THE ANCIENT ART OF COMBINING FRAGRANCE AND MEDITATION
It’s time to get really bougie, go completely rogue and discover how scent alchemy get take your meditation to the next level!
Now, if you know me, if you’ve spent much time here or even over on my socials, you’ll know that I have an unapologetic love of engaging the senses with meditation, in particular, scent.
Now, this isn’t new, you’ll probably not be surprised to learn that there is a history to meditation and fragrance. In fact, alchemy (the medieval forebearer of chemistry) was all about meditatio - The actual act of thinking something over, to contemplate, meditation. Thought, ideation, the act of planning or devising. Leading to the preparation for something. All the things that you do within meditation and the creation of fragrance. You can almost picture it can’t you, an ancient apothecary with the alchemist mixing this, adding that. Creating a little magic.
“It is an inner dialogue, a creative dialogue that is essential for us to come to terms with conscious and unconscious before deciding upon action”
As I mentioned this is an ancient art, fragrance has been used for almost as long as we’ve been around in some form or another. Certain oils, have a long history of association with meditation and spiritual practices. Frankincense, sandalwood, and myrrh have long been recognized by many religious traditions for their ability to tranquilize and clarify and in general to bring us back to ourselves.
The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, they all left behind secrets of how they used certain fragrances, oils, perfumes. Our senses, are incredible and scent can instantly take our minds to long buried memories. I can instantly be transported back to the old Souks of Saudi Arabia if given the right scent. I can remember the feelings, the thoughts, the energy of those experiences. Likewise with standing in fragrant citrus or olive groves in Cyprus. Vine tomatoes will take me back to my great grandmothers English hothouse and fills me with love. I find that the scent of rose can take me to different times and places, the right note of rose will take me to the middle east and adventure, another to England and family and ancient buildings, yet another, to the rose gardens here in New Zealand and the laughter of my children. The emotional journey that scent can take us on can be mind blowing and this is how it can be incredibly powerful in meditation.
I will use scent within my meditation a number of ways.
To deepen my practice. I have a scent that I use that is a heady, exquisite blend of clary sage, labdanum, frankincense and tonka bean. I smells this and I my neural pathways fire, knowing that I am about to meditate.
To take me back to a time and place when I know I need something. So, that could look like a return to kindness and love from family and friends. A place I felt safe. A place that I felt brave.
To activate energy. To soothe, to revitalise, to energise, to focus.
I will use candles, perfume oils, diffusers. The beautiful thing with scent is that you don’t have to go crazy with specific things and it doesn’t even need to be expensive. A tray in the oven with water cloves, citrus slices, and spices (think ginger, cinnamon!) ooooohhhh the smells! Freshly made coffee, food in general! Perfume that you already have, perfume of loved ones. Flowers, fruit, just being outside by the sea or in the garden! Scent is all around us and we can use it any time that we want and need to. Can you see how my love affair started?
A MEDITATION WITH FRAGRANCE
Sit in a comfortable position. Depending on what you are using: If a candle sit it in front of you. If it is a physical item, say a lemon hold it to your nose. If it is an oil dapped on your hands or wrist, then hold that area up to your nose and inhale deeply three to four times.
Keeping your eyes open, with a soft and gentle focus, imagine your consciousness dissolving out from you and into the scent, it’s as if you are touching it, merging with it. When you reach the point of where you smell it deeply and completely, close your eyes in order to close down all your other senses, except for smell.
Now, allow your awareness, your focus to turn inward. Letting the essence of the scent that you chose to merge with your subconscious. Perhaps you can start to sense an inner vision with that scent. Can you build an inner picture of the scent, the fragrance. Imagine it as a memory, a place, a person, an animal! Anything that seems to you to be entirely connected with that scent. You will find that each scent you meditate with, will bring up and create a different memory and internal image with your meditative experience.
Now, let your awareness return to you body, your breath. Allowing it to settle into the present moment. A spark of energy where you know you are back in the moment. You can keep repeting these phases. The fragrance, the memory, the internal image and then back into the present moment once you realise that you are getting carried away with thoughts, feelings, sensations and stories.
This meditation will help you to reconnect with the things, the people, the places that you love. I used this a lot with grief and with lockdown, where I felt the reality of being on the other side of the world.
What is your favourite fragrance memory? Where does it take you? How can you use it in your meditation?