Clearing Ritual

While walking around your house for the first time burning sage, ringing bells, asking spirit guides and angels to come in to assist and other spirits to leave, you might feel silly or unsure if you are preforming the ritual the "right" way.  Am I doing this right? Am I supposed to be going clockwise or counterclockwise? How much smoke it too much? How much is not enough?

For such a serious task, there was a lot of giggling happening between my daughter and me after I lit the sage for the first time. "Mom, It smells like pot." I agreed, "Huh. Maybe we should close the doors before the neighbors can smell it. They'll think I'm smoking pot! I'm the one who made the no smoking rule in the HOA!" Closing the doors only trapped the pot-smelling smoke inside the house. Needless to say, it took me some time to make smudging a more regular occurrence and I mostly do it when I am home by myself.

The more books I read on connecting with guides and angels and the importance of clearing energy, the more I picked up here and there to develop my own cleansing ritual. Now, I like the smell of the burning sage. I feel comfortable moving from room to room reciting my smudging prayer. The house feels lighter.

My ritual looks like this:

Clean Before Clear
As I feel the energy of the room/house needing some uplifting, the first thing I do is clean. Pick up, put away, dust, vacuum, scrub. I feel the most settled when everything is in its place. I do the same thing prior to mediation. If there is a shirt on the floor out of place, it needs to be put away before I start. That doesn't mean that I can't clear or meditate in a mess, but it is my preference to start fresh.

Ring the Bell
Ringing a bell breaks up the energy in the space. As I walk around the house ringing the bell, I crack open the front door and the back door. When I return upstairs, I open my bedroom window and a window in my son's room.

Tip: Keep a bell by your bedside and ring the bell before your feet touch the ground in the morning. The vibrations from the bell will break up stagnant energy in the room for a fresh start to your day.

Smudging Prayer
Starting in the center of the room, lighting the sage, I call on Archangel Michael for protection. I call on Archangel Raphael for healing. I call on Archangel Gabriel as a messenger of God. I call on Archangel Uriel to light the way. I move with the sage in an abalone shell in one hand and lighter and smudge fan in the other hand, keeping the smoke moving and wafting it into the north/northeast corner of my bedroom room, moving clockwise to all 4 corners of the room. I ask the archangels to help clear the space of any unwanted energies and to help fill the space with only the highest love and light for the greatest good of my family. I ask any unwanted energies to leave the space through any widows or cracked open doors.

If there are crystals in the room, I clear the crystals. As I move from room to room, I shorten the prayer and repeat, "Please help clear any low vibrating energies from this space and fill it with the highest love and light. Allow any lower or unwanted energies to escape out the doors or windows."

When it is complete, I smudge over the top of my head and around my body and close with thanking the archangels for their assistance and close the doors and windows, finishing with, "Amen".