The Magical Home

[thalassa]

The Energetic Home

“And what is a man without energy? Nothing - nothing at all.” ~ Mark Twain

“Energy and persistence alter all things.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

If the home is a place where we can feel safe to draw the shades, put on some music and dance around in our pyjamas, then surely it is also a place where we can pull down the shades, put on a drumming CD, and dance ourselves into a trance.

A home is filled with energy, from people to pets to sentimental objects, from spirits of the land, to plants and trees, household spirits, the odd god peeking in and ancestors watching out for us, the home is fairly bursting with activity on all planes!

The two best places for any witch to practice connecting with the energies and spirits of the universe are in the wild, and in the home. In the wild we are taken out of our comfort zone and immersed in nature and the wild, surrounded by the spirits of the land. Home is our comfort zone, and here we are surrounded by the energies and spirits we spend most of our time with.

Before a witch can hope to create effective change through magickal and spiritual means, a witch must first learn how to affect and balance the energies of the place we call home. If a witch cannot build a working relationship with a small household spirit or land guardian, how can that witch hope to develop a working relationship with a god, ancestor or spirit guide?

The daily routines, the thoughts and feelings and energies of the household members all create and affect the energy or vibe in a home. Being more aware of when we might be spilling out negative energy, or when a family member may be, can help us to not react to it negatively but be able to shield and/or deal with it.

Giving a room a light sweeping or cleaning with will and intent behind it can help clear away the negativity from a fight, a bout of the flu, or stressful day. Making a conscious effort to fill a home with joyful and content energies can be very rewarding. Even just lighting a candle in a room to remind you to be positive and to think before you react to situations can have a small, but significant effect.

You will probably not be aware of spirits and energies within your home until you first acknowledge that they might be there. This is one of the reasons why we will begin with invitations and gifts, not only to show any spirits that we are interested and friendly, but to also help make our minds and hearts open enough to know when there really is something there or not.

Making an effort to add little spiritual moments into our daily routines is the very essence of living a spiritual life.

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.” ~ Stephen Covey

There are many methods of raising and manipulating energy. Some more hearth and home-related methods may be:

Raising:
Dancing around the bonfire in the backyard, or simply dancing around the coffee table with a few candles on it.
Banging on pots and pans, while going on parade around the house and yard (do not wake the neighbors)
Jumping over brooms and mops, dancing with brooms and mops (you know we all do it, admit it)
Clapping, stomping and singing
Running around the yard
Holding hands and dancing in a circle, chanting in unison
Stirring a pot
Connecting with the land’s energies
Lighting a fire

Directing:
Sweeping and mopping
Stirring a pot, adding ingredients
Tapping objects or the ground
Laying on hands
Stomping the energy into the ground, floor etc
Hugging and kissing
Laughter, directed
Breathing/blowing on to
Lighting a fire, wafting smoke
Conducting (like with an orchestra) using a wand, spoon, or knife
Washing and scrubbing

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” ~ Kahlil Gibran


from http://walkingthehedge.net/blog/2009...nergetic-home/

[thalassa]

some of the pertinent conversation from the "Incorporating Magic into the Home" thread on the old forum:

Post by: thalassa on March 01, 2009, 12:52:28 PM
hmmmm...where to start....

My philosophy is that the home is the temple for the religion of life...from cooking with love and cleaning the anger out, we try to do whatever facilitates a life well-lived.

We rent, so we are big on doing a cleansing and blessing every time we move in or out of a new place, as well as seasonally. One of the things we do is take a sharpie (because sharpie can be removed with alcohol from most surfacesbefore moving) and write in hard to see places (under a window sill, on the top edge of the door, the underside of a cabinet shelf) some sort of blessing for the room or area--its always funny when someone finds one of them. The general one we use is "let love and laughter bless those that live here, let peace and passion dwell in their hearts" but the kitchen one is "May the hearth of the home bring us sustenance for the body and soul". There was even some joking debate over a toilet "may it come out easy" :.

I'll come back and type more later...but I think I have a baby that wants a bottle, and a WoW date with the hubby shortly.

Post by: thalassa on April 14, 2009, 05:42:54 PM
I totally forgot about this thread...

(bad me! and after I predicted an encyclopedia!)


The easy way to do this is to incorporate any type of correspondence (that you agree with) that promotes whatever feeling/thought/etc you desire into whatever activity that you are willing to consciously take part in, or item that you are willing to manufacture to stand as a reminder for whatever you want to promote.

For example:

I have a two year-old...I want her to sleep well and sleep soundly in her room, to relax and be calm there and feel secure and like her room is her sanctuary.

Some things that promote these things:
Pink--Affection, friendship, happiness, relaxation
Purple--Meditation, mental healing, personal growth, psychic abilities, spirituality, tranquility
Blue--Friendship, harmony, inspiration, sincerity, spirituality, understanding, wisdom
Lavender--dreams, love, meditation, protection, sleep
Chamomile--love, meditation, peace
Sage--purification, repel negativity, wisdom
Amethyst--dreams, imagination, meditation, relieves stress
Lapis Lazuli--love, peace of mind, psychic protection

Some things we do to incorporate these things...
Her sheets get dried with a wee bit of lavender oil on a washcloth put in the drier...lavender, chamomile and clary sage get ground up with some baking soda and sprinkled on the carpet for a carpet cleaner...she has a dream catcher of sorts that we made from willow with threading that changes from pink to purple, and amethyst beads...she has a little altar, and her own little bell that she likes to ring while she sings the clean-up song...


The "trick" in household magic, isn't the ingredients, or the correspondences (although, from an aromatheraputic standpoint, those can be TREMENDOUSLY helpful) as much as it is mindfulness (reading into the Buddhist concept of mindfulness is a big help here) and intent. If you can't pour your intent into the moment, you are just sprinkling flowers on the carpet and washing some laundry.

Post by: Raphaeline on April 14, 2009, 10:12:45 PM
I'm looking forward to reading the collective work, too

Quote from: thalassa on March 01, 2009, 12:52:28 PM
My philosophy is that the home is the temple for the religion of life.

Well said. And what you said just a post or two ago about it being about mindfulness I agree with as well.

Some activities I've done are building appropriate altars in different areas of the home, such as keeping an abundance altar in the kitchen and a love altar in the bedroom. (Recently, since we're doing an entire reworking of the apartment for the nursery and doing some MAJOR Spring cleaning, I'm reconstructing these things.) Appropriate spells in appropriate places: protection spells at doors, for example.

I haven't really stopped to think about it in a while, although now would be a great time to do so not only for the sake of answering the OP, but because we're remodeling, so to speak. I'll be back with more useful things

Post by: thalassa on April 15, 2009, 08:20:15 AM

Quote from: volcaniclastic on April 14, 2009, 11:23:07 PM
Thalassa, you are just an absolute tomb of information! Can I steal your brain?

lol! thanks! and, no....unless you are a zombie!!! :-*



A good reference book (for correspondences)to have is Holland's Grimoire of Magickal Correspondences (http://www.amazon.com/Hollands-Grimo.../dp/1564148319) (or a book like it)...it is an entire book of nothing but correspondences by subject matter--like if you look up love, it will give you three pages worth of correspondences, everything from herbs to stones to colors to dieties. Which you can then cross-reference with books (or websites) on herbs (I'm a fan of Paul Beyerl's A Compendium of Herbal Magick (http://www.amazon.com/Compendium-Her...d_bxgy_b_img_b)), crystals (http://www.wicca.com/celtic/stones/stones0.htm), colors, etc for the precise uses, inorder to fine tune what you want to use or not.


IMO:
Magic in the home is about finding the sacred in everyday tasks, working with the energies of nature to make the home a sacred place and honoring the Divine in ourselves and each other and our interactions as a family...which is best accomplished with action then it is with stuff.



That being said...

I like stuff. I am a big fan of thrift stores and finding uses for it later...I mean, I have a pair of wooden shoes I've been meaning to make into a Yule altar for the past year and a half (but Sophie likes to walk around in them...).


Like Rafe, we have several altars scattered through out the house...

In our room we have more of blessing bowl than an actual altar on our dresser, though it funtions the same. In the kitchen, we have a window sill altar that changes with the seasons...there is a pretty good book called Cooking Like a Goddess: Bringing Seasonal Magic into the Kitchen, by Cait Johnson, (http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Like-G.../dp/0892817399) that has an entire section dedicated making one's kitchen sacred space and then goes on to discuss the ways to have that space, and the food you prepare reflect the seasons. Our family altar is on top of the entertainment center in the livingroom (ironically fitting, since TV seems to be the 21st century family "hearth&quot...


I also started making seasonal (holiday) wreaths for the door (the dollar store has some AWESOME supplies)... Last Samhain, we had a cornucopia instead of a wreath and for yule we had a fake evergreen wreath with (real) holly and (fake) mistletoe, with a ribbon pentacle in the center (we were able to save that one). For Ostara, I took a (dollar store) wicker wreath, wrapped it with sphagnum moss and soaked it with water, and then planted it with grass seed (which sprouted) and decorated it with eggs...we recycled or gave to a friends compost pile all of it when we were done. For Beltane, I haven't decided what to do for sure yet, I found instructions for making a "living wreath" with herbs, which I was thinking about doing.

Another thing we do is use candles or an oil lamp for dinner time...since we have a toddler and a baby, we need some calm, and have found that turning the TV, the computer, the whatever, AND the lights, and sitting down with the windows open, maybe some quiet music (or not, just listening to the outside) makes for a far calmer dinner time, and evening routine.

I so wish we had a place for a garden, so I'm working on that one...but you could EASILY do some fantastic things outside as well, if you have a yard.

Post by: MeadowSweet on April 27, 2009, 04:52:16 PM
I think the most important step in living a magickal life is to recognize and acknowledge that the magick is already there. It doesn't need to be "incorporated" or added so much as "grokked and cherished" . Adding herbs or crystals are nice, but without this vital presence and acknowledgment, all they are is new-age trinkets and toys.

Post by: Rivenfae Wolf on July 09, 2009, 06:47:00 PM
My biggest thing is if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't belong there. When I get a chance I want to hang some prayer flags in our main room of our home. Also some rose quartz strings around the bed (never know might help ). Candles spread through the house is a nice small start, in comforting scents. Also for me it's weird but bare with me; organise your kitchen spices. Some of those have magickal uses too.

Hope this helps

Post by: thalassa on July 23, 2009, 08:35:10 AM
are you looking to try anything specific?
Posted on: 23 July 2009, 07:57:20
Like, I associate different rooms of the home with different elements...for the most part its open to interpretation, but certain rooms kind of lend themselves to different elements. For example, the kitchen, being the hearth of the home and a place where one practices the art of transforming substances is associated predominantly with fire, but also with earth, as it is a place of sustenace. The bathroom is a place of cleansing and relaxation is predominantly associated with water, but also as a place of contemplation, abstract thinking, etc it can be associated with air. Our living room functions as a space for communication, and laughter, protection, grounding and stability--its main elemental correspondence is air and earth. The bedroom is really a bit of all four elements, but can lean a bit depending on its function and the needs of its inhabitants--the kids room leans more towards water and air, and my our room more towards earth and fire. A study might be air, a craft or hobby room possibly fire...really it depends on you, the function of the room, and your interpretation and communication with the space.

That being the case, you might choose to have a shrine/altar dedicated to that elemental function within the space. You might choose to decorate keeping in mind those correspondences that you have chosen for the function of the room. When performing a room blessing or cleansing, you might lean more towards incorporating a particular element.


I read once, in a book on henna (that I would pull out and verify exactly what it said, if I knew what box it was in) that the feet and the floor are sacred because they are the place where the body and the earth meet within the home (or something to that effect) and that both should be treated as such. Rugs, floor decorations/mosaics, taking one's shoes off, washing the feet before entering the home, henna-ing the feet, etc can all be ways to show this meeting...as can the art of rangoli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoli) (which I mention, because I recently met someone that does this for the sabbats in the entrance way to her home).

[Omidottir]

There was even some joking debate over a toilet "may it come out easy."

A friend of mine had a sign above her bathroom sink, the toilet faced the sink. The sign said "Relax, God is in charge". It made me giggle every time.

[Jembru]

I'd missed this thread but I have a related question. What do people feel about using a kind of adapted Feng Shui based on the Western style magical systems? I've been interested in using Feng Shui techniques in my home (and some things I DO use, like not having my feet towards a door when I sleep, arranging the furniture so that no corners are pointing at me when I'm sitting), but I'm very uncomfortable using the Eastern elements and the correspondences. It feels that sticking to the system I use in my religious and magical work, would create far more harmony. However, I don't think I am able to invent a system that could compare with an ancient Chinese system that took thousands of years, and far greater minds than mine, to develop.

How do other witchy-types address this conflict?

[Caelia]

Most people I know Westernize Feng Shui, and what we get over here is usually pre-Westernized as it is so I have no qualms.

I found it's just best to combine based on the resources available. For example, I'm prone to use wind chimes or prisms in a certain corner.

[Omidottir]

In many of the Feng Shui books I've read, they recommend using what works for you, as opposed to incorporating things from a culture that you are unfamiliar with. If the little bagua mirrors are foreign to you, use something else in their place that would have a similar meaning / effect. When we bought new furniture last year, we took our own thoughts into consideration and tried to create a balance of elements in our rooms. We're still working on that. The biggest issue that I have with the more Eastern Feng Shui is that there is no Air element. It freaks me out! Ignore Lilian Too's books, btw.

[Jembru]

Thanks for the advice. It's just that I've sometimes read or seen (on a show called 'House Busters'), that dabbling with Feng Shui and getting it wrong is very dangerous. I do suspect there is a degree of 'Please pay me £400 to walk around your home and tell you where to put stuff, instead of reading that £5 book of perfectly valid information', going on here. Having said that, one guy on House Busters, said that even though so many books tell you to use them, the Ba gua should NEVER be used in the home and was dramatic enough to say 'some masters would say this can kill!'

It's hard to create a harmonious environment when one has these worries at the back of the mind.

---------- Post added at 10:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:47 PM ----------

In many of the Feng Shui books I've read, they recommend using what works for you, as opposed to incorporating things from a culture that you are unfamiliar with. If the little bagua mirrors are foreign to you, use something else in their place that would have a similar meaning / effect.

This is good advice. I did think a few times about using silver Christmas tree baubles, to act like witch balls. If I'm worried about the ba gua anyway, maybe this is exactly what I need to do!

Thanks!

[volcaniclastic]

I think I own a book called The Magical House/Home....I should go dig it out of my boxes.

[lorraine02]

it is suitable for adults and kids, how nice a book, the stories in it is so good.

[Ula]

I have been reading a book on PA Dutch Urglaawe and there are bits and pieces about energy and home. For instance they don't sweep dirt out a door. It's swept from doors and corners to the center of the room to keep luck in the house. There are also times of year to have chores and cleaning done for Mother Holle because she inspects the home. Hex signs of course are basically magic to protect the barn and home. I love reading about energy practices.