Hearth and Home- Creating Your Kitchen Altar

On a low table or chest of your choosing, place a forest green cloth and a brown candle to represent family and home. Add lovely objects you have gathered, including from the garden and outdoors: ocean-carved driftwood, a gorgeous flower, a dried seed pod, a favorite crystal, whatever pleases your eye. It is of the utmost importance to add a bouquet of wildflowers native to your area you gathered close to where you live or bought locally. These posies will help integrate you and your home into your neighborhood and geographic region. Add a sweetly scented sachet of herbs from your kitchen garden or those you intend to plant: rosemary, lavender, thyme, mint, all of which imbue your space with positive energy. Burn associated essential oils, those which will create an aura of comfort around your kitchen including vanilla, cinnamon, sweet orange neroli in an oil lamp. Finally, anoint the brown candle which concentrating on the power of peace and bliss surrounding your home and all around your kitchen altar. Chant:

Peace and abundance are in abundance

And here true bliss surrounds

From now on, all disharmony is gone

This is a place of powerful blessings

For here lives sheer joy.

And so it is- blessed be!

This consecrated space will ease your spirits at any time. Your altar connects you to the earth if which you are a part.

Power Potpourri

Simmer this mixture on your stove whenever you feel the need to infuse your space with protection or do an energetic turnaround from negative to positive. A bad day at work, family squabble, an unfortunate incident in your neighborhood; instead of just muddling along, you can do something about it and your creation of the positive will help you and your loved one as well as your neighbors. This Power Potpourri will also safeguard from outside influences that can be disruptive. Set your intention and gather these herbs from your stores:

¼ cup Rosemary

4 Bay Laurel Leaves

2 Tablespoons Basil

1/8 cup Sage

1 Teaspoon Dill Weed

1/8 cup Cedar

1 Teaspoons Juniper Berries

Mix the herbs together by hand. While you are sifting, close your eyes ad visualize your home protected bb a boundary of glowing white light. Imagine the light runs thought you to the herbs in your hand and charge them with the energy of safety, sanctity and protection. Add the herbs to slowly simmering water and breathe in the newly charged air. 

A major mojo power ritual for heavy times

Mayan Fire Ceremony

What you need:

Candles in the following colors: red, yellow, green, blue, white, and black

Herbs: tobacco, rosemary, lavender, cedar, sage, and rose petals

Incense: copal, myrrh, or any resin-based incense

2 cups sugar

1 chocolate bar per person

Bells, rattles, drums, and other noisemakers

A firepot, fireplace, or safe place for an outdoor fire, paper for your intention

The candle colors represent the six directions: north, south, east, west, up, and down (or sky and earth). They also represent the different people of the world.

Gather your friends together at dusk on new or full moon  and ask them to bring a colored candle (assign them a color), a noisemaker, and an open mind. Ask them also to write out what they want to purge from their life and bring the paper into the circle. The Mayan Fire Ceremony serves to bring positive new influences into our lives and also to dispel what no longer serves for good. This “letting go” can be anything. For me, one year ago, it was cancer, and this year it was too much clutter. For you, it could be an unhealthy relationship, a job that makes you miserable, or a cramped apartment.

Here are the steps to the ritual:

1.     Build a fire at 5:00pm and have it burning brightly as your guests arrive. Place a big bowl of herbs, flower petals, and incense near the fire.

1.     Create a circle around the fire and ask the eldest in the group to slowly draw a circle of sugar around the fire.

2.     When the elder has moved back into place in the circle, each person should light his or her candles from the fire and place it in the sugar circle, creating a mandala.

3.     Ask the youngest person to lead the group in this chant:
My life is my own
I must but choose to be better,
Vital breath of life I breathe
No more pain and strife!
Wise ones, bring us health and life
Bring us love and luck
Bring us blessed peace
On this our New Year’s Day.
Into the fire, we toss the old
Into the fire, we see our future.
Harm to none and health to all!

Everyone should rattle and drum away, making merry and rousing the good spirits. The spirits of the wise elders will join you.

After the drumming, start around the circle, beginning with the eldest. Allow people to speak about what they want to release from their life, and have them toss their “letting go” paper into the fire. Then the eldest person should lead the group in a prayer for collective hopes for the coming your, and anyone who wants to add something should also speak out wishes for positive change, for themselves and for the world.

Thank the wise elders and ancestors for their wisdom and spiritual aid by throwing some chocolate into the fire. Be sure to keep some for members of the circle to share and enjoy. The Mayans held the belief that a plentitude of offerings to the ancestors would bring more blessings. They also believed that fire ceremonies helped support the planet and all the nations of the word. Gifts to the fire signal to the elders that they can return through the door and to the other world, until you call upon them for help in the future.

Today- gather the women and show your power!

Woman Power Ritual:

Gather a group of women together. Ask them to bring pens, paper, and offerings of fruit, flowers, or vegetables to Carmenta. Use these to build an altar, with the bounty placed around a black bowl filled with water that is used as the scrying mirror. Place candles around the room and turn down the lights.

Form a circle around the bowl and altar, and as each woman places her offering beside the bowl, she says aloud the name of her offering:

Pomegranate [or orange or lily, etc.], Goddess’s herb,

Perform for me enchantment superb.

You give us grain and bread.

Foretell for me the year ahead.

After placing the offering to Carmenta on the altar, each woman should kneel over the mirror and look upon the water. Some people may see images, but oftentimes the information comes as an impression, thought, or meditative reflection. People should only share their visions if they feel the need to do so.

After everyone has had a turn, everyone should chant and sing together:

Daughters under this sun

Sisters under this moon

Tonight we receive your blessings

Carmenta, goddess great and good—

We thank you for the year to come.

Now open the circle and sit in silence for at least ten minutes, so that everyone present can record her impressions and visions from Carmenta in a journal. In years to come, if you and your circle of women decide to observe the Feast of Carmentalia annually, as I recommend, you can share and compare notes from prior years. This is a wonderful way to process the passages of your lives. Afterward, a feast is called for. The fruit and veggies from the altar should be consumed, and the flowers should decorate the dining table. Make sure to smudge very well with sage at the end of the evening, as remaining energies should scatter and not stay in the home. Water from the scrying bowl should be poured into the earth outside.