5 Ways to Clear and Purify Your Energy This Samhain

Samhain – October 31st, also known as Halloween – naturally lends itself to magical workings related to healing, renewal, and release of old bonds. So if you’re looking for Samhain ritual and spell ideas, check out the five Samhain-attuned clearing and purification practices below.

1. Hecate Cauldron Purification Ritual
After casting a circle, and calling on Divine protection in a way that feels powerful for you, light a black candle to the goddess Hecate. In a notebook or journal, brainstorm all the qualities and conditions you’d like to purify and release from your life. This might include things like fears, unhealthy relationships, compulsive thought patterns, and addictions or unwanted habits. When this feels complete, tear out the pages, place them in a cauldron or pot, and safely use the candle to light them on fire. Thank Hecate. After opening the circle, throw the ashes in a moving body of water, or just flush them down the toilet. Let the candle continue to safely burn throughout the night, extinguishing before going to sleep or leaving the house. You can continue to burn the candle down at intervals until the next new moon.

2. Mugwort and Sweetgrass Smudge
In case you don’t know, smudging is when you light a bundle of herbs so that it’s smoking like incense, and then wafting the smoke around a room, area, or person in order to purify and fine tune energy. On Samhain, it’s particularly appropriate to smudge with a mugwort bundle, as well as a sweet grass braid, or with both herbs bundled up together in one. The mugwort protects from negative spirits and energies while harmonizing the natural portal between the worlds that opens up most fully at Samhain. The sweet grass also harmonizes the portal of light, assuring that only the most positive and loving of spirits and energies are permitted to come through. This practice will also generally harmonize, purify, and fine tune the energy of your space.

3. Anise and Sea Salt Bath
In addition to being relaxing, a warm bath with a few drops of anise seed essential oil and a cup of sea salt is highly purifying to the energy field. Removing old patterns, stagnant energy, and repetitive thought forms, it also protects against negativity and unsavory spirits. Light enough candles to light the room pleasantly, then soak for at least 40 minutes. (Be sure to have plenty of drinking water on hand to replenish your fluids.)

4. Cord Cutting Ritual
Light a fire in your fire place or outdoor fire pit. Take a moment to assess all the things you’d like to cut the cords from in order to free up your vibrant, Goddess-given personal power. These might include old relationships, responsibilities, beliefs, or habits. For each one, tie a single piece of black embroidery thread around a red pillar candle with a knot. Then, with great certainty and focus, snip them all away with a sharp pair of scissors. Cast the old cords into the fire and watch them burn. Light the candle as a symbol and representation of your calm, vibrant, and unhampered personal power, and let it burn throughout the night. Extinguish before bed, and light again at intervals until the next full moon.

5. Road Opening Door Cleanse
Like the sunset is a threshold between day and night, Samhain is a time when the weather is rapidly shifting into the winter-like half of the year. It’s also the end of an old harvest cycle and the beginning of a new one. This is what makes it a portal between the realms of seen and unseen, known and unknown. Draw upon this threshold energy by cleansing your physical door today as a symbol of clearing away anything that may be holding you back. Place a few drops of sage and rosemary essential oil in a bucket and fill it with warm water. Using a rag, wash your front door, first inside, and then out. As you do so, say or think, “I am clearing the way for my positivity to flow. I am making way for blessings of all varieties. I am reinforcing my boundary of light.”

(For more ideas, check out this fun new Llewellyn book!)