such things may be possible. Don’t dismiss them out of hand. If you feel comfortable with the idea of sharing your home with unseen visitors, you could try some of the suggestions below. Remember that you can envisage these visitors in any shape you like: if you have a religious belief you may prefer to see them as angels or divine beings. If you feel happy with the classical archetypes, then the gods and goddesses of the home might feel more comfortable. If you’re an earthy or pagan type you may revel in the idea of mischievous elemental beings and brownies.
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
In ancient Rome food that fell to the floor was at once considered to belong to the household spirits. Don’t sweep it up immediately but give the spirits of the dead at least a while to take their fill before sweeping it up. Of course, if you have a dog (your very own Cerberus, mythological guard-dog of the underworld) you probably won’t have to clean up at all.
If you like the idea of having your own brownie or spirit-helper, follow the age-old rules: leave out a saucer of milk or cream and maybe a couple of biscuits (we still retain this custom at Christmas, leaving mince pies and a glass of sherry out for Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas).
Find your own images to represent the lares and penates. Find a figure or image you like and tuck it away in a place from where it can look out over the house. I have a small cat figure I made at The Pelican Centre which acts as the head lar of my house – because the creature I ‘see’ out of the corner of my eye is always a cat. It could be an angel, or a Hindu god or a good-luck piskie.
We’ll meet Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, in the following chapters, but evoke her blessing by making your house as beautiful as possible. Indulge her with fresh flowers (she is also goddess of flowers), a sumptuous cushion or sweet-smelling herb pillow; sweet scents and objects which please the eye.
Indulge Artemis by throwing open all the windows of your house when the fresh breezes of spring blow. She loves the open air and the call of the wild. She too will love flowers – particularly armfuls of blossom and wild flowers, even weeds. If you have an exercise bike or step, remember Artemis as you start your workout – she is the lean fleet goddess who can add a spring to your step.
Remember your ancestors. Sarah Shurety, a friend of mine who is also a very experienced feng shui consultant, says that in the West we do precisely the opposite to the East. While Oriental people venerate their ancestors, we almost entirely forget them. Find photos of your ancestors if you can, as far back as you can. Frame them and display them in your house. You could follow the Chinese custom and set up an altar, with incense and a candle – see the chapters on feng shui for the best spots to place such an altar.
Read old folk tales and fairy stories and become familiar with the spirits of your culture and land. Better still, sit around the fire and read the stories out loud to your family or a group of friends. Share stories about your supernatural experiences and find out just how common they are. Everyone seems to know someone who’s seen a ghost or ‘felt’ something strange.
Become sensitive to spots in your house which feel as if they might be home to the spirits. As we’ve seen, the threshold, the hearth, the larder, the bathroom, the cellar and attic are favourite spots. I have a tricky spot on my stairs which I am convinced is the home of a mischievous spirit. I often almost trip on it and keep meaning to find a way to pacify it.
Dogs were often considered guardian spirits of the threshold. If you can’t have your own living guard-dog you might like to put a pair of guardian stone dogs (or lions or dragons) either side of your front door or in the inner hallway.
I haven’t talked about more unwelcome visitors. Some people feel their homes contain unpleasant spirits or ghosts which can make a house feel very uncomfortable. I’ll talk more about this in the section on space clearing.
SO FAR WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT the home in a mythological, archetypal and spiritual way. Now we should take some time to pull in from the wider picture and start to think about how our homes affect us in a more personal, psychological way. For our homes are reflections of our psyches – the home you pick and the way you choose to decorate it speaks reams about your psychological make-up; the way you view the world; your hopes and aspirations; your deepest insecurities and fears. In House as a Mirror of Self, Clare Cooper Marcus says:
People consciously and unconsciously ‘use’ their home environment to express something about themselves. Our home and its contents are very potent statements about who we are.
By paying attention to the choices we make about our home, we can start to understand more about our psyche and soul, just as we can by focusing on our dreams. Jungian psychologists believe that dreams are ‘messages’ or projections from the unconscious; within them are all the issues and unresolved business of our unconscious minds. By working with dreams we can often find answers to our most pressing dilemmas. In a similar way, we project our inner thoughts and preoccupations, our likes and dislikes, onto the fabric and furnishing of our homes. Clare Cooper Marcus points out that an adolescent may well leave his or her room in a mess as an unconscious gesture of defiance to the parents. Someone might buy a home that unconsciously emulates the style of the home of a much-loved, deceased relative, or rent an apartment which is a copy of a childhood home. Psychologist Sarah Dening agrees:
Because your home environment is something you ‘dream up’, consciously or otherwise, it can, like a dream, say a great deal about the state of your complexes.
If you are a great hoarder of clutter, for instance, it could be because you are unconsciously trying to protect yourself against some possible lack in the future or that you are overly attached to the past and fear that the future cannot bring anything as valuable and meaningful as that which has gone before. Sarah says:
The stagnating energy reflects as inner stagnation, which is why Feng Shui insists that the first step is to get rid of the clutter.
More about this in Chapter 8.
Some people, however, are entirely the opposite. These are the ones who constantly make changes to their environment; who are always moving or always shifting the furniture. This could well point to a ‘Peter Pan’ complex: an unwillingness to ground oneself and to make commitments; a perpetual unhappiness with the status quo. Of course, in an ideal world we would be somewhere in the middle – keeping a certain amount of our past with us, but also being confident of greeting the future too.
LEAVING HOME
Before we move on to what your present home says about you, think first of all about when you left home. Were you desperate to leave or was it a huge and hard wrench? Maybe you are still living at home. Some people find it almost impossible to leave home, even if they are fully grown and launched in life. Even if they do leave, they will try at all costs to re-create the childhood home. Jung explained this as a ‘participation mystique’ with the family in which they identify first and foremost as members of a family rather than individuals in their own right. Sarah Dening explains that:
It’s a tribal thing. Some of my own relatives arriving as refugees from pogroms against the Jews did just that. One woman continued to live with her parents even after she married. Her husband simply moved in; her own children grew up in that house; and she still lives there to this day. In the background
