Whitehurst - Magical housekeeping: simple charms & practical tips for creating a harmonious home

This magical book reminds us that everything is connected outside and inside: environment and psyche, style and substance, house and heavens. If you are ready for positive change, you cant do better than this!

Ana Brett and Ravi Singh, yoga teachers with several best-selling Kundalini yoga DVDs. Dubbed yoga teachers to the stars, their clients have included Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Sting.

Tess Whitehurst shows us that cleaning can be a powerful tool for personal transformation. Magical Housekeeping incorporates mantras, angels, faeries, crystals, plant and animal allies. Get your brooms ready ... housekeeping will never be the same again.

Ellen Dugan, author of Cottage Witchery , Natural Witchery and Garden Witchs Herbal

Tess Whitehurst is a lifelong student of the magical arts and an intuitive counselor, energy worker, feng shui consultant, and speaker. Her writings (which have appeared in such places as New Witch magazine and Llewellyns Magical Almanac ) emphasize perceiving life through a magical lens and advocate self-love, self-expression, and personal freedom. She is also an environmental activist, a (usually) raw vegan, and a kundalini yogini. She lives in Venice, California, with her two cats and musical boyfriend. To learn about her workshops, writings, and appearances, and to sign up for her free monthly newsletter, visit her at www.tesswhitehurst.com.

Magical Housekeeping: Simple Charms & Practical Tips for Creating a Harmonious Home 2010 by Tess Whitehurst.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738726199

Book design by Rebecca Zins

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Cover images: room iStockphoto.com/Nicky Gordon, pentagram iStockphoto.com/Nicolette Neish

Gesture illustrations by Wen Hsu

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

To my mom for teaching me that being myself was the best and only thing that I could possibly be, and for speaking to me in the language of magic since before I was even born.

To my dad for teaching me to question everything, for challenging me to do exactly what I most wanted to do, and for repeatedly saying and demonstrating that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

To Ted Bruner for every single thing.

To Sedona Ruiz for making those first daring treks with me to Wonderland, Oz, and the Isle of Avalon, and for being my muse and the sister of my soul.

To J. P. Pomposello for giving me the idea that I could write.

To Cheryl Hamada for relaying the divine message that it was time to get to work.

To Mike Milligan and Courtney Lichterman for the generously shared wisdom and countless votes of confidence.

To Jonathan Kirsch for his expert guidance and heart-centered support.

To Denise Linn, Ana Brett, Ravi Singh, Doreen Virtue, Louise Hay, Marina Medici, Karen Kingston, Terah Kathryn Collins, Scott Cunningham, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Joseph Campbell, Julia Cameron, Allen Ginsberg, Rob Brezsny, and all those whose work helps to dissolve the illusory floodgates to the infinite.

To Becky Zins for beautifying this book and profoundly blessing it with her wisdom and expertise.

To Cat Fusca, Elysia Gallo, Amy Martin, Bill Krause, Lisa Novak, Lynne Menturweck, Sally Heuer, and everyone at Llewellyn for so many perfect opportunities, contributions, and gifts.

To the Goddess, Archangel Michael, Archangel Metatron, the fairies, and all the rest of my otherworldly guides and helpers.

And finally, to Smoke, the magic cat who waits for me beyond the veil.

Everything is holy! everybodys holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everymans an angel!

Allen Ginsberg, Footnote to Howl

I was sitting under a canopy of oak trees in northern California, listening to a lecture on how to make love charms and herbal aphrodisiacs. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the teacher stressed the importance of clearing clutter. Old, stagnant stuff in your home means there is old, stagnant stuff in your mind, body, and emotions. Its baggage , she said, and it complicates your life and relationships.

This was the first time I had thought seriously about the connection between my home and my life. Though I didnt realize it then, learning to recognize this connection was to be an essential key that would powerfully activate my spiritual path and give much-needed direction to my ongoing quest to improve myself and my life. It was in that moment that I started to understand that my state of mind, my relationship with myself, and the way I expressed myself to the world were very closely intertwined with the feelings I had in and about my home. And, because so much of my life was lived in my home, I began to see that it quite literally made up the fabric of my reality.

As I describe in the first chapter, I started by reading Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston and consequently began clearing clutter out of my apartment like a madwoman. The lightness and clarity that it brought me was so profound that I almost immediately felt like a different person. For years, I had struggled off and on with depression, discord in my relationship with my boyfriend, family drama, money issues, an inability to meditate, acne, a negative body image, confusion about my career path, and general, all-around bad luck. That all began to dissipate and shift as I continued to clear old, unwanted, and unloved stuff out of my apartment. Most of the negative conditions didnt disappear overnight. In fact, some took quite a while to work through (and a few still reappear at times!), but the stagnant energy wasnt stagnant anymore, and I knew in my heart that the baggage had finally begun to powerfully move out of my life. It was such a relief.