Samhain Sensibilities

Natural Resources - An Ancient View

Natural resources weren’t always commodities to be bought and sold. Take Halloween for example: a natural resource of time and space. Although our 2012 Halloween festivities have come and gone, the staff of Lucky Six Farms knows this unofficial holiday’s raison d’etre has only just begun. Halloween marks an important seasonal shift, and its roots extend deep into a Celtic past, when a large portion of Western Europeans gleaned their livelihood from an intimate understanding of and concomitant cooperation with Mother Earth. In fact, the familiar October 31 date of our Halloween - an abbreviation of All Hallows Eve - marks the approximate period in our planet’s solar cycle when Samhain was celebrated. As conspicuous midpoint between autumnal equinox and winter solstice, Samhain drew young and old together to ceremonially close the harvest season and prepare for the cold, dark half of the year. Group and individual purification inevitably followed to insure that psychic natural resources were appropriately attuned to accord with the prevailing temporal ones.

Noumena As Natural Resources

But why were rites of purification considered so very important during Samhain that they were practically obligatory? As with all uniquely liminal times, significant transitions of this kind heralded natural phase shifts in consciousness. Peculiarly charged emotions long closed off would spring open and vice versa. Thus, Samhain was considered, above all, as not simply a mindless tick-off of a cold, calendric division but rather a portal opening quite literally and directly to the Otherworld. Spirits of the departed, elves, fairies, elementals, and angelic beings both celestial and fallen suddenly secured access to the affairs of mundane life. Like a life-giving shower of rain or a devouring yet proteinaceous cloud of locusts, this avalanche of noumena required insightful management if the social fabric was to remain intact. To deal effectively with natural resources of this kind required an especially clear head coupled with unwavering physical resolve, an energized intellect supported by calm nerves. Given these facts, ceremonial purification became the order of the day.

Our White Sage Products - Uniquely Purifying Natural Resources

Gaelic peoples often pursued psychic purification by passing between two specially constructed bonfires. In fact, the close association of fire and aromatic fumigation with psychic cleansing extends well back into the prehistory of virtually every continent and indigenous society. Native Americans utilized smudging with White Sage for exactly the same end. Our certified organic products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - continue this venerable tradition. We know they will prove remarkably efficacious, as they always have, throughout the winter ahead.


By Alan Beck

 

Culture's Heavy Cart

Juggernaut - The Symbol

Can you recognize a juggernaut? The other day a member of our Lucky Six Farms staff pulled a crumbled piece of paper she had found lying on the ground from her coat pocket and spread it out before me on a table. I recognized the displayed line drawing at once: it was the first-ever smiley face. No, I don’t mean the 1963 version penned by commercial artist Harvey Ball. I’m referring instead to the redoubtable image of Jagannath, Lord of the World, venerated for countless centuries in his temple at Puri, India and elsewhere. Scholars of British India were quick to give this cheerful divine visage some very bad press. In particular, they claimed that devotees would throw themselves beneath the immense wheels of his huge cart as it was pulled by countless celebrants from one place to another during the deity’s annual festival. Thus, Jagannath soon morphed into our colloquial juggernaut, transmogrifying a traditionally creative avatar into a thoroughly modern, implacably malevolent force.

Juggernaut - The Reality

It is no wonder the concept of juggernaut conveys such trendy resonance. One of the most important founts of today’s social anomie lies in a pervasive feeling of impotence, a conviction of utter personal irrelevance. Social, political, and economic powers appear too immense to offer any reasonable handhold for the individual, who is seemingly cast adrift on a dwindling raft of his own meager resources. Even organized religion, long a solid bastion of uplifting material and moral support for even the most benighted, appears to have succumbed to the ponderous immobility of its own affluence. There is, of course, a terrible irony in all this, for only a truly great culture could have finally grown so immensely powerful that it is no longer capable of providing material, intellectual, or emotional shelter to the frail, foible-ridden individual human beings who are its sole constituents.

Juggernaut - Alternatives, Old And New

My regular readers can undoubtedly see where these observations are heading. The impressive interest in and concomitant growth of both traditional and alternative spiritual paths during the last half-century provide eloquent testimony to the incredible resilience of the human spirit. We believe humanity can soar high above our hidebound juggernaut, far beyond our culture’s tragically overburdened cart. By offering reasonably-priced, pure, certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - we actively cater to this trend. May all our customers and clients thereby benefit from a perennial source of uplifting energy!

By Alan Beck

 

Serpents Of Lucky Six Farms

Myths and Legends - A Gift Of Culture

Snakes play important parts in myths and legends worldwide. We have a chance to observe them first-hand as several types are frequent visitors to the expansive White Sage fields of Lucky Six Farms and their adjacent high desert acres. We never molest them, as we value their vital place in our local ecology, specifically their role in organic pest control. But we respect their other connections, too, the mythic and spiritual ones which reflect realities other than strictly mundane and material ones. Indigenous southern California Tribes held that, in vanished ages, a great serpent had come from the depths of the sea, taken up residence on land, and was killed by people who had been rudely displaced by his intrusion. As his huge body burned up, smoldering pieces landed and immediately transformed into various cultural components, like knowledge of fire-making and ceremonial protocols. Thus, all subsequent myths and legends here ultimately derive from the serpent.

Myths and Legends - Serpent Symbology

Stories of this kind are rooted in primordial symbology, a graphic language capable of speaking to the deepest, most dynamic regions of our psyche. On virtually every continent, serpents represent certain vital interfaces between human civilization and the untamed forces of nature. It is especially common to see serpents or serpent spirits as guardians of hidden treasure or special knowledge. Standing as intermediaries between humanity and the potent unknown, they must be completely overpowered or understood and diplomatically courted for their secrets to be ultimately accessed. In a similar vein, it was none other than Albert Einstein who asserted, “Nature is subtle, but she is not malicious.”

Myths and Legends - Serpents As Nature Personified

Perhaps the most popular legends regarding snakes have them representing principal natural forces which manifest highly dichotomous effects on our lives. Intimately aligned with winds and water, these serpentine entities can bring life-giving rain or devastating floods, refreshing breezes or ruinous storms. Finally, and most importantly, serpents embody the notion of perennial rebirth and resurrection, ideas which have supported spiritual insights and commitments since time immemorial.  We are proud to note our pure, certified White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - provide open avenues through which we can all perceive our own personal connections to the life and love empowering all of our natural world.

By Alan Beck

 

Smudge Symphonies

White Sage - Smudge Melody

Sensitive, intelligent use of White Sage may be fruitfully compared to making beautiful music. Lucky Six Farms, which for decades has served as preeminent supplier of pure, certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - knows the analogy is not nearly as far-fetched as it might first appear. In ages past, alchemists stressed that their operations, both material and spiritual, were more art than science, more akin to living performances of instrumental harmony than mechanical duplications of cut-and-dried formulae. The act of smudging, too, partakes of this rhapsodic character. As we have emphasized previously, White Sage embodies an empowered, vibrant plant spirit who should only be called upon when time and circumstances are right. White Sage’s melody is uniquely penetrating and clarifying.

White Sage - Smudge Harmony

Although White Sage products are traditionally employed alone in the context of purificatory rites undertaken prior to religious or juridical ceremonies, they have often been combined with a stellium of other herbs for synergistic effect. An excellent example of such aromatic harmony can be found in the smudge combination of White Sage and Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon sp.). When smoldered as a single bundle in appropriate proportions and situations, the pair are reputed to enhance psychic powers, especially insights generated as the result of focused divination. This complementary duo of well-known, sacred U.S. Western coastal plant spirits has become increasingly popular in recent years throughout Wiccan and alternative spiritual communities. It is a fantastic example of how our burgeoning noumenal awareness has given rise to novel creative understanding.

White Sage - Smudge Counterpoint

In music theory, counterpoint has always been regarded as the most sophisticated form of integrative harmony. Certainly, this is also the case with the intimate smudge combination of White Sage and Cedar (Thuja occidentalis). The latter, normally used by many North American Tribes to assist contact with benevolent ancestor spirits and banish malevolent influences, is traditionally conjoined with White Sage for very special occasions, when unusually intense purification must be reliably called forth. Nor does this exhaust fruitful aromatic combinations wherein White Sage plays a key role. By carefully researching how White Sage has been linked to other herbs, it is possible to uncover much interesting, hitherto obscure, knowledge.

By Alan Beck

Opening Chakras

Chakras In The Body - The Role Of White Sage

Most Asian meditative traditions - and more than a few schools of Western esotericism - note the importance of discrete energy vortices or chakras in the body. Usually appearing to our inner vision as akin to rotating wheels or dynamically petaled flowers, they are arrayed along the body’s central axis. Each serves to concentrate a distinct life-current, so directing psychic focus upon it may give rise to insights or abilities germane to areas governed by that particular energy. Numerous techniques may assist such programs, including visualizations, yogic postures, breathing exercises, and external aids. White Sage purification belongs to the latter group, and the entire integrated process is often understood as “opening a chakra.” Madre Grande Monastery and Lucky Six Farms often receive accounts of our White Sage products successfully employed as adjuncts to opening chakras in the body.

Chakras In The Body - The White Sage Audit

Although traditions may differ on the number of chakras and their precise locations, most recognize seven primary ones: root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, brow, and crown. Ideally, opening chakras should be carried out in a reasonably balanced fashion, with no single center receiving an overabundance of attention. Thus, in the initial stages it is advisable to conduct an internal survey of all seven so as to ascertain which seem most energy deficient or unduly closed off to the healthy circulation of living currents. By simply preceding this spiritual audit with a formal White Sage smudging, clear understanding of the overall situation can be efficiently enabled. Repeating the procedure once or even twice after an interim of a few days will further concretize your understanding and increase your confidence in the information obtained.

Chakras In The Body - Cleansing, Clearing, Purifying

Once particular chakras have been recognized as needing opening, you can make each  in turn the center of meditative focus. Your approach should be gentle but firm. White Sage smudging via suitably sized bundle, cone, or hydrosol mist may be used during periods of prolonged or intense concentration. By stabilizing the mind on a particular chakra, the dynamic vision of that hub will grow vivid so its supporting channels of energy can be harmoniously cleaned, calmed, and ultimately normalized. By allowing White Sage’s naturally purifying influence to be conveyed and accurately translated inward, each chakra can be empowered to its full potential.

By Alan Beck

Smudge Is Not Incense!

Intellectual Bad Breath

We at Lucky Six Farms like to characterize popular confusion of incense with smudge as intellectual bad breath. Why? Because this foolish conflation seriously offends both the academically well-informed and the spiritually aware. I’ll focus on the former group first. Incense and smudge have explicitly divergent definitions. Incense is any material burned to fill the immediate environment with a putatively pleasant scent. Smudge is a sacred plant smoldered or otherwise employed for ritual purification. The difference is immediately apparent. There is virtually no conceptual overlap at all between the two substances.  And for those who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge or respect this fact, their mental situation is as appalling as terminal halitosis. Like its physical counterpart, intellectual bad breath is socially repellent.

Spiritual Bad Breath

For those accustomed to appropriate employment of ceremonial smudging, mistaking incense for smudge is tantamount to interpreting wrong-doing as virtue. Although miscellaneous incenses and perfumes have long played public relations roles for various organized faiths, such fragrances usually performed those duties more to overwhelm the smell of large crowds than to directly enhance connections with the Divine. In addition, substances traditionally utilized as smudge are also linked to manifested respect for the sacred in numerous other ways. For example, many Native American Tribes wrap or cushion the Holy Pipe with White Sage leaves. Salvia apiana leaves are also worn by Sun Dance participants and carried on journeys as a link to benevolent, protective spirit influence. For the indigenous wise men and women  of America, substituting some nominally nice-smelling material for White Sage in such contexts would be ludicrous and possibly dangerous.

White Sage Fights Ordinary Bad Breath

Interestingly, keeping a small White Sage leaf in the mouth is reputed to keep the physical breath fresh even as it energizes the mind while calming the body. White Sage leaves were often used in this way to provide extra energy during periods of protracted exertion or minimal food intake. Any way you look at it, then, smudge is most certainly not incense: the two are not even close in character or purpose. We are proud to provide certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - to those who are knowledgeable about what they are, what they do, and why they are universally regarded as sacred. White Sage is smudge and should always be treated appropriately.

By Alan Beck

What's Eating You?

The Deep Roots Of Eating Disorders

We at Lucky Six Farms have noted that anorexia and bulimia along with a host of other nonspecific eating disorders are mentioned more and more frequently today. Certainly these are troubling trends, perhaps because they are now making their presence evident among hitherto resistant demographic sectors. Clearly, the rise and ever increasing prevalence of these conditions derive from much more than general food availability coupled with high caloric content. Obsession with attaining unrealistic body-image models appears to motivate most sufferers, but this observation only begs the question of why such peculiar psychological foci have attained power enough to wreck lives. Could there be further reasons yet to be uncovered? In fact, a wide range of studies indicate that the prevalence of eating disorders in post-modern society stems from deep rooted feelings of alienation and apathy. 

Eating Disorders Reflect Interpersonal Disconnect

We believe the blatant artificiality of post-modern life, its characteristic emphasis on mere superficiality and veneer, is a principal contributor to eating disorders today. In particular, we have learned to be concerned with objects at the cost of relationships and to value manipulation over interpersonal integrity. We long to cover our true selves with masks and thus strive to emulate images which best actualize such obscurantist goals. What is needed most in these circumstances, of course, is personal authenticity, that is, the desire to expose who we really are both to our own consciences and the opinions of others. Are there any ways we can actively encourage an honest approach to ourselves?

Pushing Eating Disorders From Our Table

Indigenous American Tribes plus a good many others who are seriously affiliated with Earth-centered spirituality have traditionally believed that mental clarity brought about through purification drew basic authenticity along in its train. The primordial linkage between one’s true self and surrounding life-forms, human and nonhuman, often manifests intensely following sincere efforts at purification. And realization of this true self invariably undercuts all self-destructive illusions, especially those which set problems like eating disorders into motion. Vanguard science itself has recently seconded those venerable concepts by illuminating remarkably ramified interconnections at the heart of our material existence. The certified organic White Sage products we offer - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - have long served as respected adjuncts of various purification regimes. We present them in the hope they can help uncover the true, empowered self within every person.

By Alan Beck