Smudging your sacred space
You can purify your sacred space by smudging. The smoke of an herbal mixture of sage and cedar, sometimes blended with lavender, copal or sweetgrass, cleanses your room, altar, tools, magickal components, and yourself of unwanted energies. I do this before ritual as a way to cleanse everything. It also helps prepare me for ritual. To smudge your room, begin by lighting the smudge stick and blowing on it softly until it starts to smoke. Hold the burning smudge over a fireproof bowl or dish because a certain amount of the burning herbs will drop down. Allow the smoke to waft over your altar. Pass each of your altar tools through the smoke three times.

Move in a clockwise circle around the room and say:
May the Goddess and God
Protect and Bless this Sacred Space
And rid it of all negativity.
Blessed be! Blessed be the Gods.
When you finish smudging the room, altar, tools, and yourself, douse the stick in water to put it out completely