Content Warning: Eating Disorders, Abuse, Addictions, Body Shaming, Suicide
Good Sunday, yall. Today I've decided to show off my Healing Altar, or my Arete Altar. Arete is a Hellenic Pillar meaning to be your best self, which is the focus of my healing magiks and shadow work. Heal the mind, heal the body, heal the spirit. Heal, become empowered, strong, kind, and confident. Learn what it means to be better and how to be my best self.
This altar has different entities and energies represented on it, such as:
- Green Tara the Obstacle Remover
- Kuan Yin the Merciful and Compassionate
- Shiva a God of Destruction
- Eir, Norse Goddess of Healing and one of Frigg's Maidens and Odinn's Valkyries
- Mother Mary
- Mary Magdalene
- Goat for Dionysus, a God of Moderation, Addictions, and a Liberator
- A Fox for Loki the Shapeshifter and Chaos Navigator
- Hekate, Protector of Children and Goddess of Witches
- Medusa, Dark Feminine Energies, Avenger of the Sexually Abused
- Purification
- Protection
- Balance
And so on.
Also on this altar you'll see two photos--one of a little girl and a teenager. Me.
As I've done Shadow Work over these many years, I've worked with my Inner Children. Yes, children. Different parts of me that represent different stages, different stages that need healing and trust. Fragments that I've worked with and collected into me, to repair the whole.
With my mom's death, I've found myself working on my Mother Wound this past year. One of the things that I wanted from my mom's stuff were photos. In those photos I found some of me. Especially teen me--well, only two of those.
I get my love of photography from her, and she had a lot of pictures of people, but very few of me. Representing our rocky relationship. Those few of me are important. I collected them up, promising to honor and love that girl. I remember thinking to myself, as I collected those little girls from her old stained, smelly albums, that I was saving them.
Don't worry, I'll love you.
That teen me photo has really been part of that Mother Wound work. My teen years were spent with my mom belittling me, body shaming me. She would shame and then feed me sugar and junk food. She also gave me drugs to keep the weight off, but I didn't like how I felt and would spit them out. She had me believing that I was fat and ugly and would only buy me ugly, frumpy clothing--I didn't deserve pretty things, unless it was to show off to strangers and friends. I developed a poor self image, eating disorders, and food addiction. Issues that I've been working on for a few years--an up and down journey of loss and gain, happiness and depression. I've worked with therapists and support groups, done the shadow work, experimented to see what works best for me, and so on. I have found a lifestyle change that certainly works for me and all of my dietary restrictions (allergies, sensitivities), and my newest physical disability (osteoarthritis in my knee).
Heal the Mind, Heal the Body is also a huge component of that journey towards a healthier, better me.
Coming across this photo of me as a teenager was a game changer, too. In middle and high school, I thought I was sooooo obese and hideous.
And yet I wasn't. I was average. I was also 6'2--a foot taller than she was, and my mom could only see numbers and not that my height had anything to do with those scale and clothing numbers. All she saw were numbers greater than what she felt I should've been. She hated me for it--something that I had no control over. I wasn't her idea beautiful daughter. I was an obese freak.
Of course, that's how she saw herself, and probably on back through the tree branches. This generational cycle of self loathing and hate. My mom was never obese, but I also think she had eating disorders that she hid. She was also addicted to pain killers and an alcoholic, which is what killed her (a slow suicide--alcoholic liver disease, if I'm remembering right).
I know that it pissed her off that I refused to conform to her idea of normal. I've always been odd. Yes, I've had friends, but I was never popular. I was band kid, a goth, alternative, eclectic, book nerd, nerdy nerd. I've been a pagan and a witch since I was 8 and 10. Neurodivergent. Boy, when I wanted a pagan handfasting instead of a traditional Christian Church wedding back in 2010, that caused a lot of bullying from my mom and grandma, and they weren't used to someone not submitting to their demands. I stood my ground and got what I wanted. It was my time, not theirs. I wasn't some show pony either for them to flaunt their riches.
I was determined to not be like my mom (or grandma)--her bad qualities.
When I had kids, I broke many of those toxic outdated parenting methods. I'm a Cycle Breaker. Again, my mom wasn't happy with my parenting style. I didn't care--my kids mental health and safety came first. When I learned about the favoritism, double standards, and the homophobic punishments and shaming that my mom and her husband were doing to my boys (their girl cousins never went through it), I put a stop to it. I became the "ungrateful, selfish, mean daughter and bad parent". I became their villain. Their bullying never won. Sometimes being stubborn has its advantages.
By standing up for my children, I learned to stand up for myself. Growing up, I always saw my mom as my savior. Then as I got older I realized that she abused me, too. Different than my dad, but it was still abuse. That was a difficult pill to swallow. Breaking free from those illusions wasn't easy. She was a bitter, venomous woman in her final years.
I think my mom hated that I had the courage she never did. For the most part I didn't care what people thought of me. I didn't exist to impress The Joneses!
By working with my Inner Teen, I've been showing her how strong she was to stop taking the drugs that mom gave us. To not conform despite the bullying and feeding, and not just by my parents, peers and teachers, too. Mom's traumas weren't my fault. I wasn't a bad kid--coming from my dad's house, I never had the confidence or energy to be one. I was a homebody. I was fine with disappearing into my room--my sanctuary, my safe space--listening to my music, doing artsy shit, learning about witchcraft--just staying out of the way.
Yes, I've been working with my Teen Self. Gaining her trust. Repairing the Whole. When I see that photo, I look at it with love. A love for myself that I feel growing and growing every year, since I set out to truly change and heal myself. To become a sovereign person. I bravely venture into those Shadows of my inner being, work with my Shadow Selves to find the Children, the Fragments of myself, and gain their trust to return. No longer lost in the darkness, traumatized.
I look at those pictures with love, a promise to heal, and to never go back. A promise to raise my kids better, and to give them the tools to be better, too.
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- Priestess Kristy "Foxlyn" Tackett
© 2025 Hearth Fox Oracle
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