Cleansing Magic

Elizabeth Ramos, under the supervision of Luciano the Cat’s spirit, does a little spring cleaning.

With the spring season comes the infamous spring cleaning tasks – yard cleanup, wall washing, flower/garden planting, etc. This is also a great opportunity to add home warding and energy cleansing tasks to that to-do list – especially if you’re from the Northeast and can move around without the ice and snow!

As mentioned briefly throughout some of my other posts, cleansing can be done via flame, smoke, wind, water, sound, or salt. When cleaning your physical space in the mundane sense, it is so important to make sure to energetically cleanse the space as well – you don’t want to do all the hard work of deep cleaning all your belongings and sorting/organizing to keep stale, stagnant energy in the room!

Flame Cleansing – this is done with the use of candles. Following color magic, Black and or white candles are typically used for this, as black dispels/destroys negativity and white is purifying/cleansing in nature. You can, as mentioned before, use any colors if you do not have these two. Witchcraft is about being resourceful and using what we have with intention, after all! When I am cleaning the downstairs of my home, I like to light my candles before starting any work. Mine are kept in my kitchen up above my stove, as my cats do not go up there and they are not around anything flammable. I usually have at least a white pillar candle from Dollar Tree, but if not I will light yellow (especially lemon scent for the clean, purifying smell) or whatever color I do have. I also light a tea light and put it with my Brigid statue on my coffee bar, as she is a goddess of Hearth and Home (among so many other things) and the sacred fire. I ask her to bless the flames and help to cleanse and bless the home while I work. These stay lit until they naturally go out on their own or I extinguish them later in the evening.

Smoke Cleansing – Incense and smudging fall into this category. With incense, there are so many different scents and purposes to choose from, but for the sake of this article, I would recommend nag champa, dragon’s blood, frankincense, myrrh, or any other cleansing/purifying scent. Drangon’s Blood is especially useful if you have extremely heavy energies you need to cleanse of and give a big OOMPH to help kick it to the curb! I typically light my incense when I light my candles, if I have not already done either when I wake up. If I notice there is a particularly dense/large smoke plume coming off of the incense or that it is burning a bit quicker than usual, I will light at least 1 more stick of the same kind right after to do some extra cleaning. In terms of sage and palo santo smudging, I like to wait until I am fully done with physically cleaning the house or space and end my clean with this. I will also smudge myself and bask in the smoke before heading to take a shower.

Wind – this is opening the windows to let that fresh air in. I make sure downstairs and upstairs where I have 2 windows opposite each other to open them for a cross breeze, plus all the other windows to empty their air. I like to keep my windows cracked (cats and screens…), especially if there is a light storm and we won’t get any rain inside. The storm air smells so nice and fresh and charges up the energy that comes inside! If I am cleaning or doing a project I need some oomph on, I rely on this energy for motivation.

Water – Water cleanses are designed for washing off the self and our magical tools (if applicable). As mentioned before, I prefer to shower before bed (and definitely after cleaning!) to get the ick and old energy off of me so I can be clean and relaxed. Our crystals feel the same way when cleaned this way. Other water cleanses include simmer pots, which use the steam and vapors to cleanse and purify the space.

Sound – Have you ever noticed sound helps to put you in a better headspace, or if you have ever seen a drum circle, the vibes and energy around you changes? This is not a coincidence. Sound waves and frequencies can alter the energy around us, so when you are cleansing, choose music or sounds that are healing and energetic to you (if you need death metals or 2000s R&B, go for it!). I definitely need something to listen to when I am cleansing. A lot of the time I use podcasts for mundane tasks (Thank you Bailey Sarian, KallMeKris, CelinaSpookyBoo, Kendall Rae, Lights Out, and Mile Higher podcasts for my true crime/paranormal/cult/conspiracy stories), but I do like music or frequency mantras for when I am doing spiritual cleanses. I also play instruments like the kalimba, various drums (bongos, Native American water drum, drum series on a stick, metal drum), Native American flute, pan flute, maracas, and my rain stick. I typically sit out on the front steps and play the drums or the shakers with incense in the spring and summer. I will have to organize my front porch to put a chair out there and let the cats out with me to play some music this year!

Salt – this is typically done for crystals and other magical items that can be submerged in the salt. Salt absorbs negative energies, so this is a perfect way to cleanse your magical items between intentions and uses. When cleansing yourself with water, Epsom salts may be beneficial in keeping yourself cleansed and aid in removing really aggressive energies that may not want to detach.

However you choose to cleanse, make your efforts count! And don’t be afraid to do a cleanse more than once or use more than one type at once – I have used all of these types of cleanses in a single day before! It does not harm anything to be extra thorough on your energetic cleanses. Happy Spring Cleaning!

Elizabeth Ramos is a magic practitioner who specializes in nature focused, healing, protective, and ancestral magics. She is a Reiki Master-Teacher and lives with her husband and their several Feline Leukemia Positive kitties in Upstate New York.