Oh, I feel better now that I am not alone. My friend CJ gave me a smudge stick she has had for YEARS, but it is so dry that it is hard to get it "started." Do you think it's weird that I do the sage burning each day? I am getting worried that maybe I am "overdosing it." But given the head injury, I thought perhaps the ritual would help me heal better. When I ran out of sage recently, I started adding rosemary from my garden which I had dried....I just got done collecting a ton of eucalyptus bark to sell on Etsy, as people pay $35 a pound for it, and I wondered how it too would burn....desperate measures for desperate times....thanks for the update