The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018

Smooring/Banking Your Fire
Your Home As a Sacred Space

Smooring is a term encountered often in Celtic prayer, and it means banking a fire. In this modern age even the phrase “banking a fire” may be mysterious. From the context in which it’s generally found, one can infer that it is something done to preserve a fire in some way so that it may be revived the next morning. And it’s almost that simple. To bank a fire literally means to build up a protective wall of ashes or stones around the coals in order to keep it from spreading dangerously while you sleep, and to protect it from drafts and disturbances. By protecting the coals in this way, they can be used as the basis for building a new fire the next day. If the fire is outdoors and you intend to use it for more than one day, you can plan to build it next to a rock or dirt wall to help shelter it in this way. A fire ring or pit at a campground is basically this sort of design.

The word bank when used as a verb means to “heap or form into a mass or mound,” and that’s precisely what’s done to bank a fire. You don’t cover the coals or embers entirely; that would smother them and have the opposite effect of what you’re intending. Scrape the coals and embers together, then scrape the ashes up around them, insulating them. If you need more insulation, use rocks. If you’re banking in a fireplace, close the flue and the fire doors, if you have them.

Since most people have electricity to provide light and heat, smooring is a skill and a practice that has generally fallen out of use. In a spiritual context, however, it provides an opportunity to gather yourself back into yourself, in a manner of speaking, to pull your energy back from all the different directions in which the day has scattered it. In essence, it’s a moment of personal reconnection with the self. You can think of it as banking your personal flame, if you like, caring for it in such a way that it is sheltered and protected overnight and ready for use the next day.

Bank Your Inner Flame

Do this after you have finished cleaning up and just before you head to bed. You can try doing it before and after you prepare yourself for bed; one way may be more useful for you and provide a better effect. The goal is to evaluate the day without judgment. You can do this in the kitchen or anywhere else in your home. If the weather is good you may wish to do it outside on the back porch or steps.

1. Stand or sit with a relaxed frame. If you know a relaxation exercise, run through it to rid yourself of any excess stress and tension in your body.

2. Think back to how you felt when you woke up, and then think back over your day’s activities. Take note of how they made you feel: happy, angry, frustrated, sad, or peaceful. Remember, this retrospective isn’t done with the intent to judge how you handled yourself, simply to accept the day as it was and yourself as you are. This doesn’t have to be a long step; you don’t have to think through every event in detail. Call them up as impressions.

3. When you have finished thinking back over the day, close your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths. As you exhale each breath, allow any fear or worry or irritation connected with the day to flow out of you.

4. Feel yourself here, now, at this moment, and accept yourself. If you like, at this point you may say a brief prayer or a simple phrase, such as I accept myself. Watch over me as I sleep, spirits of the hearth, and guard my loved ones and our home. I bid you good night.

5. As the final act, do something physical and symbolic of finishing the day. You could turn off the light (be it the kitchen light or wherever you are) or close the door if you have been outside or standing at the door. If you have been sitting with a candle, using the flame as a meditative and calming focus, snuff it out by blowing it out, pinching it, or using a candle snuffer.

If you like, you can say a prayer in place of the previous phrase. You may already have a prayer that fits the purpose, or you may wish to write a new one. Saying a prayer that offers you an opportunity to connect with the Divine or the spirits of your hearth affirms your connection to it or them.

This is the traditional smooring prayer used in the Highlands of Scotland, as collected by Alexander Carmichael in the Carmina Gadelica. It calls on both Mary and Brigid (invoked here as Bride, a Scottish version of the name) as deities of domestic life to bless the home and the inhabitants. If you like, you can substitute other deity names or simply use the term “the Divine” to encompass your concept of God. The original prayer reads as follows:

I will smoor the hearth

As Mary would smoor;

The encompassment of Bride and of Mary,

On the fire and on the floor,

And on the household all.

Who is on the lawn without?

Fairest Mary and her Son,

The mouth of God ordained, the angel of God spoke;

Angels of promise watching the hearth,

Till white day comes to the fire.