Santa muerte altars

#santamuerte #santamuertealtars #santamuertestatues #santamuertecandles

working with santa muerte altars

Some of my most personal journeys and past works will be shown to you dear reader. In the quest for your sacred altar space, I will show you the altars that were built initially for my work with Santa Muerte. At the time I was working many candles for her, and I had an ongoing daily devotional of water and offerings of fruit, candies, rocks and minerals and coffee (Cafe de Olla.) I have been in the midst of moving from space to space, and as it turns out I am still flowing through the transitional cycles of death and rebirth and transformation. That being said, I do have to admit that my altars went from elaborate to pocket/backpack sized in order to fit the theme of my life at that point in time. So I have learned a thing or two since the original text. post edit 1/29/25

In her offerings you'll find most devotees have their own system of belief brought upon by their elder devotee teachers. Having a mixture of qualitative teachers that shared with me upon oral /spoken traditions, absolutely nothing in our "teaching" was written down, or books endorsed, or based upon a schooling mentality. What was consistent was our work with her, individually and as a student to teacher as we were mostly in conversation and query.

How to set up your first santa muerte altar

Things you will need:

• A quiet room

• A clear space

• A cleaned plate you will no longer use for personal eating

• A cleaned glass jar or crystal cup for offering water, which you will no longer use for personal drinking

• Incense cone or stick or resin on charcoal

• Single White candle (glass 7 day, birthday candle, taper, votive, tea light et cetera)

• Wooden matches

• Offerings **

  • every offering is specific to the petition you offer her e.g. liquor, chocolate, flowers, tobacco, incense, fruit, coffee et cetera)

• Your Santa Muerte Idol or a Prayer Card with her image **

If at all, you are barely starting out, then know Santa Muerte lives within you and around you, NOT on an altar, NOT on a candle image, NOT in a statue. The human condition has us believe in the things we can touch, see and feel as "Real", in which the human condition dictates that is how it "should" be. As energetic esoteric traditions teach us, there is no such thing outside of the belief that an object or idol can represent our inherent or innate beliefs. What you will be doing is EMPOWERING each of these objects with your belief, with your truth, and with your energy. The rest is for your mind to stay "busy" - if you have not experienced by now, you will once you begin to quiet your mind enough to focus on the thing at hand.

owlsnestcurios initial ritual for santisima muerte altar

In tradition, first, clean your home from East to South, then to West and finally North. Start by sweeping your home from the back to the front, and sweep away from you towards the doors, towards the entrance where you will see this dirt and filth leave. You will dust the same way. Her altar should face East, however if you have the space she prefers the front of the house facing the main door.

Next you will wash your floors as you are welcoming a new guest into your home La Santa Muerte and her space should be cleansed and clean and you should feel pride for having her enter your life and space.

• Clean the trash up from all places holding trash bags, especially that dirt from earlier and any dirty water, they all need to be tossed out, away from your home.
  

• Take a mindful break and invoke your energy with Water. Fresh water, drink the entire glass and be mindful of the water as it blesses your throat and body and replenishes your being.
  

• Take a quick, cleansing shower to "remove debris" and energetic dirt from you before starting the altar ritual to invoke Santa Muerte

Once you are ready and cleansed, the following begins with the ritual

Calling the four corners, the four potent energies, the four arch angels, however you wish to invoke these elemental spirits, you will continue to your incense of your choosing, or burn resin on your charcoals upon opening windows and disabling your smoke detectors temporarily. You must remember to put these back on ritual completion.

Using a wooden match you will invoke the energies of the Eastern air and bless the space with an energetic circle of trust for the work you will be doing.

Next with the spirit of Southern fire, bless the place with lighting your candle. You can prepare your candle by "washing" it with a blessed oil, altar oil, or holy water. Start from the middle and massage the candle up to the tip. Then from the middle massage the candle down to the bottom. Invoke now the Western waters element and bring forth your glass cup and as you fill it with fresh spring water, you will energetically envision the cup filling with cleansed energy for your Santa Muerte altar, this is after-all a devotion for her.

Finally, at the Northern earth portal, you will bring on a clear quartz, a pentacle of your choosing, or an Ace of Pentacles tarot card. If neither of these exist, you can place a carefully chosen rock for grounding this sacred circle with earth.

At the eastern portal again, envision a pentagram and utter the holy name of the eastern energy, trace that line back to the south, and trace it onto the western portal, and end back at the northern portal. Close the sacred space by returning to face east.

On your east facing altar space, you will place the candle in the middle, the clear quartz above it, to the right an incense or resin incense burning, and to the left your cup of fresh spring water.

Now is the time to place your idol or image of Santa Muerte once it has been passed over your incense for protection. Welcome her into your space either by visually placing the image or envisioning her in your minds eye. Take a moment to be still, to feel your heart beating and to listen to your breath going in through the nose nostrils and air exiting your mouth as you exhale.

Upon invoking Santa Muerte, you will offer her your devotional prayer either by something that resonates with you or one of her many devotee prayers available in abundance. You can roughly translate her Spanish devotee prayers and adjust the words for your comfort as translation services online are rough. How you choose to speak these words and what you say will be VERY important.

On completion , you will offer her (at the idols left side or at the cup of waters left side) any of the intentional offerings you have for her. If nothing of this process FEELS right for you, remember that this is created by Me, for me and because of my various workings and knowledge and teachings of esoteric arts.

how to close a sacred space

Closing an energetic sacred space is a bit easier then when you open one. You will begin at the eastern portal and envision your circle energy turning off or turning down its light. You will thank the energy of the east and let it take whatever energy you raised that you did not use. Continue to the southern portal, then the western and now the northern, each of these spaces will hold energy and each of these elements must take what energy you raised that was not used for Santa Muerte. To securely close the sacred space you must envision the energy of each portal to come to a close by "turning itself off". Once you are back at the starting point (east) you will enjoy a quiet space with your Santa Muerte altar. A good thing to do is practice with tarot cards, divine with pendulum, sit and meditate with rock/crystal/mineral of your choice and need, and , or journal. Journal how you are feeling, what you are doing and anything that is sitting out of place for you if any at all.

Creating a sacred space isn't for the practitioners only, it is for everyone. If having ancestors who have passed in another altar would be safe for you, than you can follow the same pattern above to invoke your ancestral caretakers. I caution many that our traditions have us host only altars for ancestors or spirits who are passed. Absolutely do not place artifacts from living relations on your altar - this is NOT the altar space for that.

This doesn't have to be extravagant, and it need not be time consuming. You work with your energy and the artifacts you can find for this specific purpose - once again the ritual of this is to keep your MIND busy and your concentration focused. The ritual is a drama intended to help you feel, see, touch, smell, and hear. By invoking your human condition you open yourself to innate phenomenon that you must experience in order to understand.

I wish you well, I wish you health and I wish you magick dear reader. May Santisima Muerte cloak you in her protection always.

Do you have questions and or need a consultation? Book owlsnestcurios here.