I was inspired by my Nan to grow plants as I saw her love and care for her flower garden and 3 greenhouses. From my early memories, I recall her harvesting lavender from her garden and I helped her to make lavender wands for the charity she volunteered with at the local hospital. Maybe this is why I love lavender so much; to the point that in Devon Duvets, when we wanted to include a little gift with each duvet, it had to be a lavender sachet for the linen closet.
I always have lavender in my garden, all of it is English Lavender and bought as tiny plugs or grown from seed. I would definitely recommend buying lavender as tiny plants as if you buy more mature plants, it can be very expensive; all you need with tiny plants is a little time and patience, just plant them in a sunny spot that doesn’t get waterlogged.
Lavender is a plant that you can harvest to use in the home. It has wonderful properties that we can visit another time in more detail as it is abundant. I use a lot of lavender oil in my home, however, I am not able to produce the oil in large enough quantities to use it how I would like to – I don’t have a still and wouldn’t know where to begin with such a process so I buy the essential oil. I do though harvest my own lavender, dry it and use it mainly for scenting my bed linen giving my chickens a lovely smelling home and for smudge sticks. I make smudge sticks from the lavender alongside the ones I make from the sage and roses I grow.
Smudge sticks can cleanse a home of negative energies and whilst not everyone will believe in this, there are many who do and it can lead to lovely things. I recently listened to a very detailed conversation from a young man in a shop in Totnes about the reasons why he needed to use a certain type of sage to cleanse a house for his friend – it all sounded very complicated and was very important to him – and why not? Just because we can’t see negative energies doesn’t mean they are not there and after-all, what we feel is just as important as what we see. For that young man in Totnes, it was something he felt he could do to help his friend and I think that is what life should be all about.
I always burn a smudge stick from lavender, sage or whatever else I’ve dried from the garden to infuse my home with scent and make everything feel cleansed. Maybe it doesn’t work and is in my imagination but maybe it does – it doesn’t matter, it is for me a ritual that is very soothing.
I have a few bunches of herbs hanging in my kitchen at the moment and these bunches will be made into smudge sticks and burned. We can all do this. You just need to grow sage or lavender somewhere in the ground or in a pot and you will get an abundant supply. Or you can buy the lavender and sage. Just tie the stems and flowers together and hang to dry. When they are partially dry, bind them tightly with a cotton or wool thread and store in a dry place to wait until you are ready to use them.
Using the smudge stick involves setting them alight, blowing out the flames to a glow and allowing the cleansing smoke to billow around your home and into dark nooks and crannies. A safe, fire-proof bowl should be used. I use an abalone shell. Even if you don’t have the feeling the smudging cleanses your home of negative energies, at least you get to do something imaginative with a positive intention and the smell far outweighs anything you will buy from the supermarket! One thing I have learned in life is that it doesn’t really matter, as long as this simple thing makes me happy!! Nothing selfish, nothing materially gained, just the pure unadulterated joy of creating something that can be used to make you feel positive.