Latin name: Eriodictyon californicum
Also know as: yerba santa, mountain balm, wä-sä-got’-ō, consumptive’s weed, Holy Herb and bear weed

Origin: California, USA
Supplier-ID: JC-2308U

Eriodictyon californicum – Yerba Santa

Yerba Santa has a long history of use by Native America healers for many centuries, and then taken up by the Spanish settlers, who gave it its current name, meaning “Holy Herb”.

Yerba Santa is used in traditional smudging practice for protection, purification, healing, spiritual strength, courage, psychic abilities, and finding your innermost self.

Smudging is a spiritual method to cleanse spaces of negative energy. Smudging has traditionally been a ritual of the Native Americans (Indians). It is now also a popular custom in Europe!

Key Benefits of Yerba Santa:

Yerba Santa is traditionally burned to honor ancestors, increase psychic powers & bring healing & protection to those who use it. Best known for its affinity to the lungs, it has been widely used as a natural remedy against coughing & many other respiratory ailments.

Yerba Santa has many medicinal properties and actually has a pleasant taste. It is used as a food flavoring and as an additive to herbal cough syrups to disguise the taste of other ingredients. Yerba Santa can be used as a tea, but more often used for an alcohol tincture. And is traditionally used as a smudge or incense for protection and purification.

Fragrance: a uplifting balsamic warm and pungent scent that is both awakening and stimulating.

Properties: The internal body linings correspond with “psychic body linings.” Sanctity of psychic space is the internal property which Yerba Santa guards.

The tradition of Smudging:

Smudging finds its origin in the USA by the Native American tribes. They burned herbs such as white sage to cleanse themselves and their environment from negative energy. The believe is that negative energies (spirits) do not tolerate the smoke of these burning herbs. And that this acts as a purifying function that attracts positive energies or good spirits.

The Native Americans liked to use symbolism in their rituals. In this way they preferably let the four elements come together: water, earth, fire and air. They did this with a shell (water), earth (herbs), fire (burning of the herbs) and air (smoke).