The Unexpected

That... was not quite what I anticipated my afternoon to be. And after thinking I was going to keep a minimal altar... I suddenly have three. Each one has less than I used to have, but as a whole... it sort of all spreads out.  Which.  Was unexpected.  It's alright. I'll see how it goes and make adjustments as they seem necessary and relevant.

So that happened. And it's pretty.  And it's good.

Compass

When I took down the altar I'd had, pretty much in the same state since college in preparation for putting the house on the market, the only thing I kept out was my compass. I think I kept out my pocket sundial as well, but that would be a different story…

So my compass. I always had it on my altar to align it to the directions, elements being associated with directions, yada, etc. Some sort of stone, etc in the North, my tiny (now broken) glass wand in the East, my double edge blade (scissors for various reasons, perhaps to be another story, not sure yet), and a cup to the West, sometimes with water, sometimes not. Candle in the middle, various other bits and pieces of accumulated symbols as well. Pretty solid representation of an altar.

When it all came down, I left the compass and sundial out as a non-obtrusive reminder of the directions and all the associated elements. A representing shadow altar of sorts.

My old altar was a grounding point for me for many years. I felt very ungrounded without it for a while, typically it was only dismantled for moves. As the time wore on and the old house didn't sell (3.25 years, ugh!), I refound my ground, and realized that I had been retaining the trappings of an ideal that didn't reflect my current practices (which were by that point virtually nil) much at all any more.

In part, I am coming back home and revisiting, re-grounding. But regardless, the compass has always been out, even when the sundial finally got packed away. North is alway to the north, more or less, magnetically speaking, the rest follows from there, with all the associated implications, physics or associative. Like Jack Sparrow, my compass lets me know which direction is north so that I can gain-regain my bearings.

Yes, I've been out wandering and sort of lost, and maybe now I'm starting to find my new-old skin again. My old-new skin?  Various things have been building up, not even so much around the edges, but spilling forth, riotously spring time.  I'm missing my silver candle holder, the broken wand, the tiny cast iron cauldron... I don't know that I want to set that all up again, but I want the pieces to configure on an as needed, just in time basis.  Though perhaps in the end, one cannot get as far with tools that got one here, and now I need different tools.  Missing my silver candle holder and tiny cauldron tonight, while appreciating the minimalism and depth of meaning that the compass and sundial came to represent.

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Thank you, Universe and Multiverse, for helping me find the rest of my original altar tonight!  I have missed these things so very very very much! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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