I love altars! I love crafting them, sharing them, observing them, and practicing with them. People use many different words to describe them: some use the Sanskrit puja, some call them shrines. I love the word ‘altar’ because it holds exactly the meaning I am intending for the altars I craft: it comes from the Latin root ‘altus’, meaning ‘high’. That which is the highest, that which presides over the other things, that which I value the most is what I want to return to the most regularly.

Jonelle Lewis is one of my most beloved people on this earth. She’s a great teacher of yoga and spiritual arts, and one of the most dedicated students I have ever met. Superlatives suit Jonelle very well, and I’m sure that anyone who knows her would hear that and vigorously nod in assent. She’s a natural-born enthusiast who lives a light-footed, bright-hearted kind of life. She doesn’t just light up a room; she blazes up a room. It’s unsurprising that she has such a dedicated following of students who revel in that blaze on the Apple Fitness Plus app, where she teaches yoga and meditation classes.

Jonelle has a studiously committed practice that spans several traditions of ritual and awakening, including yogic arts rooted in Shaiva Tantra, pilgrimage, medicine song, practical witchcraft, and Ifa [African Traditional Religion from the Yoruba folk —Jonelle’s ancestors]. Hers is what I would call a ‘real witches’ altar’ in that it’s full, layered, and densely festooned with items that are regularly in her hands, made useful in daily ceremony and dedication.

Jonelle is here showing us how personal and fit-to-purpose daily practice can be, how an altar is a space to conjure, express, amplify, and, most of all, how to bow deeply to those who came before you. Expect to be inspired.

Leila Sadeghee: Okay, so here we are with Jonelle at her altar. Tell me about your altar, Jonelle.

Jonelle Lewis: I think it's kind of an extension of me and what I think is important. What I think is interesting and regard as holy, and sacred, and divine. Just what I think is cool and what I'm interested in!

There is some kind of structure to it. For me, making sure that all the elements are represented—that's the real foundational piece of what is happening. In my spiritual path and practice, a big part of it is my ancestors and the ways that they show up for me in my life. I mean, I have my mother; she is my lead ancestor in my family. And I feel like she's there whipping everybody into shape and order, guiding, and kind of being a bridge and a mouthpiece for whatever they're trying to convey to me in the way that I can best understand it. I can hear her voice and her movements and things a lot more easily than maybe some of my other ancestors, because obviously she's my mother, so close.

And then the different spiritual paths that I find important, where I have things from my teachers who are Indigenous folks that they have made with me and gifted to me, but it's like a co-creation is a gift—nothing that was just taken, but everything that's been gifted. And I would even say worked for, right? You know, it's not just a drop-in, a drop-out, but a real kind of collaboration and a working for and a working towards. And yeah, just shit I like! I like candles a lot. [laughter]

I love flowers. Flowers are always there, like a gift to myself and a gift to my ancestors, and just vibrationally, the energy that I want to put out. And then this idea of magic and mystery and the kind of things that there are a lot of—there's a lot of water on my altar, and that really signifies this space, this liminal space, the womb, you know, the infinite possibilities and flows. So that heavily features for me. As well as the deities that I feel an affinity towards and what they represent.

My altar is two levels, because here's the presentation level, where things are there for my practice and for my use. You know, it's a bit busy, but that's just who I am, too! Anything that’s too plain or too stripped back is just not representative of who I am! But I don't think it's “too much”. So, at this level, we have [all the things] I'm really working with at the moment.

Then there’s a second layer of stuff I can grab onto if I need a little something extra—if there's a particular incense I want to work with, or spray, or fragrance. Smell is really important to me. I'm a really smelly type of person! [laughter] And I love oils to work with and anoint things, and that always has to be happening. And I have my cards and crystals.

Then I have other things that people have either given to me or written to me that I feel are important, that are somewhere on the lower level, or some things that I might not be wanting to work with right now but that are important, that they need to be there—supportive things. So yeah, there are always roses. I always love those.

You keep roses on there.

Yeah, because it's just fundamentally all about love, right? Love of life, love of humanity, divinity, and everything in between.

Beautiful. Tell me about your drum.

So, my drum is—I made it, and it's gifted. I didn't know what I was doing, so I had to have a lot of help and support, but it was my energy to mount it over the wood. My teacher—she's the head medicine woman in Monterrey, Mexico—has a community in these sacred mountains, La Huasteca. We were there in ceremony over a period of time. And in all of it, she had her visions and what she felt that I should have on the drum, and then she drew it and coloured it for me. It's a hummingbird.

Beautiful.

There are lots of hummingbirds in those mountains, and in there, particularly, we did a peyote ceremony, and they're always around the peyote flower. So [the drum is] representative of that time in that ceremony, and Maria. It was to honour [those things]. I wanted a drum, but they're like, you gotta make your drum. You can't just buy the drum.

And so, yeah, we made it.

That's beautiful.

For me, it's my face. There’s yellow in it, and it's bright, and it's vibrant. It was left outside, so it has been charged outside in the moonlight, and then another full moon—you need to put it outside—and then the tone even changed again. So, it's really special, and I really love it. It always reminds me of being in collaboration and remembering your teachers and the gifts that they give you.

And what about this above your altar? You have this beautiful text.

It’s a Yoruba prayer, and there are two aspects to it. I have been working with a Yoruba priestess; We went to high school and college together. She’s a bit older than me, and we share the same birthday.

Oh wow.

There was just this deep call when I realised I needed to know more about my Indigenous traditions and the traditions of my ancestors and what they were before folks were enslaved and colonised and all that trauma. I've been working with her since 2018, just in a really slow way. So slow. And it was very intentional. That is, there's no end goal. I'm not trying to become anything or be anything except to know more about it and just how it reveals itself through slow practice and things that people will probably think are pretty mundane and not advanced at all.

So, the first prayer is a prayer that we work on a five-day rotation in the calendar. Each day has certain deities and energies that are associated with them. On the first day and the fifth day, those are ancestors' days, so you offer them libation. There was one point when I just said that prayer every day because I really just needed to get this, and understand this, and know this. And now I always do it on the fifth day.

This is a prayer that everyone in the Yoruba tradition says on these days. On the ancestors' days, we're all saying this prayer and offering water and my vision. So, it's very, very charged and very powerful. And you know, it's so wonderful when people even hear me say it; they go, “wow, what is that?”. And it's not even me; it’s everyone, because you're feeling this energy because your folks who practice Ifa [Yoruban form of African Traditional Religion] are all over the world doing it. So that's that one.

The second one is slightly down because, in my slow study as an initiate, I've moved up a little bit. Now I'm able to do ancestral readings, so those happen on that day. So it has to be at a certain time, and it's a whole way that I have to do it. I don't know that one so well because I've just gotten it. And when I'm about to do my reading with my cowrie shells, I have to say it and throw water. It's quite beautiful, elaborate, and very simplistic too! Then there's a way you cast the cowries.

Your cowries are here on the altar?

[Yes] They're in a little green pouch that I have too, and then on my altar I have my mojo bag.

And when did you craft your mojo bag?

This one has been rolling for a little while now. No, actually, I’ma tell a story: I redid it; some of this stuff–it was time for it to go, and I knew it. Mm-hmm. But some of the stuff I was like, ‘No, no, no, we gotta go into the next one!’. It might’ve been about a year, or maybe six months ago. So there's some stuff that has held over from the pandemic. The web that we made together [in a BIPOC prosperity ritual that Leila co-facilitated with yoga teacher Kimiko Fujimoto]. That's still here, that's still working.

Mine's working too.

I don't want it to ever go, but you know these things.

So we have that, and then I got some other bits of things that are held close to me. So, I have that on my altar, just there. And sometimes, if I feel like I'm going into a situation [when] I feel like I need it, I'll take it with me. Right now. It's just there.

Beautiful. I see that you've also got Rose of Jericho.

[Rose of Jericho is a plant that is also known as ‘the resurrection plant’. It looks like a dead weed but when you put it in water it comes back to life. It brings renewal and is said to revive any dull or dried-up aspect of life. It is used widely in witchcraft from all over the world.]

Yeah.

When did you start it?

That one's been with me for a few years. It’s been with me since the first summer of the pandemic.

Wow. And do you keep watering it, or how does it work?

Yeah, I keep watering. And it's nice because someone gifted it to me. She's my massage therapist and my body worker.

Beautiful. And what other practices do you do at your altar? Like, you have the ancestor practice, the divination practice. I see rudraksha mala [prayer beads] there.

Yeah, I do a full one thing [chant one mala - 108 repetitions]. I always say it to greet the day. There's another prayer that I say at the beginning of the day and in the morning, to all of the directions. And it's just again, welcoming the energies of the day and just honouring.

In Yoruba tradition, we have this deity who I think is cool; they are non-binary, like, they are not anything except for what they are, and so really getting talking to that energy to underpin your day and, of course, also always honouring maternal paternal everything, the ancestors. I'll do that, and then I’ll also greet whatever the energy of the day is. Then I'll chant, and I'll do the Mala for whatever thing that I feel like I need.

What kind of things?

Who do you talk to? I talk to you [pointing at the picture of her mother]. I rock Shree because I just love her [pointing at a picture of the Lakshmi].

I see she's there.

Yeah, she's just there. I have a really special relationship with her. I'll do that and then I'll do some breath work. I'll do that pranayama. I really like Kapalabhati. It's just very nice in the morning and really helps to get me going and then I'll sit. Also, once I've opened up the energy, I'll be lighting incense and lighting my candles and having all of that going and have whatever oil situation I feel like I need in the day and putting that on. And then I have my meditation scarves…

Oh, so these are your meditation scarves?

I got a whole meditation scarf situation! Yeah, I got one when we were together… It was gifted to me when we did our pilgrimage in Tamil Nadu. I always had that one and because of that energy, the residue from that pilgrimage. And then another one was gifted to me from a friend and there's some sort of angelic prayers and energy woven into that scarf and it's yellow and it's my favourite colour. So it's these nice tones. And then I also have the one from the ceremony we did, the puja. [In Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, on a pilgrimage Leila co-facilitated, we offered an Abhishekam ritual for Shiva Nataraja and all received beautiful shawls]. I throw that over my lap. And I'm, like, all cozy when I'm sitting.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Thank you, Jonelle. Is there anything else you want to share about your altar, about altar craft? Is there a difference between your life before and your life after you had an altar?

I feel like for me, altar and just ritual in general, it's just another way that I get to express myself. Like some things that I don't even have the words for, and I'll never have the words for, I'm able to express and feel and, you know, work with my altar and the rituals that go along with it.

I think that's really powerful for anybody. At times where you just have these feelings and you don’t convey them verbally, but you know they're important. I find that this is a real refuge for that. I also feel like having my altar really helped me to tap into my creativity in a way. You know, before I would always be like, "I'm not creative." And now I'd never say that.

Oh yeah.

I would never ever say that about myself. And I think that that's, you know, part of my altar craft. It is a big part of what I want, what I'm actually asking for when I'm here and I'm doing my prayers, everything is for that creativity to constantly be fed and watered. I kind of feel like my altar is like a vehicle for that.

So beautiful.

Thank you so much, Jonelle. That's wonderful.