One Take | What is Smudging? (Longer version)

yeah but you see sighs it is the cause if you can't do them get your long dingy bar smudging is a very important part of our culture it connects us with our our spirit our Creator and in smudging we have four sacred medicines we have sage sweet grass tobacco and cedar and most much as you'll find people using sage because it is the medicine that we say that when you first offer tobacco then you are you are ready to start on your smudge so we have a smudge bowl here and we have some medicines here and there is no right or wrong way to smudge I've been told by my elders and a lot of our people when they go to ceremony if they don't know how to smudge they feel reluctant so they'll step back and say no but as part of these circles we usually stand and the person the elder or the conductor of the circle will like to smudge now today what we're gonna do is we're going to use I'm going to use sage and this is what they call a white sage and there are a number of different sages depending on where they come from and white sage is one of the ones that you'll find in a lot of ceremony now you can invite us say sage much but you can also mix it with all the other medicines you can put a little bit tobacco in it you can put a little bit of sweet grass in it and cedar but today we're just going to smudge it with just a one medicine now when we smudge we usually don't put anything to contaminate I don't anyway this the bowl so we just strike a match and then we can light and every go further today we have an eagle plume with us and when we smudge I personally again like to uh smudge using my senses first to smudge those and people who are wearing glasses will use the smudge their glasses and take those glasses aside know a nice much I used to say bush Olga gem that Oh cease Isaac digital Kozma she adored him so he knows that I am addressing him and when I smudge I cleanse my hands and I usually cleanse my ego feather because I'll use that to help smudge the people in the circle so I'll smudge my breath because those are where my sacred words will come out of I will smudge my eyes so that I may be able to see all the good things that has he has to offer us I also smudge my ears because I'd like to hear those good words that people have to say in those circles I also smudge my hair because for me this is my identity and this hair also has that DNA they say of our history and I also smudge I also like this much here and I also smudge down I also smudge my feet so that I may walk on this mother earth with a great respect and you can pray in silence you can pray or whatever you need and today what I need to do is that the Creator to be with me so I say Baruch Hashem they do not emotional we do shemagh can all gay go was checking on Nika Nikki Anthony gonna be which we all so I asked the Creator to be with me from this day forward and all that I do and just have a spirit around me so the the smudge that we liked helps create that that message up to creator and then that smoke and when we smudge if we're smudging there's an open side to this ball and we face that open side of that ball out to the people that were smudging and when I come up to them will smudge them in a way that is offering them that smoke and then those people will smudge themselves and while they're doing that I hold this eagle feather I hold it in honor that so that this eagle feather will also hear help to hear those prayers so again there's many different ways that a person can smudge there's no right or wrong for me this is the way that I do it and if I model that behavior for others they pick up their own ways of smudging so it's one way for our for us to connect their spirit with our Creator with the agenda dough in my language there are other ways that people smudge some people will take a sweet grass and they will like it and they will fan it and they will also smudge with sweet grass if you need to be you had a rough day some people to say you take wingless linguish in our language to hear of Mother Earth and it's kindness and the aroma from swinging sweet grass will help you feel at ease will relax you so that's just a little bit about smudging what I do after this is burnt and allowed to go out on itself I will take this and put it out on the land I will take it out and put it out wherever I feel I have to was by a tree or somewhere on the grass or somewhere and when I put the medicines back out I will also ask for Shannon ado I'll say Jimmy witch thank you for letting us use these medicines and I'll return him back to you and put them out on the earth so that you may continue to hear our prayers through the trees so when we do that we don't just throw it away in a garbage can we put it back out on a land that's where all the medicines came from Earth Mother so for me it's very important that we understand how powerful these medicines are how much energy they carry for all of us so you can use these in combination and I've been told by elders that try to change in combination try to use our Sam our tobacco mixed with the sage with the wingless and above all you know use a feather to fan that you can smudge in circle and sometimes if it's a healing circle what I like to do is like to smudge the room to bring all that good energy into that room so there's many things that smudging can do for us also many of these medicines we have here these sweet grass or English can be used as a as a Roma therapy before it's dried you can cut it and put it into oil and make a Roma oil and the oil itself will also help to heal sage you can also make a CH tea and the sage tea can also be used to cleanse so the medicines have many purposes for us these four sacred medicines so I hope that if you're asked to smudge by an owl there take the opportunity to learn and I also feel that if you don't know in today's time don't be afraid to ask don't be afraid to ask although it's a it's a ceremony with much respect and with much honor it's also very honorable to ask or to say I don't know how teach me so that's my my little lesson on smudging Jamaica which

Channel: Fanshawe Institute of Indigenous Learning

Views: 9,869

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: first nations, first nations centre, indigenous, fanshawe, fanshawe college, canada, canadian, first peoples, native, Indigenous knowledge, education, indigenous education, smudging, what is smudging

Id: p4C2BzpTdqQ

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 02 2018