchases, and $8.97 on new items.  I don’t think I did too badly for a haul on nothing but candles and holders.  Picture below! (Sorry for the poor photo quality – my phone camera is poor and I’m still trying to learn how my actual camera works!)