With a long history as a holy wood with fragrant healing smoke, Palo Santo is currently very popular. But how can you use it to improve your spiritual practice? How can you use it ethically? And where can you get high quality wood?
First of all, let me clarify – Palo Santo is not incense to be lit because you want a room to smell good. It is so much more. It is sacred. It must be treated with respect and used with clear intent. And you only burn a small bit at a time.
Like smudging with sage, Palo Santo will cleanse and purify. I like the smoke of Palo Santo for clearing objects that come into my house. I especially like how it gently clears antiques and jewelry. I use it at the front door to bless and protect. And in the bedroom to purify the space and promote calm sleep.
Palo Santo is also wonderful when you want to create an intentional shift of being.
I burn it to shift my consciousness into a meditative state before creating art or doing an intuitive reading or tarot reading. I might burn it to bring myself into a more mindful space before a call with a client, before a meal or at the end of the day when I stop the work I’m doing and start relaxing for the night.
Palo Santo creates a threshold between the ordinary and elevated, between the mundane and the sacred.
Once again I have been delighted to partner up with my friend and colleague Rebecca at Gravesco Pottery as she created the perfect ritual bowl for working with Palo Santo. She designed a vessel that holds the wood safely aloft when you burn it and offers the perfect place to extinguish it when finished. I adore how the bowl fits in my hand and how the Palo Santo stick nestles “just so” in the sand in the center.
She also found an exceptional source for ethically harvested wood – a supplier who values the sacred nature of Palo Santo....the tree, the land and their native community partners.
I offer a Palo Santo ritual that comes along with this kit. I just know you’re going to love it.
You can find the the Palo Santo Ritual Kit here on Rebecca's Website