The smell of sweetgrass, is exactly that: soft and sweet.

The other morning I was smudging my home with this sweetgrass braid from Taos Pueblo. Just as we burn sage to cleanse heavy or negative energies, we smudge with sweetgrass to attract positive and light energies. As such it’s often burned at the end of ritual, whereas sage is burned before.

When I’m smudging myself or a space, I’ve begun burning sweetgrass afterward to reinforce the connection with light. Smudging is the ritualistic process done by many native peoples of burning herbs and plants to release their medicine into the air via smoke, allowing our prayers and intentions to rise up to the creator. As a braid, the three strands can represent love, peace and harmony or mind, body and spirit.

Sweetgrass is also wonderful medicine when infused as a tea for the throat and to thicken the blood. It can also be worn in the clothes next to the skin to help with arthritis.