The Complete Smudging Handbook: 67 Herbs, Woods, and Resins for Clearing and Emotional Balance

Our Complete Smudging Handbook is the kind of reference you keep near the censer rather than up on a shelf. Markus Schirner, a German herbalist and aromatherapist who has spent decades with plants and breath work, has assembled an A to Z catalog of 67 herbs, resins, and woods, each one with its history, its traditional associations, and the practical notes you want before you light it. Frankincense, myrrh, copal, dragon's blood, benzoin, and mastic sit alongside mugwort, juniper, rosemary, mistletoe, yarrow, and St. John's wort. Palo santo, cedar, sweetgrass, and sandalwood are here too. If you have ever stood in front of a shelf of resins wondering what any of them actually do, this is the book that answers.

Beyond the catalog are 34 protocols organized the way people actually work: by intention. There are blends and methods for grounding, for divination and clear sight, for courage and confidence, for rest and dreaming, for love and sensuality, for energy, for honoring the ancestors, and for the eight turning points of the year. Schirner also covers the parts most books skip. How to gather plant material responsibly. How to dry and store it so it keeps its character. How to build a blend, and how to tend the coal so the smoke behaves. Full color photographs run throughout, which matters more than it sounds when you are trying to identify a resin by sight.

A note on the word in the title. Smudging in its precise sense names specific ceremonies belonging to Indigenous nations of North America, carried by their own protocols and their own teachers. What this book gathers is broader and in places older: the European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern smoke traditions that gave us frankincense and myrrh, and the folk herb craft that ran through kitchens and churchyards across the continent. We say so plainly because these traditions are distinct, and knowing which one you are working in makes the work better.

Our Complete Smudging Handbook suits the beginner who wants one solid reference on the shelf and the working practitioner who wants to widen a repertoire past the three or four plants they already reach for. Keep a charcoal, a heatproof dish, and a little sand nearby, and let the book do the rest. Paperback, 176 pages, full color, 6.5 by 9.25 inches. Written by Markus Schirner. Published by Earthdancer Books. ISBN 9798888502839.