Rituals of Joy & Liberation sachets

Our Rituals of Joy & Liberation sachets are one of our new collaborations between Handmade Palestine artisans and Ritual Mischief herbalists. The front of the sachets have lovely hand embroidery by Palestinian artisans who live in the West Bank. Their part of the proceeds support families there, keeping traditional crafts alive, and planting trees there too. When we receive the pouches, we fill them with freshly dried botanicals that we ethically gather or grow, dry, and curate here on Whidbey Island at Ritual Mischief. Our part of the proceeds support families here, keeping traditional herbalism skills alive, and helping us move gently and work in harmony with beloved plants, forests, land, and people here and everywhere. We walk with you in stubbornly demanding and expanding joy and liberation within and around yoursel(f/ves) to support a human world still swamped with institutionalized systems of fear, bigotry, hatred, separation, violence, genocide, war, exploitation, empire-building, and eco-cide.

Rituals of Joy & Liberation sachet ingredients (and their traditional uses): Hand picked and dried Whidbey-grown roses and rose petals (support for feeling loving and being loved, support for feeling comforted, holding on to loving feelings and having warm thoughts, and remembering kind and supportive people, beings, and ancestors), lemon balm (uplifting, calming, and cooling support for nervous system and digestive system, nervous exhaustion, lowering anxiety, decreasing stress, insomnia support, support for tummy troubles caused by emotional stress), spearmint (energizing and relaxing both, in dream pillows supporting prophetic dreams and dreaming of loved ones), thyme (dream of fairies and remind us of our magic), plus a few cloves (positive energy, protection, good luck, and attract restful sleep and abundance) and rice to support plant crushing and scent distribution when squeezing the sachet. All grown here at Ritual Mischief, except for the cloves and rice. 

Possible ideas for use:

• You do you. Your own beloved rituals of joy and liberation are the best. Incorporate these into your rituals however you see fit.
• As part of celebration rituals, for example, turning the contents into a mandala or throwing them into the air to celebrate.
• As part of pre-getting into good trouble rituals. Squeeze the sachet near your face, inhale the scent of the plants within--together they are loving, grounding, energizing, and traditionally considered energetically protective. Set your intention for joy and liberation for all beings before you set forth to involve yourself in good trouble. 
• Before you rest or sleep, squeeze these sachets near your face, inhale the scent of the plants within, set your intention to work and play for joy and liberation. Set the sachet where you can see if from bed.
• Send your feelings of joy and liberation out into the world regularly. Set the sachet on your desk or dresser or bookshelf or home altar or any other place you see regularly, so you can be reminded to send well wishes, dreams, ideas, prayers, funds, etc. to people who need them most--depending on the day that might be you, a loved one, a neighbor, or to people being exploited or harmed in war zones, genocide zones, climate disaster zones, prisons, and others in need.
• Tuck into your yoga mat bag or gym bag to keep them smelling fresh and to support you in imagining joy and liberation for yourself, those you love, and all beings as you move.
• Tuck them into dresser drawers to keep clothing smelling fresh (socks, pajamas, delicates, workout wear, work-from-home-wear, garden wear, and protest/good trouble wear all like to share drawers with herbal sachets).
• Hang them between clothing on hangers in the bedroom closet or tucked into the linen closet to a) add scent when you move hangers or linens around and b) remind you to return to imagining joy and liberation within everyday moments.
• If, like us, you have Palestinian friends or a love for the Palestinian people and sense of solidarity with their plight, consider pairing these with our other Handmade Palestine hand-embroidered sachets or with the olive wood soap rest made by Palestinian artisans that we now carry. Or, visit the Handmade Palestine website for even more options. So many beautiful offerings! 

Weight and packaging: Each sachet weighs at least 1 ounce. The small drawstring bags came to us from Handmade Palestine and have hand embroidery on the front created by Palestinian artisans. 

Our history of friendship. We’ve had Palestinian friends for decades—friends we first bonded with online by exchanging recipes and commiserating about the apparently global experience of smart women with great ideas often being ignored or talked over by the men in the space and so women turn to each other to do the truly important work of life-long relationship building and healing across old boundaries. So, here at Ritual Mischief we don’t get to stay silent or look away from the ongoing genocide happening in Gaza right now. Cities across Gaza have been flattened, more than 2 million people impacted, people moved around again and again to exhaustion like abused cattle, more than 100,000 people dead, wounded, or missing. Our hearts break daily here as we watch kids, elders, women, doctors, nurses, teachers, reporters, first responders (which is now everyone), and civilians from all walks of life cruelly treated and unnecessarily suffer, starve, and die. The artisans of Handmade Palestine live in the West Bank where many can currently feel a little bit safer than people in Gaza, but we witness them being terrorized daily too via brutal apartheid policies such as check points to move across their homeland, intimidation, random land and home seizures, price gouging, walls built to keep them out, random road closures and destruction, roads Palestinians aren't allowed to travel on at all, physical abuse, land and food market destruction, and worse. Carrying some of their beautiful work and supporting people we love during horrific times like these is a remarkable honor. We stand with our Palestinian and Jewish friends--both here in the U.S. and with those who live in Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza--in dreaming of and working toward freedom for all beings. 

Our history of herbal sachet making: My Grandma Kane was a wise herbalist, although I never heard her call herself anything but a farmer, teacher, gardener, mom, or grandma, and she taught me to make sachets. They kept clothing and drawers smelling fresh--which mattered a lot to her in her home surrounded by husband, three boys, farm hands, farm animals, and later, almost a dozen grandkids. They repelled insects too--which mattered a lot in a drafty old farmhouse like hers.

Like us, our sachets are all about the plants themselves. There are no fragrance oils and no essential oils included in our sachets, although you could add them if you're so inclined. I find a good squeeze of the sachet is more than enough scent to make all our sock, pajama, underwear, and workout wear drawers smell divine. I re-squeeze them a couple of times a year to reactivate the scent. I can't yet speak to how long these will last, but I will say that I still have lavender sachets I made with my grandmother more than four decades ago. So, I expect them to last quite a while. :-) You can also open these sachets in a few years and add more of your own local dried plants too, if you're so inclined. Whidbey locals, I will refill the plants for half price, as needed--I tend to have all the dried plants on hand each autumn. 

Warning: Keep sachets out of reach of young children and pets. Although the plants within are all edible, when dry these plants can be a choking hazard for young children.