Tag Archives: pandemic

Mind your Altar

If you keep an altar, formal or informal, it is most important right now, especially in the pandemic when many of us are cooped up inside that you tend to it. Left unattended, an altar can become a drag on your energy rather than a place to go for refreshment and clearing.

Altars are magnifiers of energy. Some have open portals. In one sense they are a way to communicate with and receive from the unseen. In another sense, they are a reflection of yourself, where you are and how you are feeling.

Untended altars can have residual spells left from long ago, doors left open that should have been shut. They can be holding onto energies that helped you in the past but because you have changed, no longer serve you.

It’s easy to forget. We all do it. Life is so full of challenges and things to mediate. I’ll tell you my story so you know that we are in this together.

This morning, I was feeling claustrophobic, as I usually do on New Year’s Day, looking at the holiday decorations and lights. I put them away. With great effort, I dissembled two jigsaw puzzles that had carried me through the solitary holidays. Things felt better already.

Now that the way was clear to my altar, so I took a look and noticed – oh my goddess – an offering for the dead from Samhain! I saw a mini-altar set up for a friend a month ago. She is ok now. She doesn’t need it. And the water had long dried up in my wild mountain creek effigy. The candle holder I was using was made of rock salt. I never really liked rock salt. Why do I have that up there?

In less than five minutes, through removing everything that felt energetically “dead” to me and restoring the foundation of the altar, it started humming along. My entire apartment immediately felt significantly better! Wow! Such little effort with a clear focus and I am back on track. At least for now, right? This pandemic is really hard!

Take a look at your altar. Does it need a little freshening up? Bless you for taking care of yourself.

Tasara Jen Stone

Hold on, my friend.

My heart goes out to those who are emotionally suffering under the “shelter in place” order. I know. It can be excruciating to stay present while in the depths of one’s own disorganized self, especially if one has known great tragedy. And who in this great world has not? If not in our families and relationships, by the influences of corporate greed, which has swept us away, again and again from our true heart needs, while gouging Mother Earth, who literally is us in every way imaginable.

Maybe there is some energy rerouting that can happen. Think of the awe-inspiring, creative force each of us contains. We all have designed our own flow to keep our lives stable, investing our energy in chosen places, people, media, activities and mental structures. Now that our normal balance is upset, our energy might be spilling over, stopped up. It might be striking out. It can burrow down and create depression. Or it can just freeze and all those things we have been avoiding are right here, maddeningly in the forefront.

Hold on, my loved ones. This is a rare visit to the sacred forge of transformation. The power is building up and the heat is rising. This is the time to use every tool in your toolbox, every lesson you have learned about taking care of yourself, to rest, to ground, to breathe deeply and to listen. To dance, speak, sing, to ponder. To let yourself freak out. To write, break bonds, reach out or let go. You know what to do.

The quiet voice that has been whispering to you, all this time, is still with you. Listen. Listen. Allow true inspiration to come from the depths of yourself, the earth, just as the Spring tendrils curl and reach upwards in a dance towards the coming sun.

I know you. You can do this.

Tasara Jen Stone