Sacred Smoke

Sacred Smoke: The Ancient Art of Smudging for Modern Times 

by Harvest McCampbell

Native Voices Book Publishing Company, Summertown, Tennessee, 2002. 127 pp.

If you've wanted to enhance your meditation space with homemade smudge sticks, or if you've thought about learning to forage but don't want to start with mushrooms, you will enjoy this sweet little book.

In one hundred and twenty-seven pages, Harvest McCampbell covers the basics of plant identification, collecting the plant material at its prime and in a prayerful way, she discusses some traditional Native uses of each plant, and offers suggestions for modern preparation and use. Many of the plants can be found in Oregon or grown in a home garden, a few you might need to mail order, or gather on a trip to California.

I found it both helpful and meditative to use this book to collect sage, juniper and cedar. My smudge sticks came out better from knowing the best time to gather them, how to tie them up . . .

The plants she covers are: Bayberry, California Bay [aka Oregon Bay Myrtle-we have it growing around our Saratoga Street parking lot], Cedar, Juniper, Epozote, Fennel, Mint, Mugwort, Mullein, Pine/Fir/Hemlock, Resin/Balsam/Gum/Sap, Root, Desert Sage, Sweet Grass, Uva Ursi, Wild Tobacco, and Yerba Santa.

-- submitted by Jennifer Knight

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