4" Californian White Sage Smudge Stick / Bundle

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To this day, Southern California tribes still use Salvia apiana for smudging, a spiritual practice in which they burn fragrant leaves from the plant — singly or in bundles with other plant materials — to create sacred smoke during purification and healing ceremonies. Historically, Southern California native peoples also relied on it for basket-making material, food, and medicine. The plant communities where Salvia apiana naturally occurs include coastal sage scrub and chaparral areas. The coastal sage scrub area is dry but foggy and has shorter plants than those in drier, inland chaparral. Plants in coastal scrub areas are drought deciduous types. This means that instead of remaining full and green during summer, they generally lose their leaves at that time. In contrast, chaparral plants are evergreen and generally have tough leaves that aid moisture retention. So, White Sage might act deciduous in one location and evergreen in another. The same forces, however, boosted the visibility of another Native Californian use of white sage: smudging. Many Native communities across America have traditions of burning sacred materials to cleanse spaces, heal bodies, or sanctify events, but most traditionally used their own valued regional plants, such as cedar to tobacco. As Native people were pushed into Los Angeles, they adopted the use of white sage. (Although it was hard for many people to get fresh sage to use as food, the city was close enough to sage grounds to get bundles of dried leaves and stalks.) Eventually, smudging with white sage took on symbolic value as a pan-Native American act of unity, resilience, and resistance. The article is based on an interview with Kaya DeerInWater an assistant at the CPN community garden. DeerInWater notes that agricultural industry producers of Salvia apiana centered in Southern California aren’t growing the plant sustainably. They harvest “entire hillsides and large acreages at a time to meet customer demand.” He adds that this clear-cutting of the plants at their base doesn’t allow for continued growth.

California White Sage - Etsy UK California White Sage - Etsy UK

White Sage ( Salvia apiana) is a shrub that is endemic to low elevations of the coast, hills, and valleys of Southern California and Baja, Mexico. These areas have Mediterranean-style climates where winters are wet, summers are dry, and temperatures are moderate year-round. Our small-group adventures are inspired by our Atlas of the world's most fascinating places, the stories behind them, and the people who bring them to life. If rainfall is light after planting, provide regular watering to help establish roots. Figuring out how much watering is necessary can be difficult at first, because the root ball of Salviaapianadries faster than its surrounding soil. Here’s a helpful article about what to do if dry root ball occurs.This article focuses on proper cultivation and use of Salvia apiana, the only kind of White Sage we grow at Flowers by the Sea Farm. It is also the only plant detailed in our accompanying Guide to Growing Sacred White Sage. In its plant profile of Salvia apiana, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) notes that the plant also is found in Southern California’s yellow pine forests and desert scrub lands. NRCS also states that it “generally” grows at elevations from 300 to 1,500 meters (about 980 to 5,000 feet). That’s happened a lot,” she adds. The appropriation of white sage and smudging in New Age beliefs has led to unsustainable demand.

Salvia apiana - Wikipedia

We’re losing native plants and environments on high speed,” says Rose Ramirez, a Chumash- and Yaqui-descended basket weaver who works to raise awareness of white sage exploitation. “It hurts Native Californian people.” Weshoyot Alvitre, a Tongva artist, has argued that the destruction of white-sage lands amounts to cultural genocide. Poachers are routinely found with hundreds of pounds of white sage during busts. Southern California tribes that have a long history of nurturing White Sage include the Cahuilla, Chumash, Kumeyaay, Luiseno, and Tongva. How to Grow Sacred White Sage (Salvia apiana) NATIVE HABITAT Its properties make it ideal for use in cleansing and clearing ceremonies of people, places and objects, as well as for meditation or prayer. People wanting to build a closer spiritual connection may also benefit from burning or carrying the herb. We grow fourtypes of White Sage at FBTS, includingtwopopular hybrids. Here are links to the plant descriptions, which include detailed information about their characteristics:With any sage — and especially drought-tolerant types —avoid creating soggy conditions. Let the ground dry out a bit between each watering. Salvia apiana is a small, upright shrub with little branching. Its whitish green leaves, which grow in tight basal rosettes, are stiff and just a bit fleshy. This succulence, coupled with the leaves’ habit of folding down during drought, help the plant survive long dry spells.

Sage Threatens Native American Traditions How the Rage for Sage Threatens Native American Traditions

However, an even better solution may be to raise your own if you live in an area where growing conditions are right for Salvia apiana. Juniper Ridge started as a company at a farmers market at Berkeley, California in 1998. And everything they make comes from the mountains or the deserts of western USA.They are obsessed with natural aromatics and also obsessed with the preservation of the wilderness. All of their aromatics and herbs come from the wild and are always sustainably and responsibly harvested. They donate 10% of their profits to defending western wildernesses.But teas aside, most of these foodways faded throughout the 1900s, like many others, in the face of America’s relentless push towards cultural homogeneity. In the 1950s especially, the U.S. government launched a concerted effort to burn away Native identity, systematically ending state recognition of tribes, selling off their lands, and coercing or outright forcing many to move to urban centers, where most could no longer access their lands or the local ingredients that grew upon them. Over the last few decades, non-Native sage consumption increased exponentially as the internet spread interest in smudging and major brands such as Anthropologie, Sephora, World Market, and Walmart built mass markets around it. Similarly, the rising popularity of essential oils created demand for not just sage springs but for entire plants, as manufacturers need a lot of raw material to make a little essence. Although it was never a staple like acorns, white sage played a major culinary role, both for its flavor and as a medicinal ingredient. (Healing traditions across the region hold that white sage is an effective treatment for cold and flu symptoms, tooth aches and bad breath, soreness and pain, and bladder issues.) Native communities chopped up sage leaves to use them as a spice, or to make teas. They ate white sage stalks and seeds, raw, roasted, or toasted, on their own. They also ground the seeds down, either using them as an all-purpose powder seasoning, or mixing them into a regional variant of pinole, a flour made of mixed grains and flavoring agents and used to make biscuits, flatbreads, and porridge. Other reasons why White Sage is uncommon in the nursery trade include it not being well adapted to most of North America. To succeed in with it, you need to closely follow the information about growing conditions in our Guide to Growing Sacred White Sage.

White Sage Incense For Spiritual And Health 5 Benefits Of White Sage Incense For Spiritual And Health

If white-sage cooking is to be revived in Southern California, this type of legislation probably needs to pass. The region’s Native cooks are brimming with new ideas on how to use traditional, local ingredients. Recipes ranging from chia power bars and terpary tarts (from Craig Torres, a Tongva cultural educator) to cholla bud succotash and nopales stir fry (from Lorene Sisquoc, a member of the Fort Sill Apache tribe with Mountain Cahuilla heritage) have gained visibility in recent years. But if recent trends continue, soon there won’t be enough white sage left to make so much as a weak, faintly peppery-sweet cup of tea. DeerInWater points out that the overuse of California White Sage is partly due to people nationwide wrongly thinking that Salvia apiana is the only White Sage used in Native American spiritual traditions. One traditional smudging plant he suggests becoming acquainted with is, of course, Artemisia ludoviciana, which the Potawatomitribe grows in its garden. He emphasizes that “California sage cannot handle everybody’s spiritual needs.” After all, would it be okay if the Christian-communion ritual of dipping bread or wafer-like hosts in a wine filled chalice began trending at dinner parties or cultural events like art shows?White Sage is not a successful houseplant, because it needs full, direct sun and excellent air circulation. The home of Californian white sage (Salvia Alpine), a scrub plant with spiky flowers, is along the sun-washed coastline of Southern California. Artemisia ludoviciana— sometimes called Louisiana Sage, Montana White Sage, Prairie Sage, and Silver Sage — is primarily a religious and medicinal herb central to Plains Indian culture. Salvia apiana is perennial within USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 8 to 11. Although some sources list it as tolerating Zone 7, which has an average annual minimum temperature of 0 degrees F, we are more confident in its ability to withstand the Zone 8 average minimum of 10 degrees F. Of course, temperature is just one of many factors affecting winter survival. White Sage survived the California Mission system’s introduction of large herds of cattle in the 1700s. Although the cattle probably weren’t inclined to forage on White Sage (deer also dislike its strong resins), they trampled the plant’s habitat and caused it to decrease.