The Altar Healing and Ceremony

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The Altar Healing and Ceremony

The Altar // Healing & Ceremony is a holistic healing practice, created by Teagan West in Rochester, NY

09/26/2025

TOGETHER, WE TEND 🕯️ this is my offering.

Friends, what a time to be alive. Oh, do I know it. It is a daily practice, to anchor into why I’m here. How to hold the moment fully. So much to consider. I reach my hands out to hold the ones next to me and brace tight, a reminder of our persistent existence. Insistent on being here, amidst it all.

More recently I have had to ground into my “why”, my reason for being & doing what I do, especially when it feels meaningless. Reminding myself of my responsibility to the work that I do, my community, my kin. Not letting the overwhelm convince me it’s all useless.

I remind myself that I am positioned in this life in a place of privilege. I am white-presenting, & thus am afforded lots more than many kin across this good earth. My homeland is not actively being destroyed.
With this privilege comes responsibility. What is my role? To use the time, energy & resource I have to be supportive in SOME form.

And, to engage my gifts with the world from a place of earnest care. To sincerely try to participate in this strange moment in history, because I am here, now, in the timeline. I have no other choice.

As I see it, my gifts are that of presence & sincere care, a capacity to turn towards the truth, and accompany others in doing the same. This takes many forms, but that is the heart of it.

And, I believe deeply in the work of recovering relationship to the more-than-human world as a necessary form of cultural repair for our generation & beyond. Empire has tried to erase so many ancient ways of knowing from our bodies, yet these ancestral maps can never fully die. They live in our bones, they live in the land, they live on in us. A living memory.

All of this, what I value and what I try to offer from a place of integrity, is the basis of my work. Whether in the form of ancestral tending or astrological study, that is why I’m here.

And so, I share the above offerings with you as an invitation. If you need quiet space to be seen, listened to, and grapple with the moment we’re in, I see you. I love you. I’m with you. 🙏🫂🪽

Maybe see you soon. You know where to find me. Know that you are beloved by so many relations. Xoxo T

09/23/2025

THE GODDESS IS ALIVE & WELL ⚔️🕯️
Sword in hand, she turns the scales…

Oh my, I am feeling so incredibly moved by the power of the goddess as keeper of this threshold. Libra, the one who holds the scales with sword at the center, asks that we find our balancing point on the razor’s edge.

For many months I have felt the power of the Feminine creeping in. I have had a strained relationship to Her since before I was born, ruled by Mars and full of Fire. I feel I am finding my balancing point within, helping me to balance my Scorpio rising power with the cluster of placements in my 12th house of Libra.

I know she has captured my heart when I cannot help but be utterly ENAMORED by Her greatness. Hypnotizing, Magnetic, Carnal, Intoxicating! What a miracle it is to live in the body of Woman, born in Her image!

I feel like the maiden finding her feral expression. Persephone teaches me to how set free the wildness of true feminine power from within. Ancient, overwhelming, an echo that reaches back to origin!❤️‍🔥⚔️

For much of my life I have identified with my Mars Rulership, where I’ve found comfort in embracing a nonbinary identification with This Body. I feel surprised, amazed, curious to experience the rapture of feminine perfume in this way.

She is not soft, fragile, helpless — no. She is teaching me to wield this wild beauty as my greatest gift, to not underestimate the primordial power of being born into the body of Woman. She leads with a growl, a smirk, a cackling temptation. I cannot help but let her in!

And, in the way my libra heart adores, I know that beauty is one of the many forms of devotion I use to court her Grace more fully. Altars, icons, flowers, oh my! The many faces of the goddess rejoice.

In the carousel are some of the graphics I’ve been delighting in making, as a form of devotion for the next round of Mentorship!

Equinox began with a circle of women. We gathered last night around the Altar of Stars & evoked the many names of the Goddess as guides along this journey through the Dark Months. Oracles in Orbit, 12 souls that said YES to this study of earth & sky. We have been doing this for lifetimes. One for each station of the zodiac 🥲

09/22/2025

EQUINOX BLESSINGS ⚔️🖤🪽 MOODBOARD

In the wake of the Eclipse, with sword in hand — we slowly cut thru the fog of our illusions. Projections disperse, and we see things for What They Are.

Just as clarity emerges, we find ourselves standing at the mouth of the Great Cave. The scales rest at their perfect balancing point, the tip of the sword. Slowly the weight shifts as we enter the Lunar side of the year.

Inanna guides us in our own undoing. “Be Brave”, she reminds. Demeter hands Persephone off to the fertile dark, one and the same. What if the Maiden chose to give herself to its depth, every time?

You are that, courageous one. The winged messenger moves back & forth across the veil as a psychopomp, bringing reminders to steady your step. 🪽

Venus, the ruling heart of the season, guides us in Precision as Devotion. Your attention is your greatest currency. Do not trade your dignity for dopamine. Allow your presence to be a prayer. 🌾

The arrow of Mars points directly down, down into the heart of the well, as deep as the great tap root. This is power retrieval. This is the deep dark feminine, chthonic & fecund, coming back to life. A sleeping dragon wakes after thousands of years in chains.🗡️

Steady the sword. Strengthen the armor. This is not violence, it is reclamation. 🖤⚔️🪽

09/21/2025

CONSTELLATIONS • a conversation with Leanne | 🖤🕯️

Witches, Selkies, Scottish Picts, OH MY!! What a truly MAGICKAL conversation this was!!

It was my sincere honor to host Leanne on the podcast this week, and hear her speak in spiral of myth, magick, ancestry & beyond. A true steward of remembrance, in every form. She walks the path of the Celtic Witch with such depth, that 8th house sun shining a light through the darkness 🕯️

Leanne is doing some significant cultural recovery work simply thru the way she walks & the work that she’s doing. Simply by being, truly ~ she is waking up the old gods and the spirits of story that shape our ancestral memory.

I also love that episode this was released during the Virgo eclipse, right before the equinox - on Leanne’s BIRTHDAY! Go find her work and follow along, Subst@ck & beyond!

Go raibh míle maith agat !!!! 🖤🕯️🪽

09/18/2025

SOLAR ECLIPSE • 29* VIRGO 🗡️🕯️🪽

Friends, this is a culmination. A culling. What is it that you’ve carried through the fields of wheat, full & ready for threshing?

Ancestors have been speaking;

“Are you ready to make the cut? Do what needs to be done. Have courage, dear one. This is about Living, being all the way here ~ it is the work of Dying Well. Over & over again.

Virgo comes with her crescent scythe to take what is ready. To no longer waste this precious resource that is your life. It is a gift, child — your ancestors are with you, reminders at every step. The sacrifice is required to make each moment sacred.

Precious, you are precious like a seed pressed into soil — a dream in its own becoming. A body full of prayers, to go on, to live well, to know yourself as beloved. There is only one You, only this moment, the fullness of Now. It’s all right here, as it’s always been — give yourself to it fully.”

Xoxo
سلمى

09/14/2025

🧿 W0RK WITH ME • B00KS 0PEN 🧿

Beloveds — my goodness what times we are living through. As challenging as it is to continue to turn towards ourselves & the world, I take heart in knowing just how many relations are at our back as we choose to do so.

This work is meant to be resource. It is not meant to offer answers to soothe the world’s suffering; I believe in feeling it fully. We are all part of the world’s heart, beating.

This work is, however, meant to remind you of Who You Are. The prayer that born you into being, the gifts that you are here to steward. The hundreds of ancestors that stand at your back. The dream of the world, coming into being through your own heart + hands.

I believe in this as a resource to fortify our ability to keep turning towards the world. To keep reminding ourselves why we are here. And, to also remember that we are not alone in it all.

I am leaning more heavily into the depth of resource that becomes available when partnering with the seen + unseen. Ancestors, as council. The celestial mirror as a map. The messages we receive, reminders of our inherent value. 🕯️🗝️

And, MOST importantly of all, space to be witnessed. To be HONEST. To look into one another’s eyes and admit to what is really here. The truth that is yearning to be felt, acknowledged, transformed by the presence of Love.

I see my role in this work as being a trusted confidant, a place to anchor your boat and rest ashore for a moment. To remember what it’s like to feel held by all of the forces in your life, and to carry it with you.

I am not a chest of answers. I try in earnest to be a soft place to land, to see yourself more clearly in the mirror’s reflection. A place to ask the big questions and realize the answers waiting within your own heart.

I am here in fierce love & reverence for the courage to keep going. To remind you of your humanity, of kinship & support from the unseen.

Reach out if you feel the call, or perhaps share with someone that might.

Astrology + Ancestral tending is 1:1 live call style 🧿 real time connection.
SYSTER LYNX divination readings are offered asynchronously ~ like a love letter thru the ethers.

Loving you ⚔️❤️‍🔥🕯️🫂

09/08/2025

PISCES LUNAR ECLIPSE // REVERBERATIONS 🐚

Some little love notes as reminders to carry in your pocket, in the days following that big ol’ moon. She hung light a lantern in the sky last night. May it guide the way out from the fog…

How did she have you feelin?

09/08/2025

Pisces Lunar Eclipse Full Blood Moon MOODBOARD 🩸🧿🪽🌌🐚⚔️🦂

It is dusk in the nostrils ~
Sun dips down below the setting place
Balanced on the tip
Of the dragons tail

I sit on the edge of a stone
Feet submerged into water
And let the fish take of me
Whatever is left to offer.

Moon rises to the East,
A fearsome Mother
Freshly consumed by the beast
Teeth still dripping with blood…

Whose blood? Mine? Yours?
Ours — indeed, the moon turns red
Her face shadowed by the
Swell of the Earth

Around the bend of the river
An animal screams
Predator or prey,
It is one and the same.

By now my feet are wrinkled
By time, water softens us
Until we see what we are
Truly made of.

I let the bugs bite,
I hear the cicadas sing,
I wash my face in the river
And weep at my own forgetting.

What else is there than this?
The loons song,
The quiet light?
What have I let the world make of me?

Quite like a vampire,
I tiptoe along the tightrope
Of emptiness & everything…

Some days I cannot tell
If I have let their machinations
Suck me bone dry.
“I was just trying to survive!”

I entered this world
To revel in wonder.
This I know to be true.

So I will spend the rest of my life
Fighting off the stupor
Of some altered state,
Some great forgetting.

The moment this is lost on me,
I am already too far gone.

Deep in the belly of the beast
An old crone sings.
She speaks to me in dreams
Of remembering.

09/06/2025

“I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthtul,
The eye of a little god, four-cornered...”
— Mirror, Sylvia Plath
⚔️

Recently, a dear friend reminded me that I do not need to be fearful of speaking the truth. I drank this reflection in like an antidote to all the ways my tender heart has minced words or apologized for speaking directly to what I see.

Our world does not like to turn towards the shadow, with its domineering presence & unforgiving power. It is easier to move blindfolded, pretending we don’t see the ways it has ensnared us like some terrible vine. Why would we want to give attention to something that makes us feel utterly helpless?

I remember asking a beloved years ago why he didn’t like it when I pointed at the truth. He said; “the truth has legs - once it’s spoken aloud, it walks around your life & changes everything”. To him, this was a terror. To me, it was liberation.

I was scared of myself, scared of the ways that I would speak What I See & watch others flinch. Or worse, vilify me as the black mirror. I never want to cause pain. The reaction was confusing, as I believe clarity is the utmost form of kindness. The sword can cut, but it can also liberate.

I know this is not novel. These are OLD wounds, the silver tongue that our grandmothers were burned for wielding wisely. I believe part of the work is in knowing its full power, so that it does not have power over us in manipulative ways. What can heal can also cause harm.

As I prepare to enter a heavily Mars-ruled year, I know my work is in getting comfortable with this discomfort. It does not mean I am ‘always right’; I don’t pretend to know the ways fear sinks its teeth into our psyche, so entirely unique to each of our stories.

The work is in doing so kindly; there is a skillfulness to the sword that does not cut to cause harm, but rather to liberate others from the binds that pain has wrapped around them. Those wounds have been working so hard to keep us safe. There is only love to offer in such vulnerability.

If you want to look at Truth, you know where to find me.⚔️

09/01/2025

SATURN RETROGRADE THRU PISCES 🪽 the end is the beginning. May the snake bite its tail. ❤️‍🔥⚔️🙏🦂

08/31/2025

ODE TO THE TURNING OF THE LIGHT 🌒

I feel the summer months begin to hand over their brightness to the Good Dark. Like palms that have been opened skyward, turning themselves over to sense the fertile dark below.
The soil rich and waiting to be planted with dreams, fortified by grief. This is the realness I know. This is some kind of Homecoming.

This time of year lives deep inside my body, in belly & bones. It is a re-membering, year after year, of what makes oneself True. It is an invitation to be honest, to turn towards the darkness with just as much enthusiasm as we turn towards the light. It is some kind of Homecoming.

Fold yourself into the skin of the cool, dark Earth. Find what parts of yourself are waiting there to be known. It is no wonder why the Ancestors lean in closer; these are times of sacrifice. We must be willing to let go.

I give myself to that familiar reckoning. I know the winter will be long and the days short. I will try my best to find some sort of comfort in darkness. I refuse to be owned my own fear & aversion to discomfort. Darkness is the truest friend I will find in this world, and She is always waiting for us to come Home to her gentle, loving sanctuary within. She is kind, knowing, and honest. All I ever ask for is to be known. 🦂

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Rochester, NY
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http://thealtarhealing.com/

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Welcome to VAYA!

VAYA Ayurveda + Wellness is a complete holistic healing service, created by Teagan West in Rochester NY.

VAYA aims to create a system of healing tailored to the individual's unique needs. The practice is rooted in Ayurvedic Health Counseling, and supported by various healing tools such as Mindfulness + Meditation, Reiki Healing, and more.

Teagan received her Ayurvedic Health Counselor Certification from Kripalu, and is NAMA certified to administer Ayurvedic care. She is also Reiki level 2 certified, as well as trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Therapy. Teagan works to fuse all of these tools together into one complete holistic healing practice, tailored to the individual.

Please reach out with any further questions. We are here to support you in any way possible through your process of healing!

The Altar Healing and Ceremony

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