Tarot Shadow Work--Whats on your altar?

ah yes

I actually didn't use an alter,,

the reason was in my past life I am sure I dealt with magic, and most likely black magic at some point..
so when I did do the tarot shadow work, i moved past the alter idea,, or rituals..

yet , before doing the shadow work,, I did a lot of deep imagery so I still had a lot of respect for the excerise of working with the crone.

Holmes I think I will use a modified alter. In my living room I have a lot of statues, figures, quartz, and other objects that would be great on an alter but I think I will leave them the way they are. I will just do my shadow work on my living room.

I set up a little altar on top of a breakfast-in-bed tray so it's easy to move or take down if I need to. I covered it with two scarves and a dark blue, velvet altar cloth my grandmother made for me. In the north I have a large flint arrowhead and a long quartz crystal point I got from my great grandfather, east is a purple candle and a small obsidian arrowhead, south is an elk's tooth and a black and sparkly rock my great grandmother tumbled, west is a small flint arrowhead and a dark rose colored rock, also tumbled by my great gran. On the wall is a 'goddess image' - a b&w photograph of a large woman in a tulle skirt taken at a closed carnival. She's bending over and looking at a sign that reads "Snackbar."

Marie-Bernard,

I really like the arrow heads and the connection to your grandma on your alter . I think I need to find something of a personal connection for my living room which will be sort of a large alter.

My altar is housed in a small box, so it is portable and private. I'm still in the process of creating mine, I think it will develop over the course of the shadow work I'm doing.

I'm going to search for an image of the dark goddess that resonates for me on the internet and print it off to put with my altar. I want to get some velvet to line the box with, and some incense, so that all my senses will be involved. I currently have a chunk of raw amethyst, and quartz, an obsidian thumbstone, a small silver pentacle, a postcard image that came from the wild unknown deck when I bought it... (its of a blue butterfly soaring free from the brambles below, which resonates for me as my spirit soaring free when I have completed this shadow work), and a set of prayer beads I bought on Etsy. It has a skull at the top, then obsidian beads, with 3 amethyst in the middle, and dandelion root, and a key charm to finish it off. It feels like I got it for this work specificall, so that has gone on my altar too.

Once it's more complete and I have got everything I want for it, I will post a picture up

I'm brainstorming about mine. I do like having an organized space with meaningful things carefully arranged to help me slip into the right mindset for Tarot and meditation, although I don't see myself with a big elaborate altar. (The first time I tried working with this book, I got wayyyyy too hung up on the trappings.)

I like the idea of something portable. I don't know if it's big enough, but I have a small (really small!) cedar box from my mother that I might use, if things fit in it.

The only thing I'm sure of right now is an amethyst frog figurine; I wouldn't exactly describe the frog as my spirit animal, but it's meaningful to me in many aspects of my life. And the amethyst is a very appropriate stone!

I collect gems and crystals, I'm not sure if I can choose between all of them though. Maybe I will switch them out as the mood strikes me.

Everyone's alter seems amazing. I will place some objects around my star reading latter as I enter the cards and have a discussion with them. definitely some incense will be burning

Mine is pretty minimalist, but it feels right to me:

Amethyst frog
Vanilla bean (the easy way to incorporate orchid)
Tumbled fluorite stone (the gift from the Crone - I'd forgotten I even had this stone till I met her, then I found it instantly afterwards!)

I arrange them in a triangle on a small piece of purple velvet. There is enough room to add other small items if my altar grows as the work goes on.

I placed the follwing items in a pentacle on my preexisting altar, as representation of my shadow work.

An Octopus ring.

A Pisces charm/pendant.

A mini blue glass bottle & bead that looks like they belong together as scrying tools.

The "Stars" card from The Golden Botticelli tarot.