The Showman Shaman… Bridget LeRoy’s Magical Transformation

Bridget LeRoy has seen and done some interesting things in her life.  Her latest endeavor could top them all.

The great granddaughter of Warner Brothers founder, Harry Warner; granddaughter of famed film producer Mervyn LeRoy; and daughter of Tavern on the Green and Russian Tea Room restaurateur, Warner LeRoy, and children’s book and cookbook author, Gen LeRoy — she was born into an extraordinary existence.

With a family like hers, Bridget could dine out for the rest of her life on the exploits of her forebears. But her narrative doesn’t end with her lineage. Her own life has been equally fascinating.

Among her experiences, the journalist was one of the founders of The Independent newspaper; she’s the co-host of “Sunday Mornings on the East End” with Alec Sokolow on WLIW Public Radio; she bought and ran the New London Inn in New Hampshire with her husband, Eric Johnson; and she started up Chaga Island Tea with her friend Debbie Falborn. Along the way, she’s also been a goat herder, an ordained minister, a pug breeder and a nude model for some of the world’s greatest living artists.

Her latest undertaking might just be the most compelling. Graduating from the Jaguar Path School of Yoga and Shamanism this past year, she’s become a sacred space creator and energy clearer. Using shamanic tools, she offers the opportunity to clear the negative, stagnant energy in a space, and replace it with bright, healthy, light energy.

Negative energy in a home can “stay in the corners and crevices like little cobwebs of sadness,” she explains. If you’re moving into a new space or live in a place that still holds past traumas, it might be a good idea to hold an energy-clearing ceremony and to create sacred space, she adds.

The idea seems tailor-made for the East End, with its bustling real estate marketplace. Especially for those moving into a new house or for a real estate agent who wants to ensure some positive energy in getting a house sold.

In fact, Bridget used her skills recently to clear the home of her husband’s mother’s estate in East Hampton, newly on the market with Enzo Morabito of Douglas Elliman for $1.995 million.

I leapt at the opportunity to join her at The Abraham Baker House — a circa-1745 shingle-style cottage on Cross Highway that was later home to the Riding Club of East Hampton — which, literally, has hundreds of years of history. Starting the real estate relationship off with newfound positive energy felt like the right start.

Upon arrival, she looked up into the sky, raised her hands, palms facing upward, smiled a wide grin, and professed her gratitude. Once inside, she got down to business.

Selecting the dining room table, an expansive 12-seater in the home’s most open, bright and airy room, Bridget began to unpack her bag. Withdrawing her tools with reverence, out came the dragon’s blood sage, gongs, bowls, crystals, rattles, a bell, shells, stones and other instruments to shift the energy.

“All my little shaman tools,” she explained, smiling.

Starting with the east, she then called upon the spirits of the six directions to ask for their blessings in order to create sacred circle of ceremonial space. As she spoke her incantation, the air seemed to shift and the mood lightened. The slightest bit of heaviness passed as the sun shone into the windows and through the long galley-like space.

Deep into her work, she then went from room to room, shaking a rattle and ringing an antique silver bell, thanking “Pachamama, sweet Mother Earth” as she stopped at the fireplaces, the televisions, the windows and doors, the nooks and crannies where energy was stored.

In her late mother-in-law’s bedroom, Bridget remarked that she had felt her spirit join her as she had passed the place of her death.

“As I drove past the hospice in Westhampton Beach, I could feel Barbara with me, excited to take the trip back home in East Hampton,” she said. “This house is filled with love.”

Resuming her travels throughout the cozy home, Bridget paid special attention to the entrance.

“Captain Baker protects this place,” she said as she stopped for a meditative moment in the corner of the parlor, near the foyer and the front door. “It’s important that he knows that this will remain a place of peace.”

As she continued, she pointed out the Chakana that she had brought with her, an Incan cross symbolizing the dynamic between the universe and the life it contains; and the cord-cutting knife that she used to sever any lingering negative energy.

Toward the end of her visit, Bridget took care to find a new home for a special window crystal, “to bring rainbows into the room,” she said. She sprayed a “Rain of Prosperity” mist and placed a small citrine and amethyst — for the strengthening of creativity, removal of anxiety and opening of spiritual awareness — in their own hidden spaces.

Then, satisfied with the job she had done, Bridget turned and beamed.

“That’s it,” she said. “This is a happy, happy house.”