Every time Galway-based Ruth Ruane moves house, she undertakes a cleansing ritual in her new abode. “I’ve read that in certain cultures around the world, people will ‘clap’ to move energy out of certain corners,” she explains. “In Bali, they use bells to remove the negative energy in a room, and they have the windows and doors open. It’s almost like you’re sweeping something physical out, but you’re actually directing the energy out the door.”
To many, this might sound like simple superstition, but Ruane says addressing the energy in her surroundings helps her to live a richer and calmer life.
And it’s something the new owners of Jeffrey Epstein’s New York townhouse take seriously, too. Former Goldman Sachs executive Michael Daffey and his wife Blake snapped the home up for €43.2 million, a good €31 million below its asking price. Proceeds from the sale will go in part to a fund providing compensation for Epstein’s sexual abuse victims, and the couple are also keen to start with a new slate by giving the home “a complete makeover — physically and spiritually”, according to their spokesman, Stu Loeser.
The townhouse is reportedly due to undergo an energetic clearing, something that New York-based healer Sondra Shaye already offers to her clientele. Her process includes removing ‘negative energy’ from the home, using holy water and handmade healing symbols.
If the new owners decide on an energetic spring clean, it is estimated that the process will cost them upwards of €17,000.
Welcome to the world of what is sometimes called ‘house cleansing’. A different (though not unrelated) beast to physically clearing out a space, house cleansing involves clearing the space of negativity and bad emotional energy.
“When people hear the word ‘energy’, they think of some airy-fairy thing, but I compare it to the way you felt when you were a kid and didn’t have your homework done for school,” says Ruane, founder of the ethical skincare company White Witch (whitewitch.ie).
“It’s just that feeling in the pit of your stomach. When you see something in your house that needs to be fixed or addressed, it gives you that momentary feeling and you can feel your energy coming down.
Think about the spare room – we often don’t want to think of what’s in there. Or the corner where you just throw everything and you can’t even look at it.
“An act as simple as fixing a broken window, clearing out dead flowers or fixing a broken light-bulb are really simple ways to shift the energy in a room.”
Ruane is aware that it sounds like “New Age, hippy stuff”, but observes that the Irish have been involved in similar “superstitious” rituals for years.
“We’re a cynical bunch, but if you look back, the Irish have plenty of traditions, like bells at mess, or even jumping over a broom at a traditional wedding,” Ruane observes. “At the start of the New Year, some people left the front and back doors open, to allow something, new energy maybe, to go through the house.”
Ruane notes that feng shui — the practise of arranging living spaces in such a way as to create harmony and energetic balance — is a huge part of keeping one’s space ‘clean’.
She recalls a meeting with a friend some years ago. “Her relationships weren’t going anywhere, and I went over to her house one Friday night and looked at her ‘relationship corner’,” she says.
“There was a broken stereo, a broken lamp and a tangle of wires there.” Ruane found some candles and repurposed that part of the living room. “She flew to Marbella a week later and met the love of her life.
“It’s funny, I have my own business and sales might be slow, so I’ll kind of go and have a look around and see if I can move this or clear that,” Ruane adds.
“It can be as simple as changing something small – it’s about what it represents to you. For example, a cactus with spikes wouldn’t be great in a relationship corner, but might be good in another area of your home. Maybe it’s just in my own mind, and a placebo effect, but it works for me.”
To pull a “cloud of negative energy out of a room”, Ruane also refers to ‘smudging’. House smudging, originally used by Native Americans as a shamanic ritual, purports to cleanse a space of bad feelings and negative spirits by burning specific dried herbs and letting the smoke float around the house. And in modern life, when things are busy, complicated or plain noisy, houses seemingly take on a lot of energetic baggage.
Some suggest that sage burning has benefits beyond a simple ‘energetic shower’ for your home. It releases negative ions that fight against things like dust and pollution, claims Reidin Beattie, co-owner of West Cork company Warrior Botanicals, who sell sage wands through the online store (warriorbotanicals.com) and at eco-lifestyle site earthmother.ie.
“These are the same ions that are released from waterfalls and the ocean,” explains Beattie. “Some plants can also reduce bacteria in the air, even after that smoke has gone. Smoke attaches itself to negative energy and when smoke dissipates, negative energies dissipate as well.
“In Ireland, we can harvest sage, perhaps the herb most commonly used as a magical herb for protection and purification, but I like to mix it or replace it with other herbs that are more common here, which all have their own benefits such as mugwort, rosemary, bay, rose and lavender,” notes Beattie.
For her own home, Ruane often makes a special cleansing spritz that will clear a room, using a recipe that she devised with the help of GP and medicinal herbalist Dr Dilis Clare, whose Galway apothecary is a popular hub (drclareapothecary.com).
It’s clearly a growing trend in Ireland: Kildare-based healer Olivier Florian (deohealing.com) offers a house energy clearing service for those who report a heavy/uneasy atmosphere in the house, or feel they are living in a cluttered or noisy home.
Elsewhere, Down To Earth (downtoearth.ie) stocks Sage Smudge sticks from €3.50, while holistic shop PurpleLotus.ie sells a House Cleansing Smudge Kit (€29.95, although currently out of stock).
The smudging ritual involves lighting the sage and waving the smoke gently around you, starting in the furthest corner of the room and making your way towards the window, paying attention to areas like corners and behind doors.
Yet according to Ruane, it doesn’t necessarily take a special ritual to remove bad ‘juju’ from your home. Addressing negative vibes in your house could be as simple as clearing out clutter, and giving the floors a sweep.
“If you look at people who tend to hoard, they tend to be stuck in an emotional trauma they can’t let go of. It’s definitely worth asking yourself, ‘Why am I holding onto that?’ Fixing broken things is another really big one.
“Think of how you feel every time you see a little crack or a broken window. We don’t need those little niggling reminders in our lives.”
