The Witch's Garden

We at The Witch's Garden are honored to be working with such a special group of people who have come together for a very important cause.

We are proud to announce that we are now offering 100% pure Palo Santo Oil in 1/8 ounce bottles with dropper for $15.00 each directly from this foundation located in Ecuador.

1 bottle

This oil is very well known for both it's cleansing and healing benefits and is a very powerful extract for earth magick.

Please read the following information on the process this wonderful foundation goes thru and all the lessons they have learned about the Palo Santo tree.

Please purchase a bottle and support this foundation in this great cause of introducing the world to this powerful tree.

Foundation DELTATAU PALOSANTO FUNDATION of Puerto Lopez, Manabí, Ecuador, helps the economic development of local youth from low income families, encouraging thier normal creativity. This allows them to create arts and crafts of high artistic value.

Our foundation does not ask for donations, it just seeks a market in order to sell its arts and crafts, so as to keep producing and thus continue to form youth to be free and independet.

A free person is an independet person, and this can be achieved by means of developing the person's creativity, which allows him/her to deal with all life's problems in harmony with what surround us.

What the youth produce are artistic candles made from the natural resources that nature offers us, with a sustainable vision. (for instance, empty shells collected from the seashore, bark from dead trees, etc.)

We also process another resouce, Palo Santo, a fragrant tree from the Dry Forest, which is always a sustainable process (we don't cut down the trees), providing us with incense and an essencial oil that heals many types of illness from the flu to stress.

"LEARN THE ART AND KEEP IT"

Many of you who have traveled along the coastline of the South America's Pacific ocean must have been captured by the perfume of the "Palo Santo"

If we follow the perfume trail we reach the Machalilla National Park, located in the Province of Manabi, on the coastline of Ecuador, where we can find the biggest concentration of Palo Santo in all of South America, and has become a protected plant since it is endemic of the Galapagos IslandWhen walking the trails of the Machalilla National Park with the sun at its maximum peak, specially between the months of January to June, the brackish air from the oceans fills up with the aroma of the Palo Santo's resin

When passing through the Andeans mountains we can still find "shamans" using Palo Santo as part of their curing rituals, evidencing that it is alive more than ever in our culture

Eventhough the history of its use began a thousand years ago, it is still widely used, demonstrating that it is not only a fantasy but reality, because a story which has survived for so long can only be due to the fact that there must be some truth within it, moreover if it is related to plants with healing powers, therefore it must work, and as result we are charmed and captivated by curiosity

The first grand discovery for the use of this tree, was the obtention of the essence of Palo Santo from the bark of the fallen trees. What does this mean? That the tree before being useful must die of natural cause. It must fall to the ground and lay for a period of 4-10 years

We have been studying for the last 4 years this phenomena. Only after having proved to ourselves the stories, we can confirm their veracity. We still haven't been able to clarify the causes for the tree's death. But we have a hypothesis based on the action of insects or the structure of the plant, which lacks deep roots. One thing we can be sure of, is that the tree does not die before 80 or 90 years of age. We have also demonstrated that if we cut the tree and let it lay on the ground for the same period of time, we cannot extract any essence from it. Therefore we wonder, why does Palo Santo still survives in areas which all other plants have been completely exploited? This is due to the fact that Palo Santo's wood is not useful for building houses nor furniture. Hence, why should we need a tree which is only useful for repelling mosquitoes? We would like to believe that it is fair to rescue all plants on earth, for they are being destroyed by the fact they are considered hard woods which are used for furnitures or house building, or soft, as to produce paper from them. I would love to give the Palo Santo a metaphoric denomination such as the "Ave Phoenix", for it is the only wood which in its process of putrefaction actually becomes a medicine. Life is the outcome of its death. Such an appropriate substantive with all the deserved rights due to its power and name, it survives throughout the history, it survives through time, through the different cultures such as the Manteña, Machalilla, Valdivia, etc

SEEKING FUNDING TO MAKE A TREES NURSERY OF PALO SANTO TREES FOR REFORESTATION

- GIVE A PALO SANTO TREE YOUR NAME -

Our foundation not only distills Palo Santo to extract its essence, we also work on the botanical aspect with regards to establishing plant production projects.

For 6 years we have conducted research of the tree know species of Palo Santo, we can confirm with certainly in the region the presence of Bursera graveoles, but are not certain about the occurrence of Bursera Microphylla or Bursera Gumbolino.

What we are able to say with certainly is that the male Bursera graveoles has a palegrey coloured bark, and that after its death due to natural causes, in its wood we can only find a minimal quantity of essence (5%), whereas in the female, whose bark is purple, we find 95% of essence. The male can live over 250 years, while the female begins to die at the age of 50 years and more on.

As to the extraction of the resin, we only process wood that has been found to have died naturaly in the forest.

In so far as botanical aspect, we are in agreement about the problems in reproducing Palo Santo by seed or from cuttings: the result is negative. For the last 3 years we have had 100% success trasplanting wild seedlings. We select several areas in the forest where we find a concentration of at least 50 Palo Santo trees por hectare, where within 2 weeks the young plants, nearly sprouted that are food for various animals (dear, goat, rabbit, etc.) are translanted to our tree nursery, where only now, 3 years on, can we give a totally positive evaluation an so far as the plants growth: illness = 0, dead plants, including under conditions of stress = 0.

The seeds and the sprouts of Palo Santo constitute 90% of the food for the forest animals.

In the tree nursery Palo Santo grows very well, even it as a bonsai.

In so far as the year 2007 goes, for february and march we are very interested in finding funding to develops a nursery adapted to the grow of Palo Santo trees.

If you want, you can made a donacion to help the project of reforestation or a new project to make a pit of water

The donation can make only in our bank accont:

Owner: FUNDACION DELTATAU PALOSANTO

BANK: BANCO DEL PICHINCHA

SWIFT CODE: PICHECEQ

Accont n.: 4379249900

Ecuador