With sales of sage bundles spiking as much as 1000 per cent, how to make your home spark joy by using them in cleansing rituals.
Sage has been used for centuries, burnt as traditional incense during culturally significant ritual cleansing and purifying ceremonies.
The Romans valued it for its healing benefits; the Chinese would trade four pounds of black tea for one pound of French sage.
And in the Americas, it was valued as a great healer and protector.
In 21st-century Ireland, Finn Murray, who runs The Hopsack in Rathmines has seen a one thousand per cent increase in sales of the herb in his shop in ritzy Dublin 6.
“Sales have exploded,” he says. “It used to be people in yoga leggings and Birkenstocks. Now it’s a lot more straightforward for professionals, even people working in tech. Even the guys coming in for raw milk want it.”
He believes the lockdown period accounts reinvigorated interest in the ancient cleansing practice of burning or smudging sage bundles or wands.
“Maybe they felt the intensity of home life during Covid and the emotional intensity within the house. These rituals clear spaces,” he explains.
The burning of sage or another incense has become a punctuation point to the day.
When used as a simple cleansing ritual, it can become a way to take a step back from busy life, to consider your relationship to time past and future and to your own relatives, Murray says.
“In less religious times, it’s an approach that is more a la carte. It feels tangible; honour without having to believe.”
Sage bundles look great too - even when unlit. But the smell isn’t for everyone.
If you find it too pungent, he suggests trying palo santo instead. Sourced from what is considered a sacred tree that grows on the Yucatan peninsula and pacific coast of South America, it is used similarly to aromatic resins such as frankincense, myrrh and copal.
In Spanish, the name means holy wood.
Movement and choreograph coach Jane Shortall discovered the fragrant timber while on a yoga retreat in Crete.
At the time, she was considering selling her home.
She was having it repainted as well as jobs about the house done, such as clearing the gutters all done.
One evening on the beach, a friend gave her a stick of palo santo and told her to complete the renewal by smudging it when she got home.
She did and now, rather than listing it, she’s fallen back in love with the place.
Did the ritual have anything to do with her decision?
She’s not sure, but she is once again very happy living there, and that is enough for her. She feels reinvigorated in her professional life too.
Anyone looking to boost their own energy levels and have some fun can join her at a free event on Saturday, November 1st, to form part of her Thriller dance flash mob troupe in Dun Laoghaire’s People’s Park.
Rehearsals start there at 11am. The performance will take place on the pier, across the road, at 12 midday.
After a long day in the shop, Murray is a fan of Evening Incense – Jatamansi, from Paris-based Cosmic Dealer.
Ethically made by yogis in an ashram in the Himalayas, the incense features aromatic ayurvedic herbs, woods and plants and has an earthy, musky, and woody scent with subtle sweet and herbal undertones.
It helps him unwind. Work is busy.
“There’s a lot of consultations, some with major physical elements. While well-placed to offer support and advice, it has an emotional drain.”
He likens his incense ritual to arriving home to his porch and removing his muddy outdoor boots. With it he disconnects from the emotional stuff of the day.
The attention-grabbing title on a box of 30 of his favourite sticks, €17.85, ex delivery, is, I Found Myself at a Female Orgy.
A cup of matcha tea further helps him decompress. “It feels super, super peaceful”.
He makes his own sage bundles, using a home sauna out the back of this house to dry batches of rosemary and sage that he hangs upside down using a string.
But is the practice considered witchcraft? He is suitably skeptical.
In the shop, "I see zero obvious wickens or witches. A lot of private people hide their spirituality. It allows people to be more playful with rituals and not so precious.”
