Miasma: Spiritual Hygiene and Pollution

I’ve found that this topic doesn’t get discussed a lot in pan-pagan circles and seems to be almost exclusively something stuck in the craw of polytheists. It might not elicit the same vitriol that debates over worshipping Loki or giving offerings of whatever is unfashionable at the moment, might provoke, but it occasionally gets its day in the sun. Namely this is the question of spiritual hygiene, or hygiene of the body itself when it enters into a spiritual space.

Every tradition has its prescriptions for what is or is not appropriate for spiritual space. What they all have in common is firstly, an understanding of there being a difference between ritual or Other-ed space vs mundane space. I think the most obvious example of this is a traditional Wiccan (or Wiccan-inspired) circle casting. Circles are used as containers for ritual in that they make a normal space sacred for at least as long as the ritual takes place. Most circles are opened at the end of a ritual and the space reverts back to its default state. Temples, shrines, and altars represent ritual spaces as well, but these tend to be more permanent. When I establish an altar or shrine, the space is marked as such indefinitely. I only “open” them when I move house and have to break them down in order to reassemble them elsewhere. An altar doesn’t stop being sacred when I stop doing ritual at it. As such, there are rules I have for engaging with it whether I’ve got offerings or spellwork currently “open” (or mid-process) on the altar or not.

Circle casting is usually one of the first steps in crafting a Wiccan-inspired ritual

A lot of these following ideas are the basics and pretty much universal among many traditions. First of all, I never put mundane things on my altars or shrines. No cups of tea, no car keys, no cat toys (these seem to find their way into every other nook and cranny though), nothing but offerings or the detritus of spell casting. I do take off anything left from spells that are no longer “running” to avoid the clutter, so anything on my altar at any given time is always in process. My altars and shrines are alive. They’re always in flux. I see energy (whether that’s the magickal energy of a spell or the spiritual energy of an offering) as a liquid and I try to keep my altars and shrines like wells: deep, clean, and flowing to prevent stagnation. Old spell ingredients or mundane objects muddy the water and contaminate the stream. You want to keep things pure and running smoothly.

A second rule of thumb I follow in terms of hygiene in spiritual spaces has to do with what I’ve written about before, namely, the difference between altars and shrines. At their heart, altars are work stations and while they may connect with other beings, they’re mostly for us. Meanwhile, shrines are for the Spirits. Shrine space may also benefit us, but they’re mostly for Someone Else. Gods, Ancestors, or any other spirit one may which to enshrine. The rules for shrine space may be more strict than those for altars, and the reason is because you’re a guest in Someone Else’s home when you’re at a shrine. While you may leave your dirty dishes lying around your own house (though you probably shouldn’t), I sincerely hope you don’t do the same when you visit a friend or family member’s home. While I keep my altars clean as well, I always make sure that my shrines are as well kept as I can make them. I read once in a beginner Wicca book (probably one by Ravenwolf, to be honest) that dust carries negative energy in it. This idea has stuck with me and while I may not see it as carrying “negativity” as a type of energy per se, I do see dust as the accumulation of the dirt of the mundane, which is anathema to a well-run spiritual space. I try to keep my altars and shrines dust free and physically clean. I’ll also spiritually cleanse the space of any spiritual gunk floating around. Along with this, I also try to keep my home clean and cleansed just in general. This creates a healthier environment for myself and my family to live in, while also puts me in the good graces of my house wights as well as works to improve my devotional relationship with Frigg.

Cleaning your home physically as well as spiritually is important for maintaining good relationships with your own house wights

That’s all well and good but there’s also the question of the body. Different traditions have different philosophies of the body and how it connects to mundane or Other space. I don’t think it’s radical to claim that a lot of Christian or Christian-derived denominations and traditions have a view of the body as inherently worldly and sinful. A lot of strict reconstructionist or living continuation polytheisms may have similar ideas about the body (namely that it is more closely related to the mundane world) but might also focus more on activities, which seems to speak to the difference between orthopraxis and orthodoxy as a center of importance. Polytheistic faiths may outline polluting activities to be avoided rather than on a strict idea of the body itself as inherently “polluted” (this is a very general statement and every faith/tradition will be different; some see the body as inevitably trending toward pollution, so even if you generally try to avoid it, occasionally you may find yourself accidentally polluted through no fault of your own beyond having been born with a physical body). For me, I think the tendency to accrue miasma is part of what differentiates us from the Gods. I think it is completely against the nature of the Gods to become polluted in the same way that humans do, even if They engage in activities that, had a human done them, they might have been polluted.

I think we’re all about tired of hearing about hand washing and sanitizing these days but keeping your body clean is just as important as keeping your home clean

I’m going to pause here to go over terminology. I think “pollution” can be a bit of a harsh word. It evokes visions of trash heaps and waterways choked by garbage, maybe even plumes of smog darkening the air. It’s unpleasant and extreme. But I can’t find a better word that is less evocative but not completely toothless. Even “dirty” has connotations that are less than savory. I use “negativity” or “negative energy” a lot because these phrases seem New Age-y and innocent, but “miasma” is probably the best term for it (I haven’t found a word in Old Norse yet that might point to the same idea, but if someone else knows one I’d love to hear it). “Miasma” comes from the Greek for “pollute” or “defile”, and the Wikipedia article on the word opens with a quote that calls miasma “a contagious power”. Calling it a “power” seems to connect it with the idea of “negative energy” to me and we can see it as something pliable and moving. Seeing it as “contagious” as well shows how it can move from person to person, brushed off through contact like a spiritual virus. Maybe it leans too far into the woo woo territory for some, but I think we can pick up the vibes of the people we surround ourselves with and can bring that funk home to our temple spaces if we’re not careful.

It’s good practice to have a cleansing ritual of some kind before any major magickal working or offering. Even if you don’t remember engaging in any kind of polluting activity, you may have accidentally picked up something you shouldn’t have somewhere and it’s better to err on the side of caution and over-cleanse than to lean toward the opposite. It’s also good to have a regular cleansing cycle in general, to make sure that you are cleansing yourself and your space regularly.

Just as physical pollution wrecks our relationship with the Earth, spiritual pollution wrecks our relationship with the Gods

As I said before, every tradition is different but there are a few commonalities on what activities are miasmic. The big ones are: using the bathroom, having sex, menstruating, killing (especially another human but also animals), handling a dead body and/or having someone in your household die, making art, or having a baby. This list is not exhaustive but they’re a few of the big ones. I’ve noticed a few themes to these miasmic activities. The surface level theme is that anything that really puts you in your body or makes the body (and its physical processes/cycles) the center is potentially polluting. Using the bathroom is an obvious example of this, as well as any sexual activity (the spiritual component to sex is another discussion all its own). There also seems to be a theme of liminality with miasmic activity. Any walking along the threshold between two (or more) states of being seems to carry with it some element of risk when it comes to pollution. Lastly, it seems to be tied to the production of either creation or destruction. In my theology, the Gods have three Sacred Activities that They enact upon the Universe, which forms the Universe into the enspirited Cosmos. These Activities are: Creation, Destruction, Sustentation. These are the Activities that move in accordance with my ideas of Cosmic Order vs Cosmic Chaos and Cosmic Familiar vs Cosmic Unfamiliar (in my cosmology, numinous beings and Persons fall into a schema of how our relationship with Them works and it is through these binaries that we see Them interact with us and with the world. For example, Loki would be Familiar/Chaos, but most of the Jötnar would be Unfamiliar/Chaos, or Frigg, as Hearth Goddess is Familiar/Order, while Oðin as Wanderer is Unfamiliar/Order). Creation is bringing Order out of Chaos; Destruction is bringing Chaos out of Order; and Sustentation is keeping a perfect, healthy balance between both Chaos and Order. When we ourselves create (through making art or having a child, etc) or destroy (kill, etc) we enter the liminal space between human and spirit and end up polluted as a result. I can’t exactly say why that is, beyond maybe needing to explore the idea of “hubris” a bit more, but in my experience (and my upg) this seems to be the case. There is something off, and therefore miasmic sometimes, about liminality.

I want to write a separate blog post on the topic eventually, but I think menstruation is in a unique place here. Not only is it a cycle of the body and thus connects to the physicality of the body, but it is also supremely liminal in that it first occurs at puberty. Puberty, other than a person’s birth and their death, is probably the most liminal time of said person’s life. That menstruation kickstarts the puberty process positions it as a liminal time. The fact that it comes for a few days every month to knock the menstruator out of whack with “ordinary time” and into a different sort of time speaks to this.

Ah puberty. The traumatic transformation from child to adult

What complicates discussion of miasma further is that different Gods and spirits have different tolerance levels for miasma as well. Bragi or Oðin, as Gods associated with inspiration, creativity, and art may not be as concerned about art miasma as maybe Tyr or Thor. Freya and Freyr as fertility Deities may not care so much about sex pollution; Hel may not have such a problem with the pollution of death; and maybe Sigyn doesn’t care about menstruation miasma. Gods are Persons and have Their own individual preferences. At its core, what miasma is is a type of energetic goo that disconnects you in some way from either individual Gods and Their Grace, or from the right ordering of the Cosmos in some way. So it looks different for each person as they understand their role in the Cosmos and their relationship to a Deity. I’ve found that Frigg is fairly strict about miasma as a rule, but Oðin is fairly lax. It all comes down to personal preference on the part of the God or spirit in question.

This blog post is running a bit longer than my typical ones but I did want to briefly touch on ways to avoid miasma. Again, this will largely have to do with what your particular faith defines as polluting activities. But abstaining from sex or masturbation for some time before or after a ritual/offering may mitigate miasma. Fasting (a topic worthy of its own post as well) may do the same thing. Not sitting at shrine at all or perhaps only doing so while veiled when on your period is another common practice. Namely, keeping some kind of delineation between the mundane and the spiritual is what’s important. But also just regular cleansing and proper divination into the will and whims of any Gods you worship will be your best bet.

So, health heathens, sorry (but also not sorry) for waxing poetic on woo woo ideas of cosmology. I hope this was eye-opening on a topic that doesn’t seem to get a lot of outside traction but is important to talk about nonetheless. I wish you well in your devotional pursuits!

Skål!

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Just a quick heads up: a couple of my friends are getting married next week and since I’m in the wedding party, it’s going to be a busy weekend for me. So no new post next week! Enjoy your week off without me!