Sweetgrass or Sacred Grass Braid

Description

Sweetgrass or Sacred Grass Braid about 50-60cm long (20-25 inches). Sweetgrass can be used during prayer, cleansing or burnt for smudging and driving out negativity. Its smell is sweet and reminiscent of vanilla due to an active ingredient in sweetgrass called coumarin. The latin name for sweetgrass (hierchloe odorata) translates literally as “sacred grass”. Sweetgrass is a plant that comes from the US and Canada. It’s a form of tall grass that is mostly green, with red at its base. Sweetgrass is traditionally plaited into long braids. When burnt as incense, sweetgrass – as the name suggests – has a sweet fragrance.

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Smudging information is included

Very important to the Sioux and Cherokee nations, its botanical name is Hierochloe odorata. In these tribes, the sweetgrass is braided like hair braids. It could be burnt by lighting the end of it, or (more economically) by shaving little bits of it onto charcoal in a brazier. Use barbecue charcoal to burn it, not pressed charcoal tablets. Sweetgrass is burnt after smudging with sage, to welcome in good influences after the bad had been driven out. In olden times, the end of the smudge stick or braid was lit from the central or cooking fire. Today a candle is recommended as it takes some time to get the stick smoking. Loose dried herbs may also be placed directly onto the burning wood in an indoor fireplace or crumbled between the fingers over a piece of charcoal. The container used for the charcoal and herbs needs to be fireproof.