Health Blessing for Summer (夏季祛病保平安)

Summer has just arrived and many of us had started to fall sick.

This year's Summer is indeed different from those in the past years, I do sincerely hope that all of us here can take care and stay healthy for the next 3 months.

In Taoism, during Summer, we will have to follow a few sets of rules/regulation or practise certain skills to stay health and get rid of the "Negativities" that "invaded" us.

One of the common practises will be "Sending Off the Negative Enetities/Energies of Diseases", in Chinese known as Song Sha (送煞).

As recorded, there are at least 72 types of different Deities/Beings/Spiritual Creatures that are In-charge of the Energies of Diseases (七十二路煞神監管天下萬般煞氣). And by conducting a special Taoist Ritual/Ceremony, we will "Send Off" (in fact is requesting them not to come) and allowed Health-blessing to be bestowed upon all people.

And for those areas that had already been infected by the Sha, a more major/larger scale of Ritual/Ceremony would be conducted, in order to "Sweep/Eliminate (滅煞)" the Sha. Usually during such Ritual/Ceremony, Remedies would be given to the sicks (施藥) and the Purifying of the surrounding (淨化) would be done by spraying Medication on every house, roads and borders of the areas.

So for other layman Taoists, what can oneself do?

1st, by staying healthy.

2nd, oneself can request blessing from the Dipper Lords of Southern Dipper (南斗六司延壽星君) by chanting the Official Taoist Scripture dedicating to them, which is known as Tai Shang Shuo Nan Dou Liu Si Yan Shou Du Ren Miao Jing (太上說南斗六司延壽度人妙經)

or

request blessing from Heavenly Lord Pu Hua (九天應元雷聲普化天尊) by chanting the Official Taoist Scripture dedicating to him, which is known as Jiu Tian Ying Yuan Lei Sheng Pu Hua Tian Zun Shuo Yu Shu Bao Jing  (九天應元雷聲普化天尊說玉樞寶經).

In these 2 Taoist Scriptures, a few methods of how to "protect oneself" from getting infected by the Sha, are mentioned.

Last of All, hope that we all will be healthy and for those who are able to request Blessing from the Deities on behalf of the others, please do so.