The Smell of Spirituality

I always knew that scent was very powerful in how it could alter mood or bring up a long forgotten memory.  Eventually, I learned how to utilize it to create an instant spiritual environment.

When I was going through training to become an ordained Wiccan priest, one of the things that I had to do was to go on a three day retreat with the other ordination candidates.  The retreat consisted of workshops, rituals, guided meditations, and communion with nature and each other.  I was really looking forward to the retreat and so I went to a store to buy some incense for my personal alter I’d have set up at the retreat.  As I looked around I came across some myrrh incense.  Now, I had never smelled myrrh before and it seemed sort of exotic to me.  Since this retreat was a big deal to me, I decided to not use the incense until the first night of the retreat.

The retreat was in a very secluded, wooded area and we all slept in our own tents.  Within mine I set up my small altar with the myrrh incense.  I knelt before the altar, lit the candles, and lit the incense.  The feeling in the tent was so … the words are hard to find.  It was magical, mystical, calm, warm; it was every good feeling I could have, all at once.  The smell of the incense, which I was smelling for the first time, was the perfect addition to the environment I had created.

After I came back from the retreat, I decided to light a stick of the myrrh incense.  As soon as the smoke I reached my nose, I was instantly awash in those same sensations that I had experienced that first night in the tent.  It seemed that the scent of myrrh was forever connected to that profound experience.  Even now, all these years later, the scent of myrrh brings me right back into that perfect spiritual environment.

Now, whenever I am feeling particularly in need of being held in the bliss that the Wiccan path can bring me and find that I am not able to do something like a full on ritual, I just light a stick of myrrh incense.  The scent brings me right back to the Circle I created in that tent, into the presence of the God and Goddess, and into communion with the All-That-Is.

I have suggested that others use scent to do the same for themselves.  Go and procure something that will give off a scent.  It could be incense, heating oils, potpourri or anything else that will work for you.  Make sure that you have never smelled it before.  When you have the time to do so, create sacred space for yourself in whatever way you prefer.  Call upon spirits, deities, god-within, or whomever you generally call upon, work with, or worship; in other words, create a profound time and space for yourself.  Then, allow the new scent to rise up to you.  Breathe it in and allow it to become forever programmed to bring you back into this experience.  Afterwards, you can use the scent to bring yourself back into that place.  You can light a stick of incense while vacuuming, use heating oil at work, or even carry a vial of essential oil with you that you can uncap and sniff whenever you want to return to that special time and place–perhaps during traffic jams!

Blessed be,

Sickle