BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Wicca New house, new problems

I was so excited last fall when we finally moved into a house and out of our cramped apartment. We live in the city so that is enough of a challenge for our practices. Now we have the house and we can do rituals in the back yard (there are older gentlemen on either side of us and the back towards the neighbor behind us is grown enough that they can't really see into our yard unless they come to the fence). I have the perfect spot in my dining room to put an altar. I have a beautiful bay window on the wall and placed our altar there. I only had a Goddess statue, a plaque of a green man, 2 candles, my athame, and a small fountain with angels and cherubs on it. Well, we rent the house. The landlord came into the dining room one day saw the altar and froze. He didn't want to go to the mudroom at the back of the house after he saw the altar. *sigh* he didn't say anuthing about it but i feel i have to hide it now. Such a pain! i have many other rooms that he will never go into unless something is really wrong in that room but still, I wanted that to be THE spot for the family altar.

Has he made any comments or asked about the altar? If not, I would leave it where you feel it should be.

It is important for you to feel comfortable about it and what others think does not have to influence your decisions.

It sounds like a lovely spot for your altar.

I agree with Phyllis - why hide it? The knife may make him a bit nervous but if you can make it unnoticeable that might make him a bit more comfortable. Also get him to see you as a person first though talking to him and shared interests.
I have a green man plaque, statue of Bast, wealth charms by the front door and some protective eye charms in the window and no-one bats an eye around here.

I am probably just being overly paranoid because we are so happy to finally have a house after years of apartment living.

Phyllis - He didn't say a word about the altar. It isn't really even that big. I is about 12 inches in diameter if that and my athame is in a shealth for safety reasons. We have lived here since November of last year and when he came over this past month to collect the rent and take a look at the dishwasher is when i had it set up. He just froze for a few minutes, then didn't want to go through the dining room to the kitchen. So he has got to know us really well since we lived here. When we moved in, we worked side by side with him to get the house cleaned, painted, etc. to move in. In fact, he and my husband have a ton in common. He knows we are decent people, he knows we are taking care of the house because we truly love it!

I am going to leave it up after our Mabon and full moon rites this week and next and see what kind of reaction we get again. Maybe it will open up a dialog, I am just praying he doesn't freak out and kick us out.