Our Sage and Tobacco Garden have reached a fullness that only occurs just before the Frosts arrive. We harvest both before the arrival of the first "killing" frost that comes and in one night kills all the delicate foliage of all the plants that cannot endure the freezing of the water within them. Overnight the tomatoes, annual flowers, pepper plants and our tobacco become limp and discolored as they collapse and return to Mother Earth. We harvest the tobacco and sage before this happens, and timing is of the essence!
Sage is a Sacred Plant, a healing plant that is widely used across many traditions. Its leaves leave a sticky and aromatic resin on the hand when touched. Sage comes in multiple varieties from the decorative purples, reds, blues and blacks, to the culinary garden sages, and to the sages used for smudging and smoking- the Desert Sage and White Sage. We use sage in abundance in our Spiritual Practices, and we offer it to the Ancestors and Misterios on a regular basis.
Sage is also a Medicinal Plant and we make teas from it to drink during Ceremony and as a healing tea. The Sage grows in abundance here, loving the bright sun it receives in the Ceremonial Field and loving the soil, handling droughts with seeming ease. These plants are a mixture of ones that we grew from seed and ones that we bought from an organic grower at a local herb festival.
In the process of burning the sage, we are involved in a process of life and death, as physical form of the dried sage burns we see a transformation of that physical form to other forms which are also physical yet are also spiritual. The aroma that comes from the Smoke feeds the Spirit, both the internal Spirit within us that receives that aroma but also the Ancestral Spirits within us and within our surroundings who also are receiving that aroma, which is a manifestation of the Spirit of the Sage itself. Water is also released in this process of burning sage, and ashes are the residue that can then also be used for Spiritual Purposes. Burning sage is a transformation of it but also a transferring of it from the physical to the Spiritual. We enrich our Ancestors and Misterios every time we make an offering to them, whether it be a sage and tobacco offering, or offerings of Roots, Fruits and other Materials. These offerings strengthen the Spirit and increase the Spirit's abundance and thriving.
There is a prevalent behavior of always asking the Spirit for abundance, thriving, prosperity, opportunities and so on, however if there is a stinginess in one's approach to the Spirit in terms of the offerings that one brings to the Spirit, then there is an energy of lack or stinginess that gets created and then perpetuated. (Note the energy of stinginess has nothing to do with quantity, it is an approach and an energy that gets attached to an offering). When we grow the sage and tobacco ourselves or if we would have the opportunity to gather those sacred plants from the wild, we bring even more abundance and vitality to the Ancestors because we are exerting our love and effort in the growing and gathering of those plants. We increase the "volume" of the offering (for those that understand the concept of "volume"). Our energy and our sweat become an aspect of the offering itself. This is very different from purchasing a bundle of sage or tobacco from a shop where one does not know how it was grown, if it was grown from a spiritual perspective or whether it was grown purely for purpose of chasing the dollar bill.
Not only does the homegrown sage itself embody an energy that our Ancestors will appreciate more but we also are able to harvest the roots of the sage which will then be used spiritually. There are many aspects of the plant that are simply unavailable commercially. We use the whole plant and the plant itself carries the vibration of the Land that we live upon!
We are very appreciative and grateful to the Ancestors and Spirits that have enabled us to progress to this point inside our experience, we are blessed to have the Land upon which to grow the plants, to have the fertility from the animals to enhance the soil, and blessed to have the Sacred Rays of the Sun and Sacred Waters of the Rain. (Note the first photo and the Rays of the Sun within it). All these Sacred Mysteries enable us to grow the sage and it is truly a working together for us with the Mysteries to bring about this abundant harvest which will give us abundant sage to offer to the Spirits in gratitude and love.
For Anani this is especially important. When we make an offering of sage, she knows the whole process from the planting of the seed, the ongoing water of the seedling, the transplanting of the seedling to the garden, the weeding of the garden, the observations of the growing plants, the smelling of their leaves all through the summer, the concerns about the lack of rain, the invocations to the Mysteries for Rain to come, the preparations and discussion about the harvest, the harvesting, the bundling, the drying, the observations of the various bees, and bugs that show up on the growing plant, and finally the offering of the sage to the Sacred Fire, the smudging, and the use within Ceremony! She is blessed to see how the sage plant looks as a seed, a seedling and fully grown plant and then see how it transforms as we transfer the energy and spirit of the plant to the World of the Ancestors!
On our last count we had 87 bundles as you can see in the photos plus we also keep the woody aspects of the plant that are too rough to bundle easily that we use to put directly on the Sacred Fire or to smudge the space, and we save the roots.
For Tobacco Harvest: "Nsunga,Tabaco"
Delightful looking sage! Wow. It must be wonderful to grow such a lovely crop. I admire that very much.
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