New Altar

 

I've been working on an altar. Since I don't really know what druidic ritual involves yet, I'm basing it partly on knowledge from my Pagan days. As an altar cloth, I'm using material with mountains and trees screenprinted on it (I later subtituted this with a green patterned fabric, and you can see the first cloth in the background of the picture above). 

On top of the cloth I have laid a strip of Davidson tartan, which was used at my handfasting, with some hessian underneath for contrast,and to provide fringes, which I've read are traditional.

On top of the altar is:

• A rectangular box containing incense, tea lights, and a penknife for ritual use
• A smaller box (not pictured) given to me by my grandmother, which is a tea light holder
• A container of water to be blessed
• A 'tree of life' incense burner, with white sage* incense blocks for saining
• A musical charm made by a friend, representing my main creative interest
•  A lotus incense burner, representing my interest in meditation and Buddhism
• Wooden sticks and pebbles to represent earth, in an aluminium container (not pictured)
• Art by an Etsy seller known as 'Essence of Awen'
• A pouch of various crystals
• Three handmade clay leaves
• A triple spiral symbol

* As of July I learned that using white sage is a closed Native American practice and that saining is done with Juniper.

I've now read the Story of Taliesin, as instructed in Exercise 4 of the first booklet.

Exercise 5 is to find another story and memorise it, but I feel drawn to skip ahead to booklet 3 temporarily, since it covers some of the ground I'm already starting to explore elsewhere.