Spirit of the Home: How to make your home a sanctuary. Jane Alexander
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when you come into the room. Can you cut down on news feeds, on social media, on online groups and chat? Can you live an hour or so (or even a day or two) without checking your email? Can you switch off your alerts, or even switch off your smartphone once in a while and call people back in your time? Just be aware of how much you focus on Hermes’ and his toys.
Allow yourself a little Hestia time every day, a quiet time for pottering around your home, adjusting something here, moving something there. Give yourself a few moments to watch a shaft of sunlight glancing through a window. That chair looks inviting? Allow yourself some time to sit and muse. Day-dream.
Don’t race, don’t rush, don’t try to do everything at once. Hestia is the goddess of focus. She teaches that we should become absorbed in one task at a time, working quietly and calmly with inward serenity. Her way may seem boring but it gets things done – efficiently and well.
If you are one of those madly sociable people who always has ‘open house’, make sure you have times when you or your family can be by yourselves. Explain that you might not always be available if people drop in – maybe you could have a sign to put up if you’re in Hestia space, asking people to drop by another time? Explain to the kids that sometimes it’s nice for you to eat together as a family – not just one or two of you and not with all their friends there either Just the family. Hestia would like that.
DO YOU BELIEVE A HOUSE possesses spirits or is it just superstitious nonsense? Let me tell you a strange story. When I was a student, six of us shared an apartment and one of my room-mates, Gina, was Malaysian. She was a highly intelligent and very down-to-earth woman who was studying architecture. So I was stunned one day when she calmly appeared in our kitchen and announced that she had just seen our ‘house spirit’. ‘What did it look like?’ I asked, laughing, quite convinced she was having a joke. ‘Oh, it’s a man, about eight feet tall, very stern and imposing,’ she replied, in all seriousness. ‘Where is he? Where did you see him?’ I then asked. ‘In the shower,’ she replied. We all laughed out loud at this but, strangely enough, we all stopped using the shower and had baths instead. The idea of sharing a shower with an eight-foot Malaysian house spirit was a little unnerving, to put it mildly. Gina explained that in Malaysia every house, every living space (however small) has its own household spirit. She said that we shouldn’t be nervous of him; he was there to guard us and keep us safe. She found it strange that we should not believe in spirits, and that we should not look to our own native spirits to protect us and our homes.
Most Westerners would agree that there are no such things as spirits of the house; guardians of the threshold; invisible entities which share our space. Yet we’re in the minority. The vast number of non-Western cultures firmly believe in spirits: their homes are full of household gods, spirits and the souls of their ancestors. Their homes are alive, not just with the physical bodies of the humans who live in them, but with the energetic bodies of more ethereal creatures. We may mock, but the same beliefs ran through our own cultures until not so long ago. Throughout Europe, houses had a veritable army of esoteric helpers: pixies and fairies; brownies and banniks. Early American settlers painted protective symbols on their houses and barns to keep away bad spirits; and put out a bowl of cream to attract the good.
THE SPIRITS AND SPRITES OF THE HOME
Look through a book on the folklore of virtually any country and culture and the story is the same. In Scotland and parts of England there are brownies who attach themselves to a particular house and come out at night to perform the tasks that need doing – repairing, sweeping and protecting the livestock and family. In Wales there is the pwca, in Ireland the puca or pooka, in Denmark the puge. In the Baltic states a similar brownie-like figure is known as the puk. The names are almost identical and their functions are the same: to guard and help the household, providing the household respects and rewards them. Similar beings are the shvod of America, the kikimora of Russia, the haltia of Finland, the befana of Italy, the nisse of Scandinavia, the nat of Burma, the phi of Thailand. In Germany they are known as kobolds and will soothe the children of the house with sweet songs. In African folklore the protective spirits are aiza; in Lithuania the house spirits are aitvaras who appear as a cock inside the house and a fiery dragon outside.
Some spirits had specific tasks and places of abode – the skritek of Slavic lore dwelt behind the oven and was represented as a small boy, with his arms crossed and wearing a crown. His statue was placed on the hearth to guard the house when the family was not there. The cluricaun is an Irish spirit who lives in the wine cellar; in Germany he is known as the biersal and will keep everything spick-and-span – providing he is given a jug of beer every day. In Russia there is even the bannik, the spirit of the bathtub who needs to be placated by leaving a little water in the bath and some soap ready to hand, for him to use should the mood so take him.
All these folkloric spirits had features in common. They were tricky spirits, willing to help in whatever way they could – providing you earned their favour. If you did not appreciate them or failed to leave the requisite gifts (usually some food or a bowl of milk or cream) they would either simply fade away or plague the household with their mischief. They were shy beings, coming out only at night. And they were very proud. Virtually every custom says that, although you should show respect and gratitude, it should not be obvious. The reward should be left casually, as if by accident. And if you gave a brownie or one of his cousins a suit of clothes as a thank-you, you would never see him again. Peasant households took their spirits very seriously, leaving one of the best cakes and milk, or some other food, in the kitchen. Farmers might also leave one cow unmilked for the fairies’ use, or let the first few drops of milk fall when they milked, as the fairies’ rightful due.
HOUSEHOLD SPIRITS OF THE CLASSICAL WORLD
In ancient Greece and Rome the home was packed full of gods, goddesses and a veritable army of household spirits. We have already met Hestia and Hermes but the Greeks would also honour Aphrodite in the home by introducing beauty and sensuality. In return she would endow the house with laughter, games, joy and peace. Hera was the goddess of marriage and she ruled over the formal areas of the house – the reception hall, the sitting room, the formal dining room: she expected visitors to be treated with due respect and honour. She revels in regular order and the smooth running of a house. In the ancient calendar the first day of every month, the Kalends, were dedicated to Hera. Little houses were made of clay as devotional objects sacred to her. Hestia was acknowledged every day but while she ruled the hearth, Demeter cooked on it – she bakes the bread and feeds the family. She is the great carer, the archetypal Mother. In the study, the library, the den you would find Athena, nose in a book. In a quiet space of her own, curled up on a window-seat or outside in a wild part of the garden you might catch Artemis.
In Roman households, Janus, the two-headed god, protected the gateway, the threshold to the house – looking both inwards and outwards, overseeing the family’s coming and going and watching out for unwelcome intruders. Then there were two specific divisions of household spirit: the lares and the penates. The penates were worshipped alongside Vesta (Hestia) and were originally the gods of the storeroom. They were responsible for the household’s food supply, and images of them, made of wax or ivory, were worshipped at shrines in the house. A fire was kept burning in their honour. The lares were originally considered to be the spirits of the ancestors. Head of the lares was the lar familiaris, the spirit of the founding ancestor of the family. Both lares and penates would receive worship and would be given offerings of food and wine in exchange for their role in protecting the house and family.
In China, the cult of dead ancestors was, and often still is, an essential part of life. Chinese homes have pictures of the ancestors and a little stove where they light incense. Here they pray to their ancestors and remember them. In return the ancestors are thought to guard the house and bring luck to those still living. There is a sense of continuation through the generations.