How to Make Your Own Herb Bundles for Smoke Cleansing and Other Magical Intentions
Smoke cleansing is a practice used frequently in magical rituals. It can clear out negativity, or charge a room with a specific intention like love, abundance, spiritual awareness, or joy. They use the elements of fire, earth, and air to bring powerful magic to any ritual or meditation.
These smoke cleansing bundles are easy and fun to make. The process of selecting, cutting, and bundling the herbs is a spiritual ritual in itself. With a little creativity and love, you can create your own beautiful smoke cleansing bundles for any occasion or intention.
How to Bundle Herbs for a Magical Smoke Cleansing Ritual
What You’ll Need:
Natural cotton twine
Herbs (dried or fresh)
Flowers (fried or fresh)
Scissors
Step One: Gather up your supplies. If you’re cutting fresh herbs to use for this project, be sure that you’re allowed to collect plants from that area (if it’s not your personal garden) and take a moment before you cut the herb to ask if you made use it in for your magical practice. If the plant says yes, you can cut it and use it. If the plant says no, move on to the next plant. Obviously, you’re not going to actually hear a voice coming from your plants. The answer will more likely come in the form of a thought flicking through your mind or a feeling you get when you touch the plant. Follow your intuition, and trust yourself. You’ll know the answer.
You can also get fresh herbs from a grocery store or farmers market. Fresh herbs are great for making your own bundles because they won’t snap as easily when you handle them.
Another option is to use dried herbs. You can order these online, get them in a store, or pick the herbs and dry them yourself. When you use dried herbs, your smoke cleansing bundles will be ready to go as soon as you tie them up. You won’t have to hang them upside down and dry them for a few days before using them. Feel free to experiment with both, and see what you prefer working with.
Step Two: Figure out what your intention is for your smoke cleansing bundle and choose herbs accordingly. You can use the suggestions below, or check online to get more info on the magical properties of different herbs.
Step Three: Cut your string so it is four times the length of your herb bundle. Tie the string about the base of the bundle and keep wrapping it up and down until your bundle is totally secure. Tie it off at the bottom.
Step Four: If your herbs are already dried, go ahead and use the bundle! If your bundle was made from fresh plants, hang it upside down in a dry area for a few days. Don’t use a smoke cleansing bundle unless it’s TOTALLY dry, or it’s not going to burn correctly.
You can leave them hung up around your home as decorations until you’re ready to use them. You can also charge them by placing them near different crystals, tarot cards, or under the light of the moon to further charge it with your special intention. These make great housewarming gifts as well!
How to Use Your Smoke Cleansing Bundle
What You’ll Need:
A candle
A lighter or matches
A fireproof container like a metal bowl or cauldron
Your herb bundle
Light your candle and sit quietly for a moment, meditating on your intention. If your intention is to cleanse your space of negative energy, focus on that. If it’s to bring a loving energy into your room, focus on that. You can state your intention aloud or in your mind.
Hold your herb bundle over the candle flame until it lights. This can take a while, so be patient. Make sure you do this over your fireproof container and have water nearby in case you need to douse the flames for any reason. Please be careful and ALWAYS use proper fire safety. Make sure there are no children or pets around while you’re doing this because the smoke can be harmful to little lungs. Use proper ventilation while you do this, and if you feel lightheaded, faint, or ill, stop your smoke cleansing ritual immediately.
Once the bundle has caught on fire, carefully blow the flames out. Do this gently, so you don’t get ash and herbs everywhere. When the flames are out, you should end up with a smoking bundle of herbs.
You can hold the bundle out and pass all your crystals, tarot cards, and other magical tools through the smoke to cleanse or charge each item with your intention. If you’re using the herb bundle for the room, walk around the perimeter of the room clockwise to charge it with your intention. If you’re using the smoke to cleanse the space, walk around the perimeter counterclockwise.
Another option is to wave the herb bundle around yourself so you can be cleansed or charged by the smoke. If you’d like to use your herb bundle during meditation, set the smoking bundle in your fireproof container. Put it out when you are done meditating.
Put out the herb bundle in your fireproof container and thank the element of fire for bringing some magic to your day, and to your space. Your ritual is complete!
Herbal Bundle Combinations for Specific Magical Intentions
For Cleansing Negativity: Sage, pine, and lavender
For Protection: Pine, cinnamon sticks, thyme, and rosemary
For Positivity: Sage, rosemary, and sunflower petals
For Abundance: Cedar, basil, ginger, cinnamon sticks, sunflower petals
For Love: Cinnamon sticks, rose petals, gardenia petals, lavender
For Psychic Awareness and Spiritual Connection: Sage, jasmine, thyme, and juniper
For Mental Clarity: Sage, rosemary, and peppermint
Herb Bundle Tarot Ritual
You can also combine different herbs together intuitively. Just make sure you know what they are, and that they are safe to burn. Then draw a tarot or oracle card for your bundle asking, “What is the energy of this herb bundle?”. Write down what card you draw, and journal about the meaning and the intentions of that combination of herbs according to your tarot deck. Use the herb bundle for that intention and note your results.
What’s the Difference Between Smoke Cleansing and Smudging
This comes up a lot in the magical community, and there’s a lot of misinformation about how smoke cleansing differs from smudging. Many people use the terms interchangeably. I, myself, didn’t understand the difference up until recently. I hope this helps you make a conscious, loving decision about how to use this magical practice in your rituals.
Smoke cleansing is a ritual that is considered “open-culture”. It has been used all over the world in many different cultures, including magical rituals. Though smoke cleansing looks similar to smudging, it’s actually done differently, and for different reasons.
Smudging is a sacred practice that is a part of “closed-culture”. It’s a ritual performed by Native Americans and other closed cultures. These cultures have specific beliefs around the ritual, and some consider it insensitive to “cherry-pick” rituals from closed cultures and change them to fit their beliefs instead. I believe this, and it’s a personal decision that everyone will have to make for themselves. For example, the use of abalone shells is a practice originating from smudging, not smoke cleansing. I do have an abalone shell because they are SO dang beautiful, but I choose not to use it in my smoke cleansing rituals. I use it to hold my crystals instead.
Basically, it’s totally up to you what you decide to do with that information. I just wanted to lay it out for you, so you can make an educated choice on the issue.
Have fun pairing and experimenting with herb bundles! What are your favorite combinations? Email me at julie@magicalpowerwithin.com. Thanks for reading, and have a magical day!