@qualia Oddly enough this exact thought has been on my mind a lot this week, since I came back from New Mexico with a TON of sagebrush for that purpose.

Collecting my own has become my best effort to address the appropriation issues too. Seeing those little sage kids in the store, with their native-feishizing packaging, makes me feel super-gross, as does, frankly, the fact that I only encountered the process via newage routes, despite (because of?) growing up in NM.

@indi @qualia this is one space I have trouble understanding with cultural appropriation - you're using a natural resource for a personal reason, not in a way that's marketed/intended to make you money nor in a way that's intended to say "this is now my religious thing" esp if you're recognizing the history of it

I feel like this should be a thing that's OK? I'm down to hear why not

@vahnj @qualia It's impossible for me to answer this authoritatively since I'm not a member of the culture being appropriated here, but here's my thinking/understanding:

The more of that that someone does, the more comfortable that I personally feel about it. What gives me pause is that I can't be sure the next person won't see me doing it and take just the superficial contextless trappings and be pretty appropriative with it.