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A WORLD IN BALANCE SONG MAGIC NEWS
October 2003
Issue 19 |
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In This Issue
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1. The Ancient Arts of
Smudging - Part 3 of 3 |
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2. The next TRM
Monthly Mini Bone Throwing will be aired on Sunday, October 26, 2003, at
10:00 am on Transitions Radio Magazine |
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3. Sacred Link |
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Coming Soon |
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We are planning to offer classes again starting next spring. There will
be classes about the Red Door radionics material as well as Kay's "Setting The
World In Balance" series. In coming issues we will share more details
about these upcoming classes. |
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1.
THE ANCIENT ARTS OF SMUDGING - PART 3 |
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(excerpt from a lecture given by Kay Whitaker from the World In Balance
Teacher Training Program. Part 3 of 3.) |
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KAY: Some traditions don’t want to mix smudges. They are very serious
about it. They want to use them just one at a time. Each has its
purpose. Each has its medicine. You’re talking to that one plant. And
that’s it. They’ll focus just on that. They may switch to another smudge
shortly after, but use only one at a time. Only one gets burned at a
time. And then there are other individuals or cultures that mix them.
Some creating elaborate formulas. It’s all in the need and the intent
and the beliefs of the user.
Oh yes, I need to talk about tobacco. The big one.
Tobacco
Tobacco purifies. It purifies anything. It’s extremely good at purifying
the auric field. It will sterilize. You can put it on an infection on
your skin and it pulls the infection out. On our friend’s hand wound
here, I would grind up osha and tobacco very fine, sometimes some other
things added, and get it wet, and use it as a poultice. Just leave it on
the area, bandage it over if you need to, and let it pull the infection
up. And it will.
Tobacco is often thought of as the favorite of the spirit nations. And
that’s why it’s used as an offering by so many different American
tribes. It’s considered the messenger. It takes messages to the spirit
nations and to Creator.
STUDENT: That’s why we use it in the pipe. Tobacco wasn’t native to the
States, right?
KAY: Yes it was.
STUDENT: It was?
KAY: Oh yes.
STUDENT: Sir Walter Raleigh brought it over.
STUDENT: No, he brought it back to Europe.
KAY: It’s native to the Americas and it’s known and used way up in the
Arctic all the way down to the southern point, Patagonia, South America.
It’s all over the Americas. And it was often cultivated. Even if there
was nothing else cultivated by a tribe, they would cultivate tobacco.
And a lot of tribes that migrated, that were nomadic, they would get
patches started, really get them going, and then they’d go off to their
next hunting ground. By the time they came back and made the loop by
that spot again, the tobacco was big and they would harvest it. A lot of
Indians didn’t cultivate much of anything up here in the northern states
but tobacco. They would make sure that tobacco was growing. It was that
important - so special and so sacred.
Tobacco will alter your vibrational field very dramatically. Very fast.
Even holding it in your hand.
STUDENTS: It’s not just the nicotine?
KAY: No.
STUDENT: Maybe that’s one of the reasons people have such a hard time
giving it up, besides the fact of the companies putting special
ingredients into it to addict you.
KAY: It changes your vibrational field and the field around you. And if
you either have a habit of it or you know consciously that it changes
your field, smoking that smoke, you can make yourself shift to a “place”
where you want to be. To a vibrational level that you want to be that’s
more favorable.
STUDENT: So this would be smoking - you can get cigarettes now, can’t
you, that are just pure tobacco?.
STUDENT: American Spirit. There’s some other ones too.
STUDENT: What’s the difference between smoking that and smudging?
KAY: Not much. You’d be taking into your body a lot more if you’re
smoking it. You’re purposefully taking in a whole cloud.
STUDENT: And does that hurt your body at all, or am I getting it
confused with regular commercial cigarettes?
KAY: If you used it on a level of ceremonial use - you’ve got it in your
smudge, maybe you smoke to pray with, to change the vibration of things
- the amount that you would absorb doing that, if it was fairly organic
tobacco, shouldn’t bother your body. If you already have a serious
medical condition I would tell you to limit it. It might be an
aggravation to certain conditions. The chemicals that are put into
commercial tobacco while it’s growing and while it’s being processed are
known poisons. When they process it into smoking tobacco, cigarettes and
cigars, they lace it with large quantities of extra nicotine and a whole
bunch of other chemicals that are known to be addictive.
STUDENT: Also sugar.
KAY: And sugar. A surprisingly large amount of sugar, which is
addictive. So if you use that commercial tobacco you’re going to become
far more addicted to those other chemicals and the sugar than you are
the original nicotine. And they’re quite damaging. They are really,
really bad news. The amount that people smoke as a habit provides far
more of any of those poisonous substances than you want in your body.
That’s abuse. That’s way, way too much for any body to handle.
STUDENT: It was interesting in the last Level 1 class that you held how
much anger the tobacco brought up.
KAY: There was one person in particular, and a few others, that were
just absolutely adamant, almost like violently angry, against the
tobacco. They didn’t want to have to use it and it was really upsetting
to them. And the smell was upsetting to them. And they didn’t want to
have to make their altars with it. They thought it was like something
that came right from the hands of the devil.
STUDENT: It represents something very different now in our modern
culture.
KAY: Yes. So we had a long lecture of what tobacco represents to native
cultures, what it symbolizes, the special value placed on the tobacco
spirits, what the medicines are, and the number of uses that it had in
native society. How sacred, how important it was. It was the most sacred
of all the herbs. THE MOST SACRED. The most important. If they were
going to be without something, it wasn’t going to be the tobacco.
Something else goes first.
STUDENT: If you are to use it to drive an infection out, you wouldn’t go
and get tobacco from a store, right?
KAY: Well, I have. I was at a remote ceremony ground where there wasn’t
any organic tobacco sitting around - everybody had a can of Top, you
know. It’s like the worst of the worst. And they’re all smoking it. And
that’s all there was available.
STUDENT: You can still talk to the spirit of it.
KAY: You absolutely want to talk to the spirit of it. That’s the whole
point. Any time you use it, for any kind of healing method, talk to the
spirit of it and ask the spirit to do its task. Ask the spirit to
neutralize the poisons if it’s commercial tobacco.
You can put the tobacco on the area dry and then apply your bandage over
it. It will depend on the state and type of the wound. Sometimes you
need to get it wet and then put it on so the juices can get down inside
and really spread, and there’s something there to draw up the poison.
And one of the best ways, one of the most effective ways, to get it wet
is your saliva. The enzymes in your saliva will begin to break the
tobacco down and draw a lot of these medicines out so that when you put
it on the wound site it can really suck all the bad stuff out. It’s used
to suck out bee stings, poisons, snake bite poisons, pus. It can be
very, very effective.
Tobacco is used as a gift to the spirits and Creator/Creation, to ask
for their help. It’s used to create a stream or wall of purifying,
protective, soothing energy in ceremonies. It’s used to see the truth
about things or people. Always honor the tobacco nations.
Sometimes I use the smudges very singularly, all by themselves, and a
lot of times I use a mix that I create on the spot according to the
needs of the moment. The basic ones that I have here in the tray mixed
together are sage, cedar, juniper, and sometimes a little sweet grass in
there. Often I will add a little bit of mullein and also some osha.
Sometimes a sprinkle of tobacco. I only put the oak leaves in when
they’re needed for grief and sadness.
I only use tree resins at certain times, certain moments. The resins are
so, so strong, it’s like they really kick whatever’s around. You, and
the air. It’s quite a wallop. So if you really need a punch to clean up
the air and sweeten it in an energetic sense, or sweeten the air
literally, then just a little bit of resin works wonders. In that resin
are large quantities of the medicines of the plant, all packed in there.
It’s extra concentrated. Use with care.
Very often when I use osha as a smoke I will use it by itself – a small
bit broken off the root or sometimes I will grind some up fresh for the
occasion. I’ll scoop everything else aside and I’ll have just the osha
on the charcoal. When I use mullein, sometimes I sprinkle it with the
mix, especially if I know somebody’s having some kind of respiratory
trouble, but if someone has a real bad problem I’ll use it just by
itself.
STUDENT: A really bad problem?
KAY: Yes. Any kind of a bad cold, a flu, some sort of respiratory
ailment. If they have something that is long-term, chronic, asthma,
emphysema, you want to be extremely sparing of any and all smudges and
use only the ones that are indicated for respiratory ailments, like just
a little bit of mullein. A little tiny bit.
When you collect it, each plant has its own time that is best for
collecting. It depends on what part of the plant is going to be
collected; if it’s the root, if it’s the leaves, if it’s a flower.
Certain times of the day make a big difference with a lot of plants.
Certain times of the year are real critical. Certain times of the month
like new moon, full moon. The best way to find out when to collect the
plant that you want is to talk to that plant nation. Go talk to the
plant. Ask it. It will answer.
There are a lot of harvesting suggestions in books. People who have been
doing it for a long time, or they’ve come from a particular tradition
where it’s just done a certain way. There’s a lot of that written down.
So get yourself some herb books and look these things up and see what
other medicines the plant can provide, the qualities they have, where
they like to grow, how they like to grow. Maybe you’d like to try
putting some in your garden and get to know the nation really well. Or
you want to know where to go find it out in the wild. Look it up, read
it. Experiment.
But always remember the most important, the most critical, element in
the entire process is to go talk to the plant for yourself and ask when
to go pick it, when is the best time, what uses does it have, how do you
apply it. Some plants are so temperamental that way, that if you go pick
them at the wrong time, it’s like there’s no juice in them. They’re just
empty.
Some traditions require a lot of ceremony before you go out and pick
herbs. All kinds of offerings, asking of permission, purifications and
fasting. Some of them get very elaborate that way. What the Hetakas do
is they go out and they offer something - tobacco, cornmeal, pollen.
They talk to the nation and they give it a lot of thanks and gratitude
for whatever it’s done for them in the past and whatever the nation has
given to them. And they ask permission: “Please help me find some
members of your nation and give me permission to harvest it so I can dry
it up and make medicine for my people, and use it in a good way.”
Don’t bother picking medicines, herbs, that you have not offered
something for. Don’t even bother. If somebody gives you some, and you
don’t know what the history is behind it, then take your tobacco or your
cornmeal or your pollen, whatever you want, go outside, talk to the
nation, and offer that nation a bunch of whatever it is you’re giving
away. Ask for its help and permission, and to come be in this herb that
somebody gave you. Because you don’t know how it was picked. You want to
honor the nation from your heart and give thanks for it, and you want
their juice, you want their input, their spirit to be there. So you go
off and you ask. Even if you have to go to the herb store and buy a
bunch of herbs, go make your offering.
Don’t use an herb that you have not made an offering for. Finding it in
a health food store is better than nothing; at least you’ve got it in
your hand and you have a chance to communicate with that nation and
bring it there, have it come and be there to help. Having the plant
material in your hand you have its signature – it’s like a calling card,
the psychic phone number is right there.
The act of smudging is a whole world unto itself. The best way to learn
this is to do it. Talk to these plant nations, these beings, that you’re
using here, and ask them, “What is happening? Why does the smoke do
this? Why does it go here and go here and not go there? Why is it doing
this? Why is it thick now and not another time? Why does it seem to have
shifted colors? In what ways does it help people?”
If you ever do smudge in a class, or a really, really long ceremony and
you want the smudge to last, I highly recommend buying charcoals. They
are generally sold for incense use. In a lot of native culture they
already have a fire going. They have a central fire or they have a
sacred fire. They have some way of getting a little piece of coal and
putting it in their smudge pot, or container, or whatever they use, and
that lasts for quite a while. Then you just sprinkle your smudge on it.
These little guys - they come in little foil baggies like this,
sometimes a slightly longer shape. They’re little black charcoal discs.
They have a chemical in them, so when you light them up, you get these
glowing sparks flying off. And it stinks. It’s a petrochemical. So do it
in a place where you don’t have to breathe it and nobody else has to
breathe it. We hang it under the chimney here and let it float up the
chimney. Go outside, go to the bathroom fan, so it goes straight up into
the fan. Once the sparkles stop, the chemicals are burned away and that
chemical smell is gone. And theoretically, if you’ve held your lighter
onto it long enough, it catches. And it will continue burning all the
way through. That’s what it’s supposed to do. But you really need to
hold the lighter or the match on it for a fairly long time so you get a
good red spot. Otherwise it’ll go out halfway through.
STUDENT: Where do you get those?
KAY: Any store that sells a variety of incense, especially if they have
Buddhist things. Buddhists use a lot of those little pressed incense
blocks. It’s in little chunks and cubes. You can’t just light them. They
don’t just light. They have to be set on something that’s already
burning. So that’s a real good place to get those. If you live in a city
that has a Wicca store, with all kinds of Wicca things, they use them
also. Wicca friends told me about these charcoals in the first place. We
were in North Carolina and it was incredibly damp. The humidity was
close to 100%. If you’ve never been down in damp country, it’s kind of
hard to imagine what the humidity is like. Like being in the shower.
Trying to light a little piece of sage is something. It’s hopeless. You
can’t even get it lit. And it certainly won’t say lit. So a charcoal is
required. No way around it.
While you’re going through these different smudges and you’re testing
each one separately - feel them, smell them, taste them if you want,
sprinkle them on the charcoal - and try fanning the smoke around. Fan
each other. See what happens. Do some experiments. Have one of you hold
a certain attitude. Work up a real good attitude. And then have somebody
smudge you and see what the smudge does. Does it touch the body
anywhere? Does it bounce back off. Does the whole thing start billowing
up and making huge clouds all by itself? Or does it almost die out,
refuse to burn, all by itself? The smoke will do things. It’s talking to
you. It’ll move, it’ll make shapes, it’ll make pictures. It’ll go
towards the person, away from the person. The smudges talk to you. So
pay attention. Ask the nation that you’re using there, “Why are you
doing this? What are you trying to say?” Start learning their
vocabularies. Because if you’re going to use smudge in any long-term
basis for anything, you’re going to want to know what all that means.
There’s an interesting native tradition called “smoking somebody.” They
put, usually tobacco, on a charcoal. They make a lot of smoke. They fan
it, surrounding the person with the smoke, and then they watch the
smoke. The smoke tells all. There is no hiding. All of your secrets are
now out in the open.
Okay, are there any specific questions? All right. Let’s get smoken. |
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2. The next TRM Monthly Mini Bone Throwing |
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October’s TRM Monthly Mini Bone Throwing will be aired on Sunday,
October 26, 2003, at 10:00 am on Transitions Radio Magazine.
A most fascinating, unusual and precise Non-Ordinary Reality Check
with internationally recognized teacher, healer, seer, medicine
storyteller and Thrower of the Bones, Kay Cordell Whitaker.
Our monthly TRM Mini Bone Throwing is every 3rd Sunday of the month. TRM
airs on Radio Free Santa Fe, KBAC FM, 104.1 Santa Fe, New Mexico, 7:57
am to 11:00 am MT, Sundays. Please visit TRM’s website at
www.transradio.com. Also see
TRM’s add in the Eldorado Sun. For Guest and Sponsorship queries, call:
505-466-2616.
E-mail: hosts@transradio.com. |
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3. Sacred Link |
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We have recently added the Premise and Prelude for Sacred Link to our
website. To read both go to Sacred Link Premise
and Sacred Link Prelude |
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It is always a pleasure to put this information together. Any comments
about our newsletter are very much appreciated. Please send your
comments to song@worldbalance.com.
Wanowa Ka Ta See
We are working together to make a world in Balance
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