High Desert Institute
Floramancers’ Guild
Indigenous Solidarity Gardens
We are cultivating ceremonial crops such as white sage and ceremonial tobacco for our indigenous partners. We have been very grateful to contribute to the efforts of the Mayan spiritual community in San Francisco to reduce tobacco consumption by providing ceremonial tobacco plants.
Historically, tobacco was burned like incense in a brazier during ceremonies, and was not smoked. This effort by the Mayan spirirtual community to lead people away from smoking tobacco is a beautiful example of how indigenous people are reclaiming their culture and spirituality. We are grateful to be able to support this effort by providing ceremonial tobacco plants.
Here is a photo of one of the baby tobacco plants after a ceremony at La Raza on 2025-04-07.
We are also growing white sage for the indigenous community in San Francisco. These plants have a similar history of being burned during ceremonies, but as our other partners of many years, the spiritual leaders of the Northern Paiutes have been warning the world for years, poaching white sage from its native habitat causes it to become endangered.
We are grateful to be able to support the indigenous community by providing white sage plants that we are growing sustainably and locally so the ceremonies can continue to use these traditional medicines without contributing to the environmental descruction being wrought by capitalism.