Juliet Diaz - The Altar Within: A Radical Devotional Guide to Liberate the Divine Self

The Altar Within

A Radical Devotional Guide to Liberate the Divine Self

Juliet Diaz

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

Audre Lorde

W elcome to The Altar Within, an approach to Magic, spirituality, and healing like no other. The Altar Within: A Radical Devotional Guide to Liberate the Divine Self is a work of spiritual revolution for all peoples, offering them practices and rituals in the arts of self-worship, self-discovery, and self-activism.

Breaking through the vicious cycles of harmful and toxic spiritual practices and beliefs, this book is for those victimized and enslaved by colonization, offering a new take on personal development based in the resounding plea of our ancestors to live our Divined lives, the ones they could not have for themselves. The Altar Within brings the Magic to real life, acknowledging our humanness by connecting with our Spirit.

When we can finally decolonize our spiritual beliefs, Divinity can be a super force in our lives, making us whole, stronger, wiser, and setting us on a path of transcendent activism #magicalaf. In this life-changing work, you will be learning deep subconscious and mindset techniques to take your spiritual and magical practice to the next level, healing deep trauma and finally living your Divined life.

Please note the QR codes at the beginning and end of this book are a free offering of rituals, ceremonies, meditations, daily exercises, journaling, and resources to help and support you in this work. I hope you choose to use them as together we kneel before The Altar Within.

I am dedicating this book to my Divine Self.

For she dismantled and disrupted me until I found myself hidden beneath all

that did not belong to me or serve me. Because of her, I am whole, and because

I am whole, I can show up for myself and others.

B reathe in and exhale. Breathe in and exhale.

Come on, I told myself. Youve done this hundreds of times before. Breathe in and ugh.

But something was wrong. Why cant I keep my mind clear? Whats happening?

My thoughts started to run rampant, flooding my mind with ghosts hidden within bone. I was sitting in front of my mirror doing a meditative ritual, one Id done many times before, one that helps me come back to self and detach from what no longer serves me. But, this time, it was different. I suddenly felt paralyzed, with no voice, no sightjust memories streaming before me. My life was flashing by, and all I could think was, Am I dying?

I could see myself at seven years old, standing on the edge of a seven-story building, ready to jump off; then my mind flashed to another time when I was eighteen and homeless, sitting in the corner of an abandoned monastery, starving, barely able to keep my head up. The next memory was when I was twenty-seven: My feet were bruised and cracked from pacing back and forth for hours in my kitchen, mascara dripping down my face and lipstick smeared across my mouth. This was the day I signed the divorce papers; I was now a single mother of two babies with absolutely no idea where I was going.

I wanted the memories to end. I thought that if I could make whatever this was stop, it would go away.

I pleaded, Please. Stop!

All of a sudden, a larger-than-life Wolf stood in front of me, her amber eyes glaring into my Spirit as she gently sent a message through my spine: Let go.

Gasp.

Let go? Shivers cut into my flesh, the blade sharpened by so many years of anguish. Why was I so afraid to let go? Wasnt this what Id wanted all along? Since childhood, I had worked to embody the spiritual being. I had spent countless hours meditating, performing rituals, journaling, and participating in Ceremony, declaring affirmations of my new self. I had committed to shadow work, inner-child work, self-love, and self-care. Id worked hard to get to this moment, but suddenly, I feared the ghost of my liberation.

I had been trying to heal wounds that were deeper than the Grand Canyon. Shit, they were more like a cave. I didnt know what I was going to find in there, and I was terrified to enter. So often, I thought that if I could just throw some TNT in, I could explode the pain out of existence. But thats not how this works, is it? Wed just end up trapped inside. It felt like the more I worked on healing, the more broken I became.

And yet, deep inside, I knew there was nothing to fear. I knew that the ghosts that live within us are purely reflections of the things we have yet to forgive. Clearly, this was my wake-up call. And so, with the might of a thousand ancestors, I let go.

And I released a howl that permeated through my soul: Aaaaoooooooo!

Little did I know that on the other side, my husband was trying to wake me. He couldnt find a pulse; he couldnt feel my breath. He was sure I was dead. He called the hospital, but they told him not to come; they were overwhelmed with COVID cases. Instead, he held me in his arms, holding space for me and keeping faith that I would come back, whatever that meant.

I had been yanked from my body and thrust into the darkest of oceans, where time ceased to exist. I was lifeless yet witness to it all. I was slowly falling deeper into the abyss, my naked body in rest, just simply being. The humming of the sea mesmerized me as the light escaped, and my mind finally went silent.

Through the deafening silence, I heard an echo of a voice say, Take your first breath.

Spirit, is that you? I asked. But before I could question anything else, I felt the breath of light fill my brokenness. For just a moment, I was held by my own soul, surrounded by an orchestra of bliss and truth coming to bring me out of the infinite night. The galaxies became still as I began to hear the delicate song of my souls remembering.

I opened my mouth and took a deep breath in, swallowing that dark ocean into my being, and with a big gasp, I woke up.

I heard myself say, in an ancient tongue, By ignoring the sacred responsibility of taking care of ourselvesbody, mind, and Spiritwe disrespect sacredness and wholeness. Instead, we should be worshipping ourselves, discovering our limitless potential, and liberating the Divine within.

So, was that it? Was that what Id been missing all these years in my spiritual practice? Was that what wed all been missing? Was it the simple fact that looking outside ourselves for answers and guidance was actually slowly suffocating the Spirit within?