Understanding our Thresholds
What defines a threshold? A doorway, a space between? A stepping from one space into the next?
I always considered thresholds to be somewhat liminal spaces. A movement from one environment to the next, a relation to two places. Thresholds are defined by the New American Dictionary as, "a strip of wood, metal, or stone forming the bottom of a doorway and crossed in entering a house or room", or " the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested". Some thesaurus terms include "brink", "dawn", "portal", "gateway", and "initiation".
Thresholds are not just physical spaces, but spiritual and metaphysical ones. Moments in time where we stand on the precipice of something new, an emerging build, a different way of approaching thing.
Thresholds, doorways, and portals exist everywhere - however the thresholds I most commonly work with are the ones of my own home. Doorways and the doors themselves are not just corporeal barriers, but in the home of a witch, they are metaphysical. My thresholds are spirits that keep illness, plague, and other negative ailments at bay. They are physical wards with lock and key to ensure the safety of everyone in the home.
Thresholds aren't just doorways, but fencelines and gateways. Places where we move from outside of something to inside of it or vice versa - a traveling point in time that we can access in a variety of ways. Cemeteries hold thresholds, a passing from the land of the living into the land of the dead. We can ask our thresholds - what do we want to let in? What do we want to keep out? What could assist in these things?
Thresholds, doors, and other portal spaces are places that we can pay reverence and respect to before passing through them. They allow us to move from space to space. They give protection, but they also allow us to open our spaces to particular energies.
Protection of Thresholds
In 2021, when I first moved in with my partner and was beginning to establish my space as mine, I received an apotropaic door hanger charm from my friend, Gigi, who often makes rosaries I place in my shop. That door hanger has never moved from its original placement - I keep it there as a protective charm. Although I add more charms around the home and update my wards, this charm has always been my favorite.
The new, black doorhangers for our shop are loosely designed after the cimaruta with glass beads and hanging milagros, talismans, and saint medals, yet the original door hanger and the red doorhangers I received from Gigi reminded me frequently of many charms and methods of protection done by my ancestors and other folk traditions.
She talked to me more about her inspiration behind the hangers, "I created my first door hanger for my own home as a way to have a protection ward that is full of magic, prayer, and intention, but also seems decorative and unassuming to visitors. Some Catholic homes use door hangers as a home blessing. They are made with 10 beads like a single decade of a rosary and often feature Saint Benedict. I wanted to take that a step further and make it something more meaningful to me and my practices."
Apotropaic charms are often worn on the body, the self, but you will always find other items around the hearth and kitchen that may be attributed to protection - garlic braids by the front door, goat horns hung over walkways, breve bags or lines of salt nestled around entry points. Home protection and especially threshold protection is an age-old way to ensure that what is let into your space and brought to you is not one of harm.
Charles Lecoutex, in his book "The Traditions of Household Spirits", explores deities and spirits of the home throughout the ages, as well as the different parts of the home that may be tended to. He writes, "... the dwelling necessarily has to remain open to the outside in order to receive the necessities of daily life, and its openings thus amount to so many breaches in this sacred and protective envelope." Spirits like Manes from Ancient Rome reside at our thresholds. In the Upper Palatinate, "it is said that the recently deceased linger in the door hinges every Saturday..." A variety of rituals exist to protect the doorways of the home, from sacrificing a cat, adorning with hawthorn, to rubbing pig's fat or wool on the threshold for a variety of purposes, including to avert illness.
Blessings of doorways and thresholds maintain on particular days dependent on region and religion, but some include the "calends of March", Holy Saturday, the "calends" of January, on Christmas, Santa Lucia's Day, and possibly many more not described by Lecoutex in his book. Pliny the Elder remakes the laurel as "propitious for our dwelling places. It stands guard at the door and protects the surrounding area" (Lecoutex, 2013) while Ovid writes, "It stands as a faithful guardian over the portal..."
Plants such as holly or buckthorn may be placed over the door in different regions for a similar purpose, or inscriptions such as those from Latin or certain prayers. Some protective rites may be considered unsavory in the modern day, including heads of animals or sacrificed livestock pinned to the front door, however the theme remains the same - doors are a portal from the sanctity and protection of the home to the outside world, and we require protection against whatever may pass through.
Opening of Ways
To protect a threshold is to ask them - what do we want to let in? What do we want to keep out? What could assist in these things?
To open a way is to open a threshold - a portal, a place, a gateway to opportunity.
In a similar vein, the crossroads, or intersections of ways, represent an opening of opportunity and access. We very often hear terms like "when one door closes, another opens" in regards to shifts in access and changes in our situation. All traditions and cultures have a version of a spell or method of opening roads to let in and/or attract a new job, lover, or success in another form. Italian-American folk magic is no different.
Apri la Via, or open the way, is an oil utilizing a variety of herbal allies and materia to assist one in opening a door to new things. My mutual, Melanie Jade, on Instagram once shared a Sicilian spell to protect against thieves. The prayer was recited after touching iron or the door locks (often iron), to ensure that no one would break in during the night. In the same vein, toccare ferro or touch iron is a way to ward away bad luck or injury, sometimes utilized after seeing an ambulance drive by.
Large iron keys are still important good luck charms in Italy to this day, representing not only something that can protect a space and home, but one that can open a way to new opportunity. When we open a door or a threshold, we create a space of invitation - letting in someone or something, stepping out into the world to greet them, and more. Some folklore around certain spirits says they can not enter a space without invitation, leading to a power in what we ask to come into not only our homes, but our ives.
Apri la Via spelled oil is not an attraction formula - it is a formula to open your doors and ways to new opportunities and success. I was always taught that in order to have an open roads working be successful, there are several aspects to a working. Not only does luck need to be involved, but success and the actual drawing of what you want to enter your doors is needed. Apri la Via assists you in the aspect of this that opens up the ways quickly and effectively to let in what is needed - from there it is your choice what you wish to invite into your space.
Paired with our Abbondanza or Abundance spelled oil, Apri la Via successfully draws in money and abundance in community. Paired with our Safe Travels oil, now restocked, Apri la Via represents a potent force to protect you wherever you may go. With St Anthony's Finding Oil, you will be assisted in finding what you need in that moment, including the ability to set intentions for what exactly you wish to bring in.
Spelled oils can be used to anoint doors, door knobs, or even mixed into salt or other herbal powders and laid beneath welcome mats. They can be used on the body to care for our sacred self, but I often find that a bit a small anointing on each area of the doorway assists in calling in the energies necessary.
Working the Threshold
Thresholds also have several areas that can be conjured, worked, or awoken to assist in protection or opening - the outside, the inside, the doorknobs, the lock, and the physical material used to create the doorway itself. While I did discuss fencelines and property lines as thresholds, for this section I will be primarily focusing on physical doorways.
Dependent on practice, tradition, and more, you may tend to your thresholds' inside area differently than the outside. I tend to have a spray or oil like Apri la Via or St John's Blessing Spray to place on the outside of the door - an area I associate with calling in and invitation. This is the area that is knocked on or seen by those outside the hearth - what energy do you want to project?
On the inside of the door, I anoint protective oils such as Panacea or our now available Ginepro herbal ally spray. The inside is the section of the portal we control - who we open it to. How we seal our sacred spaces. When opportunity knocks, these allies ensure that only those invited in can answer. I prefer my protective energies to not be immediately apparent to those coming to my threshold, thus creating a doorway that invites in blessings and money that ultimately is up to my discretion on whether I let in.
Our doorknobs and locks are potent allies for several reasons. We can anoint the handles of our doors to protect those who enter or exit our thresholds, spray them with similar items to the inside/outside of our doorways, or we can even lay a sneaky ward around the outside of our doorknob. This could look like encouraging those who approach the door and your space to have good intentions, to break curses before they enter, and to place blessings on those who leave the space so they can continue to be protected after they live.
Locks are a physical method of keeping certain energies out - so in threshold magic and the awakening of the spirits of our hearth and home, awakening our locks and keys to discourage thieves and visitors is a potent method of protection. You can anoint house keys with St Anthony's oil to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. Speak prayers into your locks at the end of each night.
Finally, the physical material that makes up the space between the outside and the inside of our doorways. Some folks may have a physical space in this area, while others may just have a small frame to signify this liminal space. This area is, in my opinion, the most important area to work - it allows us to create a space with certain mixtures, materia, or magics that, if in case our working of the doors do not do enough, we have a last resort. In this area, I like to not just awaken the space to work with me for my needs, but perhaps lay down a few protective powders, salts, or hanging charms that will keep out what may harm and invite in what may help.
The spirit of a key is incredibly potent for this type of work, or perhaps a hanging collection of herbs changed out seasonally. These spirits can be fed sprays, waters, liquors, and oils to continue to assist you in the areas you need, especially those such as Ginepro or Apri la Via. Door hangers can be conjured and awoken, cleansed and fed, in order to ensure that the home remains peaceful, secure, and protected.
Thresholds and doorways can also be cleansed regularly to reset and revitalize what we wish to protect from and bring in. I often use smoke cleansing for this method, however a spray or water washing down the door itself will work just as well. Powders can be swept up and replaced after they have helped in the ways we expected. New glamours and washes can be laid, oils re-applied, and more. I often work rather seasonally with my thresholds.
Threshold Magic as Spirit Work
All items, living or made, contain a spirit. This is an incredibly important part of animist belief systems. While this belief may differ dependent on tradition and culture, including what exactly may be considered to have a spirit, to acknowledge and lean into folk magic is to be in relation with the world around us - both spiritual and physical.
Thresholds contain spirits - those of protection, those of locking, those of security and liminality - that can assist us. By petitioning, feeding, and awakening our threshold spirits, we begin to tend to the spirits of our home and what they represent.
By tending to our thresholds, our portals, our hearths, we begin to revitalize age old traditions that may look different depending on culture and region, but still hold true - our doorways are magic. Our homes are sacred. When we treat them as such, we embody our magic in new ways and forms.
Works Cited
The Tradition of Household Spirits by Claude Lecouteux, 2013
Interested in receiving early access to blogs, a ritual walkthroughs, and weekly collective readings? My Patreon receives access to all this, plus more!