Make Your Own Smudge Sticks That Works

Smudge Sticks are the best ways to honour the changing seasons and welcoming positivity your homes.

Smudging banishes the bad energy by using handheld rolls of flowers and dried herbs, which are then bound in a cord and burned. The smoke is believed to purify the air with positivity and good energy into the home.

It is a great way to rinse a holy space, and most folks use smudge sticks made of sweetgrass or sage for this purpose. It’s also a good method to put those herbs excess from the summer season to use.

Make Your Smudge Sticks – Healing and Positivity

When the smudge sticks are burned, they give off resinous smoke, which is believed to burn all the bad and toxic energies and bring balance to our lives.

While repeatedly used to wash places, smudging can also be used to cleanse folks and items. It brings an elevated calmness, feeling of well-being, positivity, clarity of thought and physical energy to us.

Ingredients

Scissors or garden clippers
4 – 5 rose buds or lavender sprigs
Roughly 10 sprigs of fresh herbs, like sage, mugwort, rosemary, lavender, or juniper
Twine

Although they are offered commercially and are fairly cheap it’s easy to make your own if you’ve got herbs growing in your garden, or if there’s a place nearby where you can go wildcrafting.

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Instructions to make Your Smudge Sticks (DIY)

Select the herbs and flowers and start trimming them. Secure a long piece of twine around the base of your herb bundle and stay covering it until you reach the top.
You want to make sure to wrap the twine as firmly as you can so that it stays bound when the flowers dry and shrink.
Once you reach the top, securely tie the twine and trim the extra part. Cut off extra herbs, in case they are sticking out of the buddle.
Keep the smudge sticks on one corner and allow it to dry for at least 2 weeks.
Now burn the dried smudge sticks with the help of a match or lighter.
Circle the room clockwise, floating the smoke as you go and continue moving in the clockwise direction through the rest of your home.
Finally, quench the smoke under either running water and set it aside to dry. You can reclaim the same smudge sticks until there is nothing left to burn.

Feng Shui expert Rodika Tchi recommends,

“Go clockwise around your house (usually starting at the front door), and gently wave the smoke into the air. Spend a bit more time smudging the room corners, as they tend to accumulate stagnant energy. Be sure to also open the closet doors and carefully smudge inside. Do not forget about spaces such as the laundry room, the garage or the basement.”

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How to Select the Herbs for Bundling?

Cut almost 5 feet long string and put different branches together so that it is easy to cut the edges at one go, and the leafy parts remain together bundled.

There are lots of different herbs customarily used for smudging, but some are easier to find than others. Some of the easy-to-find herbs include:

Sage: Careful one of the most valued holy herbs, it fills amity and serenity.
Cedar: Regularly used for restoration, defence and training.
Rosemary: Great for indorsing spiritual insight and cleansing.
Rose: Typically burned in affection, blessing, sorrow, and remedial rites.
Lavender: Nurtures amity in mind and tranquillity.
Frankincense: Regularly used to send devotions and aims to the gods.
Eucalyptus: Provides any room with a calming, spa-like feel.

Wind the string firmly around the stems of the bundle, parting 2 inches of loose string where you began.

Although the use of draped smudge sticks is usually credited to Native American values and observes, the burning of aromatic herbs in a customary context is found in many cultures in history.

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The practise of burning the herbs has been documented and recorded in a tablet writing that has been dated back to 1500 B.C.E. while the custom began in ancient Egypt.

Several eastern mystical structures, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto, use burning herbs either loose or as firmed incense informal exercise.

For the early Greeks, smudging was involved in rites to connect to the late and often was used in tandem with customary fasting.

How to Warp the Herbs?

To secure the base of the branch, wrap the remaining length of the string several times. Then, slowly, work your way along the length of branches until you reach the leafy end.

Create a bit of crisscross pattern by returning the strings up to the stems. You’ll want to gust the string firmly enough that nothing gets movable, but not so fitted that it cuts off parts of the plants.

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When you retrieve to the stems, tie the rest of the string to the 2″ loose piece you left at the start. Trim off any extra pieces so that the ends of your smudge sticks are even.

How to dry the smudge sticks?

You can either hang it outside your home or just place it under the sun for drying.

Based on the selection of the herb and the temperature & climatic conditions of your place, the drying process can extend from a few hours to a few days.

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Once the smudge sticks are dried completely, you need to find a dark cabinet and place it inside a box or a bag, until it’s the time to use them finally.

Then burn them in ceremonial for smudging simply by igniting one end. Some plants may have lethal smokes. Do not burn a herb until you know it is safe to do so.

How to use Smudge Sticks for Magical Rituals and Spell work?

Dawn Combs over at Hobby Farms has unlimited tips on 9 different herbs you can burn like incense and if they’re safe for burning as incense, they’re safe to burn in smudging rites.

Dawn endorses you to burn your herbs, whether incense or sticks, using “a heat-tolerant vessel. Usually, this is an abalone shell with a bit of sand in the end. You might also use a charcoal disc under the herbs to keep them smoking, especially in the case of resins.”

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For several folks, the simple ritualized act of cleaning can be a flawless way to create a holy space.

You can take a room that gets everyday practice, and by formally cleaning it, turn it into a place of mystic and serenity.

The drive of smudging is to use smoke to carry bad energy out of the area.

When you light your smudge sticks, allow it to flame for a minute and then blow out the flame. This will leave you with a burning pack of herbs which will create smoke.

What to say in the Smudging Prayers?

Here are some prayers you can use while smudging your home:

Cleanse this house and make it clear that only good may enter here!
Infinite Power of the Divine to protect and bless this house through time!
Blessings grace this cozy place so that all joy and peace may it embrace.
By the Power of the Divine, this home is blessed, blessed Be!
The negativity that occupies my sacred place, I banish you away with the light of my grace. You have no hold or power here, for I stand and face you with no fear. Be gone forever, for this, I will say: This is my sacred place, and you will obey.
Smoke, air, fire, and earth, cleanse and bless this home and hearth. Drive-away harm and fear only positive energy may enter here.

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One of these prayers might be useful if you are smudging someone else:

May your hands be cleansed, that they create beautiful things. May your feet be cleansed, that they might take you where you most need to be. May your heart be cleansed, that you might hear its messages.
- May your throat be cleansed, that you might speak rightly when words are needed. May your eyes be cleansed, that you might see the signs and wonders of the world.
- May this person and space be washed clean by the smoke of these fragrant plants. And may that same smoke carries our prayers, spiralling, to the heavens.
Air, fire, water, earth. Cleanse, dismiss, dispel.
Into this smoke, I release all energies that no longer serve me, all negativity that surrounds me, and all fears that limit me. So it is.

Conclusion

It’s best to use smudge sticks after having just washed and cleaned your home.

Once you’ve gotten rid of physical impurities like dirt and dust, walk through each room with your smudge stick to clean the energies and leave your home feeling fresh both bodily and mentally.