How to Create a Personal Altar
Updated: May 12, 2021
Hello friends, merry holidays and happy everything! I hope you are savoring this holiday season; it feels like a nice reprieve from everything that we are still going through this year. With our lives turned upside down, there is much to reflect on as we head into 2021. What have you let go of this year? What have you adapted? What little routines have you started to make it through this moody year?
My favorite part of the day is the morning, when the sun drenches my room and the day feels so fresh and filled with opportunity. Previously, my mornings started early and were quick, waking up around 5 am to teach. Now, I get to take my time and a little routine has developed: wake, make my bed. Drink a tall glass of warm lemon water, get dressed, prep my coffee. I've started
lighting a candle each morning, wearing perfume (such a mood booster during this pandemic!), added a simple yoga/movement sequence before I do a full practice later in the day. This little routine has become sacred, almost ceremonial. Some of these items I have arranged on my wardrobe and it feels like an altar. This is my favorite space to look at, it calms me. It is a collection important trinkets, memories, things that inspire. You might have unconsciously created your own altar to turn to as a space of tranquility.
Below are a few suggestions to create, add to or redesign your own personal altar. Feel free to share your spaces on your Instagram stories, and be sure to tag @wellbeing_dc!
Something fresh - Plants, fresh cut flowers (I have clippings from my grandma's Christmas cactus and an aloe plant I have had since high school)
Tokens from your favorite memories - trinkets from your travels and intricate boxes to hold them
Pieces of protection - your favorite crystals, a singing bowl, mala beads, a cross, an amulet
Scents - a candle, incense, palo santo, perfume - smells that evoke special memories
Images or statues - of someone or something that is sacred or inspires you
Messages to empower you - like the card I received in a yoga training with yoga sutra 1:2: complete mastery over the modifications of the mind is called yoga