by queen v

Created on: September 17, 2008

Not too long ago I would have believed that once you fell in love with a man, if only he stayed with me, I'd forever live in bliss because I would have him all to myself. I believed we would cuddle all night, I dreamed of holding hands at the movies, watching TV together, I believed in a happily ever after with this man. Unfortunately (as I believed the circumstances to be at the time), this man I had given my heart to did not feel the same way about me. I felt devastated. I cried like a hormonal fifteen-year-old because this man had failed to meet my greatest expectations about how our relationship would develop. With my energies spent on brooding over this man, I felt like I would never fall in love again, and that I would never feel the bliss I anticipated I would feel, the very same joy and love I felt when I was around him. Now that he was gone, how was I to feel this way again?

Somewhere along the line I started pondering about the true meaning of love, the ever-elusive, pesky, little word. The search for true love turned out to be more than just having a crush on someone, but about a journey that must be undertaken in search for oneness, peace and that bliss and happiness I wanted to experience. The most important step towards this journey towards true love is the love of self. I am sure you have heard this phrase before: "before anyone can love you, you must first love yourself." I believe that this means that in order to receive love, you must first give it away unconditionally yourself. It also means that you must love you as the beautiful being that you are. You must also love yourself the way you would want others to love you.

"But how do you love yourself?" I wondered. To every question there is an answer, and to find my answer I first turned to magic. Denise Lynn, author of Altars: Bringing sacred shrines into your everyday life, describes a home altar as a "sacred space, a visible symbol of the connection between heaven and earth. It [brings] meaning into ordinary moments of life." To the author, these altars also serve as "reminders of the profound mysteries of the universe and are places where I feel at peace." The whole idea behind altars is that they are composed of physical objects that have deep embedded psychological or emotional meaning.

The first altar I created had the purpose of empowering myself with divine feminine love and beauty because I longed to feel beautiful and loved. When making an altar, you want to place self-empowering symbols

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