Smudging

Smudging is part of many Native American traditions.  The buring of herbs for emotional, psychic and spiritual purification is also common among many religions, healing, and spiritual groups.  The ritual of smudging can be defined as "spiritual house lceaning."  The smoke attaches itself fo negative energy and as the smoke clears it takes the negative energy with it, releasing it into aother space where it will be regenerated into positive energy.

Common Herbs Used In Sumdging Sticks

Sage/White sage

Cedar/Pine

Lavendar

Sweet Grass

Mugwort

Copal

How To Sumdge Yourself

Put the sumdge stick to flame using a match or candle light.  Blow or wave the flame with your hand to put out the fire.  Allow the sumdge stick to smoulder, greeing the smoke to circle in the air.  Fan the swirls of smoke around your body's aura from head to toe.  Smudging is a lceaning of energy by burning sage and sweet grass.

Sweet frass is a reed-like plant that grows in mashlands.  It leaves are braided together to remind us of Mother Earth.  It is sometimes bound up with sage in smudge sticks, or burnt by lighting the end of the braid and waving it through the air. Sweet grass is believed to carry within it the deep wisdom of the Earth.  It is said that grass never dies.

Sage is the cleanest smell of the desert.  A powerful medicine, it is burned as a protection against negative energies.  It is used to establish a sacred boundary.  Sage is a purifier, an element of smudging that has power to draw away the negative energies that afflict the aura, the body and the soul.  It is also a powerful herbal remedy.

Our thoughts and prayers are carried in the smoke and to the creator.   It is visual representation of our thoughts and prayers being transported.

Smudging is a simple but powerful purification method.  Sage is a traditional choice of herb to use it is the strongest cleansing herb.  Break tip leaves with your hands.  With any prayers that you feel appropriate, place it into a pot or shell.  Burn the herbs until they give off clouds of smoke.  Remember that strong medicine is not always pleasant.  The negative energies that cling to you may try to convince you that the smudging is offensive.  Sweep the smoke from the smouldering herbs with a mdeicine feather or your hand.  If you use a smudge stick, you can sweep the smoke by waving the stick itself.  Bathe yourself, or the person you are working with, in the purifying smoke.  Smoke rises, so start from the bottom of the body and work you way up.  When you reach the top, flick the feather or your hand, dispersing and negative energies that may have been dislodged from your aura.  Make sure you smudge the back and front of the body.  Trust your intuition: you may feel that their that you wil benefit from extra smudging.  In  this way you can also purify and sanctify objects, animals and places.  It is interaction between the herbs you choose, the particular feather and the intent within you that makes the ceremony special.