Expelling Evil Spirits...The Gift of Smudging

        All matter attracts energy.  Energy and matter are constantly interchangeable.  Birth brings energy into matter and death brings matter back to energy in the very same way as when wood burns it become energy and that energy provides the building blocks for new wood with the emission of CO2, ash and other plant nutrients.  The total sum of energy and mass (matter) if you believe Einstein is a constant in the universe and there is always a continual process of interchange.  We never really die, our spirit becomes matter, matters reverts to spirit (energy) and then back to matter,  All matter attracts energy, be it electro-magnetic, ionic or emotional...spirit is energy which attracts matter.  Energy is good or bad, positive or negative; spirit is positive or negative.

       Our Native American elders (and I suspect all our ancestors in tune with nature) have taught us that before a person can be healed or be a healer of others, you have to be cleansed of bad feelings, negative thoughts, evil spirits and negative energies...cleansed both physically and spiritually.  The elders have told us that ceremonies of cleansing must be entered into with a good heart so we can walk in a sacred manner and be helped by good spirits to enter a sacred realm.
        The disabled, their parents and care-givers, therapists and advocates are fundamentally vulnerable to  attracting negative energy and having it invade home and spirit.  Need invites negative energy in the form of unresponsive bureaucracies, indifferent family, relatives and friends, unavailability of personal and social supports and the fragility of bodies riddled by disease, by accident, by injury, by cruel twists of genetics.  Without profound need and dependence on the goodness of others, indifference would not play a significant role of devastation of the human spirit.  The vulnerable attract the stares, the glances, the rude and  disrespectful comments of the "uninitiated into the world of disability."  Profound vulnerability attracts the negative energy of "no response" or pity or disdain.
         As children of the "land of disability", certainly not the "promised land", we are called upon by many to forgive, to overlook and reach beyond the negative energies and spirits that we confront on a daily basis.  And while forgiveness is possible and laudable, it is an intellectual process.  Release of the energy of negative spirit and attraction must occur on the cellular, the energetic level where it resides to rear its ugly head.  This release of our evil spirits allows us to move closer to a state where healing is real and our role as "wounded healers" can be an effective tool of caring for those whom we are committed to care for.

        Our elders throughout civilizations used the energy of plants to cleanse us and our homes of evil spirits.  We have been taught that smudge and incense attract the negative energetic fields and the evil spirits and create positive and clean zones of safety at the very core of being.  Smoke attracts itself to negative spirit and energy and  releases it into a space where it can be regenerated.  Smudging is very effective when you have felt depressed, angry, resentful, unforgiving.  It is effective in combating the deep injury of human indifference.  It is a ritual which helps us and our children in their journey.  Certainly effective and certainly worth a try.
         The process is simple:  Gather dried sage, cedar, sweetgrass and rose.  Place it in a vessel like a large sea shell (although some elders would frown about the use of shells.)  Ignite the mixture in the vessel and use a feather (I prefer a hawk feather) and fan the smoldering mixture and fan it about the house, about the participants in the household.  The change in energetics is quite immediate.  Sage heals and expels evil spirits and negative energy; cedar purifies with assistance of the Source; sweetgrass invites goodness, blessing and warmth.  The combination transmutes evil spirit into life force.  Plant medicine, when used with thanks and giving, has the power to heal life and its participants...especially the very vulnerable.

        The shell represents water; the unlit herbs represent earth; the lit herbs, fire, and, the smoke air.  So, this is very similar to the elements of healing of Chinese traditional medicine.
        I offer this as an attempt to make life of the disabled and their families and caretakers easier and holier and purer.  Healing is intensified in a fountain of purity freed from evil spirit.  All you can do is give it a try and believe.  You may need little else from the energetic world.  Do it often and do it everywhere!

Blessings and freedom and health