The Altar Healing and Ceremony

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

I joke often that I never know what to say when people ask me “what to you do for work?”… how could I possibly answer su...
03/08/2026

I joke often that I never know what to say when people ask me “what to you do for work?”… how could I possibly answer such a singular, limited question? How could I possibly define my own multitudes to ‘pick a lane’?

In the prismatic kaleidoscope of my own expansive + ever-changing identities, something feels dishonoring to try to distill it to labels. Perhaps it is my nature as a 12th house person to experience Self beyond these binaries ~ I am shaped by everything that I love, quite naturally.

I have been thinking a lot about permission. Permission to diverge from convention as the work of creatives & worldbuilders, specifically. In fact; We must. And the overculture will never grant us that permission ~ it functions in opposition to the agenda of disempowerment. We must grant that permission ourselves, and offer that to one another.

Many folx have asked me about my experience at the Magician’s Table last year. My response has been “it gave me complete permission to crash around in my own gifts, and find out what they can really do”. Creative people need a playground to explore our own dimensionalities. We need dynamic, permissive containers alongside true COMMUNITY ~ especially as so much have lived our lives as outcasts. We will never truly know what we’re capable of without that exploration.

My gifts do not fit into the narrative of the overculture. And because of that, they’re the exact antidote to break the spell of such a disenchanted world. Empire convinced me that my gifts were useless. Community reminded me how much they’re truly needed. My wild ritual tending of the unseen web of relations is a medicine I would’ve never believed in otherwise, if my kin did not reflect that back to me.

The Magician’s Table begins in a week. We have a very small few seats left. I can feel those of you out there that are circling, somehow finding ways to talk yourself out of it. My heart breaks to think you won’t get the chance to explore your gifts in the presence of true kinship.

Message me with Qs. Friday the 13th spell ~ take your seat. Claim your magick. 🪄

Classical music on the radio in the kitchen. Rose colored nail polish, floral printed everything. Perfume bottles on the...
03/06/2026

Classical music on the radio in the kitchen. Rose colored nail polish, floral printed everything. Perfume bottles on the bathroom counter. The smell of camel ci******es on the skin. Altars of heirlooms lit by evening sunlight. Speaking French on the phone. Little birds circling outside the windows, so generously fed. The cuckoo clock, waking us to thin pancakes like crêpes + maple syrup. Fluffernut sandwiches cut diagonally, on the tv table near the hearth. Way too much sugar in my Cheerios. Almost too sweet to bear it all.

Tomorrow would’ve been her 92nd birthday. Jaqueline Bernier, granddaughter of SWANA immigrants, of men who traveled young across oceans to find safety. A daughter of mothers who died far too young, a lineage of women who grew up without their own mothers to nurture them. The only reason I exist is because of their courage, their devotion, their strength.

This woman taught me how to love. The immense tenderness of her field left impressions on my own heart that have shaped who I am as a being. I can still feel her warmth when looking at these images, the safety of my animal body cherishing her capacity for gentleness ~ a heart that knows grief deep enough to know how to create true comfort. She didn’t even have to try, it poured out of her like honey.

Her world was an embrace that you could walk right into, knowing you’d belong in the safety of her loving arms. Everyone belonged. No one was left in exile. There was enough of that in our history, so much lost. With her, you were found. I believe it was as much medicine for her own loss as well.

As our ancestral homelands escalate into an active war zone once again, I am thinking about the courage to keep on loving. 🇱🇧

The only way I can think to honor the gifts she’s given me is to carry them onward. To be as loving as humanly possible, to provide sanctuary for the friend & the stranger. To love, so fiercely, that it dissolves the source of fear within. To embody the wild gentleness that leaves impressions like this, on everything. To become the ocean, a safe place to harbor from the waves that inevitably seeks to drown us in grief. We must keep on loving; that is what she would do. 💞

SWANA DANCE • MARCH 22nd, 2026 🇱🇧🕯️❤️‍🔥5-7pm @ ROSE ROOM ROCNOTAFLOF | Proceeds donated to Lebanon Solidarity Collective...
03/06/2026

SWANA DANCE • MARCH 22nd, 2026 🇱🇧🕯️❤️‍🔥
5-7pm @ ROSE ROOM ROC
NOTAFLOF | Proceeds donated to Lebanon Solidarity Collective

Friends, when I feel powerless, when I don’t know how else to pray or beg for peace, my ancestors remind me. In their song, in their dance, they whisper “do not give up so easily”.

As my ancestral homelands are yet again an active war zone, I feel insistent upon turning towards this. My ancestors of Syria, Lebanon and Egypt are the ones that taught me how to pray through my dance, through the drum, through my song. So we gather together to do so.

All are welcome to join us. I am cooking up a playlist from songs that I have long carried with me since visiting homeland. Songs that remind me of dancing all night in the desert, in laughter, in homecoming.

Proceeds will be donated to Lebanon Solidarity Collective 🇱🇧🕯️🫀 May we make a generous effort together.

YALLAH ❤️‍🔥

03/04/2026

I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to sit with you in the discomfort of already knowing your choice, and letting that break you open.

Today is the last day to join the Magician’s Table. If you are paralyzed by fear, reach out. I want you here. We NEED you here. If you feel your yes and are terrified by it, that’s an incredibly good sign.

I love you. I’m with you. I want you to experience your big magick so fully that it breaks you wide open. You deserve that exhilaration more than anyone else. That’s what your ancestors sent you here to do. To play, to enjoy. 🙏❤️‍🔥🫂🌊🌌🌙⚡️

A love note to Virgo, from my Virgo stellium… 🌾🌘 An energy that needs our love more than ever, the body a kind of Earth,...
03/03/2026

A love note to Virgo, from my Virgo stellium… 🌾🌘
An energy that needs our love more than ever, the body a kind of Earth, reflected in everything…

‘The Earth is Speaking. The Land is Speaking. Everything is Speaking’…

Virgo as an Earth sign, ruled by Mercury. It is the Language of Murmurations, a silent song expressed through patterning, the communication of the Land speaking through all things.

It is the Language of weather patterns, the conversation of dew turning to fog in the morning light. It is the mycelium network beneath our feet, a nervous system of communication, weaving us back into belonging.

The Land is Speaking; this is Virgo’s Mercurial intelligence, communicating through everything.

Virgo weaves us back into the Garden of Relations. Where Empire has colonized our bodies + convinced us of the Myth of our Isolation, Virgo finds needle + thread and gently mends those foreign faultlines.

The Medicine is that of repair, right relationship, sacred rhythm as returning home to this Ecosystem of Belonging.

The Hermit is the face of Virgo. What if the Hermit is not shrouded in isolation, but consumed by the miracle of connection, revealed by Deep Listening? What if the Hermit has found a home in everything?

Virgoian care is in paying attention as an act of devotion, of prayer, of learning how to Listen. Discovering entire worlds within the patterns of creation. This recognition of rhythm is not empirical; it is a form of worship, reveling in the miracle of the divine expressing through all things.
A hidden secret, yearning to be discovered through the gentle care of your attentiveness.

My Venus in Virgo knows that Love is in paying close attention. Of never missing a moment, not the freckles on your face nor the first snowdrops emerging. It is all some ancient holiness, yearning to be loved well. God is in the details, and I am enamored by Her everywhere.

Virgoian attentiveness is an antidote to a world of numbness. It demands presence as an act of devotion. It says “I am ALL THE WAY HERE. I am not going anywhere”. It is a code of ethics, a sacred agreement towards reveling in the preciousness of this One Life. May we love it as such.

VIRGO BLOOD MOON 🩸🌘 LUNAR ECLIPSEMarch 3rd, 2026 @ 6:33am ET 🕯️This post has been brought to you by my Virgo Stellium cl...
03/01/2026

VIRGO BLOOD MOON 🩸🌘 LUNAR ECLIPSE
March 3rd, 2026 @ 6:33am ET 🕯️

This post has been brought to you by my Virgo Stellium clustered around my Midheaven, ruled by a 29* Mercury in Virgo.
The grief of how indoctrinated my own mind & body have been by unsustainable capitalist growth models is a lifelong journey of unraveling.

It has wreaked havoc on our bodies, and the soft animal wisdom they hold. If Virgo’s true virtue is finding rhythm & resonance with this larger ecosystem of intelligence, the shadow is how abrasively our colonial paradigms of time & productivity have disrupted that balance.

This restoration is a kind of homecoming. A return to the Land, to the health of our bodies, minds & spirits. To the skillful synthesis our Ancestral cosmologies know so well; expanding our ways of Knowing & Being to reflect this larger ecosystem of relations. To be truly well, we must.

A dear friend & teacher said something last week that has stayed with me, that Harm is a kind of disease. An imbalance of mind/body/spirit. I’ve been thinking a lot about its restoration to balance, and how the medicine/poison of the Virgo/Pisces axis might reflect this.

I know this carousel is text heavy. You can read the full piece or listen to me yap about it in the Week Ahead, at the Altar of Stars. The Lynx can take you there ;) 🕯️🌲🦅🌊⚡️🏔️

Stay rooted, my friends.

02/27/2026

THIS SPACE IS FOR YOU
COME & FEAST
WE WANT ALL OF YOU
FIVE DAY COUNTDOWN
DON’T MISS THIS!
❤️‍🔥⚡️🦅🕯️🌲🌀

02/25/2026

THE CALL TO THE MAGICIAN’S TABLE
THE TIME IS NOW
DO NOT DELAY
Message me with questions or for codes 🪄🦅✨

WE WANT YOU HERE
YOUR VISIONS MATTER
YOUR GIFTS ARE MEANT TO BUILD WORLDS
DO NOT LET THEM FALL ASLEEP

🦅✨🪄

VIVA ISA ❤️‍🔥 ECSTATIC DANCE ROCHESTER!Friends! Join us Sunday, March 1 for a VERY SPECIAL Latin-themed ecstatic dance!!...
02/23/2026

VIVA ISA ❤️‍🔥 ECSTATIC DANCE ROCHESTER!

Friends! Join us Sunday, March 1 for a VERY SPECIAL Latin-themed ecstatic dance!!! In honor of our beloved hermana Isa y los ancestros !!! ❤️‍🔥⚡️
DETAILS: 5-7pm // $10-30 NOTAFLOF
All proceeds will be donated to Rochester Rapid Response Network 🫀🙏🪽
RSVP BY SATURDAY 2/28!!!

On another note ~ I just want to lift up the incredible gift that is this community. I have been feeling lately that we have kept this space alive specifically so that it may support us through these times. A place to gather in the safety of community, a shared commitment to processing all of this emotion we’re carrying in our bodies. A place to laugh, to cry, to express our rage, our infinite tenderness. A place to come home to ourselves, and to one another.

True belonging takes years to cultivate ~ this community has taught me SO much about the reality of collective care. It is not glamorous, and often extremely challenging. It is a holy and difficult task, to love one another well. Thank goodness for the brave space to try our darndest, to mess up and repair, to see one another in our humanity, and to keep on showing up.🫀

I have been tending this altar for 7 years now, with the support of so many beloveds that have made it possible to keep sustaining this huge communal beauty. I don’t know where I’d be without this space. Shoutout to thank you for your unwavering support, through thick & thin. It is no small feat, and it takes a village, truly.

I say it all the time, but I will be here every Sunday tending this fire until the end of time. I mean it. This is sanctuary. This is resource. For myself as much as anyone. What a gift we get to create that together. An answered prayer.

I sincerely hope to see some of you soon. Reach out for the WhatsApp chat where we send details about dances each week. ❤️‍🔥🫂🌊

02/22/2026

222 🕯️🪞🪽🗝️🌀 DOORS OPENING

The Altar of Stars ~ a study of Earth & Sky
We are the meeting place
Where past & future constellate
We are re-membering one another
Through the stories in the land & stars
We are reweaving the future
Together, always together.

Until Friday the 13th of March, we welcome you to join us. 🕯️🪽🪞🗝️🌀 you know where to find me

Special codes for those that ask ~ message me ;)

SATURN IN ARIES ❤️‍🔥 DEVOTIONSSharing these in honor of the Saturn/Neptune conjunction in Aries today. Sky Daddy wants u...
02/20/2026

SATURN IN ARIES ❤️‍🔥 DEVOTIONS

Sharing these in honor of the Saturn/Neptune conjunction in Aries today. Sky Daddy wants us to devote ourselves to something, and start like we mean to finish. 🐦‍🔥 to enjoy the merits of warrior discipline.
Cross reference the Neptune invocations from a few weeks ago for ultimate potency ⚔️

Read for your rising sign. Full piece open for all to read at the Altar of Stars. 🕯️❤️‍🔥🪽

Loving you with utmost ferocity. 🐦‍🔥

SATURN IN ARIES ❤️‍🔥⚔️⚡️🐦‍🔥 hot takesWe are learning how to work with power. How to keep a good flame. How to play with ...
02/15/2026

SATURN IN ARIES ❤️‍🔥⚔️⚡️🐦‍🔥 hot takes

We are learning how to work with power. How to keep a good flame. How to play with fire.

Every honorable warrior lives by a code of ethics. What are yours? This is how we protect what we love.

Slowness is resistance. Wielding instinct into will. Do not let that fire burn out so easily. ❤️‍🔥

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Rochester, NY
14620

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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!