For thousands of years, our ancestors have practiced smudging, an ancient healing ritual to cleanse spaces and clear our auras of negative forces. When you feel cursed, haunted, or spiritually stagnant, a smudging ceremony purifies and protects the soul. Smudging can also help bless a new home and cleanse a living space with renewed energy. Sacred herbs and smoke fill the air, to dispel negativity and give space for love, light, and abundance. Discover how to perform a smudging ceremony, to reset and manifest positive energy into your life.

How Does Smudging Work?

Our lives are guided by energy. We are constantly interacting with the energy that surrounds us, from the energetic forces of other living beings, of nature, of Mother Earth, of the spirits, of the cosmos. 

Staying spiritually balanced means tuning into your energy centers. You must learn how to maintain harmony within your internal energy centers so that they flow freely and openly. But, we do not live in a vacuum. Balance also means awareness of how you interact with surrounding energies. You must find that delicate balance between openness and connection, as well as protection and setting boundaries.

Smudging provides just one way to ensure harmonious energy surrounds you while protecting you from lower vibrational energy that can drain your lifeforce. Sacred plants each have their own energetic properties. Burning specific herbs dried into incense or mixed with resin unlocks their energetic properties and releases them into the air, which can clear a space or personal aura from negativity and welcome whatever you wish to manifest. 

Our ancient ancestors from all four corners of the world have practiced smudging rituals for protection and healing. Tablets show evidence of the ancient Egyptians burning incense during religious ceremonies. Native Americans burned white sage to remove any unwanted energies and to ask the spirits for blessings, prosperity, and protection. Smoke cleansing has also been a part of Buddhist and Hindu cultures across the East, including in China, India, and Japan.

How to Create Your Own Smudging Ritual

You can perform smudging as often as you need. Traditionally, smudging helps increase psychic energies and cleanse the space during a religious ceremony or ritual. It can provide healing energy to purify the body or aura. 

You can also include it as a ritual to your regular spiritual practices. Smudging helps create a sacred space during divination practices, when communicating with your spirit guides, to enhance meditation, or to heal energetically during a full moon ritual. 

People often use smudging to cleanse the space of a new home. If you experience a negative spiritual presence in the home, smudging can help guide lingering spirits to leave. Smudging is also a great cleansing ritual, to refresh your living space after housecleaning.

So how often should you smudge? Listen to your intuition. Your inner voice will guide you, to let you know when a smudging ritual will help restore balance to the external energies surrounding you. 

Types of Smudging

Plants each have their own unique energetic properties. You can select specific herbal blends during your smudging ritual, to release those properties into the air and inspire certain outcomes.

• White sage dispels negative energy. It increases psychic awareness as well as provides healing, longevity, protection, and good health. 

• Cedar cleanses a space during or after an illness. It also has properties for healing, purification, protection, and prosperity. 

• Sweetgrass draws in positive energy.

• Palo santo means “holy wood”, and it dispels evil spirits. It also cleanses negative energy as well as deepens spiritual connection and meditation.

• Lavender has soothing qualities, used for purification, healing, sleep, tranquility, protection, and house blessings.

Before you begin, gather your materials. You can choose from a variety of different forms of smudge sticks, like a sage smudge stick of dried herbs tied together. You may also use a dried herbal blend of loose incense, incense sticks, or incense cones. You will need matches or a lighter. You should also have a fireproof container or incense burner, to help contain the embers. Finally, a feather can help direct the smoke.

To smudge the home: Open the windows. Light your smudge stick at the front door. Begin wafting the smoke throughout the home. If you are cleansing your space of a spirit, guide the smoke toward the opened window, as though guiding the spirit to exit the property. 

To smudge your aura: If you wish to cleanse yourself, it’s usually best to have a friend help. Have them light the smudge stick. Let them circle you and allow the smoke to cleanse you from top to bottom. Imagine yourself releasing negative energy and inviting pure white light energy. You can also guide the smoke around you on your own, for individual practice.

During your smudging ceremony, repeating affirmations or mantras can help set the intention of the ceremony. Ask that all negative forces leave this space. Ask for protection, and welcome love and light. As you close the ceremony, repeat your intention firmly, one final time. 

As energetic beings, we respond to the forces around us. Rituals like smudging provide a powerful way to keep our internal lifeforce balanced and surrounded by supportive, loving energy. Smudging helps clear our aura and living space of toxic energy. We can protect ourselves from draining energy while remaining open to loving support from the universe. 

When it comes to ritual, the more the merrier. Inviting others to join only enhances the effect of a smudging ceremony. If you feel stagnant or ready for a vibrational shift, join a sisterhood retreat and experience the power of smudging ceremony among like-hearted women.