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Smudging? Don't Use White Sage! [1]

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Date: 2023-02-20  

If you do this, you may be endangering a precious resource

Rev. Sian Wiltshire, our minister at the Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church in Southern California, brought an important situation to the congregation’s attention yesterday.

Trying to respect fair use, here’s what the Santa Barbara Independent wrote last year:

Many of you have probably come across “smudge bundles” ... Native American peoples use for ceremonial cleansing and purification. ... smudging has become increasingly widespread … [and] bundles are now being sold worldwide [including] in chain retail stores ... and through huge online enterprises (Amazon and Etsy). Most of these now-ubiquitous products are ... white sage ... almost entirely harvested from the wild. The only place in the world that white sage (Salvia apiana) grows naturally is ... from San Luis Obispo County to northern Baja California. Nearly half of its original habitat has already been lost to urban development. ... remaining populations are threatened by climate change, drought, and wildfire, but the most immediate impact to white sage is large-scale, illegal harvesting of wild plants to make smudge bundles for commercial sale.

As Rev. Sian explained, extinction of this revered native plant is becoming a real possibility. The good news is that many other plants can be used for smudging.

Yet, for some reason, white sage has become the most popular.

In short, if you decide to smudge, that’s great—but please look into other smudge options.

By the way, for more info, here’s a link to the website for the California Native Plants Association:

www.cnps.org/conservation/white-sage

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/20/2154050/-Smudging-Don-t-Use-White-Sage

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