Cleaning My Room (Smudging, Herb Warnings)

The good Karma bunny must have visited me yesterday after I made my first post.

Suddenly after I hit the "Publish Post" button I had a huge urge to clean my room and put my herbs in the jars I had purchased for them.

Well, actually... it started because I wanted to smudge my room because it's been freaking me out lately. If I'm sleeping by myself, I do the blanket up to my nose and shifty eyes thing you see in cartoons all the time. So, smudging would solve that. It'd at least give me peace at mind.

What is smudging you ask?

Smudging is when you take dried herbs that have been tied neatly together, you light the end of it and blow out the flame like incense. The smoke that comes from the "Smudge Stick" is an aromatic and potent way to get rid of those nasty evils that may be lurking in your home. I will be using White Sage for it is for protection and traditionally it is used when purifying a home.

Alot of people smudge before they move any of their belongings in a new home. Which I had planned on... but since I was working two jobs and have a relationship.... that didn't happen. I was lucky I found an afternoon to shove all my stuff in the house and run off back to work. I literally had to stay at a friends house because I lacked the time to even put my bed together until I got a full day off and had to plan for it.

So, I've been moved into my new apartment for almost 5 months and still have yet to smudge anywhere. The house felt empty when I walked in, but then again I was also so excited to be out of my current living situation and into this shiny new apartment, a blooded ghost probably could have walked up to me and spat in my face and I would've pushed him out of the way to live there.

But anyway, If one is to smudge a dwelling, said dwelling needs to be cleaned (or atleast put in order) because chaos breeds evil. Or, you could think of it as... Your house being in all sorts of array... could you sit there and calmly read a book? (Okay, so maybe you could, but I couldn't. I could barely sleep in my room because of how messy it was) In other words, it's harder to focus when there is clutter about. And, if you are wanting to push out anything bad, you would need to be able to see every inch of free space available.

After cleaning areas you wish to smudge, there are many ways you can do purify your home. The more "ritual" way is to light a bunch of candles or tea lights around the house. One in the central location of the house, and then at each North, South, East, West locations. If you have two levels (like me) you would want to put candles out on each floor like that, or use the central candle where your family gathers the most. (As that would be the "central" area for the family.... the one place everyone gathers on neutral ground.) But have two levels of the NSEW locations. Then, get a large bowl of water that had salt water dissolved in it. Walk around with your smudge stick making sure the smoke of the stick reaching each corner of the house. With water you would sprinkle it in each area while proclaiming the house being yours now and all other entities need to go away now, kthnx. (Okay, so maybe not in those words)

Or, you could take out the candles and water and just smudge for a quick purifying or less powerful negative energy. If it's something more serious (A ghost, a person/visitor that carrys heavy negative weight) you may want to do the complete ritual. There is no need to call a circle or anything like that.

What you could say while sprinkling the water is something like this:
Negative Energy, leave this place.
Negative Energy, you aren't welcome here.
This house is mine. Not yours.
(Repeat 3 times)

It only actually took me about 20mins to hang up all of my coats in my chair and throw away random trash and such... but then I got side tracked by putting my herbs into containers from the plastic bags they were in originally. (So I didn't get the chance to smudge yet)


I have an herb called Wormwood. Some of you might recognize the name, others may not. For those that don't: Wormwood is the herb that is used to make Absinth. Absinth is the liqour that makes you hallucinate and you can quite literally OD on it. Wormwood can also be manipulated into a poison and can make you paralyzed if you use it too often for too long even in the right form.... O and it could kill you.

So, Wormwood is tough shit. (Basically)

I got my hands on some a couple weeks ago. After I had searched everywhere and it's SOOOO expensive, I found somewhere that had it under $12 an ounce and pounced on it. I haven't done anything with it yet though, but I do have plans (in the non-poison form). Well, as I was pouring it into the jar from the bag a big puff of dried Wormwood powder got pushed into my oxygen. It was a slow reaction. I inhaled more than I should've. First, my eyes felt all wobbly. Then, I started choking. Wormwood tastes TERRIBLE, btw. Really, super bitter and reminded me of slugs. (I use to eat bugs as a kid, what?) I instantly stood up and stumbled. Drinking the rest of my drink my throat started to feel better but my eyes were all glossy and I felt really loopy. I felt drunk for the next hour and a half from just inhaling some in powder form. Yeesh. I'm excited to use this stuff for real!!

Moral of the story: Be careful with your herbs.

Blessed Be,
SallyD