How to set up a Kitchens Altar & Ceremony Space
What is a ceremony space? Considering whether you’re a Caves, Markets, Kitchens, Mountains, Valleys, or Shores Environment, can help you dedicate a space with playful intention, and conscious awareness.
Having a spot in your home that allows you to gather your spirits and focus your energy is often called an altar, but these spaces for your private rituals can be called anything your heart desires.
Maybe your ceremony space is your bedside table. Maybe it’s the study. Maybe it’s your yoga room, or the closet you tuck your ritual tools away in.
Try these things to connect with your Kitchens Environment, and build a vibey ceremony site that resonates with you.
Burn something
Whether you practice smoke cleansing, like to ignite incense, or simply light candles, lighting something on fire (safely) can bring transformational energy and powerful activations to your altar. Consider opening your ceremony and rituals by setting something aflame, and close out the ritual by blowing the fire out. You can even begin your workday by lighting a candle to bring energy to your practice, and blow it out when you’re done. And if you’re burning something — it goes without saying; be fire-safe please!
Destroy something
Depending on your rituals, consider burning, ripping, eating or destroying something. For example, if you are writing out a manifestation list, consider burning it in a fire-safe dish after completion. Conversely, you could write out a list of things you wish to banish or be free of, and rip or shred the paper into fine strips to recycle or make paper mâché. Perhaps you practice the art of reading tea leaves, in which case you would consume the liquid (destroying it) and then add your left-over tea leaves into the compost.
Practice a specific craft
This could be writing at your altar, reading oracle or tarot cards, or even knitting! Whatever your magical craft is, whether it is for pleasure, play or part of your vocation or spirituality, consider setting out a designated ceremony space to participate in this part of your life.
Mix it up
Don’t keep your altar set and stagnant. Regularly switch up the things you set out on its surface. Should something special come into your possession, planned or unexpectedly, considering giving it a moment on your altar before it finds its way into your life. This gives you the space to bow and honour this new energy and let it alchemize into your reality.
Consider collapsing your altar
The Kitchen resonates to assembling and disassembling things. This is a space of alchemy and transformation. Consider how you might want to totally tidy and clear your ceremony space or altar, and how you may get great joy in setting it up when you need or want it.
Play with the elements
When setting up your altar, bring in a water element, fire element, earth element and air element, whatever these may mean to you. If you prefer Chinese rituals, consider bringing in fire, earth, wood, water, and the metal element. Both sets of elements work together in a cycle of transformation. In feng shui, the productive cycle among the elements is that fire produces earth, earth produces metal, metal produces water, water produces wood and wood produces fire. In the exhaustive cycle, fire exhausts wood, wood exhausts water, water exhausts metal, metal exhausts earth and earth exhausts fire. And in the destructive or killing cycle, water destroys fire, fire destroys metal, metal destroys wood, wood destroys earth and earth destroys water. Consider how you may be able to play with these cycles among the elements to bring creation energy to your altar and ceremony space.
Ritual idea: create something
When things are feeling tired, stagnant, or simply lacking in energy, consider what you might be able to make from scratch! This can be a nourishing meal or fun dip, a new knitted scarf, DIY beeswax candles, a pair of handmade shoes — even a painting or sketch! Put your energy into something ritualistically so you can experience the sense of creation around you.
Build the classic Kitchens altar
To connect deeply with the alchemy in your environment, set out a traditional altar by finding a small table top where you can place important items on it. Having an altar in the center of the room is ideal, whether this is a grand table or a cute floor set up. Seek inspiration from the literal kitchen, and place a chalice or drinking vessel, knife/athame or dowsing tool, your journal/grimoire or book of shadows and writing tool, and collections of your favourite herbs on hand. Be sure to include a fire source like matches or a lighter to ignite change in your rituals. Include any amulets, relics or crystals that you vibe with, and dedicate specific intentions to your manifestation practice. Call in the elements if you wish, and let your altar remain active for a set time before closing it down. Keep a divination tool ready for use on the altar, such as oracle or tarot cards, lithomancy kits, tea leaves, or a crystal ball. Enjoy your ceremony.
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