February 28, 2024 • 14 mins
Smudging is the process of wafting around the smoke of burning white sage. What is it good for? Listen in and find out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting him for Dave.
It's the Hue and this is short stuff. I think
I already said that, So let's go Woo woo edition
a little bit. Depending on where what your background is,
or what your intentions are, or what you believe the
effects of what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Are, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And what we're talking about is smudging. And if you're like,
what is that? Have you ever heard of burning sage? Like, Oh,
we just moved into this new house. We're gonna walk
around and burn some sage, get rid of all those
bad vibes, and just welcome the newness and the goodness
into this place by burning a little bundle of white sage.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, it's called smudging. The smoke supposedly does some stuff
to like you said, the vibes. It is very popular
among people who use words like vibes, right. But it
has its roots very firmly in Indigenous North American cultures,
in particular the Dakota in ho Chunk cultures. Smudged with sage.
(01:10):
Ho Chunk is more familiar as the Winnebago tribe right,
and they also well, I guess they evolved this practice independently,
but civilizations like throughout time have used herbs or incenses
to do things like cleanse the air or purify things.
(01:33):
And there's definitely something to it. It's just the science
on it hasn't really been carried out in a lot
of ways, and there's a lot of people who still
kind of jump to larger conclusions than they possibly should
at this point. Who knows, I think my take on it.
I just want everybody to bear this in mind. If
it makes you happy, if you like it, if you're
(01:55):
doing it ethically and responsibly, more power to you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Absolutely, Burning all kinds of verbs has long been a
sort of a ritual in different cultures. Like you were
talking about smudging, you can also call it saging. The
word sage actually comes from Latin from salvia, which means
to feel healthy. And we're going to talk about potential
health benefits here in a minute. But there, you know,
(02:23):
there are people who will say, well, hold on a minute,
this is this is cultural appropriation, really, and if you're
just walking around like you throw on some enya or
some grateful dead and you're and you're burning smug you're
smudge and you're burning that stage and walking around, then
you may be sort of doing a not a disservice,
but inadvertently sort of insulting, being disrespectful to the original
(02:50):
very sacred practice.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So that is.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Something to keep in mind and just like, leave me
out of this, leave me in the crossword where I've got.
So there are people though that will say, like, hey,
if you're going to do this, keep some things in mind.
Harvest it sustainably, and we'll get to why you should
do that in a sec although you should always do
that for anything.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and then maybe you.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Know, sort of do some research on how it was
really done and maybe you know, try and honor that
in some way.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe seek different sources too, beyond Instagram
or TikTok. And I'm not making fun, but I know
that there's a lot of people that are getting the
idea to go smudge from those sources. Great, but go
look up a little more about it and that might
help you feel a little better about doing it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, And if you're curious about potential benefits of smudging
beyond just sort of feeling like it's a ritual, you
should do when you move in or you want to
get rid of some bad vibes, don't go to websites
that have web pages that are turquoise or in comic sands,
comic sands, pink script, lots of crystals. You're gonna get
(04:05):
a lot of information on those sites, but it may
not be accurate. Because I did look a little deeper
into benefits of smudging and burning sage, and maybe we
should talk about those when we come back right after this.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that's a capital idea.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
All right, we'll be right back, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So if you look up, you know, what are the
benefits of burning sage, you will find all kinds of
things from improved mood, better sleep, enhance cognition, lowering your
stress levels, anti bacterial properties, stuff like that. The problem
is with a lot of this kind of stuff is
it's hard to find great solid scientific studies and evidence
(05:07):
because science doesn't usually study stuff like this. A lot
the money goes elsewhere. So you'll find lots of studies
where it's like there's a lot of correlation and stuff
like that, a lot of self reporting. But I was
having a hard time finding like some real good, hard
double blind studies on this stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yes, that's that's problem one. Problem two is there are
some peer reviewed good studies or meta analysis of other studies,
but if you start looking into them, you're like, oh,
this isn't actually talking about smudging at all, or yeah,
if it is about smudging, it's not about smudging with sage.
It's about smudging with havanamagri, right, which is an Indian
(05:49):
medicinal I guess incense, which that one is widely cited
because that study found that burning havan some magari purifies
your room. It kills up to ninety five percent of
airborne bacteria for up to like thirty days.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So you could be like, Okay, I mean this sage
really that much different from have on SMAGERI, So surely
there's some properties to it. That's what people are doing.
Or if it's a study on stage in sage's ability
to enhance cognition or to fight Alzheimer's or to improve
your mood or something like that, those are studies on
(06:28):
sage extract that you're taking. Orally it's not a study
on smudging. That's different. Again, you can make some jumps
to conclusions that may have some some basis, like, you know,
if you burn some of the bioactive compounds and other
plants marijuana, it does things to you, for sure. How
(06:49):
is it that that far off that burning sage and
its bioactive compounds could have other different effects that just
maybe aren't quite as noticeable, or I just haven't been researched. Yes, yes,
but the key thing here is to remember it hasn't
been researched, so you know, take it all with a
grain of salt. But again, if it's making you feel good,
(07:10):
even if it's a placebo, then great. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And by the way, please don't put sage in your
bomb and inhale it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh my god, kill your throat.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, that would not be good for you.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We mentioned, or I think I mentioned responsible harvesting of
sage about fifty percent, and this is California white sage.
About fifty percent of California white sage has been lost
to urbanization. This article says, you know, the increase in
non native people saging is posing a threat. I saw
(07:43):
that it was more like urbanization in general, climate change, fire, drought, poaching,
sort of the usual suspects with stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
If it's California, sage that fire is contributing big time.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, absolutely, So I'm not so convinced that that's true that, like,
you know, people jumping off of goop and buying sage
is like, why that there's a fifty percent drop? But
it may be playing a part, who knows.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I mean, if there's a huge a huge decline in
it naturally, then a bunch of new people coming and
buying it would definitely have an impact too. Sure.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Absolutely. Carpenter bees are the main pollinator of white sage,
so the loss of sage is no good, just like
you know, losing any kind of pollinating plant is no good.
And then you know whether or not it's bad for you.
I was trying to find information. I didn't see where
it was necessarily bad. As long as you keep the
(08:37):
smoke levels down. You don't want to especially if you
have asthma or something or any respiratory illness. You don't
want to be breathing in smoke period. So when you sage,
you want to you want to blow that thing out
pretty quick and keep the smoke to a minimum.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes. One other thing I did see though, that makes
a lot of sense, is that the smoke releases negative ions,
and I saw some people say which counteract negative energy.
Not true, but it does counter at things like allergens
like dust stander mold, which are positively charged typically, so
(09:12):
that makes some sense. So there is some some science
to it too, but also just getting away from all
the science, getting away from applying any new age group
stuff to it. It does. It is like a traditional
indigenous practice. And I saw actually the Mayo Clinic was
boasting about how they have a smudging room at their
(09:32):
their Minnesota like main campus that because they work with
so many Native American patients, that's like one of the
things they offer with their chaplains. Oh interesting, Yeah, it's
pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I didn't see any like this is how long you're
supposed to do it, because I think, especially if it's
something that's like a symbolic thing that you're doing, I'm
not sure like you can even put a time limit
on something that ethereal uh. But yeah, just uh, I
mean we're not smudge advisors. I would say just don't
(10:08):
don't don't throw it away like it's just some dumb
thing you're doing, Like, just let me do this, like
maybe respect it a little bit, even if it's just
a placebo effect, Like it's something that many cultures have
done for for you know, thousands of years, so like
pay pay it a little respect, I would say.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So there's there's a ritual to it. I think originally
smudging was bathing yourself in the smoke from the sage bundle.
That that's really what what indigenous smudging is, and then
it kind of got translated to clearing the negative energy
out of a space as well. But one of the
(10:45):
things you can do if you smudge is you can
you can basically you take the smoke and waft it
to yourself. Yeah, basically run it through your hair, run
it over your shoulders, down your arms, like just take
a quick bath in the in the the smoke. Then
you're actually doing like the most basic ancient indigenous practice
(11:06):
with smudging. But you can also walk around your place
with it, like you're saying, and there's different elements to it,
like literally elements or symbolic elements. And one of the
first things you want to get that's typically used as
a shell, often an abalone shell, and that's the container
that you're actually lighting the bundle in, and that represents
(11:28):
the element of water.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, so not the puka shell from your necklace that
you inevitably have on around your.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Neck with the cocoa pelly pen, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Something larger, and then of course you've got the herb itself.
You bundle it together. You can call it a smudge
stick if you'd like. You've got your fire that's obviously
an element, and then you got that smoke, which is
the air element.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yep, how stuff works. Did you get this from how
stuff works?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
That in other places?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Well, somebody interviewed a writer in healing practitioner named Molly
Larkin who said, hey, man, if you're worried about like
insulting indigenous cultures, because you're not doing this right, you're
not taking it seriously enough. They said that basically the
way you can prevent that across the board is by
(12:19):
having an intention with smudging, and like you were saying,
an intention beyond listening to Enya, and that in expressing
that intention through prayer and that that's one of the
big parts of smudging, as you say like I want
to get rid of I want to wash that man
right out of my hair or something like that, So
(12:40):
I'm going to run sage smoke through it, or they like,
that's what most people think of a smudging, you're getting
rid of negative energy in a space or from yourself.
But apparently, according to Molly Larkin, you can also bring
in positive energy. So you can set your intention whether
it's to get rid of negative energy or bring in
positive or both, and then you just kind of repeat
(13:01):
that throughout the ritual of smudging.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, and just keep in mind of all the science
stuff we talked about.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yes, and one other thing too. Apparently one of the
beliefs is that the ashes contain the negative energy that
you have removed, and so you want to dispose of
that ash on bare earth. If you've gone this far,
you might as well finish it right.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Okay, absolutely, And hey, if you're going to finish it right,
start right and grow your own white sage and use that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah. That's another thing too. They recommend do not buy
from mass market retailers because they're probably not sourcing it ethically.
They could be a part of the problem if there
is a sage shortage. Ideally you would buy it from
a local Native American owned business. And then yeah, the
second best of that is growing at yourself.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Wow, wow, we really did a good job here, Chuck
if I may say so ourselves, and I think so, okay,
well go forth and says everybody, but do so ethically
and responsibly and with respect. And that means, of course
short stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting him for Dave.
It's the Hue and this is short stuff. I think
I already said that, So let's go Woo woo edition
a little bit. Depending on where what your background is,
or what your intentions are, or what you believe the
effects of what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Are, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And what we're talking about is smudging. And if you're like,
what is that? Have you ever heard of burning sage? Like, Oh,
we just moved into this new house. We're gonna walk
around and burn some sage, get rid of all those
bad vibes, and just welcome the newness and the goodness
into this place by burning a little bundle of white sage.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, it's called smudging. The smoke supposedly does some stuff
to like you said, the vibes. It is very popular
among people who use words like vibes, right. But it
has its roots very firmly in Indigenous North American cultures,
in particular the Dakota in ho Chunk cultures. Smudged with sage.
(01:10):
Ho Chunk is more familiar as the Winnebago tribe right,
and they also well, I guess they evolved this practice independently,
but civilizations like throughout time have used herbs or incenses
to do things like cleanse the air or purify things.
(01:33):
And there's definitely something to it. It's just the science
on it hasn't really been carried out in a lot
of ways, and there's a lot of people who still
kind of jump to larger conclusions than they possibly should
at this point. Who knows, I think my take on it.
I just want everybody to bear this in mind. If
it makes you happy, if you like it, if you're
(01:55):
doing it ethically and responsibly, more power to you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Absolutely, Burning all kinds of verbs has long been a
sort of a ritual in different cultures. Like you were
talking about smudging, you can also call it saging. The
word sage actually comes from Latin from salvia, which means
to feel healthy. And we're going to talk about potential
health benefits here in a minute. But there, you know,
(02:23):
there are people who will say, well, hold on a minute,
this is this is cultural appropriation, really, and if you're
just walking around like you throw on some enya or
some grateful dead and you're and you're burning smug you're
smudge and you're burning that stage and walking around, then
you may be sort of doing a not a disservice,
but inadvertently sort of insulting, being disrespectful to the original
(02:50):
very sacred practice.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So that is.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Something to keep in mind and just like, leave me
out of this, leave me in the crossword where I've got.
So there are people though that will say, like, hey,
if you're going to do this, keep some things in mind.
Harvest it sustainably, and we'll get to why you should
do that in a sec although you should always do
that for anything.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and then maybe you.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Know, sort of do some research on how it was
really done and maybe you know, try and honor that
in some way.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe seek different sources too, beyond Instagram
or TikTok. And I'm not making fun, but I know
that there's a lot of people that are getting the
idea to go smudge from those sources. Great, but go
look up a little more about it and that might
help you feel a little better about doing it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, And if you're curious about potential benefits of smudging
beyond just sort of feeling like it's a ritual, you
should do when you move in or you want to
get rid of some bad vibes, don't go to websites
that have web pages that are turquoise or in comic sands,
comic sands, pink script, lots of crystals. You're gonna get
(04:05):
a lot of information on those sites, but it may
not be accurate. Because I did look a little deeper
into benefits of smudging and burning sage, and maybe we
should talk about those when we come back right after this.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that's a capital idea.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
All right, we'll be right back, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So if you look up, you know, what are the
benefits of burning sage, you will find all kinds of
things from improved mood, better sleep, enhance cognition, lowering your
stress levels, anti bacterial properties, stuff like that. The problem
is with a lot of this kind of stuff is
it's hard to find great solid scientific studies and evidence
(05:07):
because science doesn't usually study stuff like this. A lot
the money goes elsewhere. So you'll find lots of studies
where it's like there's a lot of correlation and stuff
like that, a lot of self reporting. But I was
having a hard time finding like some real good, hard
double blind studies on this stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yes, that's that's problem one. Problem two is there are
some peer reviewed good studies or meta analysis of other studies,
but if you start looking into them, you're like, oh,
this isn't actually talking about smudging at all, or yeah,
if it is about smudging, it's not about smudging with sage.
It's about smudging with havanamagri, right, which is an Indian
(05:49):
medicinal I guess incense, which that one is widely cited
because that study found that burning havan some magari purifies
your room. It kills up to ninety five percent of
airborne bacteria for up to like thirty days.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So you could be like, Okay, I mean this sage
really that much different from have on SMAGERI, So surely
there's some properties to it. That's what people are doing.
Or if it's a study on stage in sage's ability
to enhance cognition or to fight Alzheimer's or to improve
your mood or something like that, those are studies on
(06:28):
sage extract that you're taking. Orally it's not a study
on smudging. That's different. Again, you can make some jumps
to conclusions that may have some some basis, like, you know,
if you burn some of the bioactive compounds and other
plants marijuana, it does things to you, for sure. How
(06:49):
is it that that far off that burning sage and
its bioactive compounds could have other different effects that just
maybe aren't quite as noticeable, or I just haven't been researched. Yes, yes,
but the key thing here is to remember it hasn't
been researched, so you know, take it all with a
grain of salt. But again, if it's making you feel good,
(07:10):
even if it's a placebo, then great. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And by the way, please don't put sage in your
bomb and inhale it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh my god, kill your throat.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, that would not be good for you.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We mentioned, or I think I mentioned responsible harvesting of
sage about fifty percent, and this is California white sage.
About fifty percent of California white sage has been lost
to urbanization. This article says, you know, the increase in
non native people saging is posing a threat. I saw
(07:43):
that it was more like urbanization in general, climate change, fire, drought, poaching,
sort of the usual suspects with stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
If it's California, sage that fire is contributing big time.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, absolutely, So I'm not so convinced that that's true that, like,
you know, people jumping off of goop and buying sage
is like, why that there's a fifty percent drop? But
it may be playing a part, who knows.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I mean, if there's a huge a huge decline in
it naturally, then a bunch of new people coming and
buying it would definitely have an impact too. Sure.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Absolutely. Carpenter bees are the main pollinator of white sage,
so the loss of sage is no good, just like
you know, losing any kind of pollinating plant is no good.
And then you know whether or not it's bad for you.
I was trying to find information. I didn't see where
it was necessarily bad. As long as you keep the
(08:37):
smoke levels down. You don't want to especially if you
have asthma or something or any respiratory illness. You don't
want to be breathing in smoke period. So when you sage,
you want to you want to blow that thing out
pretty quick and keep the smoke to a minimum.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes. One other thing I did see though, that makes
a lot of sense, is that the smoke releases negative ions,
and I saw some people say which counteract negative energy.
Not true, but it does counter at things like allergens
like dust stander mold, which are positively charged typically, so
(09:12):
that makes some sense. So there is some some science
to it too, but also just getting away from all
the science, getting away from applying any new age group
stuff to it. It does. It is like a traditional
indigenous practice. And I saw actually the Mayo Clinic was
boasting about how they have a smudging room at their
(09:32):
their Minnesota like main campus that because they work with
so many Native American patients, that's like one of the
things they offer with their chaplains. Oh interesting, Yeah, it's
pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I didn't see any like this is how long you're
supposed to do it, because I think, especially if it's
something that's like a symbolic thing that you're doing, I'm
not sure like you can even put a time limit
on something that ethereal uh. But yeah, just uh, I
mean we're not smudge advisors. I would say just don't
(10:08):
don't don't throw it away like it's just some dumb
thing you're doing, Like, just let me do this, like
maybe respect it a little bit, even if it's just
a placebo effect, Like it's something that many cultures have
done for for you know, thousands of years, so like
pay pay it a little respect, I would say.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So there's there's a ritual to it. I think originally
smudging was bathing yourself in the smoke from the sage bundle.
That that's really what what indigenous smudging is, and then
it kind of got translated to clearing the negative energy
out of a space as well. But one of the
(10:45):
things you can do if you smudge is you can
you can basically you take the smoke and waft it
to yourself. Yeah, basically run it through your hair, run
it over your shoulders, down your arms, like just take
a quick bath in the in the the smoke. Then
you're actually doing like the most basic ancient indigenous practice
(11:06):
with smudging. But you can also walk around your place
with it, like you're saying, and there's different elements to it,
like literally elements or symbolic elements. And one of the
first things you want to get that's typically used as
a shell, often an abalone shell, and that's the container
that you're actually lighting the bundle in, and that represents
(11:28):
the element of water.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, so not the puka shell from your necklace that
you inevitably have on around your.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Neck with the cocoa pelly pen, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Something larger, and then of course you've got the herb itself.
You bundle it together. You can call it a smudge
stick if you'd like. You've got your fire that's obviously
an element, and then you got that smoke, which is
the air element.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yep, how stuff works. Did you get this from how
stuff works?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
That in other places?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Well, somebody interviewed a writer in healing practitioner named Molly
Larkin who said, hey, man, if you're worried about like
insulting indigenous cultures, because you're not doing this right, you're
not taking it seriously enough. They said that basically the
way you can prevent that across the board is by
(12:19):
having an intention with smudging, and like you were saying,
an intention beyond listening to Enya, and that in expressing
that intention through prayer and that that's one of the
big parts of smudging, as you say like I want
to get rid of I want to wash that man
right out of my hair or something like that, So
(12:40):
I'm going to run sage smoke through it, or they like,
that's what most people think of a smudging, you're getting
rid of negative energy in a space or from yourself.
But apparently, according to Molly Larkin, you can also bring
in positive energy. So you can set your intention whether
it's to get rid of negative energy or bring in
positive or both, and then you just kind of repeat
(13:01):
that throughout the ritual of smudging.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, and just keep in mind of all the science
stuff we talked about.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yes, and one other thing too. Apparently one of the
beliefs is that the ashes contain the negative energy that
you have removed, and so you want to dispose of
that ash on bare earth. If you've gone this far,
you might as well finish it right.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Okay, absolutely, And hey, if you're going to finish it right,
start right and grow your own white sage and use that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah. That's another thing too. They recommend do not buy
from mass market retailers because they're probably not sourcing it ethically.
They could be a part of the problem if there
is a sage shortage. Ideally you would buy it from
a local Native American owned business. And then yeah, the
second best of that is growing at yourself.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Wow, wow, we really did a good job here, Chuck
if I may say so ourselves, and I think so, okay,
well go forth and says everybody, but do so ethically
and responsibly and with respect. And that means, of course
short stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.