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

Locating Your Spiritual Hearth
Your Spiritual Hearth

HEARTHCRAFT RECOGNIZES that your home is a sacred place, a place that has the power to refresh you, relax you, and rejuvenate you. But how precisely can you intentionally tap into this power? This chapter explores methods you can use to locate, bless, and work with your spiritual hearth in your home and in yourself.

Locating Your Spiritual Hearth

The spiritual hearth represents a refuge from the outside world, as well as a sacred place designed to maximize spiritual benefit. Deliberately designing a place of beauty, a place of serenity and calm, can be a challenge. First of all, you’ll have to deal with the physical limitations or drawbacks of the building in which you’re living. You’ll also have to deal with the needs and preferences of the other people who live in your house and your budget. Making the most of what you have is part of the practical aspect of hearthcraft. This is one of the main reasons the spiritual hearth revolves around the energy and atmosphere of the home, both of which can be cultivated by behavior, attitude, and positive outlook, rather than by physical rearranging or redecorating. Although the latter can certainly enhance your home and the effect you are seeking to achieve, it’s important to remember that the spiritual hearth functions on the level of energy and spiritual benefit.

The spiritual hearth is the symbolic heart of your home. Although the kitchen seems to be the logical modern parallel of the physical hearth, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the spiritual hearth of your home. Many people have to live with kitchens that are poorly laid out, seemingly afterthoughts of the architect. A kitchen that is cramped or unwelcoming is very definitely not the symbolic heart of your home. If this is the case with you, think about how the areas of your home are used and where people seem to gravitate, to help you determine where the symbolic heart of your home is. Perhaps everyone brings their various activities into the living room or dining room or family room. Perhaps the curve of a staircase where there is a window overlooking the garden is where people pause. Or perhaps the spiritual center of your home is where you can feel the rest of it around you, even if the physical center is in a hallway or an odd spot.

If you can’t put your finger on the heart of your home, and you do not wish to designate your kitchen as the symbolic hearth, then consciously choose another area. If you have a fireplace, this makes an excellent physical representation of the spiritual hearth, provided it is in a room that sees frequent use. There is no point to establishing a symbolic hearth in an unused fireplace located in a room that people avoid.