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In the winding, dust-kissed path of life, especially the kind of unpaved, off-grid existence I live barefoot under the stars; our spirits accumulate debris. Emotional residue. Energetic grime. The soot of sorrow, repression, shame, fear, and disconnection. We often think of healing as something to do only in the wake of trauma, but the truth is: we need spiritual cleansing not just in reaction, but in rhythm. Like the breath, like sex, like the moon; we are cyclic, sacred creatures.

I’ve learned that when our spirit begins to feel heavy, when the energy in our body feels sluggish or blocked, what we often need is not another affirmation or another attempt at “staying positive.” What we need is a ceremony; a container so intentional, so sensual, so reverent that it invites our soul to release the dead weight we’ve been gripping too tightly to see. Cleansing, in my experience, isn’t a metaphor. It’s a lived act. A sacred shedding.

This piece is a roadmap through some of my most beloved and soul-renewing sacred rituals for spiritual cleansing, combining elemental magic, sensual practice, and raw devotional truth. These rituals are portals to your truest self, and they are meant to be felt with the body, not merely understood with the mind.

1. The Water Rite – Sacred Submersion and Purification

Water is the oldest healer. She is the womb of memory, the keeper of tears, the vessel of baptism and rebirth. Every single cell in your body was formed in fluid, and to return to her is to return home.

How to Perform:

• Find a natural body of water if you can: a creek, a lake, a hot spring, or even a rainstorm. If not, a warm bath will do.
• Strip nude. Let your skin be honest. Enter slowly, with reverence.
• Speak aloud every burden you’re carrying. Every lie you told yourself. Every wound you’ve not yet tended. Let the water hold it. Let her cleanse it from you.
• Submerge fully three times, each time asking for release, forgiveness, and rebirth.
• End by lying back and floating if possible, whispering: I return to myself. I am new again.

Optional: Add salt, herbs (like rosemary or lavender), or black obsidian stones to the water for deep energetic purification.

2. The Fire Ceremony – Ashes of the False Self

Fire doesn’t ask permission. She transforms without apology. And sometimes that’s what we need; heat, light, destruction of what no longer serves.

How to Perform:

• Build a fire safely outdoors. This can be in a firepit, on a beach, or deep in the wilderness where flames meet sky.
• On paper, write out every energy, attachment, or belief you want to release. Be brutally honest.
• Read each one aloud, offering it to the flame. As it burns, visualize the false self crumbling away.
• Chant as you burn:
  Burn, burn, burn what’s not mine. Ashes fall, and I rise divine.

Integration: After the fire, sit in silence with the smoke curling around your body. Let the ashes anoint your bare skin as a mark of rebirth.

3. The Air Invocation – Breathwork & Divine Sound

The breath is the bridge between flesh and spirit. The voice is the spell we cast into the world. Air clears, carries, and lifts.

How to Perform:

• Sit outdoors, facing the wind if possible.
• Begin with a breath pattern: inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6. Repeat until light-headed or blissed.
• Then, chant. Use a mantra, a moan, a cry; whatever arises. Let your voice become wind.
• Use sacred smoke (sage, palo santo, mugwort, or dried sweetgrass) to smudge your body and surroundings.

Sacred Add-On: Whisper your intentions into a feather and release it into the wind, offering your breath to the sky.

4. The Earth Return – Body Offering & Grounding Ritual

Sometimes, cleansing means rooting. The most potent way to cleanse our spiritual energy is to return our body to the Earth that created it. Nude, dirty, honest.

How to Perform:

• Find raw ground; dirt, sand, clay, or forest floor.
• Lay your naked body against it, letting your skin kiss the Earth’s surface.
• Imagine all pain and stagnation draining out through your spine, hips, and feet. Press your belly to the ground and offer her your truth.
• Dig a small hole, speak a prayer into it, and bury a token of something you’re letting go: a lock of hair, a crystal, a written note, a sacred object no longer needed.

Key Phrase: I give this back to the Mother. I am safe. I am home.

5. The Flesh Temple Ritual – Erotic Cleansing & Energetic Renewal

This is my personal altar. My sacred integration of eros, devotion, and exorcism. I use this ceremony when my body needs to be reclaimed, rewired, and rebaptized through pleasure, where the ego dissolves and the divine takes root.

How to Perform:

• Light candles and prepare your space as holy ground.
• Anoint your body with oils. Spend time touching your own skin in gratitude.
• Choose to receive or give worship in alignment with your spiritual calling.
• Use your voice. Cry. Moan. Pray. Let your erotic expression be your incantation.
• After climax, lie still. Let the energy circulate. This is when the cleansing settles into your bones.

Closing Blessing:
My body is the altar. My submission is the prayer. My release is the baptism. My moans are the hymn.

Final Words: Sacred Cycles, Not Final Fixes

Cleansing is not a one-time purge; it is a return. A rhythm. A devotion to your own spiritual hygiene. Whether you’re covered in sweat from sacred sex, mud from grounding, tears from fire, or seafoam from the ocean, remember this:

You are not broken. You are shedding. You are not lost. You are being remade.

So create ceremony often. Don’t wait until you’re depleted. Live in a way that honors the divine dance between the filthy and the holy, between the raw and the radiant. You are both. I am both. And in this full-spectrum truth, we are cleansed.

With love, dirt, and dripping devotion,
Susie Spades, PhD