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Global House Blessing Ceremonies are as old as houses themselves. Historically, they have begun before there is even a house, starting with the blessings of the earth itself for permission to build on it. There are infinite ways to cleanse and bless the energy of an abode, during construction, when first moving in, or at any later date when the need arises. Blessings of the ground in gratitude before it is first broken. Blessings of the foundation for strength and stability. Blessings of the support beams, of the first stone or brick laid for strength and durability. And continuing with each step of the construction process until the house is completed. Blessings of the roof for weather protection. Blessings of the door for both welcome and security. Blessings of the façade for safekeeping, luck, and good fortune. Blessings of the hearth for warmth, nurturing spirit, and conviviality.
Here are just a few examples of traditions around sanctifying everything from the plot of land to the building stones in different cultures around the world. If particular elements of these practices speak to you, feel free to incorporate them into a House Blessing that you design. Or use them as inspiration to spark your own creative approach to consecrating your home in a very personal way.
GROUNDING
The Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people of the Pacific Northwest of the United States believe that everything has a spirit, so before they begin construction of a house, they offer chants and dances of thanksgiving to Mother Earth and the ground on which they will build, as well as to the cedar trees in gratitude for their sacrifice in providing the poles for the new structure.
The Kikuyu people of Kenya also perform Blessing rituals before commencing a building project. A goat is sacrificed to the earth where the ancestors dwell, for good luck. The sacrificial blood is sprinkled on the ground of the site and also on the tools and conveyances that will be used in the construction. It was the tradition in Mykonos, Greece that the blood of a rooster must flow fresh onto the earth at the site where a new home is to be built, an offering that ensures protection for all who will eventually enter. In India, milk, spices, and incense are offered to purify the land and the building crew is given traditional gifts of fruits and chocolates.
These earth-honoring rituals in preparation for building a structure on the land have continued to this day. Ground Breaking ceremonies are quite common in many places around the world. Prayers for protection and success usually precede the actual breaking of the ground, which is then accomplished by a chosen luminary who has the honor of digging the first shovelful of dirt.
Recently an archaeological expedition in Sardis, an ancient city in modern-day Turkey, unearthed a cache of eggs in a clay pot that had been buried under the dirt floor of a Roman house almost two thousand years ago, most likely as part of a purification ritual. According to Nick Cahill, the director of the dig, “Burying items in homes as a ritual isn’t itself an unusual practice; it’s a common tradition throughout the Mediterranean and Near East.” In Greece you find a lot of these types of deposits, where something was put in the walls as a dedication.
Many ceramic bowls inscribed with blessings in Judeo-Aramaic languages have been found buried under the foundation of houses in ancient Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Iraq, dating from AD 200 to AD 800. These incantation bowls, also known as devil bowls and demon traps, are protective charms meant to trap any bad spirits and safeguard the building and its residents from bad energy and evildoers. It is an age-old Andean custom before building a house in Bolivia to bury a llama fetus in the earth beneath the foundation to help give the owners good fortune. Mummified llama fetuses are still sold in the markets there for this purpose.
BUILDING
When constructing a masonry edifice, be it a pyramid, a cathedral, or a house, the first stone laid has special significance, since all further stones or bricks will be placed adjacent to it or on top of it, thus determining the shape and strength of the entire structure. Thus, the foundation stone has long been treated as a ceremonial building block that represents the birth of the building and is blessed with offerings of grain, oil, and wine, and in ancient times with animal and, sometimes, human sacrifice to ensure the stability of the building. The stone blocks often had a hollowed-out indentation to hold a time capsule or a vial of wine in honor of this auspicious new beginning.
The setting of the foundation stone in Malaysia is celebrated in a ritual by Brahmin or Lama priests offering flowers, by masons or by carpenters with sacrificial chickens or a lamb, or by the youngest son of the owner of the building, who beats on the stone with a hammer to create a vibration to connect the stone with the positive energies of the cosmos. In Sri Lanka, the foundation stone is a special concrete stone with a cavity that is filled with precious metals and grains. Speckles of copper, bronze, gold, silver, precious stones, grains, and sacred objects are included to bring positive energy to the new house.
Over time and with the advent of modern metal-and-glass skyscrapers, foundation stone rituals have morphed into celebrations of the cornerstone. When construction is finished, the cornerstone is engraved with the names of the architect and the builder and the dates of construction and completion. It is then set into the façade of the building with much protective pomp and circumstance, every bit a contemporary lucky talisman. The Order of Masons offers Foundation Stone ceremonies to be held at building sites of all kinds.
RAISING THE BEAMS
Once the land and material have been consecrated, there are other rituals around the building materials as they come together. In Sumatra the first two pillars are connected by a horizontal beam to each other, then raised into place while verses from the Quran are recited. When the building is finished these will form the main room of the house. If this important part of the construction takes place smoothly, the house building can then be continued with good luck. Throughout Southeast Asia, after the support beams are installed and before roofing starts, a bunch of flowers is tied at one end of the ridge, and strips of red fabric are hung between the pillars like prayer flags. In Java, black and white cloths are added to the red. Several offerings such as coconuts, bananas, and plants are also tied to the king post as a feast to the good spirits of the house. In ancient China, the ridgepole of a new structure was smeared with chicken blood, as a substitute offering for human blood, in hopes of fooling the deities.
In Europe the setting of the ridge beams in place was consecrated by sprinkling wine on the completed work, after which the workers celebrated by drinking the rest of the wine. It is speculated that the ritual of ridge beam setting is a result of the technical inability of the traditional architects and craftsmen to build a structure that was strong enough to stand stable against strong storms and earthquakes. So a ceremony was performed to petition the spirit powers for strength and stability of the structure and favorable weather.
RAISING THE ROOF
The Gwana people of Ethiopia build edifices to house ancestral spirits. These are similar to human dwellings, but smaller. The roofs are hung with the first fruits of corn, or offerings such as coconuts, bananas, and plants are tied to the king post as a feast to entice the good spirits of the house, and sorghum and hunting paraphernalia are placed on the roof to be blessed by the spirits residing in these ceremonial houses. Since imperial times in Japan, an architectural ritual called muneage, which means roof raising, has been celebrated when the roof of a structure has been installed. An altar is placed on the roof and a Shinto ceremony involving flowers, invocations, and rice, offered in gratitude for the successful construction of a protective roof overhead, is performed there.
Communities often play a key supportive role worldwide in creating the proper space. Barns are one obvious example—crucial for a farmer’s success, but too big to be built by one or a few people. Raising a barn or a church, a school or a Habitat for Humanity house requires many hands. Barn raisings, known as raising or rearing bees in the United Kingdom, are collective community actions where neighbors join together en masse to build barns or homes for each other in reciprocal mutual support. This tradition is still practiced among Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the Midwest of the United States and Canada. Very much in the spirit of Amish barn raisings, Andean villages hold house-roofing rituals known as the zafacasa to forge strong social bonds of community and acknowledgement and gratitude of interdependence.
Topping out, sometimes called topping off, is a ritual celebrated upon the completion of a building. When an edifice has reached its intended height it is topped with a flag or a tree. This practice can be traced to the seventh century AD Scandinavian tradition of hoisting an evergreen tree to the top of a newly built house to celebrate the end of construction. The tree, symbolizing the tree of life, served as a blessing of fertility and long life to the newlywed couple who would inhabit the house. Teutonic tribes may have used these ceremonial trees to appease the tree spirits for having killed trees for lumber. Germans living in the Black Forest observed this Christmas tree custom in honor of the nativity of Jesus Christ, and to this day, evergreen trees top off nearly every new structure in Germany. The Swiss also claim to have started the practice of displaying a fir tree to celebrate topping out.
The custom of putting a tree on top of a newly completed structure traveled with northern European immigrant builders to their new homes. Today, topping-off ceremonies are popular and often well publicized among steelworkers on construction sites across the urban world. Typically, the final beam installed on the top of a skyscraper is painted white and signed by the entire crew, after which glasses are lifted in celebration as many as one hundred stories in the sky.
RAISING THE SPIRITS
The Navajo consecrate a new dwelling, or hogan, by marking the four sacred directions with cornmeal, or sometimes with corn pollen, charcoal, ashes, or other substances. Cornmeal symbolizes life and success along the road, often appearing in ceremonies. These marks are applied inside the hogan at the highest part that can be reached, just as the Holy People, First Man and First Woman, did in the Navajo creation myth. This blessing also ensures that the hogan is purified of any influences that might be considered taboo.
When the construction of a native Hawaiian’s home is complete, they may invite the local kahu or spiritual leader to bless it by sprinkling water and cleansing salt around the perimeter of the house to symbolically wrap it with protection. It is also very common to decorate the new house with colors and other safeguarding symbols as a protective shield.
In Thailand, monks bless new houses by using white paste to mark all the doors to ward off evil spirits. People in Morocco, Egypt, and many parts of North Africa have long applied a band of cobalt blue around all windows, doors, and shutters with a mineral substance, which is the same bluing that is added to laundry detergent to clean clothes. The cleansing powder assures protection from tainted energy. The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted her entire home, which she named Casa Azul or Blue House, with the same stuff, as a prescription to keep the devil away.
It is customary in the American South to paint the ceiling of the front porch, doors, windows, and shutters with paint called “haint blue.” This practice stems from the Gullah tradition of the descendants of the slaves in the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia that was influenced by their African roots. Haint means “haunt.” The belief is that since ghosts, the haint spirits, are not able to cross water, they will be scared away by so much blue. It’s common for houses and barns in Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania German country to sport brightly painted hex signs. The derivation of these paintings stems back to pre-Christian Alpine German symbols for protection. Hex means “witch” in Old German.
After the house itself is completed, people everywhere create another layer of protection by placing guardian figures and lucky plants around the home. Ceramic gnomes are common garden figures in Europe and North America. Folklore tells us that gnomes are friendly creatures who bring good luck and keep a house safe from danger. They sit in the garden to keep watch. Another popular protective garden feature is the Gazing Mirror, a spherical mirror made of colored glass that rests upon a stand or sits on the grass. Gazing Mirrors work to avert the gaze of ill fortune from the home. They are also known as witches balls, because they ward off the evil eye.
DOORWAYS
The doorway of any domicile is a magical portal that invites you to enter a new environment, a new perspective, a new experience, a new attitude, and the possibility of a new way of life. A single step takes you from one reality into another—from outside to inside, from dark to light, from public to private, and vice versa. When you open the door and cross the threshold of your new home for the first time on the day that you move in, you are embarking on a life-changing opportunity for a clean start and a new adventure in living, not so unlike Neil Armstrong’s fateful footfall on the moon. This simple one-step movement is a sacred act of faith and hope and optimistic determination tinged with an underlying trepidation of the unfamiliar. Such an auspicious undertaking calls for intentional acts of blessing to ensure that the door of your new place will assure a safe and supportive environment in which to live, grow, and thrive. This has always been so.
Since doors have such spiritual significance, people everywhere have regarded them as sacred. According to feng shui, the Chinese philosophical system of arranging one’s surroundings to be in alignment and harmony with the natural world, the door is the most important part of an edifice. Doors are considered to be the mouth of the house and are called the “Mouth of Chi.” Chi is energy. In China, doors are often painted red, the color of power, energy, and chi. Energy can be positive or negative, and the mouth can swallow it or spit it out. The door to your new home opens to welcome fortune in and closes like armor for safekeeping against danger. Red flowers in window boxes also offer powerful protection. Geraniums are especially popular across Europe for this purpose.
Because they can open and shut, doorways and windows are thought to be vulnerable to invasion by unwanted evil energy entering the space. So folks everywhere hang amulets and charms above or around their doors as petitions to whatever power they believe in for blessings of favored beginnings, good fortune, and freedom from harm. These talismans work as guardians that create a virtual checkpoint and impenetrable boundary.
The biblical Book of Exodus tells that the ancient Israelites were instructed by God to slaughter a lamb and mark their doors with its blood. Houses with these marks would be passed over and not suffer the loss of their children in the plagues. Some Muslims inscribe the name of Allah and verses of the Koran over their doors and windows for protection. Devout Catholics bless their homes by writing the initials of the three kings—C + M + B—above the doors of their houses during the Christmas season using chalk that has been blessed in the church for this use.
Jews everywhere affix mezuzahs on the doorposts of their homes, as per a biblical commandment: “Write the words of God on the gates and doorposts of your house.” The mezuzah is a decorative case, usually made of metal, that contains a rolled parchment scroll inscribed with Hebrew prayers and verses. Those who hang them are thought to be protected from evil and destructive forces. Nazars, glass charms in the shape of an eye, are hung above doorways in Greece and Turkey to ward off the evil eye. The evil eye is defeated in Arabic and Berber culture by attaching a hamsa on the door. These are talismans shaped like a human palm with a sees-all eye symbol in the center. In Morocco they are called “Hands of Fatima.”
A Japanese Shinto belief is that the ofuda, a decorated amulet made of wood, paper, cloth, or metal attached to the door, is a powerful protection from disease for those who dwell inside. Palaspas are decorative palm fronds sold in the Philippines on Palm Sunday. They are blessed by a priest and then hung over the doors of homes. They serve as a talisman to ward off evil. Ancient Egyptians hung bundles of cinnamon sticks above the door to protect and sanctify the entrance area. It is a Celtic custom to hang wreaths made of rosemary or woven rowan branches tied into cross shapes and wrapped in red thread to safeguard the house and family.
Rowan tree, red thread, holds the witches all in dread.
—Celtic Rhyme
Attaching bouquets of garlic to doors for protection from ghoulies and ghosties and blood-sucking vampires is common across the planet. Ancient Egyptians thought that the vampirelike ghosts that suck the breath out of their sleeping children were repelled by garlic at the entranceway. Romanians believe that vampires are afraid of garlic, so they smear a paste of it on the doors and windows of their homes as well as the gates of their farms and on the horns of their bulls. Serbians to this day hang braids of garlic bulbs on the door to scare away vampires. During the witch-burning times in Europe when evil spirits were thought to be on the loose, it became a popular style to wear necklaces made of garlic cloves to ward off demons and protect one’s vulnerable throat.
Feng shui practice suggests several good luck charms to put at the front door. A bagua mirror placed above the doorframe welcomes good fortune and harmony to a home and all who enter. It also blocks entrance to any negative chi. Bamboo flutes are symbols of strength and support. Hanging such a flute on the door with the mouthpiece facing up will secure a home from any negative forces. Wind bells are used in China to protect homes. The Japanese hang glass bells called ūrin to attract good luck, and today, glass, metal, wood, and ceramic wind chimes are very popular throughout Europe and the United States for their soothing sound, which creates good vibes.
In Portugal and in the large Portuguese community in Newark, New Jersey, mirrors are mounted outside above the doors and windows of a house to reflect and repel any harmful energy trying to get in. Horseshoes are hung over doorways in many cultures. They are usually placed above the door with the legs up, which creates a vessel to hold the good luck for the residents of this home. It is also common to display them with the legs pointing down so that good luck will flow upon all who come and go through this doorway. In the West of the United States folks hang arrowheads as a deterrent against burglary. Catholics sometimes hang a holy water font next to the door, while it is customary in the Dominican Republic to hang bread over the door to ensure that food will never be scarce.
THE THRESHOLD
Beneath the door is the threshold, the psychic borderline that separates the outside realms from the inside, the domestic scene from the natural world. In old Holland it was taboo to actually step on the threshold, or drempel, because the devil was said to be asleep beneath it and the sound of a footstep would wake him and cause him to raise hell. This belief gave birth to the tradition of the groom carrying his bride over the threshold of their new home after the wedding, a sacred crossing from one reality to another.
Houses are often blessed at the first crossing of the threshold even before moving in. A Hindu rite or Puja is performed for the threshold in honor of the deities who reside there and guard the owner by refusing entrance to any evil forces. A Vastu Puja is performed before stepping into the house to invite goodness to enter the space. On this day the owners and family members enter the new house at a carefully chosen auspicious time and in a particular order: The wife steps across the threshold with her right foot, carrying a pot full of water. Following is her husband, bearing an image of the gods. Then the children enter, carrying groceries that represent prosperity. And finally, other relatives step in. In addition to the first crossing, Hindus celebrate three additional Housewarming ceremonies: When the house is constructed on a newly selected land. On entering into the house after a stay abroad or elsewhere. When entering into a resold house and after the house is repaired or renovated due to the damage caused by natural or unnatural calamities.
In Laos and Thailand a family performs a Sen Wai Jour Teen ceremony before moving into a new home as a way to make their presence known. They politely inform the spirits that they will be occupying the house from now on, and humbly request their divine guardianship. Blessings of food, flowers, and incense sticks are offered to appease any wandering ghosts so that they will bring good luck to the family and not make trouble.
Each new dwelling, or hogan, that is built must be blessed, according to the Navajo way. The Navajo House Blessing ceremony is called hooghan da ashdlisigil in the Navajo language and is performed to benefit both the inhabitants and the hogan itself with protection and blessings for peace. This ritual is a way to feed the house and show it proper respect as a living being so as to prevent structural damage and soothe the hogan’s loneliness, which can attract evil spirits if not healed. Blessings are offered to promote peace, harmony, good luck, and well-being and to prevent hardship, wind and fire destruction, illness, bad dreams, and general misfortune for those whose lives the hogan shelters. Smudging, the burning of bundles of dried plants such as tobacco, sage, juniper, cedar, copal, yerba santa, and palo santo is a common Blessing among many Native Peoples of the Americas. This holy smoke dispels negative energy and promotes healing. The ascending smoke carries the prayers of the worshiper to the Creator. Before moving, in the Caribbean, folks roll a burning coconut along the floor to rid the space of bad spirits.
In Russia and Portugal, people always send a cat inside a new house or apartment before they actually move in. The cat will sniff out and scare away any evil entities. The Tamils who live in the far south of India bless a new house by inviting a cow to walk through every room of the house first to bring good fortune to the household. All gods are believed to reside in the cow, so it is decorated and worshiped with flowers, turmeric, and kumkum, a pigment made of turmeric. The cow and her calf are then taken to all the rooms. After the bovine blessings, some of the cow’s milk is boiled in the kitchen, to symbolically light the domestic flame. This description by David Sun appeared in Singapore’s The New Paper in 2014:
“It was a strange sight that greeted residents at Eight Courtyards condominium in Canberra Drive when a cow and calf were led through the grounds. A man with gloves, a bucket and trash bags followed closely behind the animals, just in case the animals defecated in public. The animals squeezed into a lift and went up to the fourteenth story of one of the blocks, where the Thiagarajen family was waiting expectantly. The family had just moved into their new home and the animals were there to do a House Blessing. Sri Vanitha, thirty-five, was delighted at the arrival of her ‘guests’ to her newly renovated home. She was even more happy to see them dropping feces and spraying urine all over the living room floor. She said: ‘It’s the first time in my house and I’m very contented. It is a blessing.’”
Customs of many cultures suggest bringing certain items into a new abode in order to appease the spirits. The Thai celebrate a ritual called Keun Ban Mai, which means “going up into a new house.” This is a two-part ritual. First, the family arrives at the appointed auspicious time along with their furniture, and carrying symbols of Buddha, food, and money to ensure a prosperous future in the house. This is followed by a Sai Seen, “Holy Thread ceremony,” in which a length of string is connected to the door and led from the entranceway to the house Buddha, wound around the wrists of the family, and then threaded through the hands of the monks gathered in prayer. Their chanting vibrates through the strings and sets off charged energy meant to protect the house and the family.
People in India are also careful about choosing an astrologically appropriate day and time to cross the threshold of their new home for the first time. In order to do so, they consult a priest who consults astrology charts to work out the perfect horoscope for their move-in date. They invite relatives and friends to witness the auspicious occasion and join in the blessings and festivities, after which the family members stay in the house for a few days, even if it is still unfurnished, so that they can absorb the optimistic energies that were generated by the warm company and the Cleansing and Blessing rituals performed.
MOVING DAY
And now, finally, after all the many preparatory rituals, it is time to actually move in, which always calls for a party and celebratory rites. In China, it is customary to throw a House Leaving party for friends and neighbors just before moving into the new home. Fireworks are set off. And then, again, as they enter their new digs accompanied by a retinue of well-wishers, there is another pyrotechnic display. A fellow New Yorker advocates for this farewell ritual, “Always leave a can of beans in the pantry of an apartment you are leaving for the next tenant, because you never know when tough times will hit.” While he hopes he’ll never have to use the beans he gave away, he believes that leaving a can of beans will bring good luck to the new tenant as well as to himself.
It is very common for people everywhere who are moving out of their old home to disassemble their altars; remove their mezuzahs, icons, religious statuary, and other spiritual installations, and sometimes even their plantings; and take them into their new abode. In this way the sanctity of one dwelling space is transferred to another, always keeping the spiritual connection to home alive wherever it might be. This act is the reverse of a housewarming, rather it is a house cooling, as it were. A once obscure practice that has gained a certain popularity among contemporary house sellers is to bury a statue of Saint Joseph upside down in the dirt of their yard in the belief that he will move heaven and earth on their behalf to achieve a sale. That accomplished, he is exhumed and placed in a prime spot on the mantle of the new home.
When moving into a new house, Thai people bring rice, water, and a knife. Rice and water are brought as wishes for a good, prosperous life, and the knife is for protection from evil spirits. In many Asian societies, a new house ritual involves sprinkling rice grains in all the rooms in the house for assurance of plenty to eat. Pineapples are a widely popular symbol of hospitality and good luck. Hokkien people of China buy the biggest ripe pineapple in the market and, with the crown intact, roll it into the house and around the floors of each room. Occasionally, the pineapple is smashed on the floor of a new house, then the door is quickly closed and the bits and pieces are left around for a few days to impart sweet blessings.
Various practical items are also offered as good-luck moving gifts. In Korea people organize parties for new homes known as jibdeuli. The guests usually bring rolls of toilet paper and some detergent, as they are considered to be symbols of prosperity, since they were once too expensive for many families to afford. Brooms are popular housewarming gifts in Europe. This is important, because bringing a broom from an old house is dangerous, as it is filled with old troubles. A new broom will keep the house clean and sweep away evil spirits bringing bad luck. Baskets, too, are double-duty housewarming presents. They are, of course, handy receptacles, but in addition are thought to catch and hold the stress and worries of the residents.
Some Chinese attach great significance to bringing a bamboo pole into the house. The joints on bamboo ascend one above another, which symbolizes the wish for growth, progress, and attainment in life, which makes them an appropriate blessing present. It is also considered a good-luck practice to bring an orange or tangerine tree into the home. This practice is significant, because the Chinese words for orange and luck sound very similar.
HOUSEWARMING
The ultimate Housewarming ceremony is to actually bring light and warmth into an empty, dark place. Chinese people enter the empty house carrying small stoves filled with burning charcoal. The fiery vessels are placed in every corner of every room to smoke out any negative energy and to make sure the hostile spirits have no place to hide. Then, before moving furniture and other belongings into the house, they shine a light in every corner, closet, and drawer to let any lingering spirits know that it is time for them to leave and show them the way to exit the premises. The People of the Pacific Northwest Coast practice a “lighting-up” of a house ceremony by carrying a candle through the entire house to push light into every crevice and corner.
In many traditions, candles are burned in prayer offerings, in blessings, and also in celebration. Lighting candles on the first night in a new home is a symbolic casting-off of the dark, the dangerous, and the hidden negative forces that will no longer be able to hide in the shadows. Lighting a fire in the fireplace when moving in is a warming tradition kept alive since medieval times. Fire is a potent symbol for strength, purity, and positive power. As it burns away stagnant energy and lurking spirits, it illuminates and consecrates new, optimistic beginnings.
Food plays a central role in the spiritual warming of new homes everywhere. Food represents life, nurturing, health, pleasure, conviviality, family, community—everything that a good home offers. Buddhists in Nepal bless homes in a ceremony that includes one whole red fish, rice, sake, and rock salt. In Jewish and Russian custom, guests bring bread, wine, sugar, and salt when they visit someone’s new home. A Housewarming gift of bread is common throughout the western world and is given to ensure that the family will always have enough food to eat. Wine represents always having enough to drink, an abundance of joy and prosperity, and plenty of occasions to celebrate. Wine is also used as a sacrament. Salt symbolizes the blood, sweat, and tears of life. And sugar and honey are blessings for sweet fortune.
Abounding in food, abounding in milk, with firm foundation set on the earth, receptacle of every nourishing thing, do no harm, O House, to those who receive you.
—Hindu House Blessing
Since the Middle Ages, when construction of a new home is finished, the French throw a traditional party called the pendre la crémaillère, literally meaning “to hang the chimney hook.” This hook, called a trammel, was used to hang cauldrons over the fire. It was the last thing installed in the house, meaning that now cooking would be possible. Everyone who has taken part in the building of the house is invited to eat dinner as a gesture of thanks. The freshly ignited fire along with the expressed gratitude and conviviality literally and symbolically warm the new house. In some parts of the United States, people light the oven in their new home for the first time and bake a cake, which is then brought to their new neighbors to introduce themselves.
The United States is home to people of all cultures. We all carry childhood memories of family traditions and stories of the old-world customs of our forebearers. We also have unlimited access to information and images of ceremonies and celebrations practiced around the world. From this eclectic treasure chest we can each create our own personally relevant rituals to consecrate our own home. What did you do to celebrate/sanctify the day you moved into your home?
A few years ago, the New York Times posted a story about House Blessings on their Facebook page and asked readers how they went about blessing their new homes. Here are some of the answers:
•I used to burn a smudge stick in a new apartment for good luck. But after my husband and I bought a house twelve years ago, something better happened quite by accident: Our niece, a toddler, ran laughing through all the empty rooms. I couldn’t think of a better blessing.
•We use a three-step process: first, salt is put in all the corners to dispel bad spirits; next, candy is placed around the house to bring in sweetness; lastly, sage and saltwater are used to cleanse and purify the space, calling in blessing and happiness.
•I sprinkle salt (to soak up old tears) and rosewater (to purify) on all the doorsteps.
•We’re buying a new house soon...and while we don’t try to evict old auras, we do search out good ones. ALSO we factor in new bathrooms into the price. I WILL NOT set foot in someone’s old bathtub. NO WAY.
•A few years ago, my boyfriend severed a vein and tendon in his index finger while helping me move into a new apartment. I’m normally a pretty logical person, but I smudged like crazy after that. (I did take him to the emergency room to get stitched up first.) Say what you will, but I felt better, everybody comments on how welcoming the place is, and nobody’s gotten hurt there since.
•I repaint every wall. I don’t care if it was just done. A fresh coat of paint is a personal thing.
•Chinese takeout and a bottle of wine on the floor before I even start to unpack.
•I’m from the South. It’s tradition to hang a horseshoe, with its U shape up, over the front door. It catches good luck.
•I was always told to leave a broom behind at the residence you were leaving. When the new people moved in, they were to use that broom to sweep the apartment or house, then throw that broom away, I suppose along with whatever juju was attached to the former residents.
•I throw coins in first before entering for the first time. Just like throwing coins in the fountain, then I make a wish.
•We ate twelve grapes, had thirteen golden coins in a red sack during dinner, broomed from the inside to the outside, threw a glass of water (well, just the water), and lit all the lights in the house to attract light and energy.
•The best “ritual” I ever had was entirely unplanned and of the best sort: a bluebird lighted on the crepe myrtle outside the kitchen window on my first day in my new house and sat there preening for several minutes as though he owned the place. I figured it was an omen: “the bluebird of happiness.”
•We have a menorah, Japanese New Year wreath, and religious idols and crucifixes on our threshold. We have all religions covered and more!!
•We do it in every room in the house on the first night.
•Smudged each room, opened the windows wide overnight the first night, placed a ring of ash around the perimeter of the house. Then I walked the land and gave thanks to each of the large trees to let them know there were new caretakers for the land.
•Our family tradition was to bring to a new home some salt (for prosperity), bread (for nurture/health), and a candle (enlightenment). Bring them before moving in. Tiny portions were fine, and we used/ate them later (a practical family).
Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.
—Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit
A home is a home is a home. Cherished everywhere.
At heart, giving a blessing is really quite simple. We innately know how to do it, precisely because it comes from the heart, from a sense of caring and helpfulness.
—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat The Blessing Path
