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Incense sticks smoldering on table indoors
Aromatherapy
Aromatic Recipes
Herbal Medicine
October 9, 20230Comments

Sleep Better Naturally: Aromatic Plants for Restful Sleep

Sound sleep is a key pillar of our well-being, as it restores and rejuvenates our minds, bodies, and senses. However, in the fast-paced world we live in today, sleep-related challenges
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Incense as Medicine
September 15, 20230Comments

5 Aromatic Plants for Emotional Support

Imagine a world where the fragrance of a flower or the aroma of a plant could whisk away your worries, calm your racing thoughts, and bring a sense of tranquility
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Incense as Medicine
August 10, 20230Comments

Supporting Emotional Health with Aromatic Medicine

Certain aromas can evoke emotional responses and resurface memories, which is a phenomenon many of us have experienced. Maybe you can relate? The smell of freshly baked brownies from the
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Aromatic History & Lore
Herbal Medicine
Incense as Medicine
Ritual
July 26, 20230Comments

Aromatic Herbs in Grief Support & End-of-Life Care

Death, the inevitable end of our journey, is a universal experience that touches us all. A profound event which leaves us grappling with a myriad of emotions, a profound sense
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatic Recipes
Ayurveda
Topical Medicine
July 11, 20230Comments

Enhancing Your DIY Beauty Care With Aromatic Plants

When it comes to health and wellness, we often focus intently on what we put in our bodies – but what we put on our bodies can be just as
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Incense as Medicine
March 14, 20230Comments

Addressing Stress & Anxiety with Aromatic Medicine & Mindfulness

You can’t treat plants like pills. Too often, aromatherapy is used as a quick fix for our problems, when it doesn’t really work that way. If you have a headache,
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Aromatic History & Lore
Incense as Medicine
August 25, 20229Comments

10 Aromatic Plants for Overcoming Anxiety

The world can feel overwhelming at times. There are so many herbs that can help ease anxiety, it’s almost as if the plants know how chaotic life can feel and
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Aromatic Recipes
Topical Medicine
Uncategorized
August 9, 20225Comments

Aromatic Plants for Bug Repellent

Summer is one of my favorite times of year – the wild plants are thriving and the weather is perfect for being immersed in nature. Camping, hiking, swimming, lounging by
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Ayurveda
Incense as Medicine
Topical Medicine
August 2, 20228Comments

8 Must-Know Herbs for First Aid

Herbal plants have many gifts to offer, and aromatic plants offer far more than just a beautiful scent. In fact, there are many powerful aromatic herbs and resins that have
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
Aromatherapy
Aromatic Recipes
Incense as Medicine
Plant Profiles
February 14, 202210Comments

Aromatic Plants for the Heart

As humans, we experience the gift, and sometimes what can feel like a curse, of love. A risk of love is loss – it requires courage to take risks, and
by NW School of Aromatic Medicine
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Can I tell you why I still get so excited about in Can I tell you why I still get so excited about incense after nearly 20 years? 🌿🔥 It's not because I think everyone needs another hobby. And it's definitely not because the world needs more stuff to buy and burn. It's because I've spent most of my adult life working with plants, and incense has given me one of the most beautiful ways I know to experience them. I love herbalism, aromatherapy, and learning what plants can do for us. But something gets lost when our relationship with plants becomes entirely about what we can get from them. Take this herb for sleep, use this oil for stress, this plant for digestion. Obviously that's all important, no doubt. But plants can also teach us to slow down, pay attention, and use our senses more... They can help us create something beautiful with our hands. They can teach us how to sit with an aroma without needing it to accomplish anything at all. And that's a big part of why incense is still such a big part of my life. You can spend an evening with a single piece of aromatic wood or a resin you've smelled a hundred times and still notice something you never noticed before. And after nearly 20 years of doing this, I'm still learning. I'm still finding amazing materials that stop me in my tracks, I'm still experimenting and trying new things, and I'm still as fascinated as I was when I first started my incense journey. That's the experience I want to share with you when our free Hand-Crafted Incense Series begins this coming Monday. I'm definitely going to teach you about making natural incense. But more than that, I hope it helps you see aromatic plants a little differently. And I'm curious about something: What originally made YOU fall in love with aromatic plants? Was it herbalism? Essential oils? Gardening? Incense? Perfume? Something else entirely? Tell me in the comments. I want to hear your story. 🌿 ~ Evan #NaturalIncense #AromaticPlants #Herbalism #Aromatherapy #IncenseMaking #AromaticMedicine
You might not dislike incense. You might just disl You might not dislike incense. You might just dislike the incense you’ve experienced so far. 🌿🔥 For a lot of people, the word incense brings up one thing in their mind: A heavily perfumed stick that fills the entire room with smoke and leaves you wanting to crack a window. Maybe followed by a headache. Maybe the fragrance feels overpowering. Maybe you simply decided a long time ago: “Incense isn't for me.” But that’s a little like tasting an artificially flavored strawberry candy and deciding you don’t like strawberries. Incense can be Frankincense resin slowly warming over gentle heat. A piece of Sandalwood releasing its aroma little by little. Juniper, Cedar, Pine resin, Rose, Agarwood, Elemi resin, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Jatamansi, flowers, spices and other fragrant woods. It can be rich and smoky, but it can also be delicate and subtle, earthy, floral, spicy, resinous. And yes, incense can even be crafted to produce very little smoke. When you strip away synthetic fragrances and begin working with the plants themselves, incense becomes an entirely different aromatic experience. For herbalists and aromatherapists especially, this is where things get interesting. Because suddenly incense isn't some foreign world. It's another way of working with plants you may already love. #NaturalIncense #AromaticPlants #Aromatherapy #Herbalism #IncenseMaking #AromaticMedicine #BotanicalIncense #Incense
What if you don’t know your favorite plants as wel What if you don’t know your favorite plants as well as you think you do? 🌿🔥 Rosemary. Lavender. Rose. Juniper. Cedar. Cinnamon. Cardamom. Clove. You may have grown them, cooked with them, made herbal preparations with them, distilled them, or worked with their essential oils for years. But every way we experience a plant reveals something different. Add heat, and something changes. A familiar spice can reveal aromatic notes you’ve never noticed before. A wood becomes warmer and deeper. A resin unfolds in stages. An herb you’ve smelled hundreds of times can suddenly catch you completely off guard. Heat has a way of asking plants to speak differently. And once you begin exploring natural incense this way, something else happens: Your apothecary starts looking different. A row of jars becomes a palette. The plants haven’t changed. Your way of seeing them has. Our newest article explores this beautiful side of the aromatic arts, and how incense can help us rediscover plants we thought we already knew. 🌿 NEW BLOG: “There Are Sides of Your Favorite Plants You’ve Never Met” Read it at the link in our bio. What’s one plant you’d love to experience more deeply through smoke? #NaturalIncense #AromaticPlants #Aromatherapy #Herbalism #IncenseMaking #AromaticMedicine #BotanicalIncense #Incense
This might surprise you, but you probably already This might surprise you, but you probably already have an incense collection. 🌿🔥 If you have an herbal apothecary at home, take another look at what's sitting on your shelves. Rosemary. Lavender. Rose. Cinnamon. Cardamom. Juniper. Cedar. Pine resin. You might know these plants from teas, tinctures, oils, culinary preparations, or your herbal practice. But have you ever experienced them as incense? One of the things I love most about incense is that it gives us an entirely different way to experience plants we may have known for years. Apply heat to an aromatic plant and something fascinating happens. A familiar aroma can reveal entirely different sides of itself. Sweetness becomes deeper. Woods become warmer and richer. Spices transform into something new. Resins release aromas that were barely perceptible when you smelled them in the jar. And suddenly, plants you've walked past on your shelves a hundred times become interesting all over again. That's part of the beauty of incense. Many of the plants aren't new. The way you're experiencing them is. 🌿 Take a look through your own collection today. Which plant would you most like to experience as incense? ~ Evan #Incense #NaturalIncense #Herbalism #AromaticPlants #AromaticArts #BotanicalIncense #PlantResins #Herbalist #Aromatherapy #NaturalAromatics #TraditionalIncense #IncenseLovers
Incense was the original aromatherapy. 🌿🔥 When yo Incense was the original aromatherapy. 🌿🔥 When you hear the word incense, what do you picture? For many people, it's a stick burning in a little wooden holder. But incense is so much bigger than that. Long before bottles of essential oils lined our shelves, long before electric diffusers filled our homes, people around the world were experiencing aromatic plants through heat and smoke. Frankincense and Myrrh resins. Sandalwood and Agarwood. Juniper, Cinnamon, roots, leaves, flowers, spices, resins and countless other aromatic plants. They were burned, heated, powdered, blended, compounded and transformed into an incredible variety of aromatic preparations. And people didn't work with incense simply because it smelled good. For thousands of years, aromatic smoke has been woven into prayer and ritual, meditation and contemplation, traditional healing practices, ceremony, purification, perfumery, and the simple human desire to transform the atmosphere of a space. In many ways, incense is one of humanity's oldest ways of experiencing the aromatic gifts of plants. And yet today, this enormous aromatic tradition has largely been reduced to something chemical-based that many people buy at a convenient store, light, and burn. There's an entire world of incense beyond the stick. An ancient world of plants, aroma, tradition, creativity, and relationship with the natural world. And over the next week, I want to show you a little more of it. 🌿 What does incense mean to you? ~ Evan #Incense #NaturalIncense #AromaticPlants #AromaticArts #Aromatherapy #Herbalism #PlantResins #Frankincense #Myrrh #Sandalwood #TraditionalIncense #BotanicalIncense
Can you turn a memory into incense? 🌿🔥 Think abou Can you turn a memory into incense? 🌿🔥 Think about a moment from your life that you can almost step back into when you close your eyes. Maybe it’s sitting around a campfire beneath a sky full of stars. Walking through a wet forest after the rain. The smell of your grandparents’ house. A place you traveled years ago that has somehow never left you. Holiday time with your family. Or one of those quiet moments that wouldn't mean much to anyone else, but means everything to you. Now imagine trying to capture that experience through aroma. What would it smell like? What woods, resins, roots, herbs, flowers, or spices could help tell that story? This is where incense crafting becomes so much more than simply following a recipe. It becomes a form of sensory storytelling, memory-making, and remembering. You take something that exists in your memory or imagination and begin giving it physical form through aromatic plants. And that's just one place inspiration for an incense blend can begin. We recently shared our blog, 7 Ways to Find Inspiration for Incense Blending, exploring everything from landscapes and seasons to intentions, the elements, celestial cycles, and individual aromatic plants. 🌿 Read the full article through the link in our bio. Or comment with the word INCENSE below and we’ll sen you the article straight to your inbox. #IncenseCrafting #IncenseMaking #NaturalIncense #BotanicalIncense #AromaticPlants #AromaticArts #IncenseBlending #HandmadeIncense #PlantResins #Frankincense #Sandalwood #TraditionalIncense
Imagine walking through the depths of the forest. Imagine walking through the depths of the forest. It’s so quiet that all you hear are the treetops swaying from the light breeze; it smells like fresh, damp wood, and a hint of evergreen; and you finally find them – the raw aromatic plants and resins you’ve been searching for to roll into your own hand-crafted incense. Incense is plant medicine that fills the air – the original aromatic medicine. It’s the traditional roots of modern aromatherapy and gave rise to all other aromatic arts. Crafting incense calls for creativity, intuition, precision, and passion, yet it is a skill accessible to all. All it takes is a willingness to dedicate your time and energy to cultivating and mastering it. Where are you on your incense crafting journey? Do you dream of wandering the woods in search of the perfect plant for a recipe? Have you made your first successful incense blend yet? Maybe started your own natural artisan incense business? No matter where you are, the aromatic arts path is endless, with inspiring twists and turns offering new opportunities for growth, knowledge, and imagination. --- #incenseresin #incensecrafting #essentialoils #diyincense #holistichealing #herbalmedicine #aromatherapy
If you could capture ONE place in an incense blend If you could capture ONE place in an incense blend, where would it be? 🌿🔥 Maybe it’s a place you’ve traveled that you can still smell when you close your eyes. A forest after the rain. A desert filled with aromatic plants. A temple heavy with the scent of centuries of incense. The ocean at sunset. A mountain meadow in summer. Or maybe it’s somewhere closer to home—a place filled with memories that you’d love to somehow capture through aroma. This is one of my favorite ways to approach incense crafting. Instead of beginning with: “What ingredients should I put together?” I tend to begin with: “What do I want to create and why?” Then you turn to your aromatic palette and start exploring which woods, resins, roots, herbs, flowers, and spices might help bring that place to life, or another intention or vision. Suddenly, incense becomes more than a recipe. It becomes a form of sensory storytelling. So to have some fun with this... 👇 If you could capture ONE place in an incense blend, where would it take us? For me, it would be this place. See my comment to learn where this is! #IncenseCrafting #IncenseMaking #NaturalIncense #BotanicalIncense #AromaticPlants #AromaticArts #IncenseBlending #HandmadeIncense #PlantResins #Frankincense #Sandalwood #Herbalism #TraditionalIncense
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