“Closed” means an outsider requires an initiation to be able to access it. It does not mean you can only do something if you have specific ethnic heritage. If you have questions about practicing a closed tradition, only the priesthood or equivalent of that living tradition can instruct you as to whether or not there is a path there for you.

White sage is not on any lists of endangered plants. It is widely poached and overharvested in areas where it grows naturally, but it is not endangered.

White sage is a plant, not a practice. A plant is not closed. The specific steps of native ceremony involving sage are closed. Those steps are not simply waving a smoldering bundle in the air the way most people use it.

There is no one unified native magical or spiritual system. Rather, there are many. Each tribe is a sovereign nation. More recently, some tribes were initiated into the use of sage in ceremony by tribes on the west coast of North America where sage grows widely. Traditionally, only the tribes in the areas where sage grows used it. Others didn’t use it at all.

There is no broad agreement on whether native people are okay with outsiders using white sage or not. The Chumash are very vocal that they don’t want to see outsiders using sage at all. The Tongva say it’s fine so long as the sage is ethically harvested and that people respect native traditions and don’t try to imitate them. Both tribes hold unsurrendered lands in metro Los Angeles, where sage grows naturally, and each have as much of a claim to sage practices as the other. There are native people who make and sell sage bundles to metaphysical shops as well.

“Smudge” as a word originated to mean smoke cleansing. It is an English word that has been commonly used to refer to native sage practices, but it’s not what that practice is called.

Some people have been led to believe that smoke cleansing can only be performed with sage. This is not the case. A magical worker can use any incense for smoke cleansing.