What better way to honor the spiritual side of your life than set aside a special place in your home for sacredness? Wiccans tend to love the tools of witchcraft, the candles, incense, athames, and pentagrams. We place these articles on display like a Catholic family's collection of saints and crucifixes. But even if you are practicing your religion openly your taste may run to more abstract symbols. By being creative and placing the objects that mean something to your family you can have sacred space set up in your home, and not freak your mother-in-law, or those nice "fundie" neighbors.

 The altar can be set with symbols of our religion; it can also be for family memories. How about small pebbles and shells the children found, family portraits, and awards? Photos of family members that have gone to Summerland would be nice on the altar to honor your ancestors. Photos of pets that have passed on also should have a place on the altar. Let the children help decide on the arrangement.

 To represent Deity our coven uses a crystal geode for the Goddess and a stag horn for the God. You could use anything that represented marriage and fertility. Your own wedding portrait or the decoration from your wedding cake would be good and would carry the theme of a family altar. A statue or painting of a couple would work.

 Tools on a traditional altar typically represent the elements. Earth, air, fire, and water are usually represented by the pentagram, censor, athame, and cauldron. On your family altar place objects that are symbolic to the elements, you may already have something in your home that would work.

Earth could be represented by a pretty rock, a potted plant, or a crystal. Maybe you have a small globe, or a dish garden. Place Earth on the North side of the altar.

For Air and East use a feather, a butterfly, a statue of an angel, a statue of a bird, or even a model airplane would work.

For Fire use a candle, or an oil hurricane lamp on the South. Maybe you have a piece of lava rock, or a picture of a picture of the family around a campfire. Dragons have traditionally been associated with fire; maybe you have a small dragon statue.

Water and West could be a goldfish bowl, a pretty goblet, a piece of blue glass, or an unusual bottle filled with colored water. Your child's shell collection would be perfect to represent water.

You could represent the elements by color, traditionally earth is green, air is yellow, fire is red, and water is blue. An arrangement of colored marbles in a dish of sand would work as an altar decoration. Maybe use a collection of bottles with colored water in the elemental colors. Use your imagination and look around the house for objects that will work. You probably have enough things to set up many small symbolic altars all around the house.

If you have a small table that is great, but you can use a shelf in the bookcase, a TV top, a wall shelf for knick-knacks. If you don't live alone you may have to use a dresser top in your bedroom.

Changing the altar with the seasons is a nice way to celebrate the wheel of the year. Flowers in May, holly for Yule, fall leaves at Mabon are just a few suggestions.

Use your own preferences, look for things that balance eachother in color, size, weight. Add the kid's drawings, report cards, whatever is special to your family. Let the family altar be a special place for honoring the Lord and Lady, and honoring your family. Let the family altar be a place to show your love for eachother.

Corn dollies

Jan 27, 1998

A reader's requestCorn dollies are traditional decoration for Imbolc, Feb. 1st when the seeds of the next harvest are still in the Mother Earth. Place her in a cradle, or doll's bed for She is sleeping. The first sprouts of Spring are resting within Her.

The easiest way is to make one out of a dried ear of corn, such as the Indian Corn decorations that appear in the Fall. Just use the top for the face and put a cloth skirt on her, use magic marker to make a face.

Or for a more traditional one, you use shafts of wheat. It takes about 40 or so. If you can't get wheat, pick any large seeded dried grass you find.

(Remember that as in any sympathetic magic it is the thought that counts, there is no rule on how to do it.)

Soak the wheat in hot water for about an hour until the stems become pliable. Divide the wheat in 4 piles, Cut the stems so they are even, they should be about 12 inches long. Braid the wheat stems of 3 piles, braiding from the seed head to about 7 inches. Tie a piece of thread around the braided ends to prevent them from becoming un-braided. Now take the braided section and bend it into a loop, tie the end of the braided part to the wheat seed head. Now you have 3 bunches of wheat and wheat stems with a braid loop on top. Pretend two loops are arms and the 3rd one is a head, gather them together and tie at the "neck" where the wheat and braid meet, try to place the unbraided stems in the back of the seed heads where they don't show, and bend the arms down so the Dolly is standing with her arms on her hips, the seed heads are the skirt.. Finally, take the wheat from the 4th pile and place them in back of the Dolly with the wheat seed heads pointing up, tie at the neck, and pull the seed heads through the head loop. Tie a bright ribbon around the neck to hide the thread. You can use the head loop to hang the Dolly on the wall.

I have seen variations of this pattern, I think this one looks like a dolly. I have also seen dolls made from corn husks that would work for a Brigit corn dolly.

****************

Dream Pillows

Sept. 10, 1998

Dream pillows are easy, they are like old-fashioned sachets but a little bigger. Just find some pretty cloth in a pattern or color that you like.

You will need: 1/4 yard of fabric; matching thread; 1 pound of dried herbs for stuffing,

Mugwort is traditional for dream pillows. You can also use lavender, white sage, cedar, rose petals or a combination of nice smelling herbs (you can use less herbs, mix them with an inert ingredient like sawdust, vermiculite, or those little styrofoam packing beads.)

Cut about a 8 by 16 inch rectangle (can be bigger or smaller or even a circle if you want) Fold the cloth in half with right sides together, sew a seam about 1/2 inch in from the edges all around the cut sides.

Stop about 4 inches before you sew all the way around to leave an open corner. Turn the pillow right side out through the small opening you left. Stuff the pillow with the herbs. Hand-sew the opening together using a whip stitch.

You can decorate the pillow by sewing a button in the middle and pulling thread through the center, sew a decorative binding around the edges, embroider it, or whatever you imagination comes up with.

While you are sewing and stuffing you can chant a spell to make it a magic present. Something like this (I just now wrote this, but make your own. Your own words are more powerful)

"Stitch, stitch, stitch, I sew,

may (_name_) rest on this pillow

may good dreams come to be

and bad dreams will never see.

Goddess bless this love of mine

lead (her/him) passage through out time."

Place the dream pillow under your head when you go to sleep. The herbs are supposed to induce vivid or psychic dreams.

 All text ©Lynnaea 1998 All rights reserved, all wrongs returned three-fold :-)