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Short Stuff: Smudging: Not just for hippies · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting him for Dave.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's the Hue and this is short stuff. I think
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I already said that, So let's go Woo woo edition
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Depending on where what your background is,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: or what your intentions are, or what you believe the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: effects of what you're doing.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Are, that's right.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: And what we're talking about is smudging. And if you're like,
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: what is that? Have you ever heard of burning sage? Like, Oh,
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: we just moved into this new house. We're gonna walk
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: around and burn some sage, get rid of all those
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: bad vibes, and just welcome the newness and the goodness
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: into this place by burning a little bundle of white sage.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called smudging. The smoke supposedly does some stuff
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to like you said, the vibes. It is very popular
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: among people who use words like vibes, right. But it
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: has its roots very firmly in Indigenous North American cultures,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in particular the Dakota in ho Chunk cultures. Smudged with sage.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Ho Chunk is more familiar as the Winnebago tribe right,
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  Speaker 1: and they also well, I guess they evolved this practice independently,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: but civilizations like throughout time have used herbs or incenses
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to do things like cleanse the air or purify things.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And there's definitely something to it. It's just the science
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: on it hasn't really been carried out in a lot
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of ways, and there's a lot of people who still
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: kind of jump to larger conclusions than they possibly should
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: at this point. Who knows, I think my take on it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I just want everybody to bear this in mind. If
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it makes you happy, if you like it, if you're
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: doing it ethically and responsibly, more power to you.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, Burning all kinds of verbs has long been a
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: sort of a ritual in different cultures. Like you were
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: talking about smudging, you can also call it saging. The
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: word sage actually comes from Latin from salvia, which means
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: to feel healthy. And we're going to talk about potential
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: health benefits here in a minute. But there, you know,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: there are people who will say, well, hold on a minute,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: this is this is cultural appropriation, really, and if you're
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: just walking around like you throw on some enya or
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: some grateful dead and you're and you're burning smug you're
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: smudge and you're burning that stage and walking around, then
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: you may be sort of doing a not a disservice,
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  Speaker 3: but inadvertently sort of insulting, being disrespectful to the original
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  Speaker 3: very sacred practice.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: So that is.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Something to keep in mind and just like, leave me
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: out of this, leave me in the crossword where I've got.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So there are people though that will say, like, hey,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: if you're going to do this, keep some things in mind.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Harvest it sustainably, and we'll get to why you should
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: do that in a sec although you should always do
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: that for anything.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then maybe you.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Know, sort of do some research on how it was
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: really done and maybe you know, try and honor that
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: in some way.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe seek different sources too, beyond Instagram
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: or TikTok. And I'm not making fun, but I know
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot of people that are getting the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: idea to go smudge from those sources. Great, but go
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: look up a little more about it and that might
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: help you feel a little better about doing it.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you're curious about potential benefits of smudging
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: beyond just sort of feeling like it's a ritual, you
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: should do when you move in or you want to
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: get rid of some bad vibes, don't go to websites
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: that have web pages that are turquoise or in comic sands,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: comic sands, pink script, lots of crystals. You're gonna get
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of information on those sites, but it may
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: not be accurate. Because I did look a little deeper
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: into benefits of smudging and burning sage, and maybe we
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: should talk about those when we come back right after this.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I think that's a capital idea.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: All right, we'll be right back, all right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So if you look up, you know, what are the
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: benefits of burning sage, you will find all kinds of
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: things from improved mood, better sleep, enhance cognition, lowering your
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  Speaker 3: stress levels, anti bacterial properties, stuff like that. The problem
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: is with a lot of this kind of stuff is
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  Speaker 3: it's hard to find great solid scientific studies and evidence
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: because science doesn't usually study stuff like this. A lot
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  Speaker 3: the money goes elsewhere. So you'll find lots of studies
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  Speaker 3: where it's like there's a lot of correlation and stuff
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  Speaker 3: like that, a lot of self reporting. But I was
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  Speaker 3: having a hard time finding like some real good, hard
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  Speaker 3: double blind studies on this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, that's that's problem one. Problem two is there are
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  Speaker 1: some peer reviewed good studies or meta analysis of other studies,
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  Speaker 1: but if you start looking into them, you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: this isn't actually talking about smudging at all, or yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: if it is about smudging, it's not about smudging with sage.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's about smudging with havanamagri, right, which is an Indian
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  Speaker 1: medicinal I guess incense, which that one is widely cited
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  Speaker 1: because that study found that burning havan some magari purifies
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: your room. It kills up to ninety five percent of
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: airborne bacteria for up to like thirty days.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: So you could be like, Okay, I mean this sage
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  Speaker 1: really that much different from have on SMAGERI, So surely
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  Speaker 1: there's some properties to it. That's what people are doing.
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  Speaker 1: Or if it's a study on stage in sage's ability
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  Speaker 1: to enhance cognition or to fight Alzheimer's or to improve
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  Speaker 1: your mood or something like that, those are studies on
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  Speaker 1: sage extract that you're taking. Orally it's not a study
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: on smudging. That's different. Again, you can make some jumps
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to conclusions that may have some some basis, like, you know,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: if you burn some of the bioactive compounds and other
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: plants marijuana, it does things to you, for sure. How
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  Speaker 1: is it that that far off that burning sage and
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: its bioactive compounds could have other different effects that just
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: maybe aren't quite as noticeable, or I just haven't been researched. Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: but the key thing here is to remember it hasn't
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: been researched, so you know, take it all with a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: grain of salt. But again, if it's making you feel good,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: even if it's a placebo, then great. Yeah.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: And by the way, please don't put sage in your
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: bomb and inhale it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, kill your throat.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would not be good for you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: We mentioned, or I think I mentioned responsible harvesting of
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: sage about fifty percent, and this is California white sage.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: About fifty percent of California white sage has been lost
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: to urbanization. This article says, you know, the increase in
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: non native people saging is posing a threat. I saw
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: that it was more like urbanization in general, climate change, fire, drought, poaching,
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  Speaker 3: sort of the usual suspects with stuff like that.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: If it's California, sage that fire is contributing big time.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, So I'm not so convinced that that's true that, like,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: you know, people jumping off of goop and buying sage
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: is like, why that there's a fifty percent drop? But
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: it may be playing a part, who knows.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, if there's a huge a huge decline in
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it naturally, then a bunch of new people coming and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: buying it would definitely have an impact too. Sure.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Carpenter bees are the main pollinator of white sage,
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  Speaker 3: so the loss of sage is no good, just like
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: you know, losing any kind of pollinating plant is no good.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: And then you know whether or not it's bad for you.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I was trying to find information. I didn't see where
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: it was necessarily bad. As long as you keep the
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: smoke levels down. You don't want to especially if you
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: have asthma or something or any respiratory illness. You don't
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  Speaker 3: want to be breathing in smoke period. So when you sage,
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  Speaker 3: you want to you want to blow that thing out
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: pretty quick and keep the smoke to a minimum.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. One other thing I did see though, that makes
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense, is that the smoke releases negative ions,
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  Speaker 1: and I saw some people say which counteract negative energy.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Not true, but it does counter at things like allergens
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  Speaker 1: like dust stander mold, which are positively charged typically, so
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  Speaker 1: that makes some sense. So there is some some science
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  Speaker 1: to it too, but also just getting away from all
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the science, getting away from applying any new age group
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  Speaker 1: stuff to it. It does. It is like a traditional
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  Speaker 1: indigenous practice. And I saw actually the Mayo Clinic was
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: boasting about how they have a smudging room at their
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: their Minnesota like main campus that because they work with
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: so many Native American patients, that's like one of the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: things they offer with their chaplains. Oh interesting, Yeah, it's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: pretty cool.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't see any like this is how long you're
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: supposed to do it, because I think, especially if it's
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: something that's like a symbolic thing that you're doing, I'm
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: not sure like you can even put a time limit
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: on something that ethereal uh. But yeah, just uh, I
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: mean we're not smudge advisors. I would say just don't
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: don't don't throw it away like it's just some dumb
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  Speaker 3: thing you're doing, Like, just let me do this, like
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: maybe respect it a little bit, even if it's just
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: a placebo effect, Like it's something that many cultures have
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  Speaker 3: done for for you know, thousands of years, so like
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  Speaker 3: pay pay it a little respect, I would say.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So there's there's a ritual to it. I think originally
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  Speaker 1: smudging was bathing yourself in the smoke from the sage bundle.
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  Speaker 1: That that's really what what indigenous smudging is, and then
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it kind of got translated to clearing the negative energy
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  Speaker 1: out of a space as well. But one of the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: things you can do if you smudge is you can
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  Speaker 1: you can basically you take the smoke and waft it
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to yourself. Yeah, basically run it through your hair, run
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: it over your shoulders, down your arms, like just take
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: a quick bath in the in the the smoke. Then
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you're actually doing like the most basic ancient indigenous practice
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: with smudging. But you can also walk around your place
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  Speaker 1: with it, like you're saying, and there's different elements to it,
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  Speaker 1: like literally elements or symbolic elements. And one of the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: first things you want to get that's typically used as
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a shell, often an abalone shell, and that's the container
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: that you're actually lighting the bundle in, and that represents
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the element of water.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so not the puka shell from your necklace that
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: you inevitably have on around your.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Neck with the cocoa pelly pen, yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Something larger, and then of course you've got the herb itself.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: You bundle it together. You can call it a smudge
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: stick if you'd like. You've got your fire that's obviously
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: an element, and then you got that smoke, which is
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: the air element.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yep, how stuff works. Did you get this from how
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: stuff works?
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: That in other places?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Well, somebody interviewed a writer in healing practitioner named Molly
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Larkin who said, hey, man, if you're worried about like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: insulting indigenous cultures, because you're not doing this right, you're
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: not taking it seriously enough. They said that basically the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: way you can prevent that across the board is by
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: having an intention with smudging, and like you were saying,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: an intention beyond listening to Enya, and that in expressing
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that intention through prayer and that that's one of the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: big parts of smudging, as you say like I want
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to get rid of I want to wash that man
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: right out of my hair or something like that, So
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to run sage smoke through it, or they like,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that's what most people think of a smudging, you're getting
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: rid of negative energy in a space or from yourself.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: But apparently, according to Molly Larkin, you can also bring
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in positive energy. So you can set your intention whether
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: it's to get rid of negative energy or bring in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: positive or both, and then you just kind of repeat
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: that throughout the ritual of smudging.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and just keep in mind of all the science
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: stuff we talked about.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, and one other thing too. Apparently one of the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: beliefs is that the ashes contain the negative energy that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: you have removed, and so you want to dispose of
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: that ash on bare earth. If you've gone this far,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you might as well finish it right.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, absolutely, And hey, if you're going to finish it right,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: start right and grow your own white sage and use that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's another thing too. They recommend do not buy
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: from mass market retailers because they're probably not sourcing it ethically.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: They could be a part of the problem if there
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: is a sage shortage. Ideally you would buy it from
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a local Native American owned business. And then yeah, the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: second best of that is growing at yourself.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Wow, wow, we really did a good job here, Chuck
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: if I may say so ourselves, and I think so, okay,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: well go forth and says everybody, but do so ethically
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: and responsibly and with respect. And that means, of course
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: short stuff is out.
• 14:14
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