#a75 :: California white sage

Keith Hunter left us almost nine months ago.

I’ve been waiting to burn this bundle of sage for him – perhaps on the anniversary of his passing, purchase perhaps when his widow, information pills our dear friend, more about decides it’s time.

The lore around sage is thick and changeable: It stems from the rites of the aboriginal people whom we conquering louts bloodily shoved off their land hundreds of years ago – and has been altered, adapted, stolen, monkeyed with and otherwise revered by generations of hippies in Topanga Canyon and beyond ever since …

My family has burned sage in the past to bless a new home – sort of a quasi-pagan thing that we (a lapsed but still god-loving Catholic and his very spiritual but religiously undecided wife and children) enjoy doing, as a way of clearing the air, and ritualizing a passing from one world to the next.

Its dried leaves hold back a sort of spiritual release, storing relief until those who need it most are ready.

Until then, we keep remembering scraps and tatters of a good, vibrant, loving man, who was as powerful and alive as you are right now, until cancer took him away.

Keith was 41.