Vancouver’s last wizard, Micheal Rose, speaks in poem, wears gold-framed glasses and dresses in all green and gold. He also makes the West Coast Smudge Wands we’re using to clear our lives of bad energy and set new intentions for 2015.
Fresh and fragrant, each smudge wand includes seasonally foraged and locally harvested materials like sage, cedar, fir, eucalyptus, lavender, heather and rose. According to Garden Health employee and holistic nutritionist Samantha Dobo, every batch that Rose hand-delivers to her Davie Street store is different (depending on what Mother Nature has provided that time of year), and can be used "in ceremony, around the house and on the person."
"It is my understanding that a smudge is used for energy work and the plants used have different energy cleansing properties," Dobo says. "For example, sage is used to drive away or push out undesired energies. Cedar is then used to keep that energy from coming back; it is the protector. We carry literature on traditional uses of smudges, which I would recommend reading before beginning on this spiritual practice."
Rose’s smudge wands, which range in price from $7 to $15, may be almost too beautiful to burn but, if they help get the new year off to an energetically positive start, we say fire away. —Noa Nichol
West Coast Smudge Wands, available at Garden Health, 1204 Davie St., Vancouver, 604-688-4325, www.gardenhealthvitamins.ca
Photo courtesy of Samantha Dobo.
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