To me a sacred altar is a sacred space in your home!  It’s a place that you create with your intention to make it sacred.  Altar comes from the latin word altus meaning “high”.   In ancient times people thought that placing something higher up meant it was closer to the Gods.    All cultures around the world use altars as a symbol of the divine and usually a place to honor and remember whatever it is they believe in.  Classically an altar is a place to worship and give reverence to God, but you can create your altar to suit your beliefs.

I think the key is to put items on your altar that remind you of the divine.  These items can be of special personal significance to you, which is also important since it is your altar.  The stronger your relationship to your altar the more powerful it will be for you.  Altars have their own power and energy that accumulates from your intention and your using it.   The more you use it, the stronger this energy becomes.   As you connect to God through your prayers and meditation at your altar, you bring your love and reverence to that space and the divine responds by sending you blessings at your altar.   This creates a wonderful connection that will resonate with the combined energy of the Universe and your intention.

You can make your own altar for whatever intention you can think of.  I like to have a place where I can focus my attention on the divine, on All That Is and spirit.   Because I believe there are many paths to divine Truth I personally believe in several faiths.  I take from each what feels best to me and so my altar has a variety of items that have special meaning to me.  Mostly I chose things that I feel are sacred, or have special divine energy.   I have several altars in my home, one is in my bedroom, another in my office and I have a couple in my meditation room.  The one in my bedroom is an altar with pictures of 3 Siddha saints, Siddhas are people who have attained enlightenment in the Hindu faith.  On this altar is a box of dried flower petals from the ashram of one of these saints, a peacock feather that another saint had use to give blessings to people who came to visit them and lastly there are a 2 statues of the Hindu deities, Shiva, who banishes duality, and Ganesh, the remover of obstacles.  This altar reminds me of the goals of Siddha yoga meditation, which is to achieve unity with God and self-realization by going within.  

My other altars are less defined, they have a center photo or statue of a saint or deity, such as Quan Yin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy.   Since I do work with crystals, and crystals like to be out in the open rather than in a closed box, all of my altars have numerous crystals on them.  This helps keep my crystals charged and clean of negative energies because of the sacredness of my altars and my prayers there.  I also have incense holders there to burn incense, and plenty of candles to represent the eternal flame that is in all of us.  It is thought in many cultures that the smoke of the incense and candles bring our prayers to heaven, as well as clean and cleanse the energy there.   I also have, of course, lots of angels on my altars, and some special stones that I have picked up from places that I found had special energy.  For example, I have a small stone that I found underneath Balanced Rock which is considered a Sacred Power Place.  I also have some small river stones from Cathedral Rock, and some pebbles from the Fairy Glenn in Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona.  I also have a small lava stone from a beach in Kona, Hawaii.

I even have a Feng Shui corner of my altar in my office to bring me good luck and prosperity!  I have the Chinese frog with a coin in it’s mouth, a crystal in the shape of an ancient Chinese gold ingot. It has the shape similar to a boat, this symbolizes abundance.  Gold ingots are potent symbols of wealth attainment

Symbolically, altars represent All That Is.  Some people like to put representations of the four elements, which are earth, wind, fire and water.   Mostly, my altar items are things I find special and have a sacred element to them because I know they carry with them special energy and blessings from where they’re from and more importantly, what they represent to me. - Lisa K.