The Ancestral Altar Series, Part 3: Cleaning & Maintenance— Ancestral Power Requires Order—How to Clean, Refresh, and Maintain Your Altar
If your altar is dusty, blocked, or forgotten, so is your connection. Learn to keep your altar clean, fed, and spiritually charged. Learn how.
Why Cleansing Unlocks Your Altar’s Power
If your altar is cluttered, so is your spirit line. If the water is stale and the candle flame weak, so is the signal to your dead. There is no power in chaos, no clarity in dust. Altars are living systems. They breathe. They listen. They get hungry. They get tired. They absorb what you bring to them—grief, gratitude, trauma, triumph.
When you let dust settle on your ancestral names, you're saying you're too busy for legacy. When I speak about legacy, it is the spiritual and lived imprint you leave behind through your name, choices, and bloodline. It’s what your ancestors built into you—and what you build for those after you. Legacy is what you leave behind when you're gone. It's your name, your actions, and the family or people connected to you. In Hoodoo, legacy means the power your ancestors passed to you—and the responsibility you have to protect and use it right.
Me being 52, and except for one Aunt and one Uncle, everyone before me are gone. Parents, grandparents, other aunts and uncles and cousins. I am the one that looks after whose here still in my family, making sure they are thriving and not just getting by. I am what I call a “bloodline sentinel,” I make sure each one is protected, paying their bills, getting jobs that pay well, and healing healthily—spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. We are in a world where the spiritual realm is more open to people and many are dabbling in it and don’t understand that walking in both realms at once, you have to be responsible everything you do and effect. Just because you’re not fully aware of how many spirits walk amongst up, doesn’t mean they are not cognizant of you, whether you light a candle or not.
In Hoodoo, legacy isn’t just memory—it’s inherited power that must be honored, protected, and activated. Activated meaning to put to use through action. Your legacy power doesn’t just sit there—it must be awakened and worked. You activate it by speaking your ancestors’ names, lighting candles, doing altar work, praying Psalms, and using the tools they left you. It becomes real when you call it, command it, and move with it. Without activation, legacy is just potential. With it, legacy becomes power in motion. When you leave the food to rot, you're saying their presence is forgettable. And when you light candles without cleaning first, you're lighting fire in a house already choking on smoke.
True workers clean before they call because spiritual hygiene is protection. It's power. It's prophecy.
Your altar is the battlefield and the banquet. It must be scrubbed like a floor before a funeral. Dressed like a body before burial. Washed like the hands of a midwife who catches the next generation.
What About The Rest of the House?
I once read an article about Orthodox Jews, how they prepare their house before Passover. I am not comparing Hoodoo or conjure to Jewish culture or tradition, but it made me think about my own house in terms of cleanliness and creating a space where not only my family, but my honored dead and spirit can reside without any hinderance. I was fascinated that the Jewish people clean from the ceilings down to the floor boards. Yep, most of our parents wanted their house cleaned that way…but did we really do that?
In Orthodox Jewish tradition, the preparation for Passover (Pesach) includes a deep, ritual-driven cleaning of the home called bedikat chametz—the search and removal of all chametz (leavened bread or any product containing it). This isn’t just spring cleaning., it’s spiritual discipline.
Every drawer, shelf, floorboard, rafter, ceiling and ceiling fan blade and corner gets scrubbed. Every surface of the dwelling. Crumbs are hunted like sin. The idea is this: if you're going to honor your honored dead, your house must reflect the atmosphere that you want to maintain. When your house is clean, you can feel any subtle change in the energy in your house.
Think of negative energy and entities like animal hair. It floats unseen at first—light, quiet, easy to ignore. But over time, it gathers in corners, sticks to surfaces, and clings to places you forget to or even think of to clean. It moves with the air, clumps under beds, and settles behind closed doors, ledges and all—always collecting, always spreading. If you don’t sweep it out regularly, it layers over everything—blocking flow, choking space, and making your home feel heavy even when it looks clean. It sticks to you, yours clothes, bedding, every surface. Then you leave the house and go to work, other houses of family and friends, in your car or theirs, and now you’ve deposited in other places. Also you’re picking up their debris as well. But the key thought is, its always with you and now your spreading it.
It’s a ritual of readiness—cleansing the space so the spirit can dwell without resistance. That’s spiritual care. That’s careful preparation. It’s the same mindset you bring to cleaning an altar or spiritual space in Hoodoo: don’t ask for divine power if you’re not willing to make room for it.
Every wipe, every rinse, every refilled glass—you're not just cleaning, you're commanding dominance and dominion.
You're telling your spirits: I remember. I respect. I'm ready.
Ready to learn more starting your spiritual journey? I have answers to your questions
The Conjured Truth : What Happened When I Stripped My Whole House with Ammonia - I promise it will all make sense
I was doing what I always do—deep cleaning. I’m used to bleach and Dawn dish soap. That kind of clean where you wipe the walls, hit the baseboards, and the whole house smells like “don’t touch nothin’.” But this time, I tried something different. I had heard that ammonia doesn’t just clean—it cleanses. Spiritually. Energetically. I thought I was leveling up. So I got busy. I wiped down everything: the floors, the baseboards, the mirrors, the photos, the walls, the ceiling fans—even the ceiling itself. I didn’t stop at the altar either. I scrubbed every inch, thinking I was doing something holy.
What I didn’t do was light any candles. I didn’t burn any herbs. I didn’t speak a command. I didn’t even pray. I was just in cleaning mode—physical mode, not spiritual mode. And that was the mistake.
That night, none of us could sleep. Not me. Not my kids. Not a single person in the house. We tossed. Turned. Woke up feeling drained, like the whole place had been unplugged from the wall. It wasn’t haunted—it was hollow. The house didn’t feel heavy. It felt dead. Like all the spirit had been vacuumed out and nothing was left. The air wasn’t calm—it was blank. That kind of stillness that doesn’t soothe. It strangles.
So I sat with Spirit and asked what happened. Because this wasn’t just a me-thing—my whole household felt it. Spirit told me plain: “Ammonia is a stripper.” It doesn’t just remove the bad—it strips everything. The peace, the favor, the warmth, the welcome. I had wiped the whole house like a chalkboard and forgot to write anything back on it.
That’s when I understood the difference between cleaning and cleansing—and why both bleach and sage, ammonia and camphor, even rue, can strip a space. Spirit said: “If you don’t fill that space with power, presence, and praise—something else will.” That empty air you leave behind becomes a breeding ground. For stagnation. For confusion. For spirit traffic that don’t belong to you. Because yes—a void always invites something in.
In rootwork, we don’t just clean. We restore order. We refill. We re-command. A spiritually stripped house with no covering becomes an open door. And not everything that walks through that door comes in peace.
And that’s when it hit me—it’s not just the house. It’s the altar too. The altar is the microcosm of the home. If I scrub it down with soap and Florida Water and ammonia and forget to redress it, re-anoint it, and re-call my spirits back to their throne, I’ve left it naked. Void. Spiritually evicted.
From that moment on, I changed how I clean—everything. If I strip the house, I follow it with a house blessing to lay protection back down, a blockbuster to break what’s stuck, a road opener to stir movement, and a prosperity ritual to anchor us in favor. And I do the same for my altar. I redress it. I light a candle with oil. I call their names back. I say, “This throne is clean. Return in power. Sit with me again.”
After that, the house breathed again. The energy came back. The walls didn’t feel empty—they felt held. My kids slept. The heaviness lifted. And Spirit returned.
That week taught me a hard truth: you can’t just cleanse. You must refill. You must re-anoint. You must re-command. If you take everything out, you better be ready to put something powerful back in. Because silence doesn’t always mean peace. Sometimes it means absence. And in conjure? Absence leaves you unprotected.
So whether it’s your whole house or your ancestral altar—don’t just wipe it clean. Reclaim it. Because the throne don’t hold power unless the spirits are seated. And they don’t sit where they haven’t been invited.
What that have to do with altar cleansing? Its about how you clean and how you reempower.
How to Clean Your Altar
For Power, Protection, and Spiritual Respect
1. Prepare the Space Before You Touch the Altar
Why You Shower Before Cleansing the Altar
Taking a regular shower first removes physical dirt and debris. But taking a spiritual shower afterward clears your energy field—your aura, your thoughts, your emotions. You don’t bring dust, funk, or chaos to the altar. You come as a vessel, not a whirlwind.
When you spiritually cleanse before approaching the altar, you’re saying:
“I strip off the world and stand here unbound.”
(You’re not just shaking off the day—you’re cutting ties.)“I approach this altar as living law—clean in body, fixed in mind, armed in spirit.”
(You’re not just ready—you’re spiritually fortified.)“This is not furniture. This is my family’s throne. And I clean it because power sits here.”
(You’re not doing housework. You’re preparing the seat of the divine and the dead.)
Water resets your field. Herbs break attachments. Psalms open the heavens. And when you stand before the altar after you’ve spiritually showered, your commands hit harder—because Spirit knows you came with respect, not residue.
Should You Cleanse Before or After Cleaning the Altar?
Both—But for Different Reasons.
Cleansing Before and After Altar Cleaning: What’s the Difference & Why It Matters
When I say cleanse before, I mean you cleanse yourself—your body, mind, and spirit—before approaching your altar or starting spiritual housework. This ensures you’re not bringing spiritual dirt, emotional residue, or chaotic energy into the sacred space. You come in ready, not ragged. That cleansing is about preparation.
When I say cleanse after, that’s optional and based on how heavy the energy felt. If you cleansed your altar and felt:
Spiritually tired
Irritated or sad
Like something was stirred or off
Then you cleanse yourself again after the work is done to remove anything that may have latched on or been kicked up during the process.
What You Don’t Do:
You don’t clean yourself in between a half-finished altar cleanse. If you walk away mid-ritual or start dealing with other people’s energy before you seal the space, you risk contaminating the clean work.
Correct Order for a Full Altar Cleaning Day:
Cleanse Yourself First (spiritual bath, shower, prayer, smoke)
Clean the Altar (physically + spiritually)
Redress and Refill the Altar (offerings, fire, prayer)
Cleanse Yourself Again (optional) if the energy felt heavy, stagnant, or disruptive
Seal It with Fire and Command (light a candle, call your spirits, declare order)
You cleanse before to prepare. You cleanse after if needed—to protect.
That way, you don’t become the one dragging dust back onto the throne.
Why Are You Cleaning if the Altar is already Spiritually Dirty?
Yes—you must be spiritually clean before cleansing a dirty altar.
Here’s why:
A Dirty Altar Still Holds Power
Even if the altar is dusty, neglected, or spiritually blocked, it’s not empty. It still holds energetic residue, spirit ties, emotional imprints, and sometimes even restless ancestors. Approaching it while you’re uncleansed or emotionally scattered puts you at risk of:
Absorbing that stagnant or chaotic energy
Disrespecting the seat of power by showing up in disorder
Why You Cleanse Before Touching It:
Spiritual cleansing before altar work does 3 critical things:
Removes the world’s weight off you—so you don’t bring confusion, sadness, or external attachments into the ritual itself.
Establishes spiritual authority—so you come to the altar as a worker, not a visitor.
Protects you—in case any hidden energy or uninvited spirit gets stirred while cleaning.
Think of It Like This:
You don’t mop a room floor wearing muddy boots.
Its a added layer of protection for yourself
When to Cleanse After Cleaning Your Altar:
You should spiritually cleanse yourself after altar work if:
You felt heavy, angry, sad, or anxious while cleaning
You were dealing with unhealed ancestors or emotional offerings
You encountered odd smells, shadows, cold spots, or anything that felt off
You were resetting the altar after neglect or spiritual blockage
You had to remove old moldy, stagnant, or funky offerings
In those cases, you're not just dusting—you’re stirring spiritual traffic. And that can stick to you.
What a Post-Altar Cleansing Looks Like:
Wash your hands and face in salt + Florida Water
Step into an herbal rinse (like hyssop, rue, or rosemary)
Pray something like: “As I pour this over me, I wash away all that is not mine.”
Air dry, never towel dry
Sit in silence or light a single white candle if you still feel stirred
If the altar felt light, clear, and powerful—then your post-cleanse may not be necessary. But if you felt even a whiff of off? Don’t walk around with altar residue on your spirit. Rinse it off and reclaim your calm.
2. Start With a Gentle, Natural Cleanser
Avoid harsh strippers like ammonia or bleach unless doing a full reset.
Use:
Warm water with Florida Water or rue water
Add a pinch of salt for purification
Optional: A few drops of protection oil or ancestor oil
Soak a cloth in the mixture. Wring it out—don’t soak your altar.
Speak every part of what you want the mixture to do. What you are cleansing? What it’s to do.
3. Remove All Items With Care and Order
Blow out or snuff candles if needed
Remove offerings, cups, photos, and tools
Place them on a clean white cloth or paper towel while you clean
Do not just shove or toss—each item carries spiritual energy
Cleanse these items if they need to be cleansed as well.
Say: “As I remove these, I do so in honor and return them in power.”
For me, I like to wipe everything down with a charge mixture of blessed water, dawn dish soap, Florida Water, with a couple of drops of blueing in it.
This Charged Cleansing Mixture: What Every Ingredient Does (A formulation with Spirit)
Blessed Water
This is your spiritual base. Whether it’s spring water prayed over, psalm-charged, or collected from a sacred source, it carries intention.
Purpose: It sanctifies and purifies, acting like a spiritual conductor. It brings Divine energy into the work.
Dawn Dish Soap
This isn’t just physical. In rootwork, Dawn is used to cut through stubborn residue—seen and unseen. It breaks spiritual film, oily spirits, and energetic clutter.
Purpose: Cuts through lingering mess, especially emotional residue left by grief, confusion, or trauma. It also brings “clearing clarity.”
So Is This Traditional?
No—it’s not old-style Hoodoo in the sense of being passed down from 1800s conjure books.
But it is an adaption that I spiritually check to see if it can become part of my practice in my rootwork in the way Hoodoo has always worked: use what works. If it clears, it stays. If it breaks blockages, it gets added to the altar spiritual curios list.
Dawn became spiritual because it worked for me—I knew the difference between soap and sovereignty. Dawn didn’t exist back then, it wasn’t formulated until 1973. But I love how it cleans. Old rootworkers, used homemade lye soap (spiritually strong and deeply purifying), bluing for spiritual brightness, and salt, vinegar, and herbal washes like pine, rosemary, and hyssop. I using what I have available.
Florida Water
The classic conjure tool. Used for blessing, communication, ancestor work, and spiritual rebalancing. It sweetens the energy while pushing out what doesn’t belong.
Purpose: Clears negativity, lifts the space spiritually, and makes it easier for spirit to return and speak.
· Did Ya Know: Florida Water was first created in 1808 as a citrus-based cologne inspired by European "Eau de Cologne," named after La Florida—land of flowers—not the state. Though it began as a perfume, Black, Afro-Caribbean, and Indigenous spiritual communities transformed it into a sacred tool. In Hoodoo, Santería, and other traditions, it’s used to cleanse, protect, sweeten energy, and open spiritual communication. Its mix of alcohol, citrus, clove, and lavender makes it both uplifting and purifying. Florida Water became spiritual not by design—but by power, practice, and purpose.
Blueing (Bluing Water or Laundry Bluing)
This is old-school conjure power. Used by Southern rootworkers to “brighten” the energy, remove crossed conditions, and signal cleanliness on a spiritual level. The color blue represents protection, purity, and order in African American folk belief.
Purpose: Wards off evil, absorbs jinxes, and spiritually “cleanses the eyes” of the altar so it can see again.
· Did Ya Know: Bluing originated in the 1700s as a laundry product used to make white clothes appear brighter by adding a trace of blue dye to the wash. Popularized in the U.S. by brands like Mrs. Stewart’s, it became a household staple—especially among Black women working as laundresses. Over time, Southern rootworkers recognized blue’s spiritual power and repurposed bluing as a protection tool. In Hoodoo, it came to represent peace, clarity, and warding off evil—used in floor washes, spiritual baths, and altar cleansing. What started as a whitening agent became a powerful shield in conjure.
What This Mixture Does Altogether:
It cleans physically, but more importantly, it clears spiritually
It protects while purifying
It strips bad energy while welcoming good spirit
It leaves the altar charged, not just wiped
Spoken Intention:
As you wipe, speak:
"By water, by soap, by power, by sight—this altar is cleansed, restored, and made right."
4. Wipe Every Surface With Intention
Start at the back right corner and work counter-clockwise
Clockwise if your adding to or bringing in, counter-clockwise if you’re removing.
As you clean, speak your ancestors’ names or pray Psalm 51 or Psalm 24
Whisper: “May every corner be cleared for your presence. May all that’s unclean be removed.”
Wipe candleholders, trays, jars, photo frames, and any dust or residue
5. Dispose of Old Offerings With Respect
Food or drink: Bury it in the earth or pour into a tree base
Water: Pour out at the crossroads or flush with a blessing
Say: “I return this offering to the earth in peace and fulfillment.”
6. Refill and Reignite the Altar
Refresh water, clean glasses or bowls
Dress candles with oil and herbs if doing active work
Replace items in their proper positions—order is law
Light fresh incense or camphor
Call your spirits back by name:
“This altar is clean. This place is ready. Return in power and peace.”
7. Seal It With Prayer and Fire
Read Psalm 100 or 121 aloud
Light a white candle as a beacon
Sit in silence or speak your command:
“I keep this space clean in your names. Let nothing enter without my permission. Guard this gate.”
Reminder:
Clean weekly, or whenever offerings are removed
NEVER leave stagnant water, old food, or burned-out candles
Dust is spiritual neglect—it slows down your blessings
Don’t clean in chaos—set spiritual order before physical action
In Hoodoo, a dirty altar is a locked gate. A clean altar is an open throne.
Clean it like you want Spirit to show up.
Because when you do? They will.
Did you understand the order? Comment and tag it #AncestralOrder
REFLECTION: Where is your spiritual order breaking down right now?
Take a slow walk through your home today—not just with your eyes, but with your spirit. Close your eyes and feel the shift in energy through every room. Do you hear talking in your spirit. I hear an audible voice speaking to me, giving me information about what’s going on. Don’t just tidy up—tune in. Feel the air. Sense where the energy is thick, where the silence feels strange, where something lingers too long. Is there a corner you've been avoiding? A shelf that hasn't been touched in weeks?
That same stagnation shows up on your altar if you’re not careful. Are the candles half-burned and forgotten? Is the water cloudy? Glasses have a mold ring around them? Are your ancestors’ names hidden beneath dust, distraction, or delay? If your altar looks neglected, your ancestors might feel neglected. And when that happens, communication weakens, favor slows, and blessings get blocked. A clean altar isn’t about looking good—it’s about showing up like your name means something. It’s about power, presence, and respect. So here’s your challenge today: clean one thing. Wipe one surface. Refresh one offering. Light one candle. And say aloud, like you mean it: “I clear the path for power. I make room for you to move.” Because when you move with care, Spirit moves with force.
POST NAVIGATION LINKS
Missed a post? Catch up below:
→ Part 1: Constructing Your First the Altar (6/24/25)
→ Part 2: Plants and Flowers on the Altar (6/24/26)
→ Part 3: Cleaning & Maintenance (Coming 6/25/25)
Below you get extra information that will help you understand which products and herbs are spiritual strippers, how to cleanse, bless, and charge your herbs and a list of ways to use your ancestral altar.