Smoke Plants of North America

Mullein
About the Author

Smoke Plants of North America
by
Mairi R. Ross

"Smoke plants? What kind of plants? How did you get interested in this?"

I was as surprised as anyone to discover that plants (besides tobacco and marijuana) have been smoked in North America for thousands of years for medicinal and spiritual purposes. When I began researching this book, I expected to find maybe a dozen plants that had been smoked. I was able to document over 150. My motivation to research and write this book was both personal and philosphical. I had been helped medicinally by smoking plants. And, I was intrigued that the most sacred and spiritual use of plants, the sacrament of smoking them, was now demonized.

My medicine plant journey began a long time ago, in India. I was nineteen years old, living in a small village in Uttar Pradesh in India in the late 1960s. I had daily contact with the villagers and their health problems. I saw that "deshi" or village medicine of herbs and natural minerals could help illnesses that Western medicine couldn't help.

My interest in plants and herbs continued when I lived in Hawaii in the 1970s. A friend of mine from Sri Lanka and I often took long walks together through the jungle. On these walks she taught me about the edible and medicinal plants that grew there.

Much later in my life, in the late 1990s, I lived near the tip of Baja California, Mexico. My neighbor often brought me medicinal herbs from her aunt who was a curandera -- an herbal healer. From her I learned that part of the healing power of plants comes from our relationship with them.

I learned more about the healing power of plants when my nervous system collapsed. I moved to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma to stay with my sister while I recovered. That is where I learned about healing smoke from a Cherokee friend of mine, E.J. Young. He was a Viet Nam Vet with some Agent Orange and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome issues that had been helped by smoke mixes given to him by a Cherokee medicine man. Smoking some of his herbs gave me immediate relief for my nervous system.

I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about these smoking herbs. I began to research plants that had been historically smoked and then I was prompted by Spirit to write Smoke Plants of North America.

Now I live in Jerome, Arizona, a small, old mining town on the side of mountain. My partner, Jamie, and I write and publish our books, gather plants for smoke and medicine, make peach jam and nettle beer. I also work as a product specialist for a health supplement company. I frequently visit my son, my new grandson, and my best friend in San Diego.