It’s sad, but this is the first seasonal altar I’ve done since I took down Yule. It’s also atypically early for me. (“What,” you ask, “a whole four days before the Equinox is early?” Yeah. I suck.) 
The basil is left over from Yule, but it’s pretty. The flowers are from trees around campus and the neighborhood. The purple egg is from an Ostara celebration with the proto-coven, the blue is a rattle from HPF 2011, and the condom is “protection from the rabbit spirit” from HPF 2009 so that no body gets the wrong impression. The basalt with the Yin-Yang has been with me since I was 16, as has the boline. The Japanese perfume jar with the nut-“ivory” dragon on top are an old spell of mine—a receptacle for ill-timed lust, which seemed appropriate given the way this spring has gone so far—that I mostly keep around for sentimental reasons, as I haven’t used it in years *.
I’ve talked before about my slightly uncomfortable relationship with the Wiccan “Celtic” Wheel of the Year. It’s pretty well known at this point that the scholarship that went into its construction was, if not spurious, at least largely debunked in the year since. It also bears little resemblance to the actual seasonal cycle of the part of the world in which I live. Imbolc is not the last frost in the Midwest of the US—it’s usually the fucking coldest part of winter. Ostara is not generally the first bloom—as often as not, there’s still snow on the ground. Beltane, while often warm enough (if just barely) to celebrate propperly by fucking like monkeys out in the woods, is often hindered by cold rains and usually gets cold enough at night that there’s frost instead of dew in the morning. The Summer Solstice is the beginning of summer, not the middle.
This strange year, it is the first bloom. I really do feel like spring is in the air. (Both in a romantic, positive way, and in the sense of holy fuck my goddamn allergies are going crazy … although, at least with my immune system in overdrive, the headcold has been overthrown.) I full anticipate that, although I probably won’t be able to celebrate Beltane with the vigor it deserves on the First of May**, it will definitely be warm enough to celebrate propperly, and Lake Onessa will be beautifully warm by Heartland. We’ll see how the rest of the Wheel goes.
I also took a day of cleaning as an opportunity to redo the altar as a whole, and to add a mirror I found in the school’s Free Box. (People keep throwing away things I need where I can find them. I fucking love it.) Most of the tools have been moved off the altar itself to make room for icons and active spellwork.
* Of course, I’ve also had a full-time partner for the last four years running, so that hasn’t been the issue it once was.
** For several reasons including but not limited to FINALS WEEK, but which will get a post all their own one of these days.