Difference between revisions of "Smudge stick" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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==References==
 
==References==
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*Budilovsky, Joan, and Eve Adamson. ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation.'' Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==

Revision as of 18:35, 14 July 2008

A smudge stick is a bundle of dried herbs, most commonly white sage. Often other herbs or plants are used or added and the leaves are usually bound with string in a small bundle and dried. Some other herbs and spices that are often used include cilantro, cedar, lavender, and mugwort, none of which are native to the Americas. They have a strong, pleasant aroma when burnt.

Overview

A smudge stick is a bundle of dried herbs (sage among the most common) that is tied together and burned for the purposes of purification.

Smudge sticks are used in ceremonies and rituals involving smudging, a term that, like smudging sticks, originated in Native American culture. Smudging involves the burning of certain herbs to create a cleansing smoke bath, which is then used to purify anything from people to ritual and ceremonial space, to tools and objects. There are many different ceremonies and rituals that can be done. The smudge stick is the actual herb or bundle of herbs that is burned.[1]

This practice is ancient, and held as sacred by many cultures. As such, many differing cultures and people have their own methods and herbal mixtures for varied specific purposes. Each culture has its own way of bringing about physical, spiritual, and emotional balance, of cleansing negative energy. Native Americans, for example, tended to favor sage that was lit from the central or cooking fire.[1]

Smudge sticks find continued and wide use in contemporary, middle-class Western nations made popular by the so called New Age movement.

Popular herbs

Herbs are used as smudge sticks during smudging ceremonies. Though which herbs, exactly, are used can vary infinitely, there are some common ones, along with some common meanings. The principal hers used are sage, cedar or juniper, lavender, and sweet grass. In addition, pure tobacco is used by some Plains Indian tribes. The smudge sticks are burned in a pure form, or as a mixture, depending on the desired effect and on tradition.

Sage (Artemisia tridentia) is not the same as the European varieties and is indigenous to the Americas. Smudge sticks of Sage are burned in smudging ceremonies to drive out evil spirits, negative thoughts and feelings, and to keep negative entities away from areas in which ceremonies take place. Sage is also used in keeping sacred objects like pipes or Peyote wands safe from negative influence. In the Sioux nation, the Sacred Pipe is kept in a bundle with sage boughs. I would think special crystals could be so protected this way as well.[1]

Cedar smudge sticks are burned while praying to the Great Spirit (also known as Unsen', the Source, or Wakan Tanka) in meditation. It is also used to bless a home before taking residence there, a tradition dating back to the Northwest and Western Canadian Native Americans. It works both as a purifier and as a way to attract good energy.[1]

Materials

Method

History

The term "smudge stick" entered the English language through Indigenous American Indian traditions in America via cultural exchange and were propagated in New Age traditions of shamanism. The binding of smudge sticks for many traditions was a sacred intentional process in and of itself. The process of employing scent in rites of purification, be it in censers, through burning incense or smudging (the process of using a smudge stick) is endemic throughout traditional rites captured by Ethnography, Anthropology and Sociology.


"The History Of Smudging

Smudging may seem a very modern practice. We read about city highfliers using it to sell their apartments or improve their business luck. But smudging has been used for thousands of years. When you light a smudge stick you are connecting with a spiritual tradition that originates from the depths of time.

A Tradition From The Mists Of Time

It is impossible to say for certain when smudging began. Perhaps early civilizations came to realize, through sheer trial and error, that the smoke generated by setting alight particular herbs had beneficial effects for humanity. Certainly many cultures have an old tradition of driving animals through smoke to kill off pests and diseases. Nowadays modern science has proven that certain herbs do indeed have cleansing powers, acting as strong pesticides.

Aside from this beneficial and practical aspect of burning herbs, humans have become aware that smoke ascends to the heavens - to the world of spirits - almost as if it were acting as a spiritual messenger.

The idea of purification through smoke is certainly not the sole preserve of the Native North Americans.

Most rituals have some element of cleansing, and incense or herbal smoke mixtures are burned around the world - from China, India, and Southeast Asia, to Europe and the Western world.

The Native American Way

Originally, mixtures of sacred herbs and resins were burned in a special bowl. Smoke was then wafted around the person or place needing purification and cleansing. However, smudge sticks (bundles of dried herbs tied together with colored thread or a strip of hide) offer an easier way of smudging that is just as effective. The herbs most often used in smudge sticks are sage and Sweetgrass. Sage drives out negative thoughts, energies, spirits, and all influences. Sweetgrass is used to attract positive energy after all the negative energies have been banished by sage.

Native Americans see smudging as a way of shifting between various levels of reality _ connecting us here in the material, physical world to the subtle realm of spirits."

Smudging

Smudge stick ceremonies are quite significant at aphelion (when the earth is furthest from the sun), perihelion (when the earth is closest to the sun), equinoxes, and solstices.[citation needed]

Smudging in Indigenous American peoples

Ojibway and Cree ceremonies often use smudges of sage, sweet grass, and/or juniper to cleanse with, and to give prayers to the Creator, or Gitche Manitou. Smudges with hot coals underneath can provide a lot of smoke for many hours or days to repel mosquitos and other insects.

Contemporary use

Helps sell apartments.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Crystal Links, Smudging. Retrieved July 14, 2008.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Budilovsky, Joan, and Eve Adamson. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002.

External links

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