Desert Mindfulness

The Good, The Pure, The True

Our conception of ultimate good has always been closely aligned with that of absolute purity. And there are fewer places on Earth more thoroughly pure than the desert. Historically and mythically the desert is a special place: all mainstream Western faiths have found their origins there. Spend some days and nights in any desert and you’ll soon understand why! An almost unbearably intense clarity pervades land and sky, a luminosity redolent of divine things and holy epiphanies. Although little physical movement is evident, the air vibrates with palpable life. Since the dawn of civilization, mystics, saints, hermits, and truth-seekers have looked to the desert as a reliable haven wherein profound religious silence and spontaneous illumination could be experienced. Symbolically, deserts reflect the primordial condition of our deep mind when freed from obscuring idle chatter and kaleidoscopic delusion. In the desert we can easily focus our attention on our ever-present, still core - the wellspring of all that is good and true - which is a direct emanation of our Higher Self.

Good Comes From The Desert

Lucky Six Farms’ purifying White Sage, Salvia apiana, has always been an integral part of the southern California high desert. Native Americans have long seen it as embodying active purity itself. We cultivate it organically, deliberately rejecting petrochemicals or synthetic fertilizers so its growth is fully in accord with the energetic currents of nature. In addition, we insist that 100% of the processing and packaging of our products - essential oils, hydrosols, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - takes place in the very same sacred environment. By wild-crafting and preparing the White Sage we deliberately engage its unique spirit, an intelligent energy that simultaneously calms the body while energizing the intellect.

Doing Good Through White Sage

Our daily interaction with both desert and White Sage thus becomes a true exercise in mindfulness and a tribute to the good residing in each and every heart. Plant, person, and place merge into One. By actively bringing that uniquely uplifting essence to the world via the Internet, we strive to further humanity’s progress and empower its highest ideals.

By Alan Beck

An Elder Speaks

American Heritage

Our company and its employees revere our American homeland and all of its people. We recognize, too, that this heritage is immensely complex. It can never be reduced to bumper-sticker slogans or simplistic philosophies. But when our historical memory tends to be short, our enthusiasm readily fills in the blanks, whether factually or erroneously. It's a familiar trait that is only human. Too often, people speak of relatively recent practices as if they were firmly rooted in a venerable heritage. So I am sometimes accused of placing too much emphasis on the importance of White Sage in Native American ritual. Do indigenous cultures really respect White Sage smudging as an indispensable means for quickly dispelling undesirable psychic influences on special occasions? Is the purifying energy of White Sage really part of our incredible American heritage?

American Purity

To answer this question authoritatively I will take the liberty of citing a recent statement by Anthony R. Pico, tribal council chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians just prior to the singing of their famous, powerfully spiritual bird songs: “The smudging blessing is a cleansing ceremony that rids us of negative emotion and negative energy. From our perspective the joy and electricity it creates causes us to be in the frame of mind of goodness and forgiveness of one another.” The simple clarity and eloquence of his declaration requires no further elucidation.

American Products

Lucky Six Farms has been firmly committed to making the purifying current of White Sage available throughout the world. Our essential oils, hydrosols, smudge bundles, proprietary ultra pure smudge cones, and whole leaves testify to the wisdom of Native Americans who have recognized and sought out the benefits of this rare plant for thousands of years. When you employ our White Sage products, you can be confident that its legendary strength - undiluted, unpolluted, unmitigated - will always meet your highest expectations.

By Alan Beck

Back to the Future

Our Holistic View

A holistic perspective on life is, in reality, the most thoughtful and mature. Bombarded by manipulative exhortations to compartmentalize all facets of existence and even ourselves, we forget how to prioritize needs, wants, and goals. For example, our immediate environment carries enormous influence on the way we feel and the work we accomplish. Beautiful surroundings tend to elevate our thoughts and inspire creativity, while ugly areas often lower expectations, arousing anxiety and base instincts. But do such obvious effects imply even more significant connections between the spaces where we live out our lives and the most profound roots of our being? Most of us at Lucky Six Farms would enthusiastically reply in the affirmative. How can we justify such an uncompromisingly holistic approach?

Our Holistic History

We wild-craft authentic White Sage only in the tiny region of the world which is its natural home: the stark, rocky high deserts of extreme southern California and northern Mexico. In the past, remote tribes throughout the Continent sought out White Sage as a rare commodity, exchanging valuable goods to obtain even small amounts. Recent archaeological work has shown human society in these celestially austere White Sage grounds goes back at least ten-thousand years. We didn't have to wait for these findings to be scientifically confirmed, though. Our active continuity with Native American culture is evident every day we walk this land, laboring to bring forth the purifying power which emanates from it and testifies to its heritage.

Our Holistic Products

Lucky Six Farms understands that past and present, ancient wisdom and modern insight, dynamically unite in every one of our products. Our essential White Sage oils, hydrosols, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves are as dramatically effective today as they were a hundred centuries ago. Energizing the mind as it calms the body, White Sage is a signal child of this remarkable region of North America. We feel privileged to extend its blessings, venerable as Mother Earth herself, to every corner of today's complex world.


By Alan Beck

Spiritual Chemistry

Mundane And Supramundane Power

Can we truly understand the power of a sacred plant? Engineers and scientists strive to get a handle on the notion of power through clearly delineated quantitative measures such as watts and joules. But there is a deep intuitive understanding that real power exists in realms transcending the material. Currently, Lucky Six Farms devotes 100% of its organic wild-crafting and processing efforts to a single plant species, the White Sage (Salvia apiana), which is indigenous only to high-desert regions of southern California and northern Mexico. We do this so we can focus our efforts on upholding the spiritual power of this extraordinary plant.

Power Comes From Concerted Effort

We want our work to be straightforward and unmitigated by superfluous concerns. While we may, in the future, consider cultivation of other similarly beneficial, traditionally sacred vegetation, we make no apologies for the long-standing, singular focus that has established our reputation. The reason? We believe it is far more important to accomplish one task perfectly than several marginally. Because White Sage products have occupied the center of our working lives for decades, we have learned a great deal about not only its spiritual characteristics but its biochemical ones as well. For example, our White Sage contains liberal quantities of unusual pentacyclic triterpenes, fascinating, highly bioactive agents that have only recently garnered scientific attention for their immune-boosting power.

Perceiving White Sage Power

Of course, Lucky Six Farms makes no medically-related claims of any kind for our lines of organic, ultra-pure White Sage essential oils, hydrosols, smudge wands and cones, or whole leaves. But it is interesting to note that all indigenous tribes of the American Southwest have viewed this plant as intrinsically wholesome, healthful, and profoundly purifying. Our customers also share this perception. I personally believe a golden kernel of truth informs such strong, traditional perspectives.

By Alan Beck

Living Space

Ways To Cleanse Negativity

The verb cleanse tends to be associated with material spaces. We recognize that clean interiors tend to be healthier for our bodies and minds than dirty ones. Few would think of eating, entertaining, or simply spending much time in rooms that are never cleaned. Yet how many of us reason the same way about psychic spaces, that is, rooms we regularly use for meditation or prayer? Saints, sages, and enlightened teachers from time immemorial have recognized that rites can only be effective if held in areas that have first been deliberately cleansed of accumulated negative vibrations. While there are, of course, a variety of ways to achieve such a thorough cleanse of psychic space, one of the quickest and easiest methods is readily available today.

Cleanse With White Sage

White Sage has been successfully employed for millennia by Native American healers seeking fast yet effective purification of areas set aside for deep contemplation or focused ritual. Virtually each and every ceremony, from shamanic interventions to sweat lodges, is preceded by formal smudging with bundles of White Sage. Today, this procedure is no longer confined to First Nation communities: now, an immense variety of disparate traditions have realized the power of White Sage to rapidly dispel undesirable psychic residua. Unfortunately, however, a little knowledge can prove dangerous. Unscrupulous vendors have taken advantage of the sacred plant's reputation to push cheap but impure - and thus ineffective - White Sage aromatics into the worldwide marketplace.

Purity Assures A Cleanse Extraordinaire

Lucky Six Farms, which leases its fields from Madre Grande Monastery, has, from the first, dedicated all its energies to remedying the situation. We supply only authentic White Sage products to those who appreciate the effort involved in pursuing spiritual paths. Our essential oils, hydrosols, whole leaves, smudge cones, and bundles are wild-crafted and certified organic. They have been specifically formulated and approved for traditional ceremonial use. We believe the integrity we bring to our products helps make the world a better place, and we feel privileged to offer the fruits of our love and labor directly to you.

By Alan Beck

Tradition - Then and Now

Nature Is Personified In Tradition

Is tradition ultimately rooted in the essential character of nature herself? If not, then ultimately what is the true value of tradition? Both tradition and nature carry a great deal of weight for Native Americans, but some in our popular post-modern community appear to have lost the actual thread of their intertwined significance. For example, I was recently amused to read how a school administrator proudly announced a "new tradition" for cheerleader attire. Such a typically superficial - if not self-contradictory - approach to tradition is a far cry from our practice here at Lucky Six Farms. We believe authentic tradition honors and elevates the Divine power underlying all humanity. We believe human accomplishment, no matter how impressive, springs from nature. For us, then, tradition must always be profoundly rooted in nature, in the loving, living embrace of Mother Earth.

Nature Empowers The Living Flow Of Time

Our hands and hearts at Lucky Six Farms purposefully channel the energetic continuity of living time flowing across centuries. Our working roles extend and amplify nature. We honor Native American tradition by respecting and empowering White Sage in all its manifestations: essential oil, hydrosol, smudge cones, bundles, and whole leaves. Each of these products embodies the purifying Spirit of this unique herb, an herb that has long played a central role in virtually all First Nation ceremonies.

Choosing Nature Is Choosing The Tradition Of Life

Today, industrial giants spend millions so their agents may scour the globe to locate and economically exploit healing vegetation that indigenous peoples have traditionally employed in their own communities for ages. Wouldn't it be better if we had more respect for the original - the traditional - knowledge of these sacred herbs? The White Sage products of Lucky Six Farms are organically grown and prayerfully processed, so the tradition upholding its spirit always remains strong and vibrant.

By Alan Beck

Love's Labors Won

All You Really Need Is Love

Love is a word that endures quite a bit of use and abuse. Pop stars make us focus on its overtly romantic or lustful connotations, while advertisers prefer to target its ties to sensual enjoyment. But isn't love also a vital component of simple, harmonious living? Psychologists from Freud to Maslow have emphasized the role love plays in the lives of healthy, happy, productive individuals. I believe our post-modern concept of love is unrealistically constricted, since true love often embraces much more than a simple one-on-one relationship. Wouldn't we benefit in spiritual ways if the things we incorporate in our daily lives were actually produced by those who love - and thus deeply respect - their labor?

Our Products Embody Love

The managers and workers of Lucky Six Farms have always believed in the power inherent in spiritual love. They love the work they do to grow, maintain, harvest, and process their remarkable products, which simultaneously calm the body while energizing the intellect. Because they work intimately with the White Sage Spirit, they have first-hand experience of its living beneficence. Indeed, their fervent belief supports the consistent purity and ceremonial viability of their White Sage products for use in a broad spectrum of Native American contexts. In fact, we feel our love reaches out through our products so as to positively change and illuminate those who make use of them, no matter what the context.

The Intrinsic Power Of Love

Love is not a commodity but an attitude informing a concrete process. Although mass-marketers and cheap industrial producers make the word love more vacuous the more they employ it, a small minority of spiritually-aware suppliers are not so sanguine about the term. Working from a solid ground of genuine love, they slowly but surely spread its true meaning and power with every product they ship. With this in mind, I humbly and sincerely invite you to look into the products of Lucky Six Farms!


By Alan Beck