White Sagecraft

Precious Gems Of Tradition

Just as we protect our most valuable possessions, we guard the sanctity of herbs, the precious gems of indigenous Southwestern tradition. One of our most talented Lucky Six Farms staffers derives his principal heritage from the Chiricahua Apache Nation, famous for outstanding chiefs like Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, and Geronimo. History testifies not only to their wisdom and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity but also their steadfast adherence to sacred traditions laid down long ago by ancestors who established profound bonds, both visionary and pragmatic, to Mother Earth. A superb craftsman and artist in his own right, he personally oversees the creation of our White Sage smudge bundles. His presence is made clearly manifest in every stage of production, from cultivation, through selection and ecologically sound harvest wherein plants may be utilized without undue damage, to actual hand manufacture of individual wands, large and small. As he inspects them with a critical yet loving eye, he often remarks that they are precious gems as much as diamonds and rubies.

Precious Gems Of Purity

While some might consider this type of evaluation fantastical or far-fetched, in reality it is not. White Sage is one of the very few plants frequently employed by Native Americans plus an enormous array of highly diverse alternative spiritual traditions for precisely the same purpose: quickly and effectively eliminating accumulated negative vibrations and replacing them with those characterized by energetic purity. Stringent requirements imposed by vision quests and serous psychic investigations into primordial noumena underlying the forces of Nature provided the impetus for Apaches and other original residents of what is now the Southwestern United States to identify and utilize the most potent vegetative resources available. White Sage (Salvia apiana) is perhaps first among these elite children of the soil, along with Cedar and Wild Tobacco.

Precious Gems Of Land And Psyche

Lucky Six Farms has long honored this ancient wisdom by wildcrafting, cultivating, and producing pure, certified organic White Sage products eminently suitable for authentic ceremonial purposes. Thus, customers from any and all traditions can and do use our essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and leaves for rituals whenever and wherever natural purity is called for. We are thus proud to link our history and motives so closely with those who have preceded us on these Divinely blessed lands.


By Alan Beck

(Selling Your) Home Sweet Home

Psychic Dimensions Of Your Relocation Move

If you’re a typical American you will put down roots in an entirely new neighborhood, house, and home once every five years: that’s an incredible total of fifteen full relocation moves during an average lifetime. We’re proud of our easy mobility and rightly so, since it is a concrete illustration of the freedom we prize so dearly. But it would be naive to neglect the inevitable downsides to all the travel, change, and adaptation involved. Moving always entails at least a few briefly radical lifestyle alterations and often a great deal more. Add on the considerable additional expense and uncertainty of selling or renting your old digs, and you may well have a very challenging time merely coping with the situation. In fact, psychologists have shown that a relocation move actually ranks with traumatic incidents such as a relative’s demise in terms of induced stress, anxiety, and psychic upheaval!

Relocation Move - How The Pros Do It

If you’re presently looking forward to - or possibly dreading! - an impending move, Lucky Six Farms thinks you might want to take a few tips from real estate pros who traffic in houses and apartments with the same facility that we make small change at a cash register. One of the most distinctive hallmarks of their lucrative profession is the ease they feel in quickly selling even the most seemingly unappealing residence. They chuckle knowingly as they deposit their commissions even though the whole business seems incredibly chancy. How in the world can they be so confident of closing those deals? Their master key lies in always generating a highly positive first impression. Laypeople can understand that a marketable house should appear clean, bright, and uncluttered. However, only seasoned agents know of certain obscure secrets virtually assuring favorable first impressions and thus rapid sales.

Relocation Move - Clearing The Air

What kind of secret am I hinting at? The first significant impressions are literally imprinted into a potential home-buyer’s mind within their initial ten to fifteen seconds indoors. And the most basic, the most primordial, the most powerful impression does not come consciously via vision but rather enters subconsciously through the breath. The atmosphere (s)he inhales contains both an aroma and a psychic feeling: these will play the single most important role in determining how a prospective buyer interprets everything that follows!  Some of our good friends in the real estate business asked us not to reveal this simple secret, but we believe only our most savvy readers will actually put what’s implied here into practice. Need I note at this point that we have long specialized in highly potent, uniquely purifying, and psychically energizing White Sage products: essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves? May all your relocation moves prove pleasant and hassle-free!

By Alan Beck

White Sage Medicine Wheel

Color Symbolism - The Circle Of Life

For those whose careers are intimately bound up with the gorgeous landscape of our American Southwest, medicine wheel color symbolism gradually evolves into much more than a sterile anthropological exercise. At Lucky Six Farms, we are acutely aware of how the high desert home of our White Sage products reveals wonders and mysteries inherent in these key hues at every turn. There is good reason for this, of course. In one form or another the medicine wheel is respected by virtually every indigenous Native American culture simply because it is a concrete manifestation of the circle of life itself and thus embodies inescapable aspects of human existence. The wheel assigns color symbolism to each of the four cardinal directions, embracing the entire spectrum of both individual and societal concerns.

Color Symbolism - Growth And Balance

While medicine wheel correspondences between directions and shades may vary somewhat from Tribe to Tribe, the colors themselves have remained constant for centuries along with their principal attributions. Progress along or through the quadrants parallels life’s journey and our concomitant growth in specific facets of vital wisdom. In addition, each section illuminates the kind of balance necessary for us to reach maturity in that specific regard. We usually commence the medicine wheel cycle with the color red, symbolizing birth. Interestingly, this hue also stands for the spiritual per se, without which life itself could not unfold. The staff at Lucky Six Farms often sees this color glowing on the eastern horizon just at dawn, heralding arrival of our characteristically brilliant sun.

The color yellow is usually associated with burgeoning youth, the period of quickest and most evident development for our bodies and minds. Yellow also represents emotion, which is at its most volatile and intense at this stage, stamping indelible marks on our personalities. Many new shoots, including White Sage, show brief bursts of yellow as they push their way up from the dark soil into the light of day.

Color Symbolism - Metaphysics At Work

Full maturation is symbolized through black. As science observes, all the colors of the spectrum are fully absorbed by black, just as authentic maturity implies that we have assimilated and understood all the variegated lessons taught through the classroom of personal experience. In addition, black embodies physicality since it is the most stolid and uncompromising of all. Black shows absolute fullness, a state of perfect balance unmoved throughout even the greatest challenges.

Last but certainly not least is white, color of both death and the intellect. Our discriminating faculties abstract and denature isolated aspects of life even as they enable manipulative understanding of them. Just because death is an inevitable part of living, intellect should never be employed obsessively or exclusively. At Lucky Six Farms, we observe that most plants assume a plain white hue when their vivifying juices have departed for the last time. It is fascinating to note that White Sage leaves, at the peak of its their life cycle display none of these colors. Instead, they assume a luminous blue-green, hues traditionally assigned to transcendent wisdom and perfect harmony. We fervently hope our White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - convey those properties wherever they are dispatched across the face of our Mother Earth.

By Alan Beck

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

 

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

Reducing Post-Modern Pressures

Ubiquitous Stress And Anxiety

I find it both disturbing and fascinating that elevated levels of stress and anxiety are pretty much taken for granted today as standard features of post-modern life. The underlying causes for this condition are not hard to ascertain. Western civilization has encountered more profound changes during the last two centuries than at any other period throughout its colorful thousand-year reign. Prescient commentators have noted how so many pervasive technological innovations expressly designed to ease stress and anxiety have inadvertently magnified them instead. Our psychological predicament can be likened to squeezing one end of a balloon. Tension dissipated at the compressed end becomes instantly evident on the other. Often, a balloon will burst under repeated treatment of this kind, because rapid escalations of stress eventually prove too much to bear. The computer I’m typing on now provides a perfect real-world example: the wonderfully facile communication it enables is balanced - and perhaps offset - by the inherent stress and anxiety of corporate cubicle culture.

Traditional Approaches To Stress And Anxiety

Although we labor under burgeoning amounts of these irritants today, stress and anxiety are hardly new or unique. Problems they pose have long challenged both individuals and cultures. Traditional approaches to their alleviation invariably included prayer and ritual purification. Lucky Six Farms is dedicated to offering products capable of powerfully assisting the latter. We understand that effective purification is a multidimensional process. Since humans exist simultaneously on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes, reducing stress and anxiety is necessarily a highly integrated process. Over eons, wise women and men learned which plant helpers could best balance and cleanse energetic currents flowing through and between these life-sustaining arenas. Perhaps the most prominent and potent is the southern California White Sage (Salvia apiana).

Reducing Stress And Anxiety Naturally

Our White Sage essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves provide numerous avenues for attenuating the burdensome titer of stress and anxiety generated by ever-familiar barrages of hectic demands and unforeseen obstacles. Whether you choose our smudge stick’s measured, formal ceremonial or our hydrosol’s quick mist near pocket or purse, you may always rely on the organic purity - the very quality so valued by indigenous peoples - required for White Sage to work its ancient magick.

By Alan Beck 

Cosmic Cycles, Human Cycles

Eternal Life And The Mystery Cults

Ironically, mature civilizations inevitably focus on issues of eternal life. Western thinkers, both modern and post-modern, have shown great interest in the ancient mystery cults. No doubt such curiosity is justified by numerous historical parallels linking those troubled times with our own. Cults of the Magna Mater, Isis, Dionysus, Cybele, Mithra, and others flourished most in an era when daily vicissitudes generated by a newly formed and rapidly burgeoning empire emptied traditional belief systems of their relevance and emotive power. Life became precarious; death loitered menacingly around every corner. History provides ample evidence of the problem, as all hope of secure, let alone eternal life receded into a glowering distance.

Oppressive anomie coupled with a general feeling that something new and spiritually vibrant was needed filled the psychic atmosphere of those bygone days. When this yearning became almost palpable, the mystery cults proffered their intriguing solution. The question we ask today is: exactly how did those strange rites fill the yawning inner void which extended across lines of class, gender, and learning? Precisely what could they offer that comforted and satisfied so many whose hearts, under the baneful Roman eye, had grown cynical and cold? Could their hidden treasure be the confident assurance of eternal life?

Eternal Life Through Organic Vision

When our Lucky Six Farms staff raised these questions with monks and friars of nearby Madre Grande Monastery, the resultant discussion proved provocative and illuminating. Because both groups have long been involved in day-to-day issues of organic farming in the service of sacred vegetation, certain answers presented themselves with unusual vigor. One aspect of the mystery rites was shared in common by virtually every cult: an apotheosis wherein a sheaf of grain or similarly common plant was presented, bathed in radiant glory, to new initiates. Although forbidden to give clear voice to the principal mystery doctrines per se, all devotees agreed that the central concept involved new life after ostensible death, rebirth  after burial, resurrection following destruction. Both the Monastery personnel and those at Lucky Six Farms are well acquainted with such notions, since they lie at the very hub of ecologically sound organic farming.

Eternal Life Via Practice And Product

When such matters are broached, it is all too easy to lose the thread of meaning in a labyrinth of semantics. It is a maze in which today’s academics too often flounder. However, in whatever terms it is couched, the critical point here is simply this: Cosmic cycles so evident in our farming do not stop at the soil but, in fact, infuse every aspect of our lives and thoughts. We are profoundly connected to the Earth and share the essentially perennial nature of all her living forms. It is indeed in that spirit of eternal life and the purity underlying it that we offer our White Sage products. 

By Alan Beck

Sage Wisdom About Sage Herbs

White Sage - Plant Personality

Each plant species is like a person, unique and individually focused. This point is not always well understood. Staff at Lucky Six Farms are frequently asked to clarify issues regarding the proper place of White Sage within the general family of sages. Queries often run,”White Sage is just a strong mint, right? Aren’t all mints pretty much the same anyway, like peppermint and spearmint? So it should be OK if I substitute one for another.” While such confusion is certainly understandable, we believe it should be dispelled before it can motivate imprudent enterprise. There are more plants classified as salvias then are found in any other genus of the mint family (Lamiaceae). In turn, each salvia species is a very special plant in its own right, with uses and caveats applicable to itself alone.

White Sage - Plant Power To Be Respected

Some of the characteristic vagueness surrounding sages is simply a consequence of old Linnean taxonomic designations indiscriminately rolled over into our current system of biologic classification. The sage genus as whole originally derived its title from the Latin verb salvere, which meant to experience well-being and health. Most people are familiar with sages through their renowned culinary representative, Salvia officinalis, usually called cooking or common sage, available on the spice rack of any grocery store or supermarket. On the other hand, White Sage (Salvia apiana) is a much rarer and infinitely more formidable plant. Too strong for casual ingestion under any circumstances and too spiritually potent for use as a throwaway incense, White Sage has earned a worldwide reputation as cleanser par excellence of lingering negative impressions and fast-acting psychic energizer.

White Sage - Plant Of Purity

White Sage has also been traditionally employed by Native Americans and professional herbalists in a variety of targeted medicinal contexts, where its intensely penetrating character can be carefully monitored and controlled for optimum effect. A reasonably safe way of exploring these potentials is through brewing an ultra-light tisane: leave one White Sage leaf in a cup of water for several hours, remove the leaf, and drink plain. No more than a single cup of this infusion should be taken per day and never by lactating mothers, as compounds in White Sage may attenuate their flow of milk. Apiana tisanes have long been reputed to alleviate symptoms of irritated respiratory and digestive tracts, but authorized medical practitioners should always be consulted in serious or protracted cases.

By Alan Beck 

New Senses, New World

Metaphysical Perception

An erstwhile correspondent once chided me for expressing interest in metaphysical topics. “No such things even exist,” he remarked ruefully. “If stuff doesn’t register on our regular five senses, it simply isn’t there.” For good or ill, my retort appeared to render him nonplussed. “But there are seven senses,” I noted, “and it’s those additional two that matter the most.” Of course, my assertion merely echoed century-old observations by Theosophical Society founder Helena Blavatsky, author G.A. Barborka, and others. These luminaries used both personal experience and logical inference as eloquent testimony for the presence of two additional senses: memory and spiritual insight. Of course, only an ineluctably metaphysical perspective would allow such arguments for the reality of nonphysical faculties.

Metaphysical Understanding

What does this putative pair of supersensory vehicles have to do with our White Sage products? Actually, quite a bit! At Lucky Six Farms the noumenal sits as close as the phenomenal. At times, the former’s relevance to real-world considerations may far outstrip the latter’s. When delicate issues of planting, optimum growth, pest control, maturity, harvesting, and distillation lie outside the narrow, blinkered purview of factory-farming - as they inevitably do with White Sage - we must draw upon evidence flowing from channels outside the mundane five. Since we employ no petrochemicals, pesticides, or industrial techniques to assure organic quality and purity, we have become aware of subtle information sources and ancient methodologies unavailable to those who must rely on mechanical instrumentation and coarse interventions.

Metaphysical Results

For customers across the globe, our uniquely purifying White Sage products have come to function as much more than conventional aromatics. With Native American Tribes, our clients have learned to appreciate the many dimensions of life benefited through the use of our essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves. In fact, I can state categorically that the primary channels through which White Sage works its wonders are metaphysical. By rapidly energizing minds while calming bodies, it magickally opens psychic portals hitherto closed or inaccessible. Such metaphysical results are undeniable: see for yourself!
 
By Alan Beck

 

Understanding Purification

Wisdom Is Self-Insight

Unlike most enterprises, Lucky Six Farms has learned what wisdom is. Why is this so? Our certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge sticks, cones, and whole leaves - are well-known for their spiritually purifying properties. But there exists much popular misunderstanding concerning exactly what such purification entails. As with many concepts rooted in actual spiritual experience, purification may easily be approached one-sidedly or erroneously. That’s where our years of wisdom come into play. When potential customers ask questions such as: “Can purification wipe out the consequences of wrong-doing? Will others ignore any harm I commit if I purify afterwards? If I hurt someone, will subsequent purification make it alright? Does a rite of purification cleanse my karma?” we can reply authoritatively. We understand the beginning of wisdom is self-insight.

Wisdom Is Moral Clarity

The wise truth abut what purification is and isn’t can be communicated quite vividly through an illustrative example. Suppose a person plans to attend a ceremonial purification at a sanctified site, a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or monastery. Prior to the sacred service, (s)he steals a valuable relic from a nearby shrine. The rite of purification will in no way obviate their crime. Instead, when the chain of cause and effect - the karma - set into motion by the theft matures days, months, years, or even lifetimes later, the perpetrator will not be able to remain oblivious. They will have a sudden, possibly even preternatural, insight into the underlying reason for their intense suffering. While they may not be able to identify the precise act that created their painful predicament, they will nonetheless be made explicitly aware of the negative inner quality that has generated their misery. This is because the purification rite ultimately provided cleansing insight. The purifying environment entered near the time of their crime worked to create an unusual sense of moral clarity. 

Wisdom Is Empathy

Traditional forms of spirituality operate on the principle that no one is perfect. Thus, they all stress a central tenet which we usually identify as the “golden rule.” They advise devotees not to treat others in ways they themselves would find loathsome were they to end up on the receiving end. Although chains of causality may often appear interminable to those who disregard empathy, this perception is illusory. What is proudly and exultantly grabbed at another's expense will eventually be received with a tearful face. Purification provides a powerful tool whereby irrelevant and superfluous impressions may be readily cleared away, thereby opening space for our own inner Light of the Divine to shine through. Lessons we learn through such a process may be extremely hard, but they ultimately devolve to our lasting benefit.

By Alan Beck

City Smudge

Power In A Name

I really appreciate the power wielded by creative language. A tired, ostensibly exhausted idea can readily assume vibrant new life when couched in novel phraseology. For example, Alfred Wegener’s academic observations regarding the strangely precise fit of distant coastlines were dismissed as crackpot geological minutiae until the catchy moniker of continental drift began to pry open hitherto sealed provinces of ivory-towered minds. Similarly, few venues for mass entertainment were considered duller and more passe than puppetry until the genius of Jim Henson created Muppets and birthed a wildly popular reinvigoration of the art. The fact is that we usually tend to think in words, so an original verbal approach can open remarkable vistas of understanding. Thus, the power inherent in a name should never be undervalued.

Power To Aware Urbanites

What does my concern with denominative power have to do with Lucky Six Farms White Sage products? As it happens, quite a lot! Recently, a customer noted that she was fond of designating our hydrosol simply as City Smudge, because it consistently produced the same intensely purifying effect as a smudge stick but within a typically streamlined urban environment. Indeed, ubiquitous smoke detectors and high-keyed spaces so typical of today’s condos and apartments often partner poorly with the characteristically thick fumes generated by smudge sticks and cones. Consideration for others, including the elderly and infirm, who may reside in close proximity also demands an alternative to traditional forms of White Sage ritual. However, hydrosol may be productively used for identical ends in the very same urban environments. City Smudge is a perfect description of hydrosol in such contexts.

Creative Power Knows No Bounds

Although our products - certified organic White Sage essential oil, hydrosol, smudge sticks, cones, and whole leaves are wild-crafted according to the most venerable traditional principles of Earth-centered cultivation, their usefulness is not confined to familiar processes and places. We believe respect for the past never precludes a wholehearted embrace of present realities. In this way, the love and compassion we bring to our work can infuse every condition where wise and aware customers find and emphasize the best humanity has to offer.

By Alan Beck

Neglected Knowledge

The Hidden History Of Essential Oil

Essential oil has been distilled since pharaohs ruled ancient Egypt, yet a great deal of its modern history - a history including provocative clinical findings - has been ignored. Like many other fascinating areas of knowledge suffering similar neglect, essential oil’s action on the human mind and body carries profound implications for our understanding of and approach to holistic health. Serious research in this area was first undertaken by a group of professional chemists and perfumers in France before the turn of the Twentieth Century. Today, few have even heard of the vanguard work undertaken by the Gattefosse Group in Saint-Remy de Provence. Named for its founder and leading light Louis Gattefosse, the Group was determined to follow up on a series of reports published by the Pasteur Institute that had documented strong antibiotic properties of essential oil.

Essential Oil As Remedy

As World War I approached, administration of the Gattafosse Group passed into the hands of Louis’ son Rene-Maurice. When during the summer of 1910 a lab explosion and fire seared his hands and arms so badly that gangrene rapidly set in, the 29-year old scientist desperately decided to put some of the Group’s findings to a critical test. He later asserted that a single wash of lavender essential oil had not only stopped the potentially lethal condition in its tracks but also allowed rapid healing of his injured limbs. During the notorious influenza outbreak of 1918, Gattafosse claimed positive results for preventative gargles and eye/nose drops compounded with essential oils. Today, most medical practitioners are quick to summarily dismiss his observations, but actual double-blind experiments addressing the validity of his results are conspicuous only by their absence in the established clinical literature.

Traditional Essential Oil

In view of the above, I can only lament our generally short-sighted approach to potentially anomalous or upsetting scientific findings. As statesman and commentator Edmund Burke ruefully noted, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Of course, we at Lucky Six Farms make no health-related claims for our wildcrafted, certified organic White Sage essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, or whole leaves. However, it is a fact that Native Americans have made use of this aromatic plant since ancient times. We are proud to acknowledge our intimate connection with it.

By Alan Beck

  

Our Measure Of Truth

Science As Dogma Versus Science As Tool

Lamentably, post-modern society has narrowed its notion of truth to the proclamations of science. Although the font of scientific investigation has flooded us with innumerable benefits over the preceding three centuries, I contend that its dogmatic allocation of universal truth to itself alone - truth sorely needed for us to live fully - is misplaced at best and spurious at worst. How can I defend such a heretical view, a perspective which in today’s intellectual environment is regarded as the zenith of superstitious irrationality? To answer, let me briefly review the methodological purview acknowledged by science itself as the proverbial gold standard of truth.

The Inherent Limitations Of Science

Of necessity, science must confine its work solely to phenomena meeting two fundamental preconditions: 1. They must, at least in theory, be publicly replicable and verifiable, and 2. They must, as least potentially, be so orderly or regular as to be fully quantifiable. Any and all phenomena failing to meet both criteria are omitted from scientific consideration a priori. Now as we review the sum and substance of our lives as they are actually lived, that is the vast, colorful array of situations confronting us daily, how many of these subtle, mercurial, existential facets conform to that inflexible scientific template? How much of ourselves are publicly replicable and quantifiable? In fact, we quickly realize - as did virtually all pioneering scientists - that science is an ideal tool for researching certain exceptionally circumscribed areas of reality. Thus, it simply cannot generate, and was never conceived to stand in for, any comprehensive picture of the totality of our existence.

Science At Lucky Six Farms

We at Lucky Six Farms are pleased to use the findings of science but refuse to be used by them. Our philosophical horizons transcend the instruments we employ and the numbers they reveal; we know from ample testimony that our customers feel the same. Our wild-crafted, certified organic White Sage essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves are considered vital adjuncts of traditional ceremonies large and small, ceremonies honoring a universe much larger and more vital than one consisting wholly of, in Ken Wilber’s prescient words, nothing more than “frisky dirt.”


By Alan Beck

Mystic Figures Redux

Number Six Resurgent

Owning to the tenacious erudition of an anonymous correspondent, I cannot resist the temptation to proffer yet a few more fascinating metaphysical tidbits concerning the number six, a topic briefly treated in one of my prior posts. Readers who recoil at anything redolent of math, numerology, or the more academically respectable discipline of arithmology may want to sign out now, although loyal devotees of the late Martin Gardner’s alter ego Dr. Matrix will probably find a hard time closing their browsers. With respect to how my colleagues and I regard the following information, let me simply assert that we who proudly bear the moniker of Lucky Six Farms never mistake intellectual curiosity for credulousness. As duly noted in my previous blog entry, the ostensibly anomalous juxtaposition of the adjective “lucky” with the number “six” has justifiably prompted many inquiries and inspired much historical research.

Number Six Is The Redoubtable Hexad

Sometime in the middle of the 4th Century CE the renowned Neoplatonist Iamblichus penned his Theology of Arithmetic, purporting to express, albeit in sharply succinct terms, key Pythagorean concepts pertaining to the sacred Tetraktys, i.e. the first ten numbers. In this document, the number six - termed the Hexad - comes in for extraordinary attention. In particular, he observes that six is the very first perfect number: its factors (1, 2 & 3) can be added to yield six again. In addition, every one of those factors is also a prime number, divisible only by unity and itself. Serious mathematicians have since found the investigation of co-relative prime and perfect numbers to be an enormously fertile field for advanced study that remains quite far from exhaustion even today.

Further, Iamblichus points out that the number six occupies the central position of a completed Platonic Lambda, the legendary geometric/arithmetic construction first described by Plato in his Timaeus. With these august sages, too, we can fully appreciate that the familiar cube symmetrically apportions two sides to each of our three spatial dimensions - height, width, and depth - thereby displaying exactly six sides in a wonderfully solidified token of aesthetic perfection.

Six Is The Number Of Health

The foregoing observations, however, pale into insignificance when contrasted with Iamblichus’ ultimate conclusions about the number six. Thus, he notes six may alternately be called “health” or even “panacea,” since it creates the most fundamental triangles. Stated another way: if perpendiculars are appropriately dropped from the sides of any triangle, six subsidiary triangles may be formed. And we may confidently name six “Thaleia” because it harmonizes so many different things, plus it is allotted the first portion among all numbers in the generation of soul! In light of such matters, then, our title of Lucky Six Farms is no mystery but actually a humble understatement. Certainly, my colleagues and I strive daily to produce White Sage products which live up to that ideal.

By Alan Beck

 

Turning The Wheel Of The Year

Weather Sets The Mood

Our weather, in the stark but lovely shadow of Madre Grande, is never just ordinary. Spring and summer are marked by long weeks of cloudless skies. The sun’s face then is uncompromisingly radiant, so by noon even large boulders are seared to the point where they are painful to touch. Such climate creates an archetypal high desert so familiar to those who explore the American southwest. But there is a slow, primordial rhythm at work behind the scenes, a planetary yin and yang which becomes obvious only as the wheel of the year revolves past its zenith. Fall sets in suddenly, so precipitously in fact, that even savvy residents are caught unaware. In the course of a single day, our weather turns sullen, dark, and cool.

The Weather of Reminiscence

In September, we wake to a pea-soup fog so thick a paltry distance of twenty feet recedes into infinity. Creepy dampness, reminiscent of a haunted house rather than a bright desert, fills every nook and cranny of what was, only hours before, clear, crisp openness. Our thoughts respond appropriately, of course, moving into realms of past foibles and triumphs, recollecting actions taken in the heat of the moment that have long  banked into lifeless embers. As night descends, the atmosphere becomes stranger still. Unmoving fog weighs down the land with palpable moisture, embracing us in its crypt-like, stygian depths. Without a bright flashlight, travel outdoors is impossible, for we are now blind as those eyeless fish who spend their days endlessly swimming through subterranean pools.

Our White Sage Energy Transcends The Weather

Our fields of organic White Sage, the pride of Lucky Six Farms, must also lie quiet in this eerily silent interregnum, like the other indigenous life-forms. Initiates into the Mysteries of old knew this liminal time well, for the fulcrum of the year reminds us of the frightening darkness into which we all descend, steadfast in our faith of renewed life. Although winter has not yet begun, we are confident of the invisible, vibrant stirrings just beneath the soil - and of the carefully stored fruits of our labor. Our work insures that the heart of the White Sage spirit, the very essence of purifying energy, never vanishes. It remains accessible across even the bleakest horizons for those who know and care.

By Alan Beck

  

Aromatherapy In Three Easy Lessons

Simplicity in Intent

Although inherent in aromatherapy, simplicity often gets lost in the shuffle. Books, pamphlets, lectures, and reports needlessly complicate what should be fundamental. Stated in its most basic form, aromatherapy confirms the age-old observation that certain scents retain the capacity to generate exceptionally powerful effects on our mind-body complex. Marcel Proust, among a host of other authors, documented how a single seemingly ordinary aroma called back a veritable avalanche of emotion-laden memories and associations. We have all experienced similar encounters with evocative smells - sometimes even with fragrances that ostensibly have never been experienced in this life! Given these facts, we can employ aromatherapy without compromising the simplicity of its operation.

Simplicity in Means

Aromatherapy works because our sense of smell is more primordial than either vision or hearing, the two senses usually deemed most critical for seamless function within our ramified post-modern society. In the insect world, for example, smell reigns supreme, governing all aspects of matters as diverse as colony organization or finding a suitable mate from miles away. Thus, scent and only scent is key to aromatherapy’s success. Whether we apply gentle heat to essential oil, burn a small amount of dried herbs, spray a hydrosol, or simply work in proximity to a fresh aromatic source, we will perceive a benefit. What is important here, however, is not to mix too many scents together at once. A single, well-proven aroma is often more potent than a hastily compounded, overly eclectic mix.

Simplicity in Product

Finally, use products from a vendor that has established a solid reputation for quality, purity, and environmental concern. An excellent choice would be certified organic White Sage aromatics from Lucky Six Farms. Because White Sage has deep Native American traditional roots as a uniquely purifying aroma, it can be utilized in a wide range of aromatherapeutic contexts, both for individual and social purposes. White Sage also offers those merely curious about aromatherapy’s ultimate value to test things out for themselves.

By Alan Beck

Health’s Many Dimensions

Health Takes Physics’ Cue

We have finally realized that health is multi-dimensional. While such a vision may appear self-evident for us today, most medical authorities resisted its full implications until they were too weighty to ignore. Ironically enough, the first steps toward a wider perspective were taken by physicists. Although science didn’t seriously begin mulling over the proposition of an inorganic universe embraced by multiple dimensions until the opening decades of the Twentieth Century, the idea has recently gained incredible currency with CERN’s discovery of the Higgs Boson. If gross matter embraces many dimensions, how about us? As usual, biology and its handmaiden medicine have arrived quite late to the party. Long assumed to mean merely “disease free,” health is now understood to denote a complex of many dynamically interrelated factors.

Our Picture Of Health Comes Full Circle

Psychological and spiritual elements figure prominently in our new understanding of health. As any professional hypnotist or psychotherapist can testify, deeply held beliefs, tenacious attitudes, and subconscious assumptions can - and often do - make the difference between relaxed adaptation or unbearable discomfort. Even simple opinions, when grasped vigorously enough, have the potential to create Heaven or Hell for their proponents right here on Earth. In particular, our perception of purity as freedom from conflict and confusion is seen to gain increasing importance for health-conscious individuals. Indigenous societies have traditionally emphasized purification as a primary requisite for both group and individual empowerment. Now we are beginning to fully comprehend the wisdom of their view.

White Sage And Health

The California White Sage consistently played - and continues to play - the signal role of natural purifying agent for Tribal peoples throughout North America. Employed to quickly banish negative energies prior to ceremonies both great and small, White Sage was embraced as an indispensable adjunct to societal as well as personal health. A growing body of Internet testimonials ratify this knowledge, expanding it as well to other dimensions of wellness like energy and creativity. At Lucky Six Farms we are proud to actively facilitate this process so as to foster the health of our entire planet.

By Alan Beck