4 Ways to Create Your Own Cleansing Ritual for the Next New Moon
To shake up your typical new moon routine, here are a few easy-to-implement ideas that can reset your attitude to cleansing, and perhaps bring in a rush of new energy to inspire new creativity.
We encourage you to take on these rituals with your own adjustments, much as you’d adjust a dinner recipe to your personal liking. Never let a few missing ingredients thwart your ritual – simply adapt it to what you have easily at hand, and remember that your imagination and intention are the most powerful and only truly indispensable element.
1. Smoke, Smudging & Scents
The easiest and most common go-to ritual to accompany the darkness and promise of a new moon is sage smudging. It is and always will be a mainstay of any energy-sensitive person’s routine, but with the first new moon of the year, you may want to add a few extra elements to your bundle.
Witchy handbooks may propose the likes of herbs you’ve never come across in your life – but there are plenty available in the supermarket: rosemary brings peace and detoxes negativity, lemongrass adds focus and energy, cinnamon beckons prosperity and aids healing, basil brings happiness and clove enhances psychic powers. Drop by the florist for eucalyptus that enhances health and protection, lavender to sleep and relax, or pine leaves for persistence and self-confidence. The Chinese herbalists also stock herbs such as mugwort, popular for foot baths and raising qi levels, but also for clarity and intuition.
Smudge with intention all over your space, concentrating on corners and other stagnant areas that light may not reach. And don’t forget, incense and essential oils (including those in candles) are created using these same plants and elements, and can act as a replacement for actual dried herbs. So, for example, candles with citrus scents bring in money energy, and should be placed accordingly in the house to attract abundance and prosperity, so on and so forth.
2. Take a Cleansing Ritual Bath
With energies swirling, the still waters of a calm bath can help effect a reset. Lighting a candle or incense of your choice nearby, set the perimeter of your bathtub with crystals that support the energies of this particular moon cycle, or fall back on good-old cleansers such as clear quartz or citrine smoky quartz.
The herbs you harvest for smudging rituals can also be incorporated into your bathwater, along with Epsom salts – steep them in boiling water for a short period and pour this tea into your filled bath before stepping in and allowing the charged water to infuse your every pore. And feel free to adapt this recipe as a footbath – the feet are energy centres that connect you to the earth, and dedicating time to their care is important, too.
3. Harness the Power of Sound
Sound healing was one of the most popular modalities of 2020, with the strong energetic vibrations converting skeptics that, at the very least, believe that singing bowls and large gongs create a pleasant soundtrack for an entrancing nap.
Certainly, to create a sophisticated sound practice at home with all the various tools would be a great undertaking – but just as powerful in cleansing the home is the sound of laughter and happiness. Just as speaking your intentions aloud can help in their manifestation, singing, clapping, laughing and general music and merriment can retune the vibrations of a space. It’s as easy as that – and remember to pay attention to the corners.
If you feel silly doing this, then embrace that emotion, too – laughing at yourself won’t just bring positive energy into the room, it can retune your own energy field. Or, try saying an affirmation that you’ve written yourself aloud.
4. Perform an Herbal Floor Sweep
The use of salt in mystical rituals is common, as the everyday kitchen ingredient is one that brings great protection to its user. And of course, a broom is a common trope in lore surrounding witches – but instead of riding one to visit the wizard of Oz, we instead encourage you to sweep away negative energies that gather at your feet and on the floor – the lower regions are often neglected during smudging rituals, as smoke rises.
In a large bowl, combine a few cups of salt with herbs of your choosing. Crumble the herbs and mix them well with the salt before sprinkling them all over the floor. Let these sit for an hour if possible before sweeping them out the back door or vacuuming up the used salt and discarding from the house immediately. We prefer a little manual housework first to infuse the ritual with intention, using a wooden broom or a makeshift bundle fashioned from old branches and herbs, and then vacuum afterwards to clean any residue, but the choice, of course, is yours.
