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A Guide to Pagan Altars
The world of Wicca is wide and wonderful, and your personal altar is at the beating heart of your practice. Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or a newcomer to the Wiccan arts, your altar will play a vital role. And here at Dragonspace, we’re proud purveyors of the different elements that comprise a Wiccan altar.
An altar is a spiritual and personal space, so it should only be as elaborate as what suits you. Typically, an altar is a shelf or table laden with practical and symbolic tools for your Wiccan workings. However, if you’ve got limited space at home, your altar can be contained inside a box that’s packed and unpacked to suit your purpose. Some people even have seasonal altars that change with the Wheel of the Year, or a nature altar featuring treasures found on walks and adventures. You will know the intent behind your practice, and will understand what will work best for you.
Below is a list of typical objects found on an altar and the meaning behind them:
Altar Cloth
A cloth draped over your altar both adds a beautiful aesthetic and provides powerful symbolism. The colours and symbols of your cloth might correspond with your magical intent for that day - trees for nature-based magic, or pink for spells about self-love or relationships. Cloths also serve a functional purpose - to catch any slippery spills from candle wax or ceremonial oil. Our decorative sarongs in a range of patterns can double as perfect altar cloths.
Bell
A ceremonial bell is often used in ritual to mark the beginning or end of a practice, or important moments. They are also powerful cleansing tools, with a clear calming ring to rid your sacred space of any negative pre-existing energies. If your practice follows the elements, a bell can also symbolise air/wind.
Athame/Boline
There are two types of blades commonly used in Wiccan practice. The boline is traditionally used for physically cutting, e.g. herbs, or inscriptions on ceremonial candles. Its blade is curve-shaped like a crescent moon and can sometimes be referred to as the ‘white-handle knife’. The athame is a symbolic magical tool, used for directing energy during rituals. Its blade is pointed and double-edged and can sometimes be referred to as the ‘black-handle knife’. Some magical practices allow for the athame to be both a practical and symbolic tool, so that’s up to you to decide. You can etch or inscribe your Wiccan blades to suit your intention.
Crystal Ball
Crystal balls are powerful tools for clairvoyance and scrying. While the image of a fortune-teller crouched over a crystal ball seeing future scenes unfold is timeless, it’s not really accurate. Rather than showing fortunes like films, crystal balls are said to reflect unseen parts of the subconscious mind and inner psyche. Sometimes made of crystal minerals and sometimes of coloured glass, a crystal ball is a light, bright addition to your altar.
Goblets and Cauldrons
Many rituals will require a vessel or some kind, be it to carry potions, oils, incense, or even water for scrying. Cauldrons are an iconic image associated with witchcraft and can serve both magical and mundane purpose (they look fantastic on an altar!) Goblets and chalices can be used to hold drinkable liquids in ritual, such as sacred water or wine, and are also symbolic of the goddess’s womb.
Incense and Candles
Fire is a key part of elemental magic and manifests in burning incense, oils and candles. Specific aromas of incense and oil bear symbolic meaning - such as sage for cleansing and rose for love - and different coloured candles reflect the changing seasons, amongst other aspects of the natural world. See our full range of aromatic products here to find the right fit for your altar.
Symbols
There are many important motifs and icons that appear throughout Pagan ritual and ceremony. The pentacle is one of the most common - a five-pointed star that’s an amulet for protection and a depiction of the four orientations or elements, amongst other meanings. The triple goddess symbol is another key one, appearing as a triple moon representing the three stages of womanhood - maiden, mother and crone. Nature symbols are also abound in Pagan and Wiccan practice - from animal icons like crows and wolves to elemental symbols and the Tree of Life. Scatter these symbols on your altar as decorative items or powerful inscriptions on your practical tools.
Divinatory Tools
Your altar will also be the place for your divinatory tools, such as tarot and oracle cards, pendulums, runestones and more. Read more about divination at Dragonspace here.
Your Grimoire
And last but not least, your Grimoire or Book of Shadows will likely take pride of place on your altar - the home for your spells, potions, rituals, observations, insights and more. We’ve got a range of beautiful leather journals that would make for perfect Grimoires here, or read more about other creative and magical uses for our notebooks here.
A Special Post from The New Forest Fairy Festival
The only thing more special than finding your own magical self is finding a community of other magically minded people to be a part of. Dragonspace is a place where dragon-lovers, Wiccans, occultists, artists, clairvoyants and more meet and collide, but there are communities all over the world that come together to celebrate, bond and believe in the unbelievable.
One of our Dragonspace staff members had the chance to visit one such place over in England last weekend. Nestled amongst the trees of the New Forest in southern England (home to over 3000 gorgeous wild ponies) was the annual New Forest Fairy Festival, a celebration of all things fairy.
From market stalls selling Dragonspace-esque goods (wands, incense, jewelry, altar supplies) to live music and healing workshops, the Fairy Festival was a place where magic really came alive. Here are some of the highlights:
Meeting Josephine Wall herself
In our last post, we wrote about some of our favourite fantasy artists, of which the whimsical Josephine Wall was one. What a delight it was to meet Josephine at her stall at the festival, looking stunning in a long green gown with threads of gold woven through her hair. We told Josephine that her artworks are loved all the way over in Vancouver, and she was pleased to hear! She was selling prints, notebooks, calendars, oracle decks and gift cards, and we got some merchandise personalised signed. A spell-binding experience!
Learning lesser known facts about Tarot and Runes
The festival workshops were held in a cosy colourful tent, featuring interactive talks by practitioners in various mystical arts. The tarot workshop, run by Rudi, cut through a lot of the noise about tarot and really got stuck into the history and the symbolism. Rudi explained how the cards of the Major Arcana beautifully articulate the human experience - from The Fool staggering naively through the world as a child, to the turmoil of The Lovers, and the cyclical nature of Death. Even those sceptical about divination would have enjoyed Rudi’s explanations.
The Runes workshop was run by Glenn, who took us on a journey through the runes, not only explaining their history and symbolism, but how runes appear in everyday life. For example, you’ve probably seen the Gebo rune ('X') meaning “gift” at the bottom of greeting cards, letters or emails from loved ones, likely in the form of “xoxo”. And we’ve actually got a rune on our cell phones - a bind rune, in fact! Take a look at your Bluetooth symbol now. That symbol is actually two runes - the one for ‘H’ and the one for ‘B’ - bound, or merged, together. It was the signature of Harald Bluetooth, a 10th-century king who united Denmark under his rule, and so the Bluetooth function is named for him as it unites two electronic devices together. The more you know!
We couldn’t help but notice that the Fairy Festival wasn’t the only magical thing about Burley, the charming village in the middle of the New Forest where the festival was held. The village itself was full of shops selling magical goods, including the iconic Coven of Witches. Apparently, during the 1950s a famous white witch lived in Burley named Sybil Leek, who had a pet jackdaw and would walk the village in a long black cloak. It’s no wonder magical folk flock to the New Forest - with its ancient woodland, open moors and wild ponies that wander the land freely. We highly recommend a visit if you’re in England!
It’s just not a festival without music. From Celtic jigs to medieval marketplace music, Irish folk ballads to Enya, you’re always surrounded by music in Dragonspace, and the Fairy Festival was no different! The main stage saw an eclectic mix of live bands set the scene - country rock, dreamy folk, New Age and more - always with a crowd of little fairies dancing in the front row. The cosy Acoustic Tent was a great place to sit and take a breather for a few moments, serenaded by acoustic sets. There were also belly dancing and drumming workshops, and a wonderful Elemental Dance tent which invited festival-goers to just let it all go and dance...sometimes the best form of healing.
We have to mention the abundance of fairy dogs walking around the festival. These furry friends seemed to love sporting glittery fairy wings or tutus, enjoying the magical atmosphere (or maybe the scraps of food dropped under picnic tables). And of course, we can’t forget the famous New Forest wild ponies! While they didn’t make it into the festival grounds, these majestic free-roaming creatures are found all over the New Forest - they can cause quite the traffic jam on the winding roads! If you’re lucky enough to pay a visit to the Forest, appreciate these beautiful beasts, but keep your distance - while gentle, they are wild and shouldn’t be petted or fed. Just like a unicorn, of course.
And there you have all the ingredients for a truly spell-binding weekend! It was also lovely to see all the parallels between our Dragonspace community and a community all the way across the ocean. Britain and its European neighbours are the original home of much of the myth and magic we trade in at the store - Celtic wisdom, Irish fairy stories, Viking lore, medieval dragon tales. We love that the magic lives on at the New Forest Fairy Festival and we can't wait until next year!
Some of our favourite fairy forest treasures here at Dragonspace:
Spotlight on Fantasy Artists
Stepping into Dragonspace is a sensory experience, with visuals, scent and sound all coming together to create our little fantasy world. A lot of the visual wonder is thanks to the talented fantasy artists whose works line our shelves, adorning gift cards, art books, t-shirts, tarot decks, statuettes and more. These artists bring our imaginations to visual life, from the Gothic realms of Anne Stokes to the vivid wonderlands of Josephine Wall.
Here’s a bit more about the artists you’ll find as you roam the store:
Amy Brown
American artist Amy Brown is known for her fairies, which she’s been painting since 1992. Amy predominantly uses watercolours in subdued hues that remind us of the changing seasons. We particularly love the eclectic fashions on Amy’s fairies, which are clearly inspired by fashions throughout history - Victorian corsets, striped stockings, medieval gowns, white furs and Steampunk goggles. There's a real sense of story to Amy's often wistful fairies, and you can't help but want to know more about them as you peek inside their worlds.
Amy is also the artist behind our fantastic fairy teacup collection (which sold out quickly - but let us know if you want us to notify you when we get more in!)
Browse our full collection of Amy Brown products here.
Anne Stokes
Anne Stokes is a well-known British fantasy artist with a penchant for the Gothic. Her work is easily identified by its striking subjects and moody aesthetic, from fallen angels and vampire queens to dragons with their princesses. Her art also litters the world of pop culture - her illustrations have been featured in the Dungeons & Dragons books, and in the early days of her career, she designed tour merchandise for bands like Queen and the Rolling Stones, and fashioned jewelry lines for Discword and Harry Potter brands (what an enviable resume!) We love the boldness of Anne’s art, and the way she shows the shadowy side of the fantasy world without being sinister.
Browse our full collection of Anne Stokes products here.
Josephine Wall
Who doesn’t love visiting the surreal rainbow landscapes of Josephine Wall’s imagination? Josephine’s art is a dream come to life, recognisable for its gorgeous use of light and colour, with a heavy focus on purples, pinks, bright blues and yellows. You have to stare at Josephine's pieces for a while to truly appreciate them, as they’re often a collection of images that blend into one another to form a larger whole. British-born Josephine is heavily inspired by nature, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a piece of her art that doesn’t have some kind of natural element in it - curved shells, bright flowers, shimmering moons, dancing butterflies, sprawling trees, the list goes on and on.
If you’re in England, you might actually get a chance to visit Josephine. Her magical gallery is in Dorset and she welcomes visitors by booking.
Browse our full collection of Josephine Wall products here.
Nene Thomas
American artist Nene Thomas’s art is Romantic and intriguingly realistic, even if the content is mythical. Her fairies have a real human quality and intricate fashions that you can admire for ages. Like Anne Stokes, Nene Thomas has also contributed art to fantasy role-playing games, working with Magic: The Gathering at the start of her career. While early on she favoured watercolours, Nene now creates all her art digitally - adding a modern aesthetic to traditional fantasy. Nene’s work spans the dark and light ends of the magical world, featuring Gothic fairies, whimsical forest scenes, romantic embraces, snowscapes, oceanscapes, beauties and beasts of all kinds.
Browse our full collection of Nene Thomas products here.
Brian Froud
While all our featured artists have large followings, Brian Froud's work has probably had the biggest influence on popular culture. If you've seen cult fantasy films The Dark Crystal or The Labyrinth (and who hasn't?) then you've come across Brian's art - he was a conceptual designer on both films. His work is quirky and gloriously grotesque, with his most famed illustration collections including Goblins, Trolls, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries and Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. There's a huge sense of humour and playfulness to Brian's art, and his partnership with Jim Henson's Creature Shop (responsible for The Muppet and Sesame Street) seems only natural. His wife, Wendy Froud, is also a talented fantasy artist and puppet-maker. We'd love to see what their dinner parties are like!
Browse our full collection of Brian Froud products here.
We're forever in awe of the artists that help make Dragonspace even more magical with their spell-binding creations. Do you have another favourite fantasy artist you think we should check out? Let us know in the comments below!