Land Blessing

For the past week or so I’ve been REALLY wanting to smoke while knowing that *I* didn’t necessarily care to smoke. Honestly it had been months, I’ve lost count of how many , since I last smoked. This let me know it was time for a land blessings. The spirits who walk with me when it comes to land stewardship love fire and smoke for land blessings and since it has been dry and/or super windy, it is unsafe for me to use my incense cauldrons (I am reminded that I need a hanging incense pot that closes and has whole for the smoke to exit). In times like these they prefer a smoke that passes through my lungs and into space we are tending.

I rolled cannabis flower, lemon balm, and tulsi; all of which were grown in the gardens and plots of growth I would be blessing.

I walked the perimeter of all the planting areas in the front of the house, I did not have enough to physically wal to the back and that’s fine because my parents who hate the smell of smoke were actively working the back gardens. Also fine because at that point in the blessing the wind changed direction and picked up force to send the smoke in that direction, Jajom Guabancex.

As I walked through I did deep open breaths with the blunt, blowing the smoke in the direction of the plants. I expressed that this was for them. My statements to that effect included:

Acknowledging, blessing, and thanking them by name

Acknowledging thanking and blessing all the fauna that interact with them by name and in general/class (decomposers, pollinators, etc.)

Naming for recognition ways they bless all parts of our ecosystem (food for and attraction of pollinators, shelter for snakes and frogs, fertilizer for other plants, shade for us and/or other plants, soil conditioning, etc.)

Acknowledging the fertile land and gratitude it has endured, acknowledging those that contributed to its endurance

Extending gratitude to all who took part of maintaining the viability of the land

Encouraging and welcoming plants just/still waking up or improving/catching themselves after being transplanted, by name and in general

Congratulating those newly fruiting or flowering, by name and in general

Touching certain plants that desired physical touch and affection

Noting how some of gather make me feel

Expressing gratitude on behalf of all who benefit from their natural abundance, by name and in general

Speaking protection over the land

These are the kinds of blessings I do at midpoints in a season: when things begin fruiting, first bump of pruning or harvest, when most plants have finished producing and begin to wind down

More in depth blessings happen at the start/transition of seasons: hibernation, last frost, first leaves and greening of majority, maturation of fruit, harvest season, fall clean up

I also do specific protection rituals about twice a year. I believe I shared an example of one time of protection works I do that’s done with soil. I believe it’s here in the Divine Garden, I’ll hunt it down.

I also regularly communicate with the land and the plants growing every time I walk or enter the garden, especially when watering or foraging.