First of all let me begin by stating that this is not a complete, or even semi-complete guide to meditation. There are literally thousands of websites and books devoted to every possible aspect and type of meditation and they are all available with a quick trip to Google. What you are reading currently is an easy to read and understand beginners guide to meditation.
Calamus Root, (Acorus calamus) is also known as Calmus, Sedge, and Sweet Myrtle. It is a wonderfully spicy, aromatic, and very cinnamon-like fragrance that has been enjoyed since at least The Epic of Gilgamesh where it is mentioned as an incense ingredient. It is also referenced in the Bible as one of the ingredients of the anointing oil in Exodus 30:23. The Egyptians used it for the Kyphi recipes as well.
When reading a book about Medieval times I discovered that it was also called a “strewing herb” because people in those times, well, “strewed” it on their floors along with pennyroyal, and lavender to help with insect problems. I thought that was great and would be a terrific thing in modern times except for the fact that your floor would resemble that of a roadhouse. Still, the next time I go camping I think I will toss a little of it on the floor of the tent. It might not control mosquitoes, but it will smell wonderful.
Given that the scent is warm, spicy, woody and very much reminiscent of cinnamon, it works very well with the following ingredients. Cedar, Myrrh, Patchouli, Borneol Camphor and Benzoin.
Although complicated, here is a wonderful Kyphi recipe where Calmus is featured.
4 parts Frankincense
2 parts Mastic
1/2 part Juniper berries
1/4 part Calmus
1/4 part Galangal
1/2 part Cardamom
1 part Cinnamon bark
1 part Myrrh
1 part Lemon Grass
1/2 part Rose leaves (dried rose buds)
1 part Benzoin of Siam
1 1/2 part Sandalwood
Pinch of Aquillaria wood
1/2 part Honey
Tablespoon at a time of rich red wine
8 parts Sultana raisins, unsulfured.
Soak the raisins overnight in red wine and pulverize the frankincense, myrrh, mastic and benzoin with a mortar and pestle. Pulverize individually the cinnamon, juniper berries, calmus, galangal, cardamom and sandalwood. Mix all the ingredients together and cut the lemongrass and crumble the rose buds. Use 1/2 teaspoon of aquillaria wood to 1 cup of this mixture. You can do without the aquillaria wood if it is not available to you.
Remove the raisins from the wine and blend everything together with a blender so that it is pulverized then use the honey to add to the mixture so that you get a dough-like substance that you can knead well and easily. You can either crumble it in your palms and allow it to dry (turning it often over 7 to 14 days) or you can roll it into pea-sized pellets as the Egyptians preferred and allow to dry as above.
Congratulations, it is one of the more complex and difficult recipes from antiquity but one that is well worth the effort.
“Burgundy Pitch” is the resin from the Spruce pine (Pinus glabra) that is collected and clarified through a melting process to yield a higher quality and more wonderfully fragrant end product. Spruce pine, also called cedar-pine or bottom-white pine, is a member of the southern yellow pine group. It is the most shade-tolerant species of southern pine and is scattered throughout the southeast in mixed hardwood stands, rarely occurring in pure stands.
Borneo Camphor, sometimes called Borneol Camphor is a pale, straw colored resin from the Dryobalanops aromatica tree. It is an evergreen that can reach heights of more than 120 feet. The Japanese refer to this tree as the hon-sho and the sacred camphor tree at the Hachiman shrine in the Kagoshima district of Japan is more than 1,200 years old.
Regular readers will no doubt be aware that I am not the biggest fan of Hem incense. The fact that it is charcoal based and is (probably) dipped in fragrance oil rather than being made from finely ground ingredients gives it a characteristic odor that I find very distracting on occasion. Sometimes though, Hem creates something that defies my expectations and can truly be classed as something special.
There are few incense ingredients as confusing as Dragons Blood. The name Dragons Blood can refer to no less than sixteen different resins from the same number of trees. It can also refer to the extremely poisonous mineral cinnibar (mercury sulfide) although not in recent times to my knowledge. It is also another name for red rock opium, but it contains no opiates and its intoxicating properties are dubious at best.
The distinction is important because white sage plays a tremendous role in Native American rituals as well as various Wiccan and Pagan spells and rituals for cleansing everything from space to Athames, crystals and more. The cleansing properties of white sage are well documented in hundreds of works and I am not about to argue with the wisdom of the ages. So with that in mind, and a trip to the Native American festival in Fort Walton Florida where plenty of white sage was burned still fresh in my memory, lets see what Hem has to offer with this stick.
Benzoin is a resin obtained from Benzoe Siam-Styrax tonkimensis Craib. and Benzoe Sumatra-Styrax benzoin Dryand. It belongs in the Stryraceae family and for incense burning the resinoid is what we are interested in. It is obtained through an extraction process and yields a more solid product.
Benzoin is highly prized in India for its soft, sensuous and warm properties. It mixes very well with most other incense ingredients and gives them fragrance. Mixed with sandalwood it is one of the most typical incense mixtures of Asia.
The practice of meditation is to gain control of your thoughts and to learn to focus your concentration on the subject you are meditating on. Whether that is an issue you are having with your personal life, a Zen saying or story or some other matter that would benefit from your complete focus and concentration. Meditation with incense can either be a means of itself, or as an aid to unlock some part of your consciousness in order to help you understand some matter a bit more clearly.
