A note on “Smudging”, Sage and Smoke Cleansing

Smudging is a specific indigenous closed practice using white sage.

As a more general practice we call using sage, other herbs or incense, Smoke Cleansing.

White sage is native to California and difficult to ethically source unless you grow it yourself, or receive some from someone who grows it. Other types of sage include common garden sage, also known as culinary sage which grows well in Michigan, Black sage which is also native to California, Blue Sage grows in the prairies.

Most types of sage–both common sage and white sage energetically are like fumigation or antibiotics. Everything bad AND good gets cleared, which is often overkill and can create more issues. You can deliberately bring the good energy back in afterwards, use a different herb to smoke cleanse or use a different method of energetic cleansing. 

However, it is super easy to buy or grow your own herbs like rosemary and culinary or common sage for smoke cleansing. These herbs are also more appropriate to use frequently. 

Other Herbs for Smoke Cleansing 

Rosemary cleanses while still bringing in the positive energy. 

Cedar and Juniper can cleanse while not removing positive energy. I recommend using whichever evergreen you feel most connected to. 

Lavender can also be used after sage to bring in positive energy, as can many other florals like Jasmine or Rose. 

You can also use incense and/or candles to cleanse or to help bring positive energy back in as well. 

When you want to heavily cleanse a space you can use common sage, and ideally include other herbs depending on what you'd like to do. This is also an area I'm happy to provide a spiritual consultation on to help you design a cleansing herb bundle that will work wonderfully for you. I also do some divination to help provide insight on the situation as well. If you do this on your own I'd recommend divination if you feel like things are energetically wonky.

Other Methods for Energetic Cleansing

If you can't use smoke then things like Florida water are a great alternative and easy to DIY and adapt to your needs. There are also cleansing waters to use. I had a friend in college who was fairly catholic but used Clinique Happy in a way that I'd call energetic cleansing–spritzing deliberately in her space. Florida Water was originally a cologne so that's a delightful use. I have heard of other older colognes being used for cleansing as well. 

Additionally, using sounds–often bells, chimes or singing bowls can be effective to help cleanse a space. Even some music can be used to cleanse a space. To do this you walk around the space using the chime or bell (or play the song) and be sure to get all possible stagnant areas like corners, windows and doorways.

Energetic Cleansing is the prerequisite to protection magic, so learning multiple ways to cleanse is helpful.

Reading List

For plant associations I recommend: 

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham (1985)

It's older but still in publication. It has solid associations in my experience.

For more ways to energetically cleansing I also recommend: 

Spiritual Cleansing: A Handbook of Psychic Protection by Draja Mickaharic

Most witchcraft books focusing on protection will include at a minimum that particular author's preferred cleansing methods so check your favorite witchcraft books or your local library as well. Hoopla also has many helpful witchcraft books in its collection as well. 

I'm also delighted to recommend witchcraft and folk magic books so feel free to ask!