House Blessings & Cleansings

House blessings and cleansings can be as complicated or as simple as you want them to be, and still be as powerful. It really depends on what you are comfortable with and what you want to achieve. Do you want to remove all the energy in the house, leaving it a clean, neutral space? If there are spirits that are not negative, do you want them to stay but everything else be banished? Do you want to simply add your own energy to the house as it stands?

All of these options are perfectly fine, but you need to make a firm decision about it before you start. Being wishy-washy about what you want with make your energy wishy-washy and not really effective or efficient.

The following suggestion is what I've done personally when asked to do a house blessing/cleansing. I've tried to make it as neutral as possible so that you can adapt it to whatever tradition you find most meaningful.

To perform a house cleansing/blessing, put out all the lights, walk through the house with sage, walking the edges of each room, and speak something like:

 "In the names of [Gods], I banish all negativity and any negative entities that are in this space. Etc." 

Basically, you want the space to be empty and neutral. Visualize that the sage fills the space and burns off any negative energy there.

In the second part, put out all the lights, gather some friends together, give each one a lit candle, and have each person walk through the house (maybe have a 1 minute gap between each one) and have them say something like

"In the name of [Gods], I bless this space with positivity, light, and joy. May these walls be witness to great joy, warmth, and the beauty of family and friends. etc."

Once that's done, have a pot-luck dinner party and invite all your loved ones. Put a pot of pennies by the front door and invite your friends to visit one or two rooms and drop pennies into them for luck and blessings.

If you have any other ideas or experiences with house blessings & cleansings, please post them in the comments.