Little altars everywhere

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I got distracted by something shiny and Jenna being preggo on Degrassi. Previously, we had tiny altars everywhere taking up just about every conceivable surface of our house. Jow pushed for consolidation but I resisted for a while because I didn't know how it would work out and I fear change. But the promise of easy accessibility to our magical components won over my lizard brain. Also, we didn't consolidate everything everything.


First, let's start with some failure. Like many things, our wealth altar started with really good intentions and being all excited from Jason Miller's lecture on wealth. But we soon came to realize:


a) As neither of us are Catholic anymore and also lazy, we sucked at starting a new relationship with St. Expedite.
b) We also aren't terribly good with Chinese deities.
c) Perhaps the wealth altar facing a wall and often forgotten because of its shitty placement in the house is not the best.


Behold! Our failure!



So we decided to keep using the money box which had been working well and is on our new altar, continue using the money hand Jason had made for me (I named her Ali 'cause she is part alligator hand), remember to water our prosperity plants (desert roses) and utilize additional spellwork (honeypot, mojo hands, etc) and um . . . comment dit-on hit up the deities we already have relationships with for money as needed.


We have at the tippy top of one of our bookcases a place we call Skull Head Island, for reasons that should be readily apparent. Death from Sandman lives there, Creepy Doll recently took up residence and the two clay sugar skulls we won at GoG Samhains live there as well.


My altar to Yemaya remains a full altar as she is one of my main two patrons (Crow has His own too, but I didn't take a pic for some reason). Ali lives downstairs from Yemaya on the saucer holding the table together/pied-à-terre.


On my vanity table, I have a small v. pink altar space for my charm/Charm bracelet which also houses one of my personal demons (she's a Gluttony demon) that I work with.


My altar to the Goddess remains separate because Her statue is huge!


The window sill in Spare Oom is where the nature spirits/house fae hang out.


I have a little bedside altar which has super important religious texts as you can see, and a mini shrine to the Holy Family, teeny Crow and Goddess statue (I have a Yemaya one on my window sill).


I also have a little part of my kitchen counter space dedicated to kitchen witch work with the cauldron I co-opted from Jow and my housewives tarot deck. In this pic, I was burning my candle for my honeypot.


And finally, the new and improved central altar! It's actually a baker's rack and working out super well. The top shelf houses our Hindu deities we work with, middle shelf is the Greek deities we work with, third shelf is our working space, bottom rack is our ancestor altar and then the two baskets hold magical components.

Forget the things you thought you knew/ we'll make a very good girl of you . . .

So as Jow blogged, we had a spontanous Crafting night due to An Unfortunate Incident with the Washer Machine (and Dryer).

Now, coming from a Dianic background, I'm used to crafting in my Craft and the super secret teaching of, Make Shit Up As You Go. Now. I'm trying to learn to better educated and not just *completely* flying by the seat of my pants, I'm trying to have some . . .empirical evidence that things should work the way that it should work.

So, I did some research with Mme. Yronwode through her website and one of her books and checked in with Jow's knowledge base he picked up. And I learned, omg, hoodoo I love you! You have only a few of what could be be generously construed as "loose guidelines", the rest you figure out on your own. My favorite kind of working, whooo!

Guidelines that seem important* in making a Mojo Bag:

1. No more than 13 ingredients! Keep it down in there!

2. Bag must stay hidden! (If you are a lady-type who wears a bra, that's the place which is *awesome* because that's where I would stash my shaman bags)

3. Bag must be close to your person as much as possible!

4. Items in bag must be importante, not just a bunch of shit you throw in there. The bag is going to be a spirit, not a junk drawer, treat your bag accordingly! Dress the bag!

5. Remember to keep feeding the bag (. . .I haven't fed Ali lately, demonstrating my usual laissez-faire-the-world-is-my-tank-of-sea-monkeys approach to life which is not good for house plants or magical workings - she will be fed tonight!)

Hokay! Now a lot of bags seem to be for one purpose. My thought was, shit man, how many fucking bags am I supposed carry around on my person? I need varied shit to go down. I will experiment with multiple purposes and see what happens.

My process:

1. If me and the (heretoforth) unnamed are going to get along, I'm going to try to make it into a kindred spirit.

2. The bag being flannel seems reasonably important (though not super important). Whooo! I have cute flannel fabric scraps in omg pink! One side has little drawings of corsets and telephones and the other has pink stripes, perfect.

3. Make my list of shit I want, also referred to as: Petition papers. Some people say you should keep it a secret like a birthday candle wish. Me, I'm not too into sekrit traditions as a rule and I tend to believe if I'm shouting out my intention to the universe, my success rate will be higher. I picked (7) things I want because it's a magical number which may also help the bag. In no order:

a. To be pretty/thin - moonstone
b. To have happy relationships - shallot peel (substitute for red onion)
c. To be happy - a tiny goddess with a quote about being happy on the back
d. To save money and keep it - camomille
e. To have money for shit I want - irish moss
f. To be successful in my creative endevours - 3 bay leaves
g. Financial stability - clear quartz

Gathered items.

4. Sewed together the bag, listening to Rasputina. Used white cotton thread.

5. Wrote petition paper on a pink recipe card with a butterfly (transformation), trying not to have my pen leave the paper. Listen to The Money Maker as I do so.

6. Place items in the bag, making sure to charge each item appropriately.

7. Tie bag shut with green yarn I've hand dyed and hand spun. Seven knots and I chant a part from the Pierces' song, "Sticks and Stones" (Seven times I pierce my heart/ now I feel the magic start/ bind my will and soul to keep/ so I will it/ so let it be)(it's a hot vid, btw, ditto for Money Maker)

8. Dress bag with lavendar oil - front, back, top.

9. Gently spit good sipping Mexican tequila onto the bag (hey, if we're going to be pals . . .)

10. Think Evanescence lyric to "Bring Me to Life" to bring her to life.

11. Excited flurry of energy from the bag! I ask her what her name is, she tells me.

12. Realize I forgot to put petition paper in bag. Carefully jam paper in (I'm guessing she didn't want them to get wet from the life bring spit/tequila).


We did this on Sat. Results since Saturday:
* All of the designer suiting I liked at Bloomingdales went on massive sale, I had bought less expensive suiting at NY&Co. As a bonus, my boss got me the Bloomie's suiting. (shit I want)
* Let's just say on Sunday, Jow and I had a very nice evening in. ;) (relationship)
* If I'm interviewed for Secret Project going on, it would be accolades for my past work in a creative endevour (creative)
* Opportunity for overtime (stability)
* Spent less by a lot on groceries this week, a constant bane of my existance (stability)
* Feeling pretty good with all the work I've been doing on my appearance (appearance) and happy in general (happy)
* Was told by a friend that he envied my life (happy)

I will keep everyone posted!

* Usual caveats - this works for me it may not work for you, use at your own risk, don't juggle chainsaws

Ali

08 April 2009 @ 01:48 pm

I got a money hand from Jason Miller which seems to be helping. I read about it in his journal, and inexplicably i had this picture of a beautiful mehendi like picture of a hand that would be so beautiful by Yemaya's altar.

I suspect she put that image in my head. Having one would definitely
help so I thought, why not?

A few weeks later, Jow's like, you know it's an alligator hand clutching a pouch with things in it, right? And I'm like, omfg no! I never would have gotten it if I had known that!
But I think She was thinking oh, it's going to be so beautiful! And how that translated into my head was what I thought would be beautiful.

So we sort of compromised. I read Jason's letter that went with it, and did the spell work for it. We were worried about the cats getting it, so I got a small mason jar, Jow cut a hole out on the top, and I wrapped her in purple silk. Jason said the pouch is a living, working thing so I named her Ali and then it was a lot easier for me to handle the whole pouch full o' random bits and alligator hand. She lives on the bottom little saucer of Yemaya's altar, like they both want, which seemed to be working out.

It's easier to think of her personified as Ali who lives in a posh little downstairs apartment under Yemaya's place. We'll see if she likes it and if she works for me!