Story Of The Smudge Stick

Smudge Stick Definitions

The Smudge Stick has a very long and distinguished history among Native American societies. But first, just what is a Smudge Stick? It is a tightly wound and pressed tube of dry herbal material that is used by igniting one end and then immediately blowing out the flame. This causes the lit end to smolder with a large output of thick, aromatic smoke. Such smoke, when produced by certain special herbs, has had a religious significance in Native American life since time immemorial. Each herb, when burned in a smudge stick, fulfilled a particular role in ceremonies. Throughout the Southwest and Northern Mexico the herb most commonly used as a Smudge Stick was White Sage (Salvia apiana). White Sage was believed to be a powerful purifier and psychic cleanser. It was held to dissipate even long-standing negative vibrations, vibrations which could obscure clear understanding and vital insight. So the Smudge Stick was the tool of choice whenever important events were about to be undertaken or significant rites begun.

Smudge Stick History

As more and more people became aware of Native Americans’ use of Smudge Sticks, they tried burning the Sticks themselves and came away amazed at the results. In fact, whatever your background or belief system, the Smudge Stick provides a wonderful method to clear the psychic atmosphere. It is quick and easy to employ and also produces a delightful aroma that has been shown to increase the negative ion content of the nearby air. Negative ions promote both internal and external health and are usually generated with expensive electrical devices. Smudge Sticks are a way that these helpful ions can be economically increased - with no increased utility bills! The purifying effect of White Sage Smudge Sticks can be helpful for relieving anxiety in a very wide variety of situations and environments: from pre-game or pre-test jitters to sales and conference rooms.

Our Smudge Sticks Are Certified Organic

Lucky Six Farms has been cultivating, harvesting, and packaging White Sage as traditional Smudge Sticks for many decades. Our Smudges are certified organic, as they are produced with no harmful petrochemicals or toxic ingredients. All of them have been fully approved for Native American ceremonial use. We provide Smudge Sticks in all sizes for your convenience, from minis to large. If you’ve been searching for top-quality Smudge Sticks at reasonable prices, please give our products a chance. You’ll be delighted with what you find!

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Introducing Sage Cleansing

The Need For Sage Cleansing

What is Sage Cleansing? It is the use of the famous White Sage (Salvia apiana) plant to purify your psychic atmosphere and clear the air of unpleasant aromas at the same time. Today, the effects of our decisions have greater effects than ever before. A single bad decision can create negative consequences for a long time to come. But poor decision making does not arise out of nothing. Often it happens because of intrusive impressions left over from prior conflict and pain. Bad decisions often have their root in a disturbed psychic atmosphere, an internal state of consciousness where lingering bad vibrations can disrupt and disturb clear understanding and real insight. The solution to this common problem has been known by Native Americans for centuries. Before all important ceremonies or judgements, they burned the dried leaves of White Sage to cleanse their mental fields of confusing and obscuring material. It is quick, effective, and powerful. Sage Cleansing is a respected way to purify the psychic environment without difficult preliminaries.

Ways Of Sage Cleansing

There are quite a variety of ways to accomplish Sage Cleansing. Traditionally, indigenous American Nations would roll the fresh Sage leaves into a long tube, dry them, and bundle them tightly together with strands of thread. The tube, called a smudge stick or wand, could be large or small depending on where it would be used. One end of the stick would be ignited and then immediately blown out, so the smoldering leaves would produce a thick, aromatic smoke. The stick would then be carried wherever Sage Cleansing was needed, for example to the corners of a room or significant points of a ceremonial area. Sage smudge sticks are still quite popular today. However, Lucky Six Farms now offers even more options for those who find that traditional smudging might not be practical.

Sage Cleansing With Modern Products

Our smudge cones are a perfect Sage Cleansing tool for smaller spaces. They are created with only pure White Sage leaves and a tiny amount of natural, aroma-neutral binder. In addition, they are certified organic and so - unlike many artificial incense imitations - are fully approved for Native American ritual use. Our White Sage essential oil and hydrosol open even more doors for simple and efficient Sage Cleansing when smoke is unsuitable. Try them, and see if you don’t notice an immediate difference in how you perceive your world!

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Facts About The Sage Plant

The Sage Plant - Some Basics

The Sage Plant, better known as California White Sage or scientifically as Salvia apiana has become world-famous because of its many outstanding virtues. It is a vey unusual, multi-purpose plant which has a long history of use in a variety of Native American and other traditional cultures. In fact, in societies where White Sage is not commonly found or grown, it has been introduced to widespread acclaim. Such wholehearted acceptance of a new plant is uncommon, since these societies are conservative and cautious about bringing a novel material into general use. The primary use for White Sage is in serious rites of psychic cleansing and purification. Before new ideas or policies are put into practice or far-reaching judgements are handed down, clear minds and hearts are needed to understand how matters will finally work themselves out. Insight and wisdom must be attained rapidly and effectively, too. Here, the Sage Plant provides necessary purification for this to take place.

The Sage Plant - Details To Know

Originally, White Sage was used by societies making their homes in regions where it was customarily found in abundance. Areas fitting this description include high deserts of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, including the Baja peninsula. For example, the entire Aztec culture was quite familiar with the benefits of White Sage and employed it frequently in their ceremonies. The usual way to use it was by drying and then tightly bundling it into rods that could be smoldered from one end to the other. Fumes arising from the smoldering Sage could we wafted around the ceremonial area, or the ignited bundle itself - called a smudge stick or smudge wand - could be easily carried from one place to another, so the purifying smoke would go wherever it was needed.

The Sage Plant - Our Commitment To You

Lucky Six Farms has been prayerfully cultivating, harvesting, and packaging White Sage for several decades and has satisfied customers in every corner of the globe. While White Sage smudge sticks of numerous sizes are always available, the wonderful qualities of this plant may also be enjoyed in other forms - like essential oil and hydrosol - many people find more convenient for the hustle and bustle of modern life. Purification for psychic clarity is something that never goes out of style: try it for yourself to see what we mean!

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Winter Planting

Sage Science - Right Time

Sage science is a provocative study since it reveals so many interesting and unexpected facts. The circumstances surrounding winter planting are an excellent case in point. As temperatures steadily drop below freezing and bean-sized hail falls on the austere, boulder-encrusted high desert of Southern California, Lucky Six Farms fairly hums with activity. Fog-enshrouded nights turn into day as more and more brilliant lights illumine and dissipate the mists. The moody, dark heart of winter melts into a cheerful ring and clutter of workshop sounds. Why the seeming paradox, where Nature’s icy, stygian cloak tears open to reveal bright, purposeful bustle? Winter planting time has arrived! And if mid-January frosts appear to be dubious candidates for sowing, they are perfect for our principal crop of sacred aromatics. Unlike most of Mother Earth’s vegetal life, White Sage (Salvia apiana) is indigenous and amenable to an unusually rigorous regime of growth. We must set its seed while the ground remains hard and cold because those precious kernels, immune to freezing, are uniquely vulnerable to fungal infiltration which shoots through these mountains soils at the first glimmerings of spring. Unless we carefully follow the counter-intuitive wisdom of sage science, our immense fields of organically certified White Sage will never open to life.

Sage Science - Right Place

But getting a definitive jump on dangers inherent in rising temperatures is only the beginning. Many other dangers menace our delicate seedlings, not the least of which are gophers, ground squirrels, and a host of other voracious rodent burrowers. Because we are proudly Earth-friendly and never resort to toxic petrochemicals or similar inhumane techniques of pest control - our lessor is, after all, a monastery! - we have had to seek assiduously for better means to secure our sacred herbals during their periods of youthful vulnerability. in the end, the simplest, most traditional, and labor-intensive solutions usually proved optimum. Thus, each individual White Sage seed is planted with a faithful guardian of galvanized tin: a diminutive, cylindrical wire cage closed on every side and extending at least a foot into the soil. The cage’s interstices are wide enough to present no obstacle whatever to flourishing roots and branches while efficiently excluding every kind of local gnawing menace. Our workshops run well into the night fashioning each and every one of these devices, so they can be put to their tasks no later than the following day. Organic farming is immensely satisfying, but no one said it would be easy!

Sage Science - Right Product

Innovative, ecologically sound procedures like the one outlined above characterize our entire enterprise. From beginning to end, seedbed to final packaging, our lines of sacred aromatics follow the routes Mother Nature intended for her ancient and spiritually powerful children. This is the reason our products have, for decades, been fully approved for Native American ceremonial use. Our herbal smudge sticks, oil, and hydrosol are made prayerfully and with love, so those who use them can structure their lives on a similar basis.

By Alan Beck

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Orb Of The Night

Lunar Phases - Looking Skyward

As is the case with most cultivators who rely on the magick of natural rhythms and powers rather than the all-too-readily accessed force of petrochemicals and clones, we who work at Lucky Six Farms have come to hold profound respect for lunar phases, since they reflect the cycle of life itself. Of course, for countless aeons and in societies great and small folklore circulated regarding small details of the moon’s appearance, but such beliefs have been virtually effaced from our post-modern consciousness. Is it true, for example, that the possibility of dry weather increases when the crescent moon forms an upward-facing bowl? Generations thought so until not too long ago, but rigorous statistical tools have yet to ratify or vitiate the notion. The significance of lunar phases extends far deeper than short-term omens of atmospheric vagaries, however.

Lunar Phases - Looking Around

Palpable effects of the moon’s perpetual mutation can be easily noted. Oceanic tides are clearly governed by our great satellite as are the spawning habits of numerous marine animals. Back on dry land, we find that seedling, cutting, and transplant growth is frequently more robust and reliable when done during the waxing crescents, while weed removal, trimming, and natural pest control measures prove more telling and effective when carried out during waning crescents. In fact, the very crescent moon itself has come to symbolize viable action to organic farming cognoscenti exactly as it did to savvy classical observers like Cato, Pliny, and Vitruvius. And no deep academic or corporate funding troughs need be established to learn that menstrual cycles often track moon phases closely or that children of women who have previously given birth evince a strong tendency to emerge into this world during the bright illumination of the full moon. 

Lunar Phases - Looking Within

Although controversies - and resolute skeptics - abound regarding accounts linking lunar phases with the ebb and flow of our moods and mental states, such reports - not infrequently peer-reviewed - continue to find publication in the esteemed pages of technical journals on every continent. Thus, ample evidence exits to indicate that large cities do tend to experience more crime and psychiatric hospital admissions during full moon periods. In addition, alcohol consumption rises significantly when the lunar cycle begins and ends. The moon and humanity have always been tied together both aesthetically and pragmatically. But we need not yield to the worst nor ignore the best psychic forces set in motion by our ancient Orb of the Night. Our products - certified organic and wild crafted sacred smudge sticks, oil and hydrosol - can create the means by which we can proactively surf lunar currents rather than meekly succumb to them. We hope you will investigate and take advantage of these potent agents of change!

By Alan Beck

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Toward A Better World

Frogmarch To Utopia

At a semi-formal gathering the other day, a few other Lucky Six Farms staffers and myself were queried about utopia, although I wasn’t certain the interrogator viewed her probe in such overtly classic, albeit historically futile, terms. “What should you do to make a better world?” we were asked. At this, my mind immediately reeled back across our well-documented millennium of Western hegemony. I wondered how the Nazarene Teacher of Brotherly Love would have regarded the enormous, highly organized efforts from the 12th through the 16th Century to forcefully bring about His Heavenly Kingdom. Interestingly enough, though, when religion was lustily thrown aside by sophisticated 18th Century acolytes of reason who claimed to know better, their airy social theories generated the kind of pragmatic impression seen when a hand is withdrawn from a water-bucket. Perhaps their peers were simply too thick to understand or too busy making fortunes in enterprises like piracy or slaving. Unfortunately, however, those vacuous intellectual speculations only served to whet the ever-popular whistle of practice, so our culture’s nightmarish frogmarch to utopia soon began in earnest.

Utopia - Darkness At The End Of The Tunnel

The two monstrous personalities who would work hardest to “make a better world” were birthed in the 19th Century but saw partial fruition of their efforts only by virtue of remarkable technological advances cheerfully lent to them during the 20th. Having been thoroughly schooled in the irrefutable virtue of science’s beloved Occam’s Razor, both quickly boiled the problem down to its simplest terms: a better world could only come about once the worst sort of people were permanently removed. Thus, these well-intentioned zealots and those they had schooled (sans the fundamentally wrong types, of course) turned the better part of the last hundred years into a display of inhuman excess, corruption, and atrocity on a scale hitherto unrealized even under the vilest, most notorious tyrannies of the past.

Utopia - Buy Your Ticket To Nirvana!

Happily, we were quick to put the memory of these tragic events behind us as we entered a New Age of world betterment. Here, we were told - contrary to any hidebound, traditional Teachings of old - that spiritual upliftment and material gain were not adversaries at all but rather bosom buddies. Growing rich and getting enlightened were really two sides of the same coin; and indeed plenty of coin was always required if one wanted to receive these newly revised blessings from media-authorized experts.

“How should I make a better world?” As the question rang in my ears, I scratched my head in puzzlement. Finally, I replied, “Maybe if I start working on just myself alone, I might be able to deal with everybody else much later.” Like a vapor, the suggestion dissipated into thin air, lethally muffled by a brief, uncomfortable silence...

By Alan Beck

 

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Ancient Egypt’s Integral Vision

Nature’s All-Encompassing Network

Difficult as it may be for us at Lucky Six Farms to piece together the spirituality of those who built the Pyramids and Sphinx, we can safely say their prime beliefs revolved around Nature’s all-encompassing network, a worldview where our familiar Cartesian dichotomy of mind and matter, observer and observed held little valence. The West has been fascinated with ancient Egypt’s metaphysics since an archaeological team spearheaded by Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter pried open Tutankhamun’s tomb late in 1922. Much of this, of course, reflects only faddish inebriation with things exotic, but a more profound interest is also evident. Freethinkers of most major Faiths have wondered at the subtle ties binding Egypt’s multifaceted Divinity to every manifestation of life - human, animal, and vegetative. Perhaps it is only happenstance, too, that the world religious centers of Jerusalem, Lhasa’s Potala, Giza’s Sphinx and Pyramids, plus our own Madre Grande Monastery in Dulzura lie within a scant two degrees of a single latitude line. In any case, few other high civilizations have seen men and women so intimately woven within the variegated strands of Nature’s network.

Nature’s Network - Many Masks Of The Holy

Dry academics never tire of emphasizing ostensible manifestations of ancient Egypt’s radical polytheism. Yet, they rarely note the facility with which even the most diverse animal-headed entities changed places with one another when appropriate occasions arose. Nor do they devote much attention to the frequent, fulsome, and remarkably insightful interchanges between worshippers and the transcendent objects of their veneration. Unlike many in our post-modern West who remain alienated from a distant and seemingly aloof Godhead, the average Egyptian, at least until the Roman period, felt their Gods’ almost conversational accessibility. The conceptual dynamic underlying such close relationships is not difficult to grasp: ancient Egypt saw humanity as an integral part of Nature, so the Gods showed themselves in whatever guise necessary to ratify the whole. Just as actors don a plethora of role-based “masks” in a drama, the Egyptian deities revealed their wisdom through the faces of Nature.

Nature’s Network - Approaching The Highest

Historians have consistently remarked on the prevalence of sacred aromatics throughout the temple precincts of ancient Egypt. Clearly, these herbal substances were compounded with great care, for they were not only material proofs of reverence but also - and simultaneously - carriers of human intent directed toward the ultimate sources of vitality and universal power. Because our beliefs reflect very similar truths about the underlying structure of reality, we always formulate our products with the very same prayerful love. Perceiving such energetic Natural currents can be easier than you might think: simply try any of our smudge sticks, cones, essential oil, or hydrosol for yourself!

By Alan Beck

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Our Origins, Our Destiny

Humanity Versus Nature

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and Nature shall not be broken” - Leo Tolstoy

I confess that, even quite some time before becoming a staffer at Lucky Six Farms, I saw serious problems in the way Western civilization viewed itself vis-a-vis Nature. It was not that I particularly enjoyed entertaining a deviant world-view, for, given the importance of societal sanction, what normal individual could possibly rejoice in his evident alienation? Nor was my feeling derived from a desire to be different or stand out from the crowd, as I always displayed a propensity for shyness and diffidence which kept me far removed from my peers’ many social whirls. No, the conviction sprang rather from a deep-rooted sense that our razor-sharp, Cartesian separation of the universe into subject and object, mind and body, noumena and phenomena embodied a Faustian lapse. Our materialist/reductionist understanding had indeed unlocked many wondrous secrets but at a hideous cost: we had thus, in the most literally Biblical sense, gained the world but lost our collective soul (KJV Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25). In grasping Nature by the throat, we had violated our most profound relationship to Her.

Humanity As Child Of Nature

Heralded absolutely nowhere as a theologian, I will certainly not presume to exposit the importance of the idea I have outlined above. But if we remain resolutely unable to see an unequivocal manifestation of the Divine in Nature, how can we then blithely proclaim the sanctity of our Creator’s primordial and most persistent efforts? Both science and every major faith view humanity as an integral component of Nature. Yet the former has come to believe this connection renders us into no more than complex yet thoroughly moribund mechanisms, like outre automatons so popular during the 18th Century. Heralding consciousness as an illusory and insignificant epiphenomenon to its steam-engine universe, post-modern science denies even the transcendent faith of its founding geniuses, luminaries like Cardan, Dee, Gauss, Leeuwenhoek, Leibnitz, Newton, and scores of others, equally notable, in every corner of the globe. During our present era, it is becoming increasingly clear that unless humanity begins to view itself as a child of Nature, it stands to choke off the most vital sources of not only its spiritual but also its material nourishment.

Nature And Humanity Reconciled

By producing certified organic and wildcrafted sacred aromatics, we hope to play a role in the ongoing reconciliation of humanity with its lovingly powerful Mother Nature, a process which more and more people are coming to recognize, respect, and accomplish. As this new year dawns, may those who read this blog - newcomers, the merely curious, seekers, and established clients alike - consider our unique offerings as helpful tools to bring about real positive change and a better world for all.

By Alan Beck

 

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Sage Spiritual Symmetry

Energy Healing - Words And Meanings

In this blog, I take a brief look at one of the most unusual manifestations of energy healing. Lucky Six Farms’ staffers are well-known, at least in local circles, for their diverse, eclectic, and sometimes mildly eccentric interests; as regular readers know, I am certainly no exception to that rule. Eerie vagaries of language, including but not limited to ostensibly accidental semantic similitudes (e.g. the labyrinthine etiologies of our Lucky Six moniker) frequently elicit my interest. Can such peculiar connections possibly ratify or even serve to reify alchemist Fulcanelli’s fascinating assertions about the universal patois of initiates, his so-called Language of the Birds? Or are they merely pareidolic mists exuded to our intellectual detriment from stygian, delusion-laden crevasses of our Freudian ids or random-firing neuronal nets? For me, there is no certain answer, so I am compelled to respond to the siren call issued from such signal cues. For instance, as certified organic White Sage (Salvia apiana) remains our principal product, I frequently find the term “sage” itself makes intriguing appearances in odd places; one of the most telling is the Christian name of art brut luminary Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). His extraordinary creations epitomize the provocative character of energy healing itself.

Energy Healing - Art And Expression

Lesage led a life markedly atypical even for a French artist promulgating a new vision during the tumultuous early years of the 20th Century, a time when venerable thought-ways and seemingly unassailable paradigms crumbled like Fourth-Dynasty mummies dragged into breezy sunlight. Laboring as an ordinary coal miner throughout his youth, at the age of thirty-five he heard a spirit voice directing him to become a painter. Soon afterwards, similar astral entities told him not to be afraid of life-wrenching changes to come, directed him to purchase art supplies, and then guided his hands as he created huge canvasses dedicated to metaphysical insights. Intensely symmetrical, highly complex, and strongly reminiscent of today’s fractal graphics, these huge paintings are as remarkably arresting today as they were when they emerged fresh from Lesage’s studio.

Energy Healing - Divine Symmetry

By 1913, he had also become a successful faith healer. When authorities prosecuted him for practicing medicine without a license, he was acquitted by a deluge of glowing testimonials from hundreds of present and former clients whose well-being he had fully restored. Lesage’s oeuvre consisted of almost a thousand paintings. As he predicted, the 300th coincided to the day with the end of WWII. Many still believe his striking images retain significant spiritual powers to effect therapeutic outcomes. I like to imagine his over-riding symmetries manifest the intricate balance of Mother Nature herself. Thus, they symbolize the fact that ultimately all authentic healing comes from within, and our ability to personally identify with this truth determines the degree of wellness we can emanate to others.

By Alan Beck

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Existential Insight

The Experimental Method - Your Route To Wisdom

We at Lucky Six Farms believe it is a shame that so much of what passes as post-modern science relies more on ostensibly immutable dogma rather than insight gained from the experimental method. Although textbooks rightly proclaim that science is the precocious offspring of experiment, its enterprise has gradually succumbed to the deadening influence of official priesthoods and doctrines that, for all intents and purposes, might well be carved in stone. While there is no question science has revealed much about the physical machinery of the universe, its predominant philosophy now assumes there is, in fact, no more to the universe than crass machinery. Yet, although we may not possess the intellect of Newton or Einstein, we can still utilize science’s original paradigm: the active search for living truth. It is a journey that extends an infinite and colorful path before us, if only we are willing to take the time to truly observe and contemplate, to fully utilize the gift of the experimental method.

The Experimental Method - Role Of Sacred Aromatics

Clearly, the original spirit of science still lives on in those who are willing to take the time and trouble to gain actual existential insight. Only through careful experiment can unusual and provocative doors to the personal psyche be opened. Our recently enhanced product lines, now including long-venerated sacred herbals such as cedar, black sage, and yerba santa, may provide a panoply of excellent tools for present-day explorers of fabulous inner worlds and transcendent realities. In addition, our familiar, staple line of certified organic White Sage products, including smudge sticks, cones, essential oil, hydrosol, and whole leaves, offers a range of convenient avenues whereby innate mind-powers may be clarified, refined, and focused.

The Experimental Method - Participating In History

Whether we choose to call it The New Age, Age of Aquarius, Ending of the 13th Baktun, Time Wave Zero, or any similar designation of significant spiritual change, we must be fully cognizant of the fact that it is only we ourselves who will be responsible for unveiling the authentic truths of existence. For those of us who are sensitive and aware, history is no longer a spectator sport, and science will no longer be confined to prefabricated ideas, chalk-dusted lecture halls, or bone-dry tomes. As we move from an era of stultifying, inflexible dogma to one of vibrant illumination, we owe it to ourselves to comprehensively investigate the forces underlying ancient ways of living and coming to grips with Nature. May the herbal vehicles which are our specialty assist this world-changing process for the betterment of all life on our wondrous planet Earth!
 
By Alan Beck

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