Palo santo

Bursera graveolens

Burseraceae Family

This oil comes from the already-dead heartwood harvested in the forest. This is a small batch oil, and there is not a lot of information available on it.

Palo Santo means “holy wood” in Spanish and it’s native from the Yucatan peninsula down through northern South America into Peru and Venezuela.

Distilled in Peru

Native South Americans traditionally use the wood (smoke) for clearing bad energy from a space and for good luck. This is the traditional way it’s used.

The essential oil is a colorless to pale yellow mobile liquid of a sweet, woody-balsamic, bright odor with citrus undertones and a woody-balsamic dry-out.

Come to Dust

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.

Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring’s green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
                             All earth’s dust
has been life, held soul, is holy

--Ursula K. Le Guin