The Truth About Anointing

The Universal Role of Essential Oils

 For thousands of years, essential oils have played crucial roles in rituals conducted worldwide for both material and spiritual elevation. Societies East and West have viewed the process of anointing or unction as forging definitive passage between mundane and celestial realms. I could cite countless examples: the Bible makes more than 180 references to essential oils, always carrying emphasis on the intrinsically precious character of such substances. The term “Christ” itself is usually translated as “the anointed one.” No European monarch would think of being crowned without undergoing visible anointing into a state of acknowledged sovereignty via essential oil.

Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain societies regard unction in a similar light. Specifically, the practice of abhisheka, the exact equivalent of anointing, has traditionally solidified the notion of transcendent empowerment. In many Asian esoteric sects, essential oil is believed to convey the very essence of initiatory power from teacher to student. Thus, the nucleus of all such rituals must include first blessing and then touching sacred oil. Newly elevated rulers and high officials also receive full cultural sanction only through formal unction.

The Special Quality of Essential Oils

When a belief retains currency through an incredibly diverse array of peoples and thought patterns, I believe more than mere coincidence is at work. This is certainly the case with ideas surrounding - and actively promulgating - the anointing process. In addition, we find each type of essential oil consistently associated with particular permissions and powers: each embodied the concentrated essence of certain energies. For example, at Lucky Six Farms we are intimately familiar with the profoundly purifying and cleansing properties of White Sage, properties that have been venerated and utilized by indigenous Tribes for longer than anyone can remember.

Our Commitment to Lucky Six Farms White Sage Essential Oil,

Although our White Sage essential oil has a wide variety of uses, from aromatherapy diffusion to dilution for liniments and salves, we never lose sight of its fundamentally sacred character. This is why we insist on growing every plant organically with love and respect for the remarkable energy channeled through it. Those who try our White Sage essential oil are therefore taking part in a universal earth-centered tradition whose meaning is as vital today as it was at the dawn of history.

By Alan Beck

 

Art, Nature & Sacred Sage

The Why Of Sacred Sage

Sacred sage was little thought of at the turn of the twentieth century. But the few decades that followed turned our familiar universe upside-down while highlighting conceptual vistas rarely dreamed of for centuries. During those early years of the last century the predominant Western view of how we fit into our universe underwent a sea change. A veritable avalanche of novel and surprising findings from an array of disciplines stunned the public and set even the most complacent citizens on edge. The world was no longer solid or simple; it could no longer be taken for granted or its paradigms filed away in the dusty drawer of common sense. While staid science was riven by quantum theory, relativity, and higher-dimensioned geometry, the art world took its first tentative steps into abstraction, plumbing phantasmagoric revelations from primordial archetypes. Many of the most original thinkers, like Arp, Kandinsky, and Klee became vivid articulators of society’s dawning vision. All agreed that the real processes of creation are the same in art and nature. Hitherto recondite topics like sacred sage suddenly began to acquire a new valence

New Science, New Lifestyle

So radical was this revised understanding that a century later we are still integrating it into our lifestyles. Scientific alchemy had changed our perspective. Vital components of this effort may be observed throughout the globe in ecological movements, New-Age thought, religious eclecticism, and burgeoning respect for traditional forms of Earth-centered spirituality. Both Lucky Six Farms and its land leaseholder Madre Grande Monastery have their roots in this expansive, radiant awareness.

Scents And Sensibility

The White Sage we organically cultivate is a direct product of Nature’s artistry. Taking our cue from her painstaking aesthetic, we craft our essential oils, hydrosols, smudge bundles and cones so that the original purity of the plant spirit is consistently retained and enhanced. As artists working hand-in-hand with Nature, we can confidently promulgate her energizing power even as we share her benevolent intent.

By Alan Beck

Pride of Place

Energy Of Land And People

Can energy embody character? Can it embrace an actual persona rather than coarsely quantifiable material quality? Even hard-hearted reductionists grant that energy manifests through a plethora of diverse forms: heat, electricity, sound, torque, nuclear binding, and more. Could there be subtle dimensions as well? Certainly, the idea is not new nor confined to non-Western societies. Oswald Spengler along with many other close observers of history firmly believed that each land, each geographically unique portion of our Earth leaves an indelible psychic mark on its indigenous people, animals, and plants. They held that pieces of the grand mosaic that is our Earth shape the outlook of their long-term residents as thoroughly as they themselves were shaped by pressure of immense geologic forces. The notion may seem quaint and even curious today, but could it possibly contain a grain of truth? Could there be hidden wisdom in the idea that our planet’s many mansions hold a variegated array of energy treasures so special that no two are really the same?

White Sage Energy

We who organically wild-craft and process essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves for Lucky Six Farms often remark how the striking southern California landscape and White Sage reflect the very same purifying energy, so that the two often appear inextricably interlinked. Thus pride of place is an important part of our heritage and that of our products, too.

Compassionate Energy

White Sage is the unmistakably radiant daughter of this austere yet beautiful, sun-soaked space. Those who live and work here feel it clearly. Every peak in our southern California high desert is studded with strangely shaped boulders: the most prominent still bear heroic titles testifying to Native legends long turned to myth. In the midst of this luminous court, the White Sage whorls open their blue-green leaves to an influx of life-giving energy. By sending our products around the world, we hope to share that familiar, compassionate, constructive power.

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 

Lucky Six Farms' Multitude of Brilliant Suns

What Creates A Symbol?

Can a meaningful symbol be penned by the hand of Nature? The old Doctrine of Signatures isn't referenced much today, indeed few of us are even familiar with the name. Widely known and believed from the earliest days of Imperial Rome until the waning years of the Renaissance, the Doctrine held that a plant's form often symbolized its worldly function. Post-modern science dismisses the whole idea as superstition, yet Paracelsus - one of Nature's closest observers and a founder of experimental medicine - put as much stock in it as the mystic Jakob Bohme. Apparently, this concept ultimately springs from theological roots, specifically from the notion that Divine Intelligence placed plants here with just as much purpose as people. Thus, a plant's shape and color might well embody a key symbol indicative of its unique practical value.

I am certified neither as a scientist nor a saint. Nevertheless, as I take my daily stroll through Lucky Six Farms, I'm forcefully reminded of this ancient notion at virtually every turn. Why? The White Sage itself, whether burgeoning in countless numbers through immense wild-crafted fields or rising solitary from the high-desert soil, first makes its presence known as a perfect, symmetrical whirl of leaflets: a miniature, vegetative sun bursting with blue-green luminance.

Clarity Of Symbol And Meaning

Even a child would be instantly struck by the similarity. The resemblance is clearly delineated. It stands out prominently wherever it appears, even in dense chaparral; many visitors have remarked how it almost appears to be glowing: quite unusual for such a small, low-lying young plant!

White Sage As Symbol

Interestingly enough, Lucky Six Farms' White Sage serves much like a friendly, easily-portable sun. Tirelessly purifying, energizing, invigorating, and ever supporting our own variegated pursuits, the White Sage has earned its reputation for facilitating all positive and wholesome works. For me, our life-giving star has long been accompanied by spirit allies that assist its work: one of the most efficient is the White Sage: it symbolizes a better world for all.