The Sage That Comes From Trees:
What Every Smudge Bundle Wants You to Know
A stolen plant, a sacred trust, the Tree of Life in each of us — and the healing that was never in the bundle.
by Bunny Sings Wolf | IndigenousHealing.io
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I want to tell you about a small bag of sage and a dream song that led me here with this in hand and heart.
Now that kind of small bag of sage that was recieved in a huge box of loose sage? Not the kind you pick up at a crystal shop, or order from a wellness boutique, or find bundled and tagged at a farmer's market.
This sage has a different history. It was torn from the California hillsides by poachers. It was seized. And then, in an act of extraordinary respect and trust, it magically made its way to me — a Lakota Ambassador nine miles from Mato Tipila in Hulett, Wyoming — with a specific instruction:
Tell the truth about it.
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The Plant That Belongs to a People
White sage — Salvia apiana — is not a generic spiritual herb. It is a specific plant, a shrub native only to a narrow coastal and inland region stretching from San Luis Obispo County in California down through Baja California, Mexico. For the Cahuilla, the Tongva, the Chumash, and other California tribal nations, this plant is not a product. It is a relative.
In the Cahuilla language, there is no word for 'nature' — because the Cahuilla people know naturally that they are nature. The concept of a separate world that humans observe from outside doesn't exist. Plants are the first people. White sage is family.
When Indigenous elders gather sage, they go to stands their grandparents visited. They sing. They pray. They take only what is needed and give thanks for what remains. The relationship is reciprocal, ancient, and alive.
Or it was — until the market decided white sage was worth money.
What Poaching Has Done
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Because white sage grows slowly. It does not bounce back from being cut to the ground. A stand of sage that has grown for generations can be gone in one night. And it will not return in your lifetime.
The California Native Plant Society has been documenting this. Rangers have been stationed. Arrests have been made. And still it continues — because the market for 'smudge bundles' has outpaced the ecology that could ever sustainably supply it.
How the Sage Found Me
A quantity of white sage confiscated from illegal poachers was eventually forwarded to me — Bunny Sings Wolf, Ambassador for the Lakota Dakota Nakota Nation — by those connected with its prosecution, who wanted it honored rather than discarded.
Here is what matters: our Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota elders do not use California White Sage in our ceremonies. We have our own medicines — sacred plants native to our Black Hills homeland, gathered in proper relationship since time immemorial. This sage does not belong to our tradition. But it came to us with a story that needed carrying forward.
So I accepted it. And now I am carrying that story to you.
What Our Elders Taught Me
The wellness world has created enormous demand for California White Sage without creating corresponding understanding of what it is, who tends it, or what its commercial harvest is doing to the landscapes and peoples it belongs to.
This is not about blame. Most people who burn a smudge bundle are doing so with a good heart. They want to clear the energy in their home. They want to feel something sacred. They want to connect with something older and wiser than the noise of modern life.
Those are honest longings. And they deserve an honest answer.
The answer has never been in the sage. The answer has always been inside you.
Nature's 4 Steps and the Truth About Healing
The ancient wisdom I carry — Nature's 4 Steps of Healing: Balance, Harmony, Abundance, Peace — does not point you toward any plant, substance, crystal, or tool as the source of your healing.
These are doorways. They can open something. But the healing itself?
It is in you. It always was.
This is what our California relations have been trying to protect — not just a plant, but a living understanding of relationship. When a medicine is torn from its place and sold as a product, it is not just the plant that suffers. The understanding suffers. The relationship suffers. And the people who needed the real teaching suffer, because they received a bundle instead of a truth.
What I Am Doing With This Sage
I am distributing the confiscated sage — in small, beautiful bags — as an educational gift with donations to the Circle the Walk of Peace Path, our 2028 gathering at Mato Tipila.
Each bag comes with the story you are reading now. The purpose is not to promote the use of white sage. The purpose is to make this the last bag you ever buy — and the first step toward understanding why healing was never IN the bundle.
If you have one of these bags, I ask you: before you burn it, watch the video above. Visit cnps.org/conservation/white-sage. Let the sage teach you what it came here to teach
— not through burning, but through knowing, and honoring the sacredness of relationship with all things that we each hold in our hands and hearts.
The Invitation
You are not wrong to want something sacred. You are not wrong to reach for a ritual, a ceremony, a plant, a stone. The reaching is the beginning of the journey.
But the journey leads inside.
I would be honored to walk with you there. IndigenousHealing.io is a free global healing community where Indigenous wisdom meets the science of our times through Nature's 4 Steps of Healing. We can now join this circle from our hands and hearts, in a global community right here, connected energetically from our stone-powered devices 24/7 from where we LIVE!
Come in. The circle is always open.
And if you feel called to travel the long distance, do the additional research, dive deeply into your own healing heart to hone the inner resonance skills to stand at Mato Tipila on Summer Solstice, June 20, 2028 — as one of 1,400 Life-honoring Resonance Walkers circling the Sacred Heart of Turtle Island in a live-streamed gathering for global peace — come find your place in the circle now.
The walk has already begun. 🌿
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📹 Watch: Saging the World — https://youtu.be/_V7NoB1UPU8
🌿 Learn more: California Native Plant Society — cnps.org/conservation/white-sage
🌐 Join free: IndigenousHealing.io
🤍 Support: Circle the Walk of Peace Path 2028 — givesendgo.com/indigenoushealing
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For Every Tree Hugger Who Ever Burned White Sage — This One's for You
Since trees and shrubs are woody perennials with so very much in common, and since the sage that was stolen and brought to my table is itself a woody shrub — a tree relative — I want to honor this moment with my 5 year old's received and saved dream song - simply called 'Song to Trees.'
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What the Sage, the Shrub, and the Tree Already Know
If you have ever been a tree hugger as a child — if you ever pressed your face into bark and felt something listening — this is the science that confirms what you always sensed.
Trees and shrubs share a living kinship. California White Sage itself is a woody shrub — structurally, ecologically, and spiritually kin to the trees whose stories echo in every tradition on Earth. Here is a little of what they share:
1. Woody stems, built to last.
Both trees and shrubs have woody stems that are hard and enduring — unlike soft-stemmed plants that live one season and are gone. This woody tissue is structural memory: the plant's record of every year it has survived.
2. Perennial — returning, year after year.
They are perennial plants — meaning they live for more than two years, establishing deep root systems and adapting to seasonal changes with a patience that teaches us everything about resilience.
3. Multiple stems rising from one root.
Shrubs send up multiple stems from a single base — while trees rise on one great trunk. Different expressions of the same deep will: to reach upward, to grow, to give.
4. Branches that shelter, leaves that breathe.
Both produce leaves and flowers. Both provide shade, habitat, and food for creatures who could not survive without them. Both contribute to the oxygen in every breath you are breathing right now.
5. Roots dug deep — the foundation that holds.
Within the trunk, life surges up. The deeper the roots, the taller the reach. This is not just botany. This is the pattern of healing — the deeper the inner work, the higher the life you grow.
6. Guardians of the ecosystem.
Trees and shrubs prevent soil erosion, regulate water cycles, cool the air, shelter the small and the vulnerable. They give without ceasing. Our Lakota teachers have always said: the trees were here before us, and will be here after us. They are our elders.
The tree of life grows within each of us — in our roots, our trunk, our branches reaching toward the sky. That is the walk. That is the healing.
Mato Tipila — what many call Devils Tower — rises from the earth nine miles from my home here in Hulett, Wyoming. Many tribal stories from surrounding nations speak of it not as stone, but as the ancient remains of an enormous tree — perhaps the Tree of Life itself. That story deserves its own post, its own ceremony of telling. But I plant the seed here: the walk we are gathering to take in 2028 circles what may be the oldest tree ancestor on this continent.
The walk has already begun. 🌿
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Mitakuye Oyasin — All My Relations 🌿
Bunny Sings Wolf Engberg
Indigenous Wisdom Keeper · Dream Song Carrier · Ambassador, Lakota Dakota Nakota Nation
◈ PIECE 2 — SUBSCRIBER EMAIL ANNOUNCEMENT | SEND JUNE 3 ◈
Paste into AttractWell email builder. Add [YOUR BLOG LINK] once the post is live.
SUBJECT LINE
Before You Light That Bundle — Something the Sage Has Been Trying to Tell You 🌿
EMAIL BODY
Dear Resonance Walker,
A stolen plant. A sacred trust. And the healing that was never in the bundle.
This week's blog post is one I have been carrying carefully since a quantity of confiscated California White Sage made its way to me here in the Black Hills — forwarded by those connected with the prosecution of illegal poachers, who wanted it honored rather than discarded.
What began as a story about a shrub became something much larger: a story about the Tree of Life in each of us, about the roots that hold us when we reach upward, and about what our California tribal relations have been quietly protecting for generations.
You will find in this post:
✦ The truth about California White Sage poaching — and why most commercially sold sage harms the very lands and peoples it came from
✦ What every tree hugger who ever reached for a smudge bundle deserves to know
✦ The living kinship between sage, shrub, tree — and the Tree of Life within you
✦ My dream song 'Song to Trees' — a music video created to honor the breathing relatives who give us life
→ Read: The Sage That Comes From Trees: What Every Smudge Bundle Wants You to Know
[YOUR BLOG LINK]
If you'll be at Spirit of Wyoming in Jackson Hole this weekend — come find my table. You may go home with a small bag of this sage, and with it, the full story of where it came from and what it is here to teach.
The walk has already begun. I am so grateful to walk it with you. 🌿
With love and deep respect,
Bunny Sings Wolf Engberg
Indigenous Wisdom Keeper · Dream Song Carrier
Mitakuye Oyasin — All My Relations 🌿
◈ PIECE 3 — FACEBOOK POSTS | SCHEDULE JUNE 3 ◈
Three posts — personal page, group, and Jackson Hole event post. Replace [YOUR BLOG LINK].
POST A — Personal Page (Peaceable White Buffalo) — story hook
🌿 Before you light that bundle — something the sage has been trying to tell you. This week's post carries a story I've been holding carefully: a stolen plant, a sacred trust, and the healing that was never in the bundle. But there's something more. White sage is a woody shrub — a tree relative. And that small fact opens a much larger doorway: to the Tree of Life in each of us, to a dream song gifted to me called 'Song to Trees,' and to the ancient tree our 2028 gathering will circle at Mato Tipila. Read it before you see me in Jackson Hole this weekend 👇 [YOUR BLOG LINK] Mitakuye Oyasin 🌿
POST B — IndigenousHealing.io Group — circle family invitation
🌿 Circle family — this week's post is for every tree hugger who ever burned white sage and wondered if they were honoring something — or inadvertently participating in its destruction. What Every Smudge Bundle Wants You to Know. The sage is a tree relative. The poaching is real. The healing was never in the bundle. And inside the post — a dream song, a music video, and a seed planted about something our 2028 Walk will circle that may be the most ancient tree ancestor on this continent. Come read it. Come home to yourself. 🌿 → [YOUR BLOG LINK] Heal a Heart. Nations. The World. 🌿 Mitakuye Oyasin
POST C — Jackson Hole / Spirit of Wyoming — event tie-in
🌿 If you're coming to Spirit of Wyoming in Jackson Hole this weekend — you may find a small bag of sage on my table. It was confiscated from poachers in California and given to me, a Lakota Ambassador, with one instruction: tell the truth about it. This post is that truth. And it leads somewhere even deeper — to the Tree of Life growing in each of us, and to the ancient tree our ancestors say still stands at Mato Tipila. Read it before you arrive: → [YOUR BLOG LINK] The sage is not the medicine. But it will point you toward it. 🌿 Mitakuye Oyasin
◈ PIECE 4 — YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION: 'SONG TO TREES' MUSIC VIDEO ◈
Paste this into the YouTube description field when you upload your music video.
VIDEO TITLE (suggested)
Song to Trees 🌿 | An Original Dream Song | Bunny Sings Wolf | IndigenousHealing.io
YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION — PASTE BELOW
This song was given to me in a dream — a gift I have carried for years, now offered to you as a music video, in honor of our tree relatives who breathe life into this world.
The dancing tree. The laughing tree. The silent tree reaching up in the dark. The sturdy trunk with roots dug deep, life surging upward, God it seeks.
White sage — the plant at the center of this week's blog post — is itself a woody shrub. A tree relative. Torn from California hillsides by poachers, given to me by those who wanted its story honored rather than discarded.
This song is dedicated to all our plant relatives — to what they teach us about rootedness, about reaching, about giving everything upward in praise.
The Tree of Life is not only in scripture. It is in you. It is the pattern of your healing: roots dug deep, life surging up, branches of the heart reaching toward what is sacred.
Listen. And then come read the full story. 🌿
📖 Read the full blog post:
The Sage That Comes From Trees: What Every Smudge Bundle Wants You to Know
[YOUR BLOG LINK]
🌿 Join the free global healing community: IndigenousHealing.io
🤍 Support the Circle the Walk of Peace Path 2028: givesendgo.com/indigenoushealing
📹 Watch 'Saging the World' (CNPS): https://youtu.be/_V7NoB1UPU8
🌐 California Native Plant Society: cnps.org/conservation/white-sage
#SongToTrees #IndigenousHealing #TreeOfLife #DreamSong #SacredPlants #CaliforniaWhiteSage #MitakuyeOyasin #MatoTipila #CircleTheWalk2028 #NaturesHealingSteps #LakotaWisdom #BunnySingsWolf
📱 PIECE 2 — SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
POST A — Main launch post (Facebook)
🌿 I have a bag of sage on my table.
It wasn't purchased. It was confiscated from poachers who stripped the California hillsides — fifteen to twenty THOUSAND pounds stripped in just a few years — and a member of the California tribal nations it belongs to brought it to me with one instruction:
Tell the truth about it.
So I did. In a blog post I've been called to write for weeks. And I close it with a dream song I've carried even longer — "Song to Trees."
Because white sage is a tree relative. And the lesson it carries is the same one every tree teaches, if we're quiet enough to hear it:
Real medicine was never outside you.
Read it before Jackson Hole. Share it with someone who needs it. 🌿 → [YOUR BLOG LINK]
Mitakuye Oyasin — All My Relations #WhiteSage #IndigenousHealing #MitakuyeOyasin #StolenSage #CircleTheWalk
POST B — Education-focused (shorter, shareable)
🌿 Did you know our Lakota elders want nothing to do with California white sage?
Not because it isn't sacred. Because it isn't ours.
White sage belongs to the California tribal peoples — the Cahuilla, the Tongva, the Chumash — who have spoken to it, thanked it, and traded with it in good relationship for thousands of generations.
When we buy it at a boutique, we participate in a chain that has already stripped 15,000-20,000 pounds from those ancestral hillsides in just a few years.
The healing was never in the bundle. The blog post is here. The truth is yours to know. → [YOUR BLOG LINK]
🌿 Mitakuye Oyasin
POST C — Jackson Hole / Spirit of Wyoming event tie-in
🌿 If you're coming to see me at the Spirit of Wyoming Expo in Jackson Hole this week — you may find a small bag of sage on my table.
It was confiscated from poachers in California and given to me, a Lakota Ambassador, with one instruction: tell the truth about it.
This post is that truth.
Read it before you arrive — and come find me. 🌿 → [YOUR BLOG LINK]
The sage is not the medicine. But it will point you toward it. Mitakuye Oyasin
📧 PIECE 3 — EMAIL TO MAILING LIST
Subject: A bag of stolen sage — and the lesson it carried to me
Dear Resonance Walker,
I want to tell you about something sitting on my table.
A small bag of white sage — Salvia apiana — California's most sacred plant relative, belonging to the Cahuilla, the Tongva, the Chumash, and the tribal peoples who have tended it as family for thousands of generations.
This sage was not purchased. It was confiscated from poachers — part of a wave of commercial theft that has stripped fifteen to twenty thousand pounds of white sage from California's ancestral hillsides in just the last seven or eight years. A member of one of those California tribal nations brought it to me with one instruction:
Carry its story. Let it teach one more time before it rests.
And so I have written the blog post I was called to write.
It tells the truth about white sage poaching and what it has done to a plant that is not ours to sell or burn. It tells the truth about why our Lakota elders gently, respectfully wanted nothing to do with it — because we obtain our medicines from our own lands, in our own ceremonies of relationship and reciprocal thanks, leaving an offering wherever we receive from the plant and animal relatives Creator entrusted to our care.
And it opens a door I have been walking you toward all along — the understanding that healing is never outside you. Not in a bundle. Not in any borrowed ceremony. It is in the relationship itself.
That understanding is what Nature's 4 Steps has always walked us toward — and it is yours, freely, at IndigenousHealing.io.
I close the post with a dream song I have carried for years — "Song to Trees" — because white sage is a tree relative, and the trees have always known what we are still learning.
Read it here: [YOUR BLOG LINK] Watch the video that changed how I see every bundled sage stick: youtu.be/_V7NoB1UPU8 Learn more about white sage protection: cnps.org/conservation/white-sage
If you are coming to the Spirit of Wyoming Expo in Jackson Hole — come find my table. There may be a small bag waiting for you. Not to burn. To understand.
All My Relations, Bunny Sings Wolf Engberg Dream Song Carrier | Ambassador, Lakota Dakota Nakota Nation IndigenousHealing.io | Mato Tipila, Wyoming
📋 WORD FILE ORGANIZATION NOTE
Bunny, for your records — here is what belongs in "White Sage Blog — Complete Asset File":
- The full blog post (from previous response — corrected version)
- The enclosure card (print-ready, from previous response)
- Song to Trees — YouTube description (above — Piece 1)
- Social media posts — A, B, C (above — Piece 2)
- Mailing list email (above — Piece 3)
And the note for your own records: the Song to Trees description was first drafted yesterday in the chat titled "California White Sage blog post recovery" — that chat also contains a full Word document with all five pieces formatted in your brand palette. You may want to download that file from that chat if you haven't already, as it contains the formatted version.
Everything is now in one place for you. You're more organized than you think — things were just moving faster than filing! 🌿
Common Features of Trees and Shrubs
Both trees and shrubs have woody stems (or trunks in trees, multiple stems in shrubs) that are hard and thick, unlike the soft stems of herbaceous plants The Spruce+1. This woody tissue provides structural support and helps the plant survive over long periods.
They are perennial plants, meaning they live for more than two years and often return year after year The Spruce+1. This allows them to establish deep root systems and adapt to seasonal changes.
While trees typically have one main trunk with branches above ground, shrubs have multiple stems arising from the base, giving them a bushy appearance The Spruce+1.
Trees are generally taller (often over 10–15 feet) with branches extending from the trunk, while shrubs are shorter (usually under 10 feet) and have branches close to the ground The Spruce. Both have branching structures that support leaves and flowers.
Both can have green leaves and produce flowers or fruits for reproduction and attracting pollinators The Spruce+1. They may be deciduous (lose leaves seasonally) or evergreen (retain leaves year-round).
Trees and shrubs provide shade, habitat, and food for wildlife, help prevent soil erosion, and contribute to oxygen production
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