The Altar
Written on a deep immersion with my mentor + coven in March, 2023.
This morning I sat at my altar — well, my altar for today. A small end table with a plant upon it, in the corner of a sweet room in a mountain home where I am a guest for a few days. I lit a candle, burned a little palo santo, listened to a meditation, and journaled. My morning ritual hasn’t always looked this way, but years of dedication have made it somewhat more perfunctory. I pulled from my tarot deck — a beautiful version of the traditional Smith Rider Waite tarot — the first card was the four of wands, a celebration among friends and loved ones, feeling held and supported after experiencing great spiritual expansion. A card of joyful gratitude. The second, The Empress — an embodiment of receiving the earth’s bounty with grace and ease, a card of abundance, feeling surrounded by life’s pleasures and luxuries. The third, the eight of pentacles— honing my craft, success through hard and diligent work, a card of devotion. And lastly, the sun, shining new life upon these endeavors. A card of hope, of vitality.
I looked up to bask in this reading, and take in my beautiful surroundings. A window to the left shows the moon setting over the mountains — she’s waning gibbous today. A window to the right shows a rocky hillside. Perhaps this is where my altar has always found me, between the moon and a hard place.
Arriving
One of the first gifts I received at the early stages of the spark initiating my spiritual journey, was an altar. It was just before I started yoga teacher training in 2013. My ex-husband at the time was a carpenter — another story for another time. But he made this altar for me, it was beautiful — made out of bloodwood, with six platforms and seven angles he attributed to representing the seven chakras. I had gone to one workshop on the chakras and was enamored with the study, and that’s what led me to pursue my training. To me, each platform represented six of the chakras, and the entity as a whole was the crown. Either way, this was the first time I had a place to go to that was just my own. I never really had that before — A middle child, married just a month after graduating college at a very brazen 22 — I always shared everything with someone in one way or another. And then at a more humbled and curious 31, this altar represented a little home for my soul. When I’d stopped taking birth control about six months before, maybe my husband thought this was the place I would pray for a baby…it definitely was not. In fact, it became the place where I’d sit in deep prayer and inquiry for all the things that were changing in my life — in my body, with my energy, and in my relationships as a whole. I didn’t know at the time just how special this was, or how much I would return to this place over the next ten years.
At first, it was just a place for my yoga mat to face, with a couple of crystals and a little Buddha statue. Then it became a place where I honed my meditation practice…I added more crystals, maybe a bundle of sage. I’ve never been much for hardcore discipline, but having this place to return to, helped me create something of the sort.
About a year later when a dear friend passed away, it was the place where I lit a candle every day and cried. I learned the power of my stillness, of my grief, of my tears. A year after that when I left my marriage, the altar came with me — one of the few things I kept — and it was the place I would sit and ask questions. Where was I going? Who was I now? What would become of my life? I had met my husband when we were both 17. Babies. Though fiercely independent, I’d never really been alone…yet, I wasn’t scared to be alone. Quite frankly, I felt liberated…I just didn’t know what that meant quite yet.
Two years later, and two years into a very deep + profound partnership, I found myself returning to the altar with some of the same questions, and some new ones. Who am I now? What am I growing into? Am I growing out of this relationship? This city? This version of me? We lived together, and my altar sat beside our bed. There were more crystals and cards and amulets, and now herbs and flowers as sacred offerings as well. I woke and lit candles and meditated while he slept. I was in love, he was infatuated, it was consuming, and something still wasn’t quite right. I was yearning for something deeper. My heart felt like a bottomless pit that could never be satisfied no matter what I threw in there. Why was I so insatiable? What was “wrong” with me?! I desired to be surrounded by women who were also bravely traversing these inquiries. Trying to understand. Something.
Rooting
When I began this journey, there were a lot of unknowns. Uncertainty was the only certainty for some time, and I had to learn how to be in the discomfort of the un-knowing. Growing up in a religious household, the term “altar” had different meaning, and for many years I resisted using any type of terms or materials that reminded me of this. But what I learned, was there was actually much I needed to unlearn. About myself, about spirituality, and truly I had to unlearn the false idea that I somehow wasn’t worthy of having such a deep, sacred practice.
Guruji Ma says “An altar does not belong to any one religion or practice. An altar is a place to which one comes to honor the sacred by whatever name the sacred is perceived, and to deepen one’s experience of the latter.”
This altar, this physical place of substance, had become my safe space to return to — in moments of uncertainty, of sadness and grief, as well as moments of celebration, and of illumination and expansion.
Shortly after those inquiries, my life as I knew it then began to unravel. During a moment in my dark night of the soul, I found myself sitting at my altar, wishing I had people to surround me in these times. And not just for comfort, but for understanding. To see that I was not the only one in this seemingly dark or uncertain place, and to understand that there was actually a great deal of light coming through, peering through the broken parts.
Then, I uprooted my life, and set off on my own — truly for the first time ever. When I moved from a city I’d called home for nearly 12 years, I couldn’t carry my altar in my suitcase, so I learned how to create my own for the interim — putting candles and crystals on windowsills and bedside tables, having fleeting moments with my tarot deck, and journaling as much as my hands could handle — until my boxes could be transported from Texas to New York. Once I was settled, the altar was the first thing to arrive. I unpacked it, cleansed it, found it’s place, and I was home. Over the next three years my altar became my home within my home. It was the friend I needed. The great mother I craved. The divine source I desired to know, to see, to pray to, to grieve with. My altar saw me happy, confused, distraught, and disciplined. It saw me in pleasure, in ecstasy, and in the deepest pain I’d allowed myself to feel. It saw me make mistakes. Again and again. I laid at the foot of my bed in front of my altar many times and cried as if I were in the lap of my mother as a small child. When I suffered a miscarriage, it was my altar where I honored the loss, the confusion, and the fear. Of what? I’m still unsure, maybe the power and unpredictability of my body. Maybe grieving something I wasn’t even certain I wanted. It was complex, but my altar was there. Holding it all. Without judgment or expectation. I stood at my altar and established the reclamation of my body, my gifts, and my power. More than once.
Eventually as I found myself rooting in this new city, I also found a group of women who gathered fairly regularly — to write, share, express, and hold sacred space for one another. I later started to hold my own small sessions in my home and in my magical garden — moon circles became my church, and these women became my sisters. When the pandemic landed upon us, I took that space online in what felt like a meaningful way. Hosting weekly meditations and moon updates. Giving us something to come back to, and hold dearly to, something that would never leave us, like the cycles of the moon.
Uprooting
When I left New York and became nomadic, a year into the global uprooting, I had to put my beloved altar in storage. I carefully wrapped each piece, organized my crystals and cards, and create my sacred spaces however I needed to for the coming year or so. It was back to bedside tables and windowsills, little hotel tables in bay windows were among my favorite — who even sits at those to have coffee? I digress. This time with my travel altars there was so much more intention, so much more wisdom…maybe the same amount of crying. But perhaps some of it from sheer relief, joy, and a deeper knowing. For the spring equinox, my altar held eggs from the chicken farm that was unexpectedly behind an apartment I lived in in Mexico. For the Pisces Full Moon it held shells from the beaches I walked along the coast of France. For the Libra New Moon it held a feather from a magical moment in Zion. It held so much. We held so much, together.
During these nomadic months, I also was supported by a group of women through our magical little screens. They saw me in sorrow, in rage, in elation, and in deep gratitude. Some of these women still have not seen my face in person, and a precious few I’ve had the deep pleasure of getting to stand face to face, and heart to heart with. The meaning of sacred community really changes in a world where you couldn’t gather in person for so long. The way it looks, feels, and lands is different than what we experienced just three short years ago. It’s deeper, more profound, and in my eyes, more needed than ever.
When I landed in my new home in San Antonio, the first thing I asked my partner for, was a space where I could sit and do my practice. I found the most peaceful corner of the house. It was upstairs, overlooking the yard and with a little view of the sky. I picked a shelf that I knew — if this was in fact my new home — that my altar would fit upon, just perfectly. A few months later, it was time to retrieve my sacred soul spot from storage. Again, it was the first thing I unpacked, cleansed, and sat in front of to breathe, move, write, read, and cry. It was like seeing an old friend, after over a year of being apart. I welcomed myself back home.
Embodying
I also just learned — what’s the term, I was today years old? — that bloodwood is actually a type of eucalyptus tree. When I was born, I lived on Eucalyptus Street. If you know me IRL, you know I have a tattoo of eucalyptus on my arm, a reminder and reclamation of what home means for me. So coming home to my altar, is literally me coming home to a piece of little baby Stephanie, every day.
I feel grateful that it’s seen me through all of these evolutions. Corporate queen, wife, startup maven, divorcée…yoga teacher, single woman, healer, wild woman, leader, student, apprentice of life, dealer of love, priestess of the heart. And extra grateful that I never caught fire to it during ritual…though there have been some close calls.
As we’ve grown and evolved over these few challenging years, I have become increasingly inspired to continue to create meaningful, sacred spaces for women to connect beyond the bounds of time and space.
Maybe you don’t have your own bloodwood altar from your carpenter ex-husband…in fact, I hope for you that that is not your sacred space. I hope yours is a windowsill that catches a glimpse of the moon, or a shelf that sits in a peaceful corner of your home, or a bedside table that welcomes you home and wishes you good day, every day. Maybe it’s more elaborate, and maybe it’s nothing at all, quite yet. And maybe you’re also craving someone to understand. Sisters to return to. A space to pray, and be seen.
This is why I’ve created The Altar.
A space for us to return to.
A virtual place of practice, of inquiry, and of loving support.
A place to be seen, and to bear witness.
A weekly devotion of time, energy, and effort to turn toward our own sacred center.
A tending to the fire of the hearth, at the core of each of our hearts.