If you watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix, you will remember seeing Frankie going around the beach house doing a sage cleanse: waving a burning stick of sage around to ward off bad energy, singing one of her made-up chants. Also known as a sage smudging ritual, or a sage burning ritual, this involves lighting a dried stick of sage and allowing the vapors arising from the stick to waft in all directions as a cleansing mechanism.
Tiffany Maloney writes about this ritual over at MindBodyGreen:
“This is the smell of thousands of years of spiritual communion and ritual. Smudging your sacred space, your home or office, or even your body with sage is like taking an energetic shower, or doing a deep metaphysical cleansing. The smoke from dried sage actually changes the ionic composition of the air, and can have a direct effect on reducing our stress response.
Smudging is ritual alchemy — changing and shifting the air element, and transforming our current experience to a mystical one. The use of incense and other smoke and vapor to connect humans to the spirit world, can be easily traced throughout the East in parts of Asia and even dating as far back to Ancient Greece.”
Ancient and pagan cultures swear by this ritual. If you feel there is bad juju in the air, or want to cleanse your living space of all dark energy, or are just coming out of an argument and need an energy uplift, light a stick of sage. Sage cleansing as a practice is also in tune with Feng Shui or Vaastu ideologies. To align the living energy into perfect harmony, Feng Shui or Vaastu will have you move objects around, place countering elements in the form of pictures or other representative symbols if you cannot move certain sections around. Along the same principles, a sage cleanse will help eliminate all that is perceived to be harmful in your living space.
How to Perform a Sage Cleanse
Consider performing a sage cleanse when you move in to a new place. Perhaps the previous occupants might have left some dark energy behind. Or you might be living in close quarters to a kind of energy that doesn’t align with you. Perhaps your new apartment or office does not get enough natural light and air. Maybe you are recovering from an illness. Or you have just come out of a bad experience. Any situation or experience that leaves you feeling down and out merits a sage cleanse. Here is how to do it.
- You can look for a sage bundle at a mulch or tobacco or hookah or metaphysical store, or even an ethnic market near you. You may also find it at some yoga centers or holistic healing gatherings. Alternatively, you can buy sticks of sage online. The stick or wand is usually bound by a piece of string to keep the fibers together.
- Place the stick on a heat-resistant surface like a plate or an abalone shell. Light one end of it until the flame takes. Once it lights up, you can either fan the stick or shake it or blow on it until it’s just a burning ember. The burning tip will give off vapors that smells distinctly like wood smoke on an autumn night. Depending on the amount of nascent moisture in the stick, you may have to light it a couple of times to get it burning again.
- Holding the non-burning end of the stick in your hand, or just picking up the surface that the burning sage rests on, you can then walk around the house, waving the vapors in every direction of your living space. Also practice the art of creative visualization: imagine all your troubles and cares and worries disappearing into the ether, carried by the smoke emanating from the burning end of the sage stick. If it helps, you can chant either a mantra you strongly believe in, or a song that holds special meaning to you. The incantation, along with the vapors, have a soothing effect on mind and breath.
- Once you have covered all the spaces you want to, you can choose to place the sage in a central location, where the natural movement of air can continue to carry its cleansing vapors to all the nooks and corners in the room.
That’s it — you are done! Let us know how you felt after your first sage cleanse in the comments.
