Working with Earth’s Oldest Healers to Cleanse, Ground, and Begin Again

Anyone else feeling clogged up after this past winter?

The old emotions. The stagnant thoughts. The heavy patterns and congestion that have built up over the darker months.

Taking the time to intentionally cleanse your energy with ritual invites in lightness, clarity, and new beginnings.

The returning light and greening world are a deep invitation to clear what no longer serves you, both physically and spiritually.

This post gives you a simple way to get your energy flowing freely again.

You’ll learn a simple but powerful, nature-based ritual for spring cleansing: My Smoke, Salt + Soil Ceremony.

You’ll work with sacred smoke, mineral-rich salt, and dark, loamy soil—three elemental forces that can help purify, restore, and realign your energy.

This ritual is ideal for:

• Clearing energetic stagnation
• Releasing emotional heaviness from winter
• Refreshing your aura and space
• Realigning your body and spirit with spring’s rhythms

Let’s explore each element and how they come together in this ceremony.

Element One: Smoke (Air + Fire)

Smoke cleansing is one of the oldest spiritual practices known to humankind.

It invokes the elements of air and fire, carrying prayers, intentions, and old energy into the aether. (Read my Guide to the Element of Air here.)

What Smoke Represents:

• Purification of the aura
• Dispersing stagnant or negative energy
• Connecting breath, spirit, and intention
• Activating transition and transformation

Sacred Plants to Burn:

• Frankincense Resin (cleansing, blessing, protection)
• Palo Santo Wood (cleansing, blessing, purification)
• White Sage (cleansing, clarity – use sustainably)
• Cedar (protection and renewal)
• Lavender (calm and peace)
• Mugwort (intuition and vision)
• Rosemary (clarity and healing)
• Pine (strength and clearing winter residue)

How to Use Smoke:

1. Light your chosen herb bundle, loose leaf mix, or incense.
2. Allow the smoke to rise, and gently waft it around your body. You can use your hands, a feather, or a little fan to do this.
3. Start at your feet and move upward around your body in a spiral motion.
4. As you move, say aloud:
   “With this smoke, I release all that is not mine to carry. I invite breath, clarity, and light.”

You can also cleanse your home or sacred space using the same motion, paying special attention to corners, thresholds, and windows. (Be sure to get inside cabinets and closets, attics and basements, as well.)

Element Two: Salt (Earth + Water)

Salt is a crystalline gift of the earth, formed through elemental alchemy—where earth and sea, time and evaporation, converge.

Spiritually, it’s revered for its grounding and protective properties. (Read my Guide to the Element of Earth here.)

What Salt Represents:

• Absorption of negative energy
• Spiritual protection and boundary reinforcement
• Physical detoxification and energetic discharge
• Alchemical union of earth and water

Types of Salt to Use:

• Sea salt (cleansing, oceanic rhythm)
• Himalayan pink salt (gentle purification)
• Black lava salt (banishing and boundary work)
• Epsom salt (muscle release and energetic softness)
• Try to avoid regular old table salt if you can. It’s hyper processed and refined, and has a lot of the goodness stripped out of it.

How to Use Salt:

1. Salt Foot Soak

• Add a handful of salt to warm water with herbs or a few drops of essential oils.
• Soak your feet while meditating on what you’re releasing.
• Affirm: “What no longer serves me flows down, out, and away.”

2. Salt Circle Grounding

• Sprinkle salt in a circle around you on the ground for energetic containment.
• Sit within the circle and breathe deeply.
• Visualize roots growing from your body into the Earth. (Check out my Simple Grounding Meditation here for more on this.)

3. Salt Scrub Shower Ritual

• Mix salt with good olive oil and a few drops of lavender essential oil.
• Scrub your body gently, imagining energy that’s no longer aligned with your spirit sloughing off.
• Let water wash it all down the drain with gratitude.

Element Three: Soil (Earth)

Soil is the womb of the Earth, the primal matrix that holds life, memory, and transformation.

To connect with soil is to connect with deep grounding, nourishment, and rebirth. (Read my Guide to the Element of Earth here.)

Working with soil helps get you out of your head and out of overthinking mode, and anchors you in the physical.

What Soil Represents:

• Anchoring the spirit in the body
• Reconnection with nature and your ancestors
• Fertility, creativity, and new beginnings
• Composting what is dead to nourish new life

Ways to Work with Soil:

1. Touch the Earth or Practice Earthing

• Stand barefoot or sit with your hands in soil. (Read my Guide to Earthing here.)
• Breathe slowly and let your heartbeat align with the Earth.
• Say: “I am balanced. I am grounded. I am whole. I return to my roots.”

2. Bury a Symbol of Release

• Write what you’re releasing on a small slip of paper.
• Bury it in the Earth with intention.
• Plant a seed or flower over it to with intention to encourage transformation. (Try my full Seed Planting Ritual.)
• Try my Egg Ritual for Healing and Growth.

3. Create a Soil Offering Bowl

• Fill a bowl with dark, rich soil.
• Place it on your altar with stones, seeds, or flower petals.
• Use it to meditate with during the ritual below.

Step-by-Step Guide: Smoke, Salt, and Soil Cleansing Ceremony

Best Time:

• Spring Equinox
• New Moon
• Any time you feel emotionally cluttered or energetically heavy

What You’ll Need:

• A bundle or incense for smoke cleansing
• Salt (for bath, soak, or grounding circle)
• A bowl of fresh, dark soil or access to the Earth
• A candle (green, white, or yellow)
• Optional: spring water, crystals, flowers, or seeds

Step 1: Create Your Sacred Space

• Cleanse your space with smoke and intention.
• Light your candle.
• Take a few deep breaths to ground and center yourself.
• Call in the energies of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. Thank them and invite them to join you in your ceremony. You can say something like: “I call to the elements of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. Be with me, I ask for your presence and assistance with my work in this sacred space.”

Step 2: Smoke (Air + Fire)

• Move the smoke around your body and space.
• Breathe deeply and feel your energy lifting and expanding.
• Say something like:
  • “I clear my field. I welcome light and breath.”
  • “I breathe in clarity, I breathe out stagnation.”
  • “I am light, I am space, I am expansion.”

Step 3: Salt (Earth + Water)

• Choose a salt ritual: foot soak, bath, or salt circle.
• Visualize your burdens dissolving into the salt.
• Say something like:
  • “All that weighs me down is dissolved and washed away.”
  • “I am cleansed, whole, and protected.”
  • “I release all that is heavy with grace and ease.”

Step 4: Soil (Earth)

• Touch the Earth directly, or hold the soil bowl.
• Reflect on what you’re ready to grow.
• Option: bury a release note, or plant a seed with intention.
• Say something like:
  • “I root myself in purpose. I grow in alignment.”
  • “I am rooted, nourished, and ready to grow.”
  • “I plant my truth, and I rise.”

Step 5: Close with Gratitude

• Offer thanks to the elements and to yourself.
• Pour the salt water into the earth, or down the drain mindfully.
• Blow out your candle.

What This Ceremony Can Help Heal

This ritual can support your healing and growth on multiple levels:

Emotional:

• Letting go of heartache, grief, and stuck emotions
• Releasing old patterns and stories that no longer serve you
• Breaking up energetic congestion and emotional clogs that have been holding you back

Energetic:

• Cutting cords or clearing attachments
• Rebalancing your aura
• Resetting after psychic overload or burnout
• Creating a clean slate to set the stage for healing, abundance, and good fortune

Physical and Environmental:

• Cleaning your body’s energetic field
• Refreshing the home and sacred space

Optional Ways to Personalize Your Ritual

• Crystals: Smoky Quartz (release), Green Aventurine (growth), Obsidian (protection), Shungite (cleansing), Selenite (cleansing)
• Music: Nature sounds, soft flutes, drumming, solfeggio frequencies
• Herbal tea after the ritual to ground and integrate (try dandelion root — it’s detoxifying and carries a lot of great earth energy)
• Journaling: Record any impressions, what you released, and what seeds you’re planting for the future

Shed, Soak & Root: You Are the Garden

As the old energies fall away and the soil begins to warm, you too are invited to shed, soak, and root.

The combination of smoke, salt, and soil provides a holistic, elemental reset—honoring your body, spirit, and connection to the Earth.

This spring, allow the season’s natural wisdom to flow through you.

Let yourself be the garden. Let yourself bloom.