Find your Mojo. Create a Space. Build an Alter

This blog arrived after I gifted my sister a few sessions of kinesiology. She was feeling there was more to her journey into retirement from academia and was beginning to open herself to new experiences and starting her creative writing.

 She actively explores all that life has to offer, but she’d let her intellect and mind dominate. Now she wanted to feel her heart and come from that space.

After a kinesiology session I sent her some items – a yellow Giraffe to remind her of her own sense of self and her personal power, and a crocoite crystal to support with transitions, rediscovery, zest, and creativity.

From these items, she created a collection on her special, black-enamelled plate and set it on the old desk from our dad in her writing room. You can see it in the picture.

Each item has its own story of significance, each piece representing family. The combined whole creating a sense of grounding, support, and connection – her place in the world.

It is a place where she rests her eyes allowing herself to feel her heart and connect to her own creativity. A place to create focus and intention. Like an Alter.

But what is an Alter?
It’s a physical object or set of objects placed in a purposeful way, and in a purposeful place, that have significance to you. The objects, like the crystal on her plate, may represent an element, archetype or energy whose influence you would like to have present in your life.

When you hear the word “alter”, many people relate it to the front table in a church, holding bowls, candles, and cloths, each with their significance to God and the collective shared belief. The alter becomes a place of focus and reverence.

I remember my first visit to Bali in 1996 and seeing little displays on the pavements holding flowers, food, cigarettes, lollies, and incense. Small daily alters, honouring beliefs and the alter-maker’s wish for safety, prosperity, and happiness, which are swept away at the end of the day.

 The creation of your own alter must resonate with you. The key, I believe, is to hold your intention: why you created it, why you add the trinkets and simple pieces, whatever they are. The alter lets you connect with that intention daily, absorb its “why”, integrate its purpose into your life and give thanks to what you have, who you are and what makes your life special. The alter creates a space to hold you.

My sister commented after she sent me the photo of her alter that a couple of family members were not represented. Everyone else was there, represented in the objects –– even our dad, who was the desk upon which her alter sat. She saw that 2 people were “missing” and was curious. She tried to understand why they weren’t there; her intellect taking over.

Maybe she was seeing this as a negative thing at the time, a void that had to be filled to make the alter feel complete. But to me it’s not negative or a lack that these two people aren’t being recognised within her alter. It’s OK that it has space. It’s a space to be filled in good time, allowing objects representing others to join.

Maybe those not there are yet to have their significance realised. Perhaps the lesson of her alter is about creating a space to hold focus and intention and having patience to allow it to grow and expand as she connects to her heart. Allowing space so “they” find their own way into her alter. Leaving their trace on her black plate.

My sister now writes poetry and stories. I imagine her sitting at our dad’s desk with her black plate of yellow and orange objects, helping her focus, bringing the energy of the people represented by each object into her room. Such as our parents; the owl hiding behind the flamboyant picture.

I see her using the stories of these objects as she teases out her creative story lines. I see her finding her narrative voice and I see her connecting to her heart. She writes embraced by her alter, with its significance and its space to grow and change as she does.

Have you got an alter?

I’d love to see pictures of your own alter. To hear your story of why it is significant to you. If this blog has helped you realise that your heart needs a dose of connection, reach out for a free curiosity chat.

From my Heart to Yours

 Zoe Jack
Holistic Kinesiologist