THE LOW DOWN ON SMUDGING
Smudging. What is it? Why do you do it? I did a poll recently on my Instagram story and half of the people who voted had no idea what smudging is and the overwhelming response was that people wanted to know more about it. So I thought there’s no better time with spring just around the corner, to share with you what smudging is all about.
Smudging, is an ancient act of using sacred herbs, (such as sage or palo santo wood being the most well known), to cleanse energies and auras within your home, from people, or objects and crystals. By lighting the end of your smudge stick, the smoke is moved around the space, person or object, purifying and neutralising the energy. You can do this just from you moving the stick around, or some people like to use a feather to waft the smoke. Now for anyone who'se thinking ‘yeh ok, what a load of spiritual woo woo malark’, here’s the science part. Burning these herbs is scientifically proven to release negative ions, therefore neutralising positive ions that build up around us. We all have an electromagnetic field around us and our environment, known as our aura, that accumulates positive ions over time, through electrical devices, such as hairdryers, fluorescent lighting, and outside, things like pollution, humidity and storms. This build up can make us feel low and burnt out. Negative ions are abundant in nature, in plants, forests. By burning these dried herbs the negative ions released neutralise the positive around us. For so many of us who live a busy city life, constantly on the go, rarely surrounded by much nature, its so important to make sure we rid ourselves of this positive ion build up, through things like smudging, or even taking time just to be in nature, or keep plants around your home. Additionally, its been scientifically proven that medicinal smoke can get rid of harmful bacteria in the air.
Around your home, some great ways to smudge are to cleanse the energy around your bed to rid old energies from past lovers & welcome in new ones. If you’ve just moved into your home, cleanse your space of former residents and start a fresh. Smudge around your front door to cleanse energies coming in and out of your house, especially if you have a lot of people coming in and out a lot of the time. One of my favourite things to do is to have a good smudge after cleaning my home to really clean the energy too. Whilst smudging, be sure to visualise the negative energy being removed & stay connected to your breathing while you do it.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this time of year is PERFECT to get your smudge on!!! As we welcome in spring, its time to rid ourselves of any negative energy as we enter a new season of life. It's the ideal addition to our spring cleans that many of us will be embarking on soon, if not already! So go set those new intentions for your year ahead, write them down, smudge away anything that does not serve you and lets leave winter behind to enter into brighter days in the best way we can.
So there you have it, there’s a brief low down on smudging for you. I can not recommend that you do it enough, aside from anything else its pretty inexpensive and a smudge stick will last you quite a while, it doesn’t take up a whole load of time, so what’s not to love? Give it a whirl and see if you feel any different. As always, please let me know how you get on, and be sure to connect with me over on my Instagram page @mysanctuaryno8.
Lots of love
Zara xxx