How to build an altar

Why create an altar?

We create altars for many reasons:

• As a space for focus & meditation

• To conjure something into our life - like peace, abundance, love, or protection

• For manifestation

• To honor something - like our ancestors or nature

• For ritual

• To help us release.

Note: There is no ‘right away’ to create an altar as it is a deeply intuitive and individual journey - here I will share with you my personal process.

Before we begin our altar creation it is a good idea to get clarity on your intentions + purpose.

cleanse space

When I am creating an altar I usually do it with a specific intention during a celestial event. My most recent altar I created for Beltane - the midway point between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. I had a few people reach out and ask me about it and that inspired this blog.

I like to cleanse my space where I am building my altar through the sound of om, crystal bowls, koshi chimes OR with smoke, incense, and fire.

gather 5 elements + build altar

When I create an altar I like to have all five elements represented - earth, water, air, fire and aether (or plasma).

For earth I use: crystals, bones, pieces of wood, herbs, flowers and snake symbolism. I always have snake symbolism in my altar creation for the qualities snakes represent - shedding skin, transformation and wisdom. The earth aspect of my altar invokes feelings of grounding, support and symbolizes abundance, wealth and success.

For air I use a feather and say my intentions out loud, to be carried on the wind up into the heavens - much like the method of prayer flags. Honoring the air element symbolizes intellect, ideas, imagination.

For fire: I light a candle to conjure health, passion, enthusiasm, courage, adventure and life.

For water: I collect rainwater - if you are in a dry area you can take water and bless it with your hands or sacred sounds (chanting, om-ing, crystal bowls, etc). Water symbolizes emotion, intuition, psychic abilities and clairvoyance.

For aether or plasma I use a Lichtenberg figure which was a gift from a friend of mine. It is an acrylic ball shocked by electricity which creates a lightening fractal running through it.

Other things I’ll place on my altar:

• Meaningful items like gifts or statues of deities

• Actual physical money

• Tokens, like a scarab from Egypt, or a protecting eye

• Jewelry that I wear - to cleanse and to conjure

• Pictures / names of people I want included

• Items based on intentions, colors or seasons

• Written Mantras, or spells

The way I build my altar is very intuitive, and it is my opinion that however you build your altar is best for you. All my altars are different but they follow a general idea.

• Some crystals point in toward the center if they symbolize what I want to draw in - like citrine pulling in energy for abundance.

• Some crystals point out to ground energy - like tourmaline or shunguuite.

• Some crystals point up to release energy out and away - like quartz to create a ‘vent’ of energy, in my mind this creates a movement much like breathing.

You will notice when you create your altar and place significant items & crystals around it that some will ‘want’ to be turned in, out, up or down. This is part of the creative and intuitive process :)

CONJURE / manifest / pray

After I have built my altar it is time to sit with it. I thank the natural kingdom + cardinal directions and I focus on my intention. I meditate, allowing my mind to become blank fills it with solutions.

I pray saying thank you, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, and I cast spells. I ask for guidance from my guides, I sit with the older and younger version of myself. I manifest the things I want in my life, I revisit my intentions and speak my affirmations.

Release ritual

It is my opinion that altars become conscious organisms with the proper intention & ingredients. So, when I am done with this whole process I use different stones to point/send any excess energy out an actual window. This way the process becomes self sufficient after I am finished; it completes whatever other intentions it has and then releases itself when it feels finished.

Simplified Steps to create your altar

1. Set intentions

2. Cleanse space with fire / smoke / incense /sound

3. Gather tokens / amulets / crystals / things from environment

4. Build altar

5. Pray / meditate / cast spells (it’s all the same magic ;)

6. Release ritual

~

Personal note: Let me know what you thought of this blog by messaging me! I would love to see a picture of your altar if you were open to sharing!

Why do I have soooo many Tattoos?

Thank you for asking, I would love to talk about this as it’s a question I get so often.

As a Cancerian girl growing up in Michigan around the Great Lakes, water, specifically rivers, lakes, and streams were an important part of my childhood AND I grew up with a creek behind my parent’s house. Every year my family camped on Lake Huron since I was 5 years old, we camped on the Canadian side so every night I watched the sun set over the water, Michigan invisible on the horizon.

As I’ve written about before, my dad blessed my childhood with divination tools like Tarot, Numerology and Astrology. I already had a curious mind about all things “woo” and mysterious so this found me traveling down different windy roads with topics like spiritualism, Theosophy, the Golden Dawn, quantum physics, and this eventually (as all things do) lead me to the subject of water.

I was a voracious reader and one fateful day I came upon Dr Emoto’s Hidden Messages in Water at 16 years old. Dr Emoto was a Japanese researcher who’s focus was intention and he wrote about different experiments in this book.

In one experiment they put 3 plants in a closet (in order to avoid sunlight as a variable). They watered these plants every day but for Plant 1 - the intention was to speak good things to it. For Plant 2 - the intention was to speak negative things to it and for Plant 3 - the intention was to ignore it.

Guess which plant died?

The plant that was ignored.

This blew my tiny teenage brain.

I learned an ancient truth: there is so much power in intention.

… The book carried on.

Dr Emoto and his team did experiments with water and intention where they would take water from the same source (to avoid variable) and poured the water in different glasses and taped a range of intentions to the different glasses. These intentions were across a spectrum, from “love” and “compassion” all the way to “hate” and “greed.” The researchers would freeze the water and image the crystals with microscopic photography.

What did they find?!

The researches found that the water in glasses with loving intentions taped to it formed beautiful crystals, and the glasses of water that had negative intentions taped to it had trouble forming crystals all together, they looked almost deformed.

Teenage Jess’s mind was blown again, and, as a creative person who had always used their outward appearance as their creative expression I had come to learn another truth.

If you have an intention and you wish it upon water, that water will hold and carry that intention.

My brain immediately linked “intention,” “ink,” and “water” to tattoos on the skin. ‘Maybe this is why our ancestors, who knew so much about the stars, and had rituals and ceremonies and walkabouts, maybe this is why they had been found, discovered and unburied with tattoos inked into their skin,’ teenage Jess pondered, creating the connection between tattoos and ancient civilizations. (Not surprisingly, I grew up with an interest in the mysteries of the world, like the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Lemuria, Egypt; until growing up I realized all places are mysterious and magical, they’re just waiting for their magic to be rediscovered.)

Another fellow tattooed person, after hearing my reasoning, had a similar thought and said to me “When I started getting tattoos, it mostly felt like they were just being uncovered, rather than inked on.”

(continued after picture…)

I realized that maybe, just maybe, if I intended something… created an image of that intention, and that magic that intention contained… and inked it into my skin… could I actually change the frequency of my body, which is water and therefore holds memory?

If I ink something ancient, like the Flower of Life, the Sri Yantra, or perhaps the Unalome… does that match my frequency with the intention of that symbol, that has been revered, respected, for millenia?

Does that literally, metaphorically or even metaphysically invoke the power that the symbol has held for me and/or my life?

Can I literally harness the magic and power of the universe through intention, ink and water?

Teenage Jess cried “YES!” Twenty-year old Jess agreed and 30 something Jess still agrees, and not only that, but is so proud of Teenage Jess for making that discovery for herself and committing to it.

<3

My life has always been magic, and will continue to be nothing less than magic; maybe it’s not necessarily because of the “ink,” but it’s definitely linked to “water,” and 100% because of “intention.”

<3

Very special shout out to Janice Rodriguez for taking the time, one fateful night & stepping up to the task of counting all my tattoos - she counted 65, with room for error <3

shame

SHAME

Shame is a powerful and often overwhelming emotion that can be difficult to shake off. It is the feeling that we are flawed, inadequate, or unworthy of love and acceptance. Shame can be triggered by a wide range of experiences, from small mistakes to major life events, and it can have a significant impact on our mental and emotional well-being. It's the feeling that we are not good enough or that we have done something wrong, and it often leads to a sense of isolation and disconnection from others.

Shame is an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. ~ Brene Brown

When we experience shame, we believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, and that we are different or separate from the people around us. This can be incredibly isolating and can lead to feelings of loneliness and despair.

In my opinion, shame and guilt are some of the worst feelings a human can feel because of how sticky they are - they’re like quicksand and the more you feel them the more they suck you under. I believe this happens because of my belief in past lives, and ancestral and intergenerational trauma that goes all the way back in time, but remembered and/or echoed through DNA. Once upon a time when we were in nomadic tribes we depended on community for survival - if you did something bad you were potentially exiled from your community. This exile could have and would have meant death. I think it’s possible shame and guilt feel so awful because they bring up past-life memories and emotions of despair and threaten death.

Luckily for all of us, it IS possible to break the cycle of shame. The first step is to recognize and acknowledge and NAME our feelings of shame. We must be willing to confront our shame head-on and recognize that it is a normal and natural emotion - just like all other emotions. Remember all your Emotions are Like Puppies, and they are all valid.

Another effective approach is to challenge the negative beliefs that underlie our feelings of shame. Remember - we parent ourselves like our parents did when we are stressed. In the absence of our parents, we can become our biggest critic. Question where those internal voices are coming from - see if you can reframe that Critical Judge Self to perhaps a Supportive and Benevolent Coach. By questioning the validity of our negative self-talk and reframing our thoughts in a more positive light, we can begin to shift our perspective and feel more confident in ourselves.

I like to put sticky notes around my house reminding me “I did the best that I could in that moment,” “I can always try better tomorrow,” “I’m doing great.” So that every time my negative self talk may arise there is a sticky note not too far in the distance cheering me on. This begins to create a feedback loop: negative thought arises -> we feel it -> we find it in our body and name it -> we accept and breathe that this is all a part of being human -> we create a new thought -> if the negative thought is still there, that’s okay, -> begin again at step 1.

Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know before you learned it ~ Brene Brown

This is my favorite quote from Brene Brown. I believe there are no such thing as mistakes - only lessons that help us grow into the people we have always been on the inside. Another way to overcome shame is to practice self-compassion. This means treating ourselves with kindness and understanding, rather than judgment and criticism.

Allow yourself to grow through what you go through.

I believe that we are the people we needed when we were younger.

Let that sink in for a second.

We are, in our current self, the exact people we needed when we were younger. Allow yourself to go back in time and give the little version of yourself exactly what they needed. Re-parent yourselves with loving-kindness, listen to your inner self with compassionate understanding.

Ultimately, overcoming shame requires us to be brave and vulnerable. It means acknowledging our flaws and mistakes, and accepting ourselves as we are - beautifully flawed and perfectly imperfect. When we are able to do this, we can break free from the cycle of shame and live a more authentic and fulfilling life.

The fear of judgment and rejection can prevent us from being our authentic selves and can even lead to self-destructive behaviors. It's important to recognize and address feelings of shame in order to live a more fulfilling life. Just like I wrote about in Vulnerability: A Superpower, there is strength and alchemical gold in being vulnerable because it helps you connect more authentically to others.

Alchemy

I believe in the magic of Alchemy, or turning non-gold materials into gold through magic. Circumstances of our life will happen to us and AND for us; it is up to us to extract the gems of truth from these ordinary or unfortunate experiences and transmute them into gold.

I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The story of the lotus in Buddhism reminds me of alchemizing our life experiences and transforming them into enlightenment. The lotus starts its life from the bottom of a dirty pond, it grows upwards towards the light until finally transforming into the beautiful lotus flower that sits above the muddy water, becoming the illuminated flower that we all know and love. This is like us through life - we are born under certain conditions that we must grow upwards and expand beyond. Throughout life we are searching for the light - whether that is love, our purpose, money, etc. We stretch and reach towards this goal until finally achieving it and blossoming open above the mucky muck, reaping all the goodness that we have sown in the sunlight of this awareness.

This is the same with alchemizing our shame and vulnerability into gold for others. Shame thrives in secrecy and isolation, so by sharing our experiences with others, we can begin to build more meaningful connections with the people around us.

don’t ‘should’ on yourself!

There is no such thing as something you should have done. It simply doesn’t exist. What if the only thing that is truly real is this moment we’re having? You did your best at the time, with the knowledge that you had, and regardless of the outcome you have gained wisdom.

This is important: you did not walk away empty handed, you have an expanded awareness of the situation; you have gained wisdom and experience that you can apply to future circumstances.

Everything in your life has lead you to the moment you’re having right now. If you like where you are then nothing you have done can be seen as a mistake. If you don’t like where you are, instead of kicking yourself, focus your energy here in the present moment.

The magic of the present moment is what builds and blossoms your future. Changing your actions right now can create a new path forward. If you tried to plant a garden every year in the same place with the same seeds, and every year it didn’t work - wouldn’t you try changing something? We as humans are just more complex gardens :)

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

I remember going through a difficult break up and thinking “I should have done this,” “if only I did this,” and then having an epiphany that our hearts HAVE to break throughout our life! This happens for us so our hearts can expand and hold more love. This is the whole philosophy of Kintsugi - the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold - making something that broke even more beautiful than it was before it broke.

Everyone has cracks, that’s how the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen

Ultimately, the key to overcoming shame lies in cultivating self-compassion and self-love. By recognizing our inherent worth and treating ourselves with kindness and understanding, we can begin to heal the wounds that shame has caused and move towards a more fulfilling and authentic life.

By acknowledging and accepting our experiences and emotions, we can begin to work through them and find ways to move forward. By sitting with our discomfort, and practicing being comfortable being uncomfortable we begin to detach from these emotions. Rather than “I am shameful” we realize “shame is visiting us.” This gives us permission to feel what we feel without judgement.

Once again:

Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know before you learned it ~ Brene Brown

*I highly recommend listening to Brene Brown’s various youtube videos and podcasts on shame! She is highly informative, an amazing and compassionate educator and a deep listener <3