Using Smudge

• Personal spiritual cleansing and empowerment are often art of a smudging ritual. Anticlockwise spirals up and down the body with the smoking smudge stick are used to remove negativity, followed by clockwise smoke spirals to restore energy and bring power. Two people can do this, each with their own smudge stick, by standing and facing each other and moving in rhythm as though dancing. The crown is sealed with a clockwise circle and the feet likewise, followed by a final clockwise crown circle.
• Mark boundaries around your home against bad neighbors or potential intruders by creating a psychic defense wall with alternate anticlockwise and clockwise spirals of smoke. Chant as you smudge:

May goodness and those with good intent enter her and only peace remain.

• Purify a home or individual rooms of negativity, whether from a hostile visitor, quarrels or an unfriendly ghost, by using anticlockwise spirals.
• Purify and empower artifacts, such as items you have bought, been given or inherited, especially jewellery, to make it your own. Pass objects or crystals through the smoke nine times anticlockwise to purify them; followed by nine circle clockwise. The words you speak and the fragrance you use will direct the purpose and attract the appropriate energies.
• Cleanse and empower magickal tools and your indoor and outdoor altar.
• Open the four main directions in a ritual. With practice you can make an invoking earth pentagram with the smoke from a small smudge stick.
• Unite the six directions: East, North, South and West (the order o honoring the universe in smudge rituals), then Earth (downwards) and Sky (upwards).
• Use for planetary healing or peace rituals.
• Heal people, animals and places where there has been a human or naturally created disaster. Direct the smoke towards an absent person or animal, or a place or swirl it in huge spirals in all the directions. Chant the purpose continuously until you reach a powerful speed and intensity of words and movement with the smoke. then lower your voice and smudge more slowly until you end with a gentle final thrust and a whispered:

May ___________ be healed.

• Smudge round the outline of a drawn plan of your workplace, anticlockwise and then clockwise, to bring positivity to the office. (Smudging the office itself might set off smoke alarms.)
• In wish magick, use  chant to call what it is you desire while writing the wish in the air with a smudge stick. End with three deliberate spirals of smoke directed directly upwards (with hand or fan).
• Induce a state of meditation or, before divination, use  fragrances like juniper, mugwort, pine, sage, yarrow or sweetgrass to amplify psychic powers.
• Cleanse and heal the human aura, the rainbow-colored energy field that extends an outstretched arm span all round us in an ellipse. Move anticlockwise to remove impurities and clear blockages in the energy flow and clockwise to fill the aura with light and energy.
• Create a sacred circle or strengthen one already made with salt and water and/or a candle flame. Casting a smoke circle around you gives protection during magickal work or divination and concentrates power.
• Use smudge in personal dedication ceremonies when you declare intentions and transform the energies around you to galvanize the transformation.
• Connect with benign guardian spirits, wise ancestors and angels.
• Smudge can act as the East/Air element instead of incense in outdoor rituals and on your outdoor altar.