Desert sage, sold most often as sagebrush, grows across the arid high country of the American West, where its silvery leaves and resinous scent define entire landscapes. Scott Cunningham writes in his Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs that sagebrush has long been burned in American Indian ceremonies, and that its smoke is used to drive away malevolent forces and support purification work. It is a plant of hard ground and long life, and it carries that character into the bundle.

Desert sage is typically Artemisia tridentata or a related Artemisia species, an aromatic evergreen shrub of the sunflower family, Asteraceae, rather than a true Salvia sage. The species name means three-toothed, after the three lobes at the tip of each leaf. Its fragrance comes from volatile oils including camphor and other terpenoids concentrated in the foliage, which sharpen noticeably after desert rain.

Desert sage belongs to the Artemisia family, plants long linked in European folklore to Artemis, goddess of the wild and protector of women., In many Indigenous traditions of the Great Basin and Plains, sagebrush smoke has been used ceremonially to purify people, tools, and gathering spaces., and Folk tradition recorded by Scott Cunningham holds that bathing with sagebrush cleanses a person of past misdeeds and lingering negativity.

I clear away the weight of the day and return to myself. My space is my own, my energy is my own, and I begin again whenever I choose.