Grief doesn’t always speak. Sometimes it sits in the body — heavy in the feet, aching in the legs, lingering like fog. The body remembers what the mouth cannot say. And so we don’t always need to talk it out — sometimes, we soak it out.

There are times when your body doesn’t just need healing — it needs guarding. Times when you’ve absorbed too much. When your dreams feel heavy, your skin restless, or your boundaries thin. In these moments, you don’t need to power through — you need plants.

Before perfume, there was smoke. Before candles, there was burning bark and leaf. Long before anyone called it wellness, our ancestors knew the medicine of scent, fire, and air.

Smoke cleansing — not to be confused with the closed ceremonial use of White Sage or Palo Santo in Indigenous traditions — is a universal practice found across cultures. From burning rosemary in Spanish kitchens to juniper in Celtic homes, the act of cleansing a space, body, or spirit with plants is sacred, grounding, and deeply ancestral.