Home Cleansing After Company

 Written by Ryan Trinh

Working at the House of Intuition bring a plethora of clients through our doors.  As a 20 something year old, most of my friends and even the clients I see coming in are finding themselves moving into new apartments and living their lives.  Some of us like me are not so lucky and are stuck at home, but hey, less rent money I have to worry about.  

A popular thing people are always looking for is something to cleansing their homes with and while sage is amazing, there’s another herb that would also be fantastic!  Don’t let the name fool you, but Devil’s Claw Root can be used as a home cleansing herb.  But first, before y’all get scared of this herb, a little bit of background!

This thorny plant is found in the deserts of Africa and when you see the actual plant, you’ll see why it’s called Devil’s Claw Root.  It has hooks on it that protects itself with hooks protruding from its seed that end up hooking onto grazing animals’ hoofs.  So yes, it is a little scary looking and kind of scary if you were a wildebeest foraging near it, but you’re not, I hope.  But what we’re interested in is the root that this plant produces.  In different holistic medicines and  traditional remedies from Africa, some people use the root as a digestive aid as well as cramps.  

Now in magic, you can use this in a few different ways such as banishing, cleansings, and purification.  

To keep it short, this makes a great space and home cleanser especially when you’re moving into a new home or if you’ve been having a lot of people over like I do.  

All you need for this home cleanse is:

• Charcoal
• Incense burner (or heat proof container for the charcoal - I prefer a cast iron cauldron with a handle so I can swing it around my space)
• Devil’s Claw Root
• Optional: other cleansing herbs like Frankincense, Myrrh, Dragon’s Blood, Sage, Cedar, you name it

Now, you have to:

• Take the charcoal with a pair of tongs (practice fire safety, kids) and lit the charcoal.
• With the lit charcoal, place it in the incense burner and let it turn a little gray first.  
• Once it’s nice and hot, take a pinch of devil’s claw root and throw it on the charcoal
• Take the incense burner and move it around the room like you would with any other smudging herb.  Get real deep into the corners of the room or any space that’s incredibly dense with negative or weird energy.  
• And repeat in the other rooms as needed

This simple procedure is especially great for you all moving into a new space and want to remove the old tenants’ energies, you never know what they did there.  

If burning the herb isn’t your jam, you can make it into a floor wash or a room spray.