Morning Tobacco Prayers and Smudging Ritual
for Cleansing
Deep
Arrow (Lorraine Simone, M.S. Ed., C.Ht., SVF), founder and director of the
Moonfire Meeting
House led groups in Morning Tobacco Prayers and a Smudging
Ritual for Cleansing during the Psychic and Holistic Living Fair at Long Island in April
2009. She has been kind enough to share them:
Morning
Tobacco Prayers
Take your tobacco (loose) and
go out as soon as you can at or after sunrise (It's ok if it's after, but do not
do before sunrise.)
Use your right hand to make these gestures. We generally
use the right hand to make offering.
Begin by facing
and holding the tobacco to the East.
Say: "To the East, to the new
day, to the Light Within/Without. To Golden Eagle. To Illumination. To the East,
I call for your power and your spirit to come in." Then you wait for
a response (the 4 directions will always respond when you call them), which may
feel like subtle energy coming into your hand/arm.
Then drop a few grains of
tobacco on the Earth, and turn and face the South.
Hold
the tobacco to the South and say: "To the South, to Trust and Innocence.
To the Little Mouse. To the Good Road Home. To the South--I call for your power
and your spirit to come in. " Wait for response. Drop some grains on
the Earth. Turn West.
Hold the tobacco to the West
and say: "To the West, to the Dark Waters of looking within, home of beautiful
Shell Woman. To black bear, brown bear. To the Medicine Path, to the West --I
call for your power and your spirit to come in." Wait for response. Drop
some grains on the Earth. Turn North.
Hold out tobacco.
"To the North--Home of the Old Ones and those gone by. To the Wisdom Place.
Place of White Buffalo and Snow Leopard. To the North--I call for your power and
your spirit to come in." Wait for response. Drop a few grains.
Lean
down and put your hands on Mother Earth. "To Mother Earth, for the two-leggeds
and the four-leggeds, for those who fly and crawl and swim--for all children of
the Mother."
Stand (facing East again) and
raise arm up to the sky: "To Father Sky." (that's all you have
to say there.) Now, envision yourself in the center of a circle and make a sunwise
circling gesture above your head (like using a lariat); starting in the East,
3x.
Now hold the tobacco to your heart and speak your
words to Great Spirit. In this tradition prayers are offered in 3 parts - To Thank,
To Bless and To Ask for Assistance and Support for the day ahead. Begin the prayers
by saying:
"Great Spirit, hear me. This one calls to you. Thank you
for this day." Then speak what is in your heart. Start (always) by saying
"Thank you for this day." Then add whatever else you want to
say in the spirit and acknowledgment of gratitude and thankfulness.
Now ask
for BLESSINGS from Spirit to loved ones and the world.
End your prayers with
WHAT YOU ASK FOR YOURSELF TO TAKE YOU THROUGH YOUR DAY. This intention starts
your day off with an affirmative and creative act and keeps you focused on what
is truly important to you.
When finished, breath this
prayer into the tobacco and gently place it on the Earth, or you can let the wind
people take it.
Complete the morning prayer by saying
"It's a god day to die."
(If we lived with awareness of
our death, we would live our lives quite differently.) [Note from Julie: During
the ceremony, Deep Arrow used the example - It's a good day to die to our resentment
or to die to whatever else is a problem in our lives.]
NOTE:
If, when first doing this ceremony, you don't feel a response from the directions,
just go on with the next step. Do not discount anything you may think you feel
as "imagination". It's a subtle response, and sometimes you have to
learn to feel it. But it's there.
Smudging
Ritual for Cleansing
Smudging is a cleansing ritual
intended to create harmony. The smoke from burning herbs is used to cleanse the
body, an object, or a given area of disharmonious influences. Smudging should
be done properly and with reverence.
Herbs
The three
most used plants for smudging are California and /or desert sage, cedar and sweetgrass.
Smudging
Ritual
In this tradition, the herbs are burned in an abalone shell, which
is especially sacred to the Apache Goddess, White Painted/Shell Woman. When using
an abalone shell to smudge, you bring in the energies of the Four Sisters, the
primary directions, to create an alchemical process of transforming energy.
Smudge
with a clear intention to bring about harmony. As the herbs burn direct the healing
smoke with your hand or a feather towards those places in need of energetic cleansing.
To
enhance your Smudging Ritual, first offer the smudge smoke to the four directions,
starting with the East – the direction of the rising sun, the new day.
When
cleansing a room or house go throughout the inside of the house, making sure the
smoke penetrates every nook and cranny of the house, especially in the corners
of each room.
When smudging, always crack a window or open
a door so that the smoke, which has captured the positively charged ions in the
air, has a way to find its way out of the space to eliminate unfavorable influences.
Final
Thoughts
Smudging should be done with care, with reverence, and in an
attitude of LOVE.
Moonfire
Meeting House
169 1 County Rd.39, suite F, Southampton, N.Y. 11968
631-287-9000
www.MoonfireMeetingHouse.com
About
Moonfire Meeting House
In 1990 Ms. Simone founded Moonfire
Meeting House on Eastern Long Island and dedicated it to creating community and
living in harmony with the Earth. She is also the editor of its newsletter called
Ways of the Talking Stick. Ms. Simone started The School of Women's Ways in 1995
to empower women and girls, to heal their lives and change the world. With humor
and devotion, she designs and offers programs such as Compassionate Communication,
A Goddess for All Seasons, and Vibrational Medicine Ways, and teaches workshops
that bring to life her expertise in Deep Ecology, Healing Arts, Women's Mysteries,
Creation Spirituality, and Shamanic Practices.
