The Holy Herb

Yerba Santa - Gift From The Earth

I’m pleased to announce that Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon californicum) will soon join Lucky Six Farms roster of elite aromatic products. Popular demand coupled with our perennial interest in making traditional gifts from our Mother Earth available worldwide have led us to introduce a number of new smudge bundled herbs. Foremost among these is the one most rapidly and enthusiastically embraced by clergy and soldiers of early Spanish missions. Calling this remarkable plant the Holy Herb, i.e. Yerba Santa, they quickly adopted long-standing Native American customs regarding its uses as a poultice, bronchial dilator, and stomachic. Its widespread ceremonial employment as a smudge, however, was largely ignored by European newcomers until twentieth century scholarship revived overdue respect for the profundity of indigenous wisdom. Yerba Santa is uniquely suited for generation of sacred smoke today just as it has been in ages past.

Yerba Santa - The Plant

Although Yerba Santa can be found growing naturally throughout much of the Western United States, it is most commonly encountered on high, moderately arid elevations of Southern California and Northern Mexico. Vigorous exemplars can reach up to four feet high. Stands in this sun-drenched Southwestern range are reputably the most potently aromatic; their showy, trumpet-shaped, light lavender flowers and elongated, sticky leaves make for ready identification, especially when prolific blooms appear with the approach of summer. Besides the familiar californicum, several other varieties, including the Hairy Yerba Santa (E. trichocalyx), the Thick Leaved (E. crassifolium), and the Lompoc (E. capitatum) are known.

Yerba Santa - Sacred Intermediary

We anticipate offering Yerba Santa as both stand-alone smudge bundles and in combination with other venerated herbs such as White Sage. Smoldered in this fashion, it has often been regarded as a powerful activator of the deep psyche and intermediary to beneficial spiritual powers. Thus, enhanced abilities like clairvoyance, predictive dreaming, and telepathy are supposedly promoted through the intelligent and prudent use of Yerba Santa smudge. A number of prominent Central American shamans and practitioners of folk magick have opined that Yerba Santa smoke makes the entire range of altar offerings more conspicuously attractive for noumenal intelligences. As with all our White Sage products, the Yerba Santa we will provide is always wild-crafted and organically cultivated for Earth-friendliness and optimal effect.


By Alan Beck