When a House Becomes a Home
Spring cleaning and caring for your house spirit. Plus a no-fail bread recipe that will knock your socks off!
What makes a house a home? My house has a personality. Every time I come home, I feel like Mirabelle in Encanto. “Doors! Floors! Drawers!” My house doesn’t just contain spirits. My house is a spirit. She also has a name. I call her Brèagha. It’s Scotts -Gaelic pronounced Breeah, and it means beautiful. My car has a name too. Wait for it…
Joan Jetta! Bu-dum-ching!
I am ready to jump head first into spring after all this chilly weather and that means spring cleaning! I usually don’t get too excited about cleaning anything. It’s a necessary task and I feel better in a clean space. I do however, get excited about spring cleaning! Because it’s full of magic!
First things first, I go to each room and make note of what needs done. Things that need fixed or addressed. I ask the house what she needs. I make a list and an estimate of cost and make an agreement with the house. You keep bringing me blessings and prosperity and we will see to it these things are completed. I make a copy of this agreement and burn it along with juniper for its cleansing properties, it’s also associated with Jupiter a planet of blessing and prosperity. I take the ash and mix it with dirt from the yard and separate it into two containers. One will sit on my altar and the other will be spread at the 4 corners of the property.
I have also been making a cairn with stones collected from rivers, woods, and graveyards surrounding my property. (More on this later) this cairn is currently on my altar but when I have enough stones it will be moved to a spot under a tree in my yard. This will become a focal point for very local spirits residing in my yard and more distant genius Loci and other spirits.
Next, the physical cleaning which begins with decluttering room by room. I follow the TOMM method by Gemma Bray. I choose one room a day and finish by the end of the week. The following week I deep clean the rooms in the same order.
On that Sunday, I finally get to the fun stuff! I make a floor wash/ room spray with 4 cups of tap water which I pray over and thank (I think it’s important to use water that comes from your house), 3 lemons cut in half, 6 cloves, a teaspoons of lavender, sprigs of pine and cypress from my yard. I bring it to a boil and simmer for an hour or so. The house will smell amazing! Wash the doors and floors. Open your windows. Anoint your doors and windows with a protective oil. You can use psalm 23 oil which is just olive oil which has had psalm 23 said over it. Fiery wall of protection oil is an excellent choice. I am opting for Deneb Algedi oil from Sphere + Sundry.
If you do reiki or energy work you can send healing energy symbols to all the corners, openings, windows and doors as well.
The doors, windows and corners of your house should also have something physical to protect them. Ordinary house Plants make excellent protective spirits, if you ask them. Candles, stones, crosses (equal armed is fine), evil eye charms, etc. I like to keep a horseshoe over my front door and a broom to sweep out negativity. Cleanse and charge all of these items.
With all this done I anoint a white candle and take it from room to room, I bless and thank the house, and ask for continued protection and blessings for my family. closing the windows as I go.
Now the house feels amazing! I keep up with this by blessing the front door with holy water once per month and chucking the excess down the drive. I do this on the Hygromanteia lunar day for care of the house.
Now that the Spirit of the house is sorted. It’s time to turn my attention to the spirits of the house. Traditionally, these were elf like creatures. Brownies in the Uk, or Bruneis in Scotland. This is nearly a universal idea. Almost every culture had a name for these spirits.
Their job was to watch over the order of the household and invite prosperity and blessings and provide protection against danger.
Do things break easily? Does food spoil quickly, are knives dull before their time? You might have an unhappy house elf. If you took care of the house spirit you are half way there to appeasing the spirits of your house.
The other half is offering. Examples include a few drops of wine, cream, bread, or porridge. I personally like to bake my own bread. First slice goes to the spirits! I try for once per week when the weather is nice.
“You bake bread once a week?” Yes, yes I do and I can because my bread recipe is super simple. No bread maker, or Kitchen-aid? No problem!
Here’s my delicious bread recipe feel free to add herbs that suit your purpose or season!
Ingredients:
4 cups of flour
2 tsp salt (I like Himalayan)
2 tsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
Softened butter for greasing
1 egg and a splash of milk for an egg wash (optional)
Additional dry herbs (optional)
Preparation:
Begin by preparing lukewarm water. Boil 1/2 cup of water and mix 1 1/2 cups of cold water.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and 1 tsp sugar.
When the water is ready mix in the yeast with 1 tsp of sugar. Wait 10 mins. Then add it to the dry ingredients with a spatial until well mixed.
Kneed the dough for 10 mins. To save time and mess I like to kneed right into the bowl by simply folding the dough, punching it flat, turning the bowl, folding it again, and repeating.
If you have a bread setting on your oven that works great. Otherwise just set the oven to bake at 400 degrees for 2 minutes.
Cover the bowl with cheesecloth, or press and seal and Let it rise for 90 minutes.
Grease a 2 quart pyrex dish. Square or round works fine. I like square because it slices nicely.
Use 2 forks to deflate the dough and release it from the sides of the bowl.
Kneed the dough an additional 10 minutes. At this point you can add in any dry herbs that suit your magical purpose.
Move the dough to the pyrex and let it rise again uncovered for 10-20 mins. I will usually let it rise in the warm but not too warm oven for ten and on the counter while the oven heats to baking temperature.
At this point I beat one egg with a splash of milk and coat the bread when it's just about to crown over the edge of the bowl.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.
Reduce the heat to 375 and bake for an additional 25 mins. Turn off the oven and let it rest inside for another 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool another 5-10 mins and place on a cooling rack.
When the bread has cooled, I thank all the ingredients and all the people, human or otherwise who brought them to my kitchen. I thank the new creation, the bread that will feed my family and I slice the first slice and take it outside.
Outside, I have a small inconspicuous altar of sorts. It's a meeting place really, for the spirits that reside on my property and I.
I tear the bread into 4 pieces and make my offering.
“Spirits of this place. Please accept this offering and be pleased. May we forever act as friends and allies.”
That’s it! I hope you find this helpful and may your house feel warm and cozy this spring!
Till we meet again.