The Self & Home: Where your Spiritual Journey Begins

Throughout my days I encounter many folks who are just beginning or deepening their Spiritual Journey and want to know how to enhance their practice and connection. The work begins with the self and the home! 

The following advice pertains to everyday habits which will go along way in advancing your journey. Regardless of what your spiritual path may be, or how your journey will change, it is absolutely necessary to have a practice in place for cleansing, purifying and protecting the self and the home. 

Here are some practical steps and ideas!  

As far as cleansing is concerned; if you are going to be Working on Spiritual endeavors consistently you will need to perform a cleansing at least once a week. Some people feel that once a month is sufficient (during the waning or dark moon). However, I definitely recommend once a week, especially if you are a beginner, are feeling bogged down or have been facing difficulties. For myself, cleansing takes place at least once a week because I am dealing with Spiritual energy and Working on behalf of others constantly. You too will want to take into consideration the specifics of your circumstances. Much of this will come down to using your intuition and paying attention to how you feel.   

Cleansing can be rather simple, techniques include baths, fumigations, floor washes and waters. 

A simple cleansing includes burning, frankincense, clove, rosemary, citrus, mint, pine, or mugwort (to name a few helpful spiritual cleansing agents). The simple act of burning incense, resins, herbs or spices is very powerful and greatly enhances spiritual connection. It pleases benevolent energies and offers a channel to carry blessings as well as communicating intentions to the Spirit Realm. It will go a long way in protecting and blessing your space. 

Just remember that you should have a physically clean house before beginning cleansing activities. Also, if you focus a lot on removing negative or stagnant energy you will then also want to focus on bringing in positive energy or blessings. In order to do this, you will want to do a little research to inform you of what incense, herbs, barks, etc are good for each of these purposes. I personally prefer Palo Santo. Frankincense is also lovely to work with because of its dual purpose, it both purifies and calls blessings while enhancing spiritual connection and power. 

In addition, you will want to physically spiritually cleanse yourself as well. Many people recommend doing this beforehand, I find that afterward works best for me. You may want to experiment with the process to see what works best for you. A shower cleanses stagnant or negative energy from the self, for this you can pour and herbal or floral tea over yourself after the shower. However, a bath is really the best. The ingredients do not have to be fancy or complicated. Plain sea salt is my favorite spiritual bath for cleansing. About a cup to each bathtub is sufficient - two if you feel you really need it. Epsom salt works as well. Lavender oil works great for this endeavor too and many people prefer adding Florida Water or Rose Water to their bath. The only warning you need to heed is to be sure that you are comfortable with the ingredients you are putting into your water (watch out for synthetic additives and use natural as much as possible). Keep in mind that essential oils are not safe for those with sensitive skin, they are recommended to be diluted for use on the skin, some people have sensitivities or allergies to many of them, and many of them are not safe at all. You will want to be educated about what essential oils you use. In addition to the above-mentioned warnings, many of them have effects on your actual health, so be aware of that. They are absorbed into your bloodstream through your skin so you will want to be sure that you are not using something which could cause you health complications. For instance, lavender affects hormonal balance ... so those with hormonal problems would want to avoid lavender. 

To boost your self-cleansing you can burn a white candle while in the bath and meditate, chant or pray. 

Going a step further with home cleansing would include floor washes made especially for this purpose and waters used for sprinkling around your home. There are many very simple ways to make floor washes. My favorite is strongly brewed cinnamon tea. To make this simply place water on the stove simmering for as long as you would like with whole, fresh cinnamon sticks..as many as you would like, although three or four is typically sufficient. While brewing this your whole home will become infused with the delicious aromas, which will increase the vibrations in the air, cleanse bacteria and stagnancy, and bring in blessings and good luck. Mopping with it afterward is the icing on the cake! Rosemary works well also, as does florida water in your mop water. This is a great place to employ essential oils which you would like to use, but which may not be safe on your skin or in your bath... like lemon, pine... and other uplifting scents. Just remember that you want to start with a floor which has already been cleaned. This is a two-step process of cleaning and then blessing. I have personally had really good success with blending the two steps, but I don't recommend it for beginners unless you in a real-time crunch.  

To take the home cleaning a couple of steps further, you can burn white candles in each room and sprinkle sacred waters around the house. The water can be any kind of blessed water with herbs or oils, etc. Basil works nicely. as does rose water. Here you can check your correspondences and choose ingredients which work with what you would like to manifest: such as basil for prosperity or better business and rose for peace or enhancing love.  You can use a bundle of herbs, such as rosemary for the sprinkling, or just your fingertips. You can bless the water yourself. With the white candles, you can say a prayer for protection and blessings when you light them, but you don't have to. If you choose to pray at this time make sure that you only ask for help with the cleansing, protection, and blessing of your home... nothing else. 

Continuing to keep a white candle burning in a central location of your home will go a long way to keeping the vibrations in the home high! Be sure with any candle burning you keep you mind on safety first - fireproof containers, keeping an eye on the flames, etc. 

For more advice about developing your Spiritual Practice or going deeper with mentorship, see my professional Advising Services. 

~Blessings~