Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) the sweetest smelling herb both fresh and when burned for smudging. Common names for Sweetgrass are Holy Grass, Mary’s Grass, Vanilla Grass & Buffalo Grass .Sweetgrass rhizomes and roots form a dense mat beneath the soil surface and spreads rapidly in the right landscape. Sweetgrass can be found growing wild in wet meadows, low prairies, marshes, bogs, shaded streambanks, lakeshores and cool mountain canyons. Sweetgrass usually grows among other grasses and shrubs; it is seldom found in pure stands.
Sweetgrass flowers from June through August and is easily identified by the sweet vanilla-like fragrance of it’s leaves.Sweetgrass is traditionally harvested in late June or early July. Sweetgrass harvested after exposure to frost has little sent. Care should be taken to cut Sweetgrass leaves and not to pull the grass up by its roots so it can grow again the next year. Weeding Sweetgrass areas lessens competition from other plants.
Use Sweetgrass in Medicine & Smudging Ceremonies
Many Native tribes in North America use sweetgrass in prayer, smudging or purifying ceremonies and consider it the most sacred of all the plants. Sweetgrass braids smolder and doesn’t produce an open flame when burned. Just as the sweet scent of this natural grass is attractive and pleasing to people, so is it attractive to good spirits. Sweetgrass is often burned at the beginning of a prayer, blessing or ceremony to attract positive energies. Individuals smudge themselves with the smoke, washing over the eyes, ears, heart and body. Sweetgrass is one of the four medicines which comprise a group of healing plants used by the people in Anishinabe, Bode’wad mi and Odawa societies. The other three sacred herbs are tobacco, cedar and sage
Sweetgrass can be used in pipe-smoking mixtures along will red willow and bearberry, when it is burned, prayers, thoughts and wishes rise up with the smoke to creator. Medicine people keep sweet grass in the bag with their medicinal roots and herbs”.
A tea is brewed for coughs, sore throats, chafing and venereal infections. It is also used by women to stop vaginal bleeding and to expel afterbirth.
Sweetgrass offer us their life so that we can use them for prayers, medicine and cleansing. The aroma produced by these herb will help us place ourselves in an altered state of mind, bringing us into a deeper part of ourselves. When we are still and in prayer, the scent will inspire memories, awaken the soul and give a sense of knowing in order for one to find the direction needed to stay on the good red road.
Sweetgrass is burned during rituals, both for purification and to symbolize the prayers of the Medicine person, which are then carried to the Creator along the smoke.
In ancient Greece, smudging formed part of the rituals to contact those that have passed over, following long periods of fasting and silence. This herb is used to part the veil between the worlds of the living and form a spiritual bridge to the other world.
Besides producing visions, smudging is used to purify tools and people before an important spiritual ceremony. It is also used to clear sacred space and open the soul before calling upon the Spirits and their healing powers.
The Elders say that the Spirits like the aroma produced when we burn sacred medicines and will look upon you with respect and honour!
It is always recommended to smudge a room or oneself after heavy healing work or any kind of conflict. This is to remove any negative energy that may persist just like disinfecting a place full of germs.
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