So I’ve been thinking a lot about cultural appropriation lately.  I never used to really worry about using sage or palo santo, feeling like I was OK as long as I honored the First Nations tradition of smudging but without trying to claim it as my own.  However, if I’ve learned anything in my practice, it’s that I can always learn and grow and find new perspectives.

The two main deities I work with are Greek, and while I don’t have Greek ancestry either, I think it can be argued that the Greeks and Romans are kind of ancestors of us all, since they really codified modern civilization, philosophy, medicine, math and science, and a lot of other things that we draw from today.  I see them as kind of the intellectual ancestors of the modern world.  As such, I wanted to find herbs and resins that would be in use and readily accessible in ancient Greece and create a blessing incense blend.

I’ll be using this for a few days leading up to Samhain to cleanse/bless my tarot cards, oracle cards, and other divination tools.