Thanks to all the rain we had this year, all of my sage plants are healthy and flowering, but this white sage is especially full of delicate lavender-colored sticky blooms.

In fact, the entire plant is more than six feet tall and equally as wide.

This is the variety of sage that’s made into smudging bundles tied with string. “Saging” is the term for burning the leaves of the white sage to cleanse, purify, and protect by dissipating negative energy and spirits. 

Smudging (or smoke cleansing) with white sage is sacred to many Indigenous nations of California and Mexico,

I also learned that scientists have observed that sage can clear up to ninety-four percent of airborne bacteria and disinfect the air.

My method is to gather the leaves that naturally fall to the ground and create a smudge stick from them. Sometimes I’ll add lavender, but I prefer the fragrance of white sage all by itself.

Have you ever smudged or is it just a SoCal thing?