There’s nothing magical about white sage, and we’re not depriving ourselves of even anything by leaving it alone. The plants native to right where we are may actually work better. For example, a juniper smudge, in the northern clime where I live, besides purifying makes a nice connection with the land right around me. Rosemary is nice, too. There are plenty of sustainable choices.
It is always helpful, before we start, to make a conscious connection with the earth at the place where we are. Asking permission of the local nature and ancestral spirits is always polite; everywhere, even in cities, there are nature and ancestral spirits all around who are just waiting to be asked, and who long to be invited to work with us. Forming a real relationship with these spirits is part of the healing. Everything everywhere around us came from the earth, including our bodies, so putting ourselves in harmony with the space we work in, and treating it with love, is good for us all by itself. We’re not really separate from the earth.
It may also be the case that the land around us is in need of healing. That might be the subject of a whole other book, although there’s no reason not to do what we can to heal the place where we are as soon as we’ve picked up on the need.
Studies have shown that rituals can calm anxiety and reduce stress, which means they can get us into a good frame of mind for any kind of spiritual work and help us to focus. There is also something powerful about what our material, physical energy in service to spirit can do. In addition to cleansing and purifying, some might like to make a libation, put out an offering of food or flowers, or do any other ritual to ask permission to work where they are and invite friendly and healing spirits to come and join in. Before doing specific shamanic practices or setting out on shamanic journeys, many of us, after purifying the space we’re working in, like to rattle in helping spirits and then drum and perhaps sing to summon our own spirit to be fully present. Others may want to recite a particular prayer as an invocation.
Whatever ritual feels right to you—the one that really helps get you in the groove—is the best ritual. It doesn’t have to be done perfectly, whatever “perfectly” means; we can be sure that, as we are perfectly imperfect human beings, our rituals will be perfectly imperfect, too. I’ve often found that the rituals I’ve been shown to do in shamanic journeys, for example, just somehow turn out not to be getting done exactly to the specifications I saw, even if I had the presence of mind to ask to be shown something really doable. There’s a reason why there are so many stories of bargaining with the spirits, and bargaining with God, about the feasibility of what we’re being shown to do. Worrying about getting it “right” would have the opposite effect of calming anxiety and reducing stress. The wise ancestors (well, one of mine, anyway) have said, “Ritual shmritual”—I am paraphrasing freely here—“it’s the Love that does the healing!”
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