As we turn the Gregorian calendar, we also reach the peak (or trough) of Deeptide, the “lowest” point of our sacred year.

Our Lowsun Wreath

Our Lowsun wreath honors the death of Highsun plants while celebrating the resilience of enduring evergreens and the fruits and seeds that carry new life into the upcoming year. The surviving plants reach towards the sun, but cannot approach.

New Year’s Ritual

One of our most important rituals we engage in during New Year’s night is to air out our home. We do this in the extremely liminal minutes before and especially after midnight.

As is typical for us, our ritual is a hybrid composed of elements inspired by a number of extant traditions. It is not a modernized version of any single historical practice.

You will need:

• Bitter herbs or incense for smudging, such as valerian, mugwort, myrrh, or cloves. Please do not use white sage.
  • Alternatively, blessed water or perfume for aspersion, such as Khernips or Florida Water.
• Sweet herbs or incense for censing, such as rosemary, lavender, frankincense, or cinnamon.
  • Alternatively, sweet strewing herbs or flower petals, parched grain, honeyed nuts, or other nature-safe treats.
• Appropriate burning, offeratory, or liquid-distribution equipment for your chosen media.

A Point of Clarification on Smudging

“Smudging” is an older English term for using smoke (“smudge”) to drive out vermin (literal and spiritual)- usually from a building. “Smudge” survived into modern agricultural parlance to describe smoky burn pots used to ward off freezing temperatures in orchards.

Colonizers misapplied their own term for a practice they were familiar with to a number of indigenous practices, many of which are more correctly “censing”- the use of smoke to attract benevolent entities.

New Age authors then appropriated and bastardized these native practices, leading to the mistaken belief that smudging (smoke cleansing) was unique to specific indigenous American nations, instead of an incredibly diverse global practice with thousands of years of history on every inhabited continent.

That said… Stay away from white sage, abalone shells, turkey fans, etc. unless you are legitimately part of an indigenous tradition that uses them. Make use of ingredients that grow in your area or the place(s) your tradition(s) originated.

Before midnight, open all the windows and doors of your home, turning on all the lights. Post guards at the doors as needed. From this point until the conclusion, no one should enter or reenter the home- porches and patios are part of the home.

Starting in the most intimate parts of the home, such as the primary bedroom, smudge and/or asperse each room, including closets. Pay attention to the corners and other easy to ignore places where troublesome spiritlife might hide.

If you wish, forcefully use your voice to order and cast out (abjure) unwanted spiritlife. For example:

This is my home. I welcome in only those who bear goodwill and blessings to me and mine. If I do not welcome you, get out!

Once you clear each room, close the windows and doors, but leave the lights on.

Once all the rooms are cleansed, smudge or asperse out the front door. Repeat your abjuration, if any, three times. Then seal the front door until midnight. Open the interior doors once all exterior doors are closed.

At midnight, once you’ve toasted all within (including the house spirits, Gods, and honored dead), cast open the front door and toast the friendly and helpful spirits outside.

Send your sweet censing smoke, strewing herbs, and/or treats out through the door to invite in benevolent spiritlife, good luck, and blessings.

Verbally invite them in, for example:

This is my home. I welcome in only those who bear goodwill and blessings to me and mine. If that is you, I welcome you!

Continue to hold open the door, sending sweet offerings out into the night for a few moments before closing and locking the door. Make sure to recover any loved ones who got stuck outside during the ritual.

Celebrate inside as you like after the ritual concludes. If possible, keep all humans and animals indoors until dawn.

In conclusion

May you and yours enjoy a new year of health and healing, prosperity and joy, and of sacred and spiritual growth.

– In Deos Confidimus