Frankincense

In  my childhood, we opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning, we all tumbled out of the house while it was still dark, piled into the family auto, and headed out to the six am service at the First Baptist Church. While it was still dark, we were guided into our seats by ushers with flashlights.  While it was still dark, the candles in the windows were lit by a select group of young virgins in white dresses.  I can't remember if I was ever picked but I do remember that I sure wanted to be.

While it was still dark, a brightly glowing star made its way overhead, from the back of the sanctuary to the front, while on the podium were a silent Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.  The choir sang Christmas hymns in the dark and first the shepherds arrived to pay their respects.  Then, following the star, came the Wise Men.

They had it timed just right so all of this happened before the sun came up.  Then as the celebration was heating up and the singing was more and more enthusiastic  ( it had moved from Away in the Manger, and Silent Night, to Hark the Herald and Joy to the World), the daylight crept in from the windows until it was bright morning.

The gospel from St. Luke was read, "and it was in the same country that shepherd were abiding in their fields at night keeping watch over their sheep..." and ..."wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger".  For those of us who grew up with the St. James Bible, it was a poetic and beautiful reading that sticks in your  memory, a line here and a line there.  Other translations of the Bible might be more accurate (or might not) but surely there is not another English version that is more beautiful.

And of course in that story, enter the Wise Men.  I see camels and the star and a great progression over the desert.  And I can smell the sweet, warm fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh that they are bringing.  I think that their beautiful long robes and regal bearing make the whole thing quite wonderful.  Clearly they were astrologists and while the word "magi" has been translated as" wise men" and even "kings", it actually comes closer to "magician".  Naturally the Bible translators would not want to say that, seeing as how they don't like the magician or shaman stuff, but there it is.  They looked to the stars, they interpreted the meaning, they had prophetic dreams and they came to see the King Baby.  And they brought frankincense, gold and myrrh.

Perhaps they were also healers.  The Bible doesn't say that, but frankincense has been known as a powerful healer for at least 5000 years.  The sap of the Boswellia Sacra tree has been harvested and used as medicine and incense throughout the world.  It is gathered somewhat like maple syrup, but no bucket is needed. Instead of a flowing thin liquid that needs to be cooked down to a thick syrup, it is a thick resin that forms bubbles on the outside of the tree and then hardens.  The bark is carefully slit by trained harvesters and then left to weep this precious fluid that traditionally was even more expensive than gold.  These small desert trees are only found in a few places today.  Most of them are in Oman.

If you have ever walked into a Catholic Church, you have smelled frankincense.  It is considered a sacred incense and has been used in religious ceremonies for thousands of years.  Before the Christian Church, it was burned in Jewish temples.  It has been used in India, China, Greece and Persia.  It seems that it was revered by the whole world at the time of Jesus' birth.  As amazing as it seems, the range of symptoms it is supposed to heal go from asthma to depression to ulcers.  It is also said to help with colds, diphtheria, headaches, high blood pressure, laryngitis, typhoid, wounds, hyperactivity, pneumonia, sciatica pain, warts, coma, cancer...shall I go on?  I am pretty sure the list would be shorter to name what it doesn't heal.

Given all this, it seems a perfect gift for a family who will be wandering and escaping from Herod.  It seems a perfect gift for any of us.  I have been putting it on the bottoms of my feet for the past few nights at bedtime and have been sleeping soundly. I am sure, just like anything, that the quality of oil matters.  The oil I use is pure and can even be ingested..not that I am recommending the taste.  And even if the pure oil were not ingestible and even if it were not useful for anything medicinal, the fragrance is, appropriately enough, heavenly.

Lavender

The smell of old trunks full of antique lace and linens.  The small atomizer perfume bottle that sat on my grandmother's dressing table.  The drawer liners in the chest of drawers in my parents' bedroom.  Wafting through all of these faded, dog-eared photos  stored in the memory of my childhood is the dim and musty smell of old lavender. 

In every drawer and trunk were the sachets. My grandmother, Dorothea, saved the scraps from her other sewing projects and turned them into small bundles, filled with dried lavender blossoms, gathered together with a ribbon, and tied to make a small sachetti, a small sack.  I suspect that lavender once employed would stay in use for decades. Quits for the cottage on the banks of the Walla Walla River, were made from cut up squares of my grandfather's wool suits, sandwiched with a hefty flannel backing, around an old wool blanket that was no longer "servicable".  Old dresses were turned into decorative aprons and kitchen towels, pot holders and ruffles on skirts or curtains.  Leftovers always found their way into stews and soups and glass jars were used over and over again for jams and jellies, and all manner of preserves.  Her pickle recipe was a carefully guarded secret.

My grandmother was a believer in the virtue of frugality, the importance of simple beauty and the power of lavender.  She also gathered chamomile for bedtime tea, and dandelions for spring tonics.  She grew comfrey and other assorted herbs for various medicinal reasons.  She made poultices from onions and mustard and socks that smelled strongly of the inside of old boots.  She fed children spoonfuls of vile tasting cod liver oil.  I have a strong automatic gag response still today from any liquid medicine as a result of my early training.  She put camphor and eucalyptus in pots of water on the stove and made us lean over and breathe in the steam if we had a cough.  For congestion, she smeared Vicks on our chests and wrapped us in woolen rags.  When she died, in her late 80's, nearly all of this knowledge went with her.  I was a young adult, very modern, had pills for anything I might need, and had absolutely no interest in any of this.

I was quite mistaken.  I had great need of this information that she had learned from those who came before her.  But it was a good many years later before I came to realize it. The beauty of all of this seemed remote and as unnecessary as a clothes line or a hot water bottle.  I was modern.  My world included prescription medicine, electric blankets and electric clothes dryers. Besides,  I never really cared for lavender smells, probably because they were associated with musty places and old things. 

To make matters worse, there is the stuff called "lavender" that is put into mall store candles and discount lotions. Goodness knows what is actually in that stuff, but I have learned to avoid walking in in front of a certain mall candle store because I will be hit with an instant headache from the wafting chemical smells that cloud the immediate area.  This false lavender is especially repellent.

So how did it come to be that now lavender is my nearly best friend?  (Not to mention hot water bottles and clothes lines.)  I keep a bottle of lavender essential oil by my bedside and one in my oil supply box.  I dab it on my pillow cases and pour a drop in the humidifier.  I love it in the bath, just a couple of drops under the running water. I put it on scars and on healing cuts and scrapes and it works miracles.  

There is a great difference between the synthetics, the carelessly distilled and the chemically grown lavender, and pure organic essential oil, therapeutic grade.  I can actually drink this lavender oil but choose not to.  I must say that it doesn't taste especially good.  I used just a tiny drop on my finger to rub on my gums after the dentist tore them up a bit, and it healed them almost instantly.  But it truly didn't taste good.  However, for me, the benefit is well worth a second or two of bitterness.

It seems like things that smell so sweet should also taste sweet but as with vanilla, fabulous fragrance doesn't also equal fabulous taste.  It's not so bad, though. It's just a teensy bit on the tip of the finger, applied to the sore spot.  And I have had numerous opportunities to try it so I know that it works every time.

 Lavender has been seen to be antimicrobal, antifungal, antimutagenic, antitoxic, antitumor, cardiotonic, regenerative, anticoagulant, antidepressant and sedative.  Quite a list, if you ask me!   And that's not all.  In Medieval France it had an interesting dichotomy of uses.  It was thought to help preserve chastity and also to act as an aphrodisiac. It would seem that the best way to see which way it works on each of us would be to try it!

I no longer smell the old musty attic smell when I sniff the new pure oil that has become indispensable   This has a light fresh smell.  I believe my grandmother would have approved.  Maybe she would have made poultices of it or put a drop in steaming water.  But i do believe that somewhere she is smiling and saying, "Finally!"