Sweetgrass smells delicious, and when you burn it, you can immediately sense its sweet and earthy-yer-otherworldly personality. Rather than removing negative vibes, sweet grass summons positive ones in the form of beneficient deceased loved ones, angels, guides, animal guides, gods/goddesses, and ascended masters, all of whom are great to have around for a number of reasons, including protection, happiness, and receiving messages from beyond. You might like to cleanse the space with sage before you invite in helpers with sweetgrass. Then, as you light it and you burn it, mentally or aloud invite sweet and helpful spirits to enter your home.
Desert sage also clears energy but in a different way. While white sage purifies by lifting vibrations and dissolving negativity, desert sage moves the vibrations around in a happy way so that bad vibes just naturally don’t feel like hanging out. For this reason, it has been used as a magickal “road-opener.” If you’ve been feeling stuck in your life, and you’d like to clear the way for new opportunities and unexpected avenues, burning desert sage in your home and around your aura is a good idea. Concentrate especially at thresholds and doors, in order to open new doors in your life. Its smoke has a very sweet personality and can create feelings of safety, coziness, and playfulness. Desert sage is good to burn in a new place to help you feel relaxed and at ease in the new environment, and to help make it your own. It can also call spirits of ancestors and deceased loved ones into your space.
If you only have one magickal housekeeping tool or ingredient, a white sage bundle should be it. This is because burning white sage lifts vibrations, releases stuck energy protects from negativity, and creates sacred space. If any sort of negative events takes place in your space, you can burn white sage to quickly and effectively purify the residual energy from the event. It is also just a good practice to burn it periodically for general purification. After you burn it, you’ll definitely notice a positive difference in the feeling and atmosphere of a room.
To burn it, just light the bundle and carefully shake it over a dish or the sink until the flame goes out but it is still smoking. Carry the a dish under the burning up tip to catch any falling ash, and move around the perimeter of each room you’d like to purify, taking as much time with each area as your intuition guides you to. You can also burn it around your body to purify your energetic body and aura.
Smudge sticks are tied-up or braided bundles of dried herbs that care carried and burned like incense around a room or area in order to create energetic shifts with the magickal power of the smoke.
You can purchase smudge stick online or at many health and metaphysical stores, or you can make your own. To make your own sage smudge stick simply cut fresh sage and tie firmly into a wand like bundle with hemp twine or cotton . Then hang it up to dry. For sweetgrass braids you’re on your own–I’ve never made on of the ssweetgrass braids, but I would imagine it’s pretty easy if you know where and how to find fresh sweetgrass.
Personal note: I prefer to use sage. I know most spells that use sage call for the use of white sage. But I have found that every type of sage works. I planted a garden full of sage. In my opinion, you can never have enough sage. You use it to cleanse and you also use it in your spells. So the more sage you have, the better off you are.
Witches Of The Craft® 