The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018
Set Up Energy Boundaries
Using Hearthcraft to Protect Your Home
Setting up energy barriers or boundaries is a good way not only to keep track of what is happening with your home’s energy at all times but also to control what kind of energy comes into it. The threshold is a logical place to encode with a spiritual barrier. As the natural entrance and egress to your home, it can serve as a filter or blockade for undesired energy. Windows also should be protected, as they make easy alternatives to doors.
Threshold Protection Ritual
The threshold is a magical place, as it is neither in the house nor out, and yet it is part of both. Using the threshold as a focus for a protective spell is a first defense. This ritual not only cleanses the threshold; it also empowers it to function as a filter to allow positive energy into the home while keeping negative or disruptive energy out.
This creates a protective barrier keyed to the threshold of your house. If you have more than one entrance you use regularly, perform this ritual at the entrance you use more frequently, then at the secondary entrance.
You will need:
✵ 1 cup water
✵ 1/2 cup vinegar
✵ 1 tablespoon salt
✵ 1 tablespoon lemon juice
✵ Bowl or bucket
✵ Washing cloth
✵ Sage smudge (or loose dried sage)
✵ Matches or lighter
✵ Censer or heatproof dish
✵ Sealing oil (see Chapter 11, or use a tablespoon of olive oil with a pinch of salt added to it)
✵ 3 cloves garlic
1. Blend the water, vinegar, salt, and lemon juice together in a bowl or bucket. With the cloth, use this mixture to wash the threshold and doorframe. Be thorough: scrub the threshold inside and out, as well as the doorframe on both sides of the door, and both sides of the door itself.
2. Light the sage smudge and move it around the doorframe, wafting the smoke so that it touches the area inside and out. Lay the smudge in a censer or heatproof dish and allow it to smolder while you complete the ritual.
3. Dip your finger in the sealing oil and draw an unbroken line around the outside of the doorframe. Dip your finger in the oil again as necessary, but begin again exactly where you left off or retrace an inch or so of the line to ensure its continuity. As you draw the line, say:
No evil or illness may cross this threshold.
I hereby bar it from entering.
My home is sacred, and protected.
4. Dip your finger in the oil again. On the inside of the doorframe, touch your finger to the upper left corner and trace a line in the air down and across the doorway to touch the lower right corner. Dip your finger in the oil again, touch it to the upper right corner, and draw a line in the air down and across to touch the lower left corner. Dip your finger one last time and touch it to the middle of the lintel above the door and draw a line in the air straight down to touch the middle of the threshold. As you do so, say again:
No evil or illness may cross this threshold.
I hereby bar it from entering.
My home is sacred, and protected.
This symbol is a hexefus, or a combination of the runes Isa (a vertical line) and Gebo (an X). Gebo represents exchanges of energy or material objects, while Isa represents a static state (it translates to “ice”). Drawn together in this bindrune form, Isa “freezes” the state of your home and possessions, protecting it from physical and other intrusion.
5. Take three cloves of garlic. Touch each of them with a finger dipped in the oil. Bury them under your threshold or doorstep or as near to it as possible. Bury one at each end of the step or threshold, and one in the middle. As you do so, say again one final time:
No evil or illness may cross this threshold.
I hereby bar it from entering.
My home is sacred, and protected.
If you like, you can adapt this ritual and apply it to your windows as well. Bury a single clove of garlic in the ground under each window.
Wards
A ward is something that protects or defends. When used in connection with a house or home “to ward something” is to set up an autonomous system of protection.
A word of advice about wards and protective barriers: if you’re keeping something out, you’re also keeping something in at the same time. It’s healthy to lower wards and barriers now and again to allow what you’ve trapped inside to move around and air the place out, so to speak.
The caveat is that you have to check on your ward regularly. Just like raising a wall around a city to defend it, if you don’t take a regular walk around and look at the state of the wall you’ve built, it can crumble, grow weak, be affected by the weather or vines. You can’t just raise it and ignore it; it needs to be refreshed now and again. How often depends on the kind of neighborhood you live in.
Constructing a Ward
This is a good basic ward for your home. It needs frequent renewal. Two or four times a year is good; try tying it to the seasonal shifts. If you feel the ward has been compromised in some way, take it down (see the next section) and reconstruct it afresh.
You will need:
✵ Candle in a candleholder
✵ Matches or lighter
✵ Dish of water
✵ Dish of earth (you may use salt, but as you will be sprinkling this on the ground, it’s not advisable)
✵ Incense (your choice)
✵ Censer
1. Light the candle. Beginning at your threshold, walk around the outside of your dwelling, carrying the candle in front of you. As you walk, say:
I build this boundary with fire.
2. Repeat the sentence as you walk all the way around the building. Visualize the path the flame traces hanging in the air as a band of energy. When you return to your threshold, set down the candle.
3. Pick up the dish of water and walk around the building again, dipping your fingers into the water and sprinkling it as you walk. As you do, say:
I build this boundary with water.
4. Repeat the sentence as you walk all the way around the building. Visualize the path the water traces hanging in the air as a band of energy. When you return to your threshold, set down the dish of water.
5. Pick up the dish of earth and walk around the building again, dipping your fingers into the earth and sprinkling it as you walk. As you do, say:
I build this boundary with earth.
6. Repeat the sentence as you walk all the way around the building. Visualize the path the earth traces hanging in the air as a band of energy. When you return to your threshold, set down the dish of earth.
7. Light the incense and place it in the censer. Pick it up and walk around the building again, wafting the smoke around you as you walk. As you do, say:
I build this boundary with air.
8. Repeat the sentence as you walk all the way around the building. Visualize the path the smoke traces hanging in the air as a band of energy. When you return to your threshold, set down the censer.
9. Standing at your threshold, reach out with your hands as if you were placing your palms on a wall. Visualize the four circuits you made with the elements fusing together, expanding into a solid wall of energy. Then visualize that wall of energy growing down into the ground and curving in until it meets under your dwelling. Visualize the top growing up and in until it meets overhead, thus forming a sphere of energy enclosing the building. Say:
Fire, water, earth, and air,
Guard this home against all ill will and danger.
Keep this house and those who live in it safe.
I declare this ward to be raised and active.
Removing a Ward
Sometimes a ward must be dismantled. If you move, for example, or if your home energy changes significantly in some way (the addition of a new member of the family or lodger, for example, a major change in career, or a physical alteration of the house through renovation or addition), the original ward, programmed to recognize and protect a certain energy and home entity, can become less effective. Dissolving it or taking it down is a smart step before rebuilding a new ward. Rather than trying to reshape and adapt what you originally put up, release the energy of the ward and start afresh. Building on the old ward is inadvisable because it has its foundations in something that technically no longer exists.
Dissolving an Existing Ward
To dissolve an existing ward, begin at your threshold and walk counterclockwise around your dwelling. As you do, hold your hand out with the palm down and visualize it slicing through the wall or boundary you constructed when you raised the ward. As you walk, say:
I dissolve this ward.
You have my thanks for your protection in the past.
I release you with my blessing.
When you return to your threshold, stamp your foot on it to shake loose the ties to any remaining energy of the past ward and say,
I declare this ward dissolved.