Today, we’re delving into the sacred world of Palo Santo, a naturally spiritual wood with a long history of reverence.
This guide will teach you how to use palo santo respectfully, including the history of palo santo and when you should burn it.
Table of contents
What Is Palo Santo?
Palo Santo, translated as “Holy Wood” from Spanish, is a sacred tree found on the South American coast.
Wood from the Palo Santo tree is valued for its sweet aroma and spiritual qualities, belonging to the Burseraceae, or Torchwood, family. Amazingly, this is the same family that also includes frankincense and myrrh.
When Palo Santo burns, it produces a purifying smoke that is said to clear spaces, objects, and energies, ideal for meditation and spiritual rituals.
Indigenous communities have a rich history of utilizing traditional methods for cleansing and healing, with one common practice being the use of cleansing herbs and rituals.
These rituals often involve Shamans burning sacred herbs like sage, cedar, Palo Santo, and sweetgrass to clear negative energies and promote healing.
The smoke from these herbs and woods is believed to purify the mind, body, and soul, and create a sense of balance and harmony within individuals and their surroundings. The spiritual significance of these practices is deeply rooted in Indigenous cultures, with many passing down the knowledge and techniques from generation to generation. The use of these cleansing rituals continues to be an important aspect of Indigenous traditions and ceremonies today.
8 Surprising Benefits of Palo Santo You Need to Know
Palo Santo is more than just a trendy health and wellness tool – it actually boasts some surprising benefits that you need to know about! From its calming properties to its ability to repel insects, Palo Santo can truly enhance your daily life in various ways.
Daily Benefits
By burning a small stick of Palo Santo each day, you can enjoy its calming effects, purify your space, and invigorate your mind. Give it a try and experience these daily benefits of Palo Santo for yourself.
- Energize Your Morning Rituals: Start your day by clearing negative energies. A swift Palo Santo smudging can invigorate your space, filling it with positive vibes and setting a vibrant tone for the day. The diluted essential oil can be applied to your third eye or chakra centers to anoint your body with universal love.
- Reduce Anxiety & Stress: Its soothing scent can alleviate stress and anxiety, promoting a sense of peace and calm throughout your day. Perfect for those moments when you need a natural lift.
- Enhance Focus and Creativity: Palo Santo’s aroma has the unique ability to stimulate the mind, making it an excellent companion for work, study, or any creative endeavor.
- As a Companion in Meditation and Yoga: Keep a burning stick nearby during your practices to enhance focus, clarity, and spiritual connection.
- Repel Insects: This unique property of Palo Santo makes it a favored choice among those seeking an eco-friendly and holistic approach to keeping insects away. The wood of Palo Santo contains high concentrations of limonene and terpene, compounds that are known for their insect-repellent properties. When Palo Santo is burned, these compounds are released into the air, creating an aromatic barrier that insects find unpleasant and thus tend to avoid. Burning naturally made Palo Santo incense is a great way to ward away bugs.
Ceremonial Benefits
The smoke produced when Palo Santo is burned is believed to cleanse and purify the energy in a space, making it a popular tool for smudging ceremonies. The earthy and uplifting scent of Palo Santo is also thought to promote relaxation and reduce stress, making it an ideal addition to meditation practices.
Whether used in ceremonies for protection, grounding, or simply to create a sacred space, Palo Santo continues to be a staple in spiritual practices around the world.
- Deepen Your Meditation Practices: By purifying the environment, Palo Santo helps in diving deeper into meditation, facilitating a stronger connection with the divine.
- Create Sacred Space for Rituals and Ceremonies: It’s widely used in spiritual rituals to invite divine energies, offering protection and blessings to those present.
- Breathe Life Into Crystals: If you aren’t a fan of white sage’s scent, Palo Santo is a great backup cleansing herb to help spiritually purify crystals. The smoke is just as spiritually purifying as sage, helping you perform any vibrational cleansing rituals you wish to do.
Read More: Spiritual Properties Of Palo Santo
How To Use Palo Santo
- Smudging: The most common method is to light a stick of Palo Santo, allowing it to burn for a few seconds before blowing it out. The smoke is then directed around personal spaces or over one’s body to cleanse energy. We like to neutralize harmful energies first by burning white sage, then follow that ritualistic cleansing with Palo Santo, inviting loving, warm vibrations into our sacred space.
Read More: How To Burn Palo Santo
- Aromatherapy: Place a piece of Palo Santo on a heat-resistant surface and allow it to smolder, filling your space with its healing fragrance. You can also place the essential oil into a diffuser and allow the calming scent to ease you into a state of mental wellness. Because of this, you’ll usually smell Palo Santo being used in alternative wellness practices, such as massage therapy, Reiki therapy, or acupuncture therapy.
How to Prepare Your Space for a Cleansing Ritual
Creating a sacred space for your Palo Santo ritual involves more than just physical cleaning. It’s about setting intentions and inviting positive energies into your space.
Start by decluttering the area physically and then, with a lit Palo Santo stick, move clockwise around your space, allowing the smoke to waft into corners and across thresholds, setting your intentions for cleansing and protection as you go.
How to Select the Right Type of Palo Santo to Buy
When purchasing Palo Santo products, it’s important to ensure it’s ethically sourced.
In 2006, due to its popularity, overharvesting became a concern for this fragrant wood. However, in 2014, Bursera graveolens was removed from the SERFOR (National Forest and Wildlife Service) list of protected species. As of now, it is categorized as being a species of “Least Concern” for extinction.
We still recommend looking for suppliers who harvest wood from fallen trees rather than cutting down living ones, supporting sustainable practices that respect the sacredness of the tree and the land it comes from.
Next: Buy Palo Santo Products
Is using Palo Santo a closed practice?
therealstabitha on r/Witch answered it best: “Palo santo is one where you should make sure your source is ethical, and there are a lot of other options for smoke cleansing etc so it’s not a problem if it’s hard to source ethically – you don’t need to use it if you need to do some smoke cleansing.
A closed practice is one where the mysteries and practices are off limits to people who are not initiated to it. Palo santo as a magical or metaphysical practice does not belong to a single tradition. It’s also not solely a sacred plant. People in multiple countries in South America use it to repel insects.
Palo santo is not a closed practice.”
What does Palo Santo smell like?
To us, burning Palo Santo wood smells a little like sweet, smoky, woody bacon.
Embracing Palo Santo in your daily life can open doors to deeper spiritual exploration, grounding, and connection. It’s a gentle yet powerful tool that reminds us of the sacredness in everyday rituals and the transformative power of nature’s gifts.
May your journey with Palo Santo be filled with light, love, and profound peace.
