September 30th–October 1st: Altar Setup & Dedication

A miniature sacred space decorated with artifacts that represent beauty, designed with your personal signature. You may place a scarf, tapestry, or woven cloth on the surface you choose for your altar. Adorn it with candles. We suggest blue candles for wisdom, understanding, patience, and clear and effective expression. Blue candles represent support during emotional turbulence, and the honoring of emotions while working towards balance and alignment. Gather sacred and meaningful objects that represent the elements and place them around your altar. You may also place other objects such as a goddess figure or a carved stone animal, or crystals and stones that represent patience, communication, wisdom, and discernment.

You'll also need a smudge bundle for purifying the altar space. Dedicate your altar to a Goddess: Athena for wisdom, discipline, and patience, or Hestia for her patience, kindness and calm. Once organized, you may want to perform a brief purification and dedication. First, light the candles and use the flame to light the smudge bundle and direct the smoke around your altar space. Then open a window to allow the smudging smoke to carry the negative energy out of the room. Now purified, dedicate your altar to a goddess and a purpose. Say, "I dedicate this altar to the Goddess ______ and the five elements, and I dedicate it to helping me in my work of growing awareness of truth and genuineness and the willingness to speak and act in alignment with that truth, and the patience to clarify my words and intentions while I wait for wise timing." Take a moment to feel the energy and align yourself with your altar's intention and power. Thank the elements and the Goddess and invite them to remain daily for wisdom and patience before snuffing out the candles.

October 3rd–4th: What's Surfacing

When Venus stations retrograde the truth that's been silently smoothed over starts pushing through. On or near one of these days, revisit your altar, light your blue candles once again. To enhance the energies of awareness and mental connection light either frankincense, sandalwood, or cinnamon and meditate on the awareness that has begun to surface. Place one object on the altar that represents what you've become aware of that you've previously been evading. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else but yourself; a photo, a ticket stub, a fall leaf in the shape of a heart, just something concrete tied to the awareness you've gained.

October 10th: The Intention that's Waiting for Right Timing

The New Moon in Libra might make you feel motivated to leap into something new or rush towards a false resolution. Instead of charging on or falling in without discernment, return to your altar and use cedarwood to enhance the energies of patience, emotional balance, and inner stability. This incense or bundle can be burned to reduce the feeling of restlessness. Take time to ground yourself in the moment, and write down what you feel urged to do or say. Spend some time here to develop a clear understanding of what it is you feel compelled to do and why. Then place the paper on the altar beside the first object. If you share a home with others and the thoughts you wrote are private, place the paper in a sealed envelope.

October 23rd: The Willingness to Confront

When the Sun moves into Scorpio you may feel emboldened and ready to have the hard conversation, or confront the difficult moment, but the time is not yet ripe. A new tension arises: instead of the New Moon energy pushing you to evade or avoid the hard conversation by jumping into something new and different, this energy is urging you to confront the conflict head on. Light the blue candles once again, use the cedarwood bundle or incense for patience and balance once more. Next, in a small bowl, add some drops of essential oil to anoint yourself with patience and inner balance. We recommend cedarwood, chamomile, or lavender. Take a moment to realign with the intention of your altar made during the dedication. Repeat: "Thank you for helping me in my work of growing awareness of truth and genuineness and the willingness to speak and act in alignment with that truth, and the patience to clarify my words and intentions while I wait for wise timing." Dip a finger in the bowl of anointing oil and dab once on your forehead for calm thoughts, dip into the bowl again and dab on the throat for wise communication, and again on the heart for the balanced emotions that bring patience. Leave this bowl of oil on your altar and snuff out the candles.

October 24th–26th: Mercury Retrograde and the Full Moon

Mercury retrograde starts on the 24th and the Full Moon in Taurus follows two days after. Revisit your altar and this time dress the candles with the oil from the other day before lighting them. Add a few drops of oil to the blue candles and spread the oil over the candles, and then light them. Next, add something tangible to the altar. Something that represents a somatic experience, the embodiment of joy, pleasure, and delight grounded in the physical. This object is a reminder in the weeks to come to focus on the tangible, use somatic experience to ground and balance, and wait for the wise words and the right timing to arrive.

October 31st: The Threshold

During this Samhain the veil is thin and Mercury is still retrograde, so the conversation or the conflict may still be unresolved. This closing ritual isn't a resolution to the difficult thing, it's to help you have the sight to see the right timing when it arrives.

Return to your altar and sit with everything you've placed there across the month. Light the candles and smudge the space for purification just as you did before the altar dedication the first time. Next, you'll banish any fears that linger regarding this difficult conversation or conflict that still needs resolution. The Goddess Hecate, associated with liminality, a goddess who moves between the realms of the living and the underworld, can assist you with fear banishment. Hold your bowl of salt water while you consider the fears and, when ready, speak those fears aloud and banish them into the bowl of salt water. Say, "I give these fears to Hecate." Next, take the paper from the altar, the one that holds the words from the New Moon session. Read it. Does it align with an honest resolution or was it an urge to avoid the conflict or force a false resolution? By now you have the wisdom and discernment to know the difference. If it represents fears associated with the conversation or conflict, hold the paper over the candle flame and allow it to burn for a second or two, and then drop it into the salt water, surrendering it to Hecate. Before concluding this altar session, take the time to write out, in full, what you now know is true—the right words to say or the right action to take—to resolve the tension you've been sitting with all month. Place it on the altar and know that the right timing is approaching and you have the wisdom to respond with discernment.