SCENTS AND DIVINATION
I’ve been experimenting with some concoctions. I placed on my table three solid perfume collectables – with the perfume still intact, even after 50 years in the Anapal ceramic jars handmade by Anastasios in Nafplio – when I had the great idea to change the composition of my frankincense infusion. I thought, why not invert the proportions, sink some of the milky stuff into a glass of vodka and see if I can go to heaven? I did and I did, spiked my drink and go to heaven, that is.
Such glory. I felt like being greeted at the 5th gate, being congratulated too on my arrival, as if I had been doing nothing lately but work hard at my pharmakon. I wasn’t, as my modus operandi is called ‘stumbling into grace.’ But here I was at the heaven’s doors, insisting: no, I didn’t follow my heart, nor was I ambivalent about anything. My formula was not the result of any L’amoureux situation. I just wheezed through it like Pegasus, thinking that there can only be one Venus we love. And yes, let us use the royal ‘we’ here to emphasize what is without equal and never the result of any forcing.
Such are my reflections when I sit with words and worlds of scents. While I read cards, I burn incense and while I burn incense I read cards. I then write about it. Since part of my cartomancy work revolves around delivering written analyses to the ones who book a session, I am free to burn all sorts of incense without having to ask for permission. This freedom impacts my choice of words and metaphors, as the insight that comes out of smoke and a string of images is often the result of a more persistent history, an unbroken lineage that recalls the solid structure of transmitting remembrances. I imagine the diviners that came before me saying: ‘this is how we transmit what we know, what was passed down to us’ while giving instructions on how to set up an altar, what resins to burn in the temple, and what the Lord may have to say about the incense concoction made as a special offering.
As inspired by my solid perfumes, when the Moon was new in the hour of the Sun I made another frankincense infusion. I crushed a considerable amount of precious boswellia sacra resins and I sank the powder into equally precious oil of first extraction. After apologizing to nature for appropriating its exquisite essences, I said hallelujah and amen, and promised the gods of miracles to wait for as long as it takes for the concoction to reach the state of divine anointing oil.
But since I'm not good at waiting, I found myself throwing myself at creating two fragrances myself, each containing frankincense, for the purpose of making solid perfume of my own. After solidifying one of the scents, I poured the stuff into an antique compact box, and marvelled at my equally antique tray padded with silk, for it seemed it was in great conversation with whatever I put on it.
Now, I can’t say that I’m doing all this because I happen to write a book about scents and divination, for as it also happens, I can’t both write and have my nose in heaven at the same time. But looking at the cards cast on my table, featuring Justice, the Magician, and the Hanged Man, I couldn’t help thinking about the chicken and egg dilemma: which came first, the truth about your magic, or the price you pay for it?
I never create a scent without asking the cards about it. Although we have tried and tested formulas, merely repeating what others have been doing is not magic. I want my scents to be my own secret, a discovery I make while spying with the cards. My ambition is to be the ninja of perfumery. I gather intelligence by sending myself on a mission, the cards being my shuriken, the most obvious weapons among the arsenal of ninja tools. I can’t see my target, but my intention is to hook it. I have this image in my head, whenever I use the difficult essences. Galbanum is one such. You simply cannot use too much of it in any concoction, unless you want to drown everything else you’ve thrown into the mix. Once on Base Notes, a perfumer’s forum, I read about other people’s experiences with galbanum. I laughed so hard when someone exclaimed with reverence, but also in dismay: ‘this is Chuck Norris in my nose.’ One obvious punch in the gut, and you’re down. I use galbanum in my mixes.
This intensely aromatic resin, or ferula gummosa, demands respect. Perhaps this is why it has been revered by the Egyptians, and burnt at night in Israeli temples, though one can imagine that when burnt as a resin, it must have been part of a mix, for its odor in its resinous state is not easy to muster. I always ask the cards: ‘how much of it in this concoction?’ as I prefer not to experiment too much. I want to hit it right from the beginning. The Letter card from the Lenormand oracle once suggested: ‘just a whiff, a wheezing breeze.’ I added a tornado of it, and then thought: Chuck Norris has nothing on this combination. Only one person regarded what I did the work of a genius: my sister. But then her nose is out of the ordinary, so it doesn’t count. Others who have tried averted their gaze, as if it was their eyes that were i danger, not their noses.
Ask me if I like it. Like a mad woman I like it. I like it as intensely as it works through my other essences in the mix. The only regret I have is that I’ll never be able to ask Rashi about it, Shlomo Yitzchaki, the French medieval rabbi who wrote extensive commentaries on the Torah, referring to the Ketoret, the incense mix offered in temples for a special ceremony containing galbanum. According to Rashi, the galbanum was part of the offering as a reminder of the existence of deliberate and unrepentant sinners. Sometimes I fantasize about Rashi giving me permission to start my own religion, after having been punched in the nose – and gut – by my Chuck Norris ninja of a mix.
Conversely, I also ask myself: would I ever read the cards without smelling things before, so that my vision can get sharper and more nuanced? Never. Some things go in circles. As I blend my cards with incense, I often find that, in addition to the visual message from the cards, I get olfactory insights: it’s one thing to see the Hanged Man hang, being knocked off, and another to smell him as one smells the galbanum in a mix: bitter, acrid, spicy, woody, balsamic, and above all fresh like a green leaf from outer space. I think of a great stunt when I smell the great galbanum next to frankincense in an oil, a stunt that even the Hanged Man may perform, if lucky enough to be anointed with it, perhaps precisely in the form of a punch.
In effect, I find that I could write an entire book dedicated to just this image, in the process also telling great stories about experimenting with the resins alongside with other precious essences. I think they call this a win/win situation, or the situation when you get to eat both the chicken and the egg.
Moving on to another fragrance on the same day I’m writing about my galbanum reveries, I burn some fine grade incense, and then go over to a homemade bakhoor, the mix of natural resins and fragrant woods. I think of how my censor never gets a rest, being fired almost around the clock. Most people know that I have a large library of books. What most don’t know is that I have an equally large library of natural scents befitting anything that goes from romance, sexuality, calmness, memory, and mercy to witchcraft and idolatry. You name it, I have it.
The thing I’m burning right now is an ad hoc concoction consisting of ketav levonah, or the white boswellia carterii, also known as Somali frankincense, myrrh, or commiphora kua of Sumatra, acacia nilotica, or gum Arabic from Senegal, boswellia papyrifera of Sudan, and green Al-Hojari, boswellia sacra from Oman – all sunk into rose essential oil from Betlehem and boswellia frereana or mayidi, the king of Somali frankincense, to tie it all up in sacred fumes. The Lovers card is next to this smoke, being encircled by it. This card fell out of my deck, as I was shuffling it with view to reading for a question about love. What is there to say already? That there’s always a love triangle somewhere in it, even in the most innocent efforts to love just ‘the one and only?’ Forever, too? Such is the world of fiction. Such is the world of reality.
What I like about the world of scents is that it is a world that’s hard to intellectualize, which is also the reason why it makes a perfect companion to the world of words. Since ancient times, smoke has been used by people for the purpose of scrying, or spying for images that might correctly predict an event. When I work with incense and images, I use both the smoke that comes out of my alchemical mixes and cards: tarot, oracle cards, playing cards, or art as magic.
As I sit an contemplate my smoke right now, I find myself committing these words to my manuscript, based on a simple draw of three cards featuring the Wheel of Fortune, the Empress, and the Sun: sometimes sitting on a throne means knowing exactly how to orchestrate a hot seance. Without a fire, no smoke.
As the evening ascends, I cast more cards on the table. I don’t go with thinking of the smoke that comes out of my Japanese cast iron censer, as the play of shadows on my cards make me think of this verifiable truth: sometimes, no matter how hard the Hermit tries to understand, there will always be a shadow cast upon his lamp.
This is not the same as saying that one experiences the moon’s shadow almost as a friend à la Cat Stevens 60s song in which he desires to be found by light, while being followed by what he calls the ‘moonshadow.’ The cards on my table speak of looking the wrong way, focussing on what can only be assumed, not known with certitude. Meanwhile the trickster god, Cupid, is playing a prank on the philosopher monk…
When I go over to oud, the most sublime of all, and try to finish up my writing connected with the divination of the day, I find that I can’t without first making a choice for a drink of sake. As the pure oud enters my nose, I settle on the bottle that I imagine goes with love. I’m not quite done with the series of questions I’ve received, when I fall into a reverie. As the strong perfume in the incense I burn dictates: ‘you're now stoned,’ I think of narratives that feature Fools always at the mercy of Cupid choosing the woman for them.
This is only fair, as Fools are not exactly known for discernment. But what of the Empresses of the world in such stories, the ones worthy of more than a Fool’s kiss, a kiss that never even comes, alas, as Fools are better at stumbling in the hem of their dresses than reaching their lips? Some Fools decide imperially, ‘I'll have her now,’ thinking they’re cleverer than the Devil himself, but when fate rules, what of such decisions? The oud penetrates my body even deeper and I find myself telling a never ending story.
Writing a book about scents and divination requires a different discipline than the commonly expected, when all you need to do is think some thoughts, sit down, and put them on paper. You write a book about scents and divination as you go along, following your nose. Metaphorically speaking, we read the cards in order to be able to smell a rat, or the potential danger around the corner of our business or love interest. But we also read the cards for pure contemplation. When this happens, the reverie that the images we’re looking at induce in us are inextricably linked with how we might obsess about the sensual details of what we remember, ponder on, or decide to pursue in perpetuity.
Gaston Bachelard, a philosopher of the senses whose work I keep returning to, had this to say in Water and Dreams:
The individual is not the sum of his common impressions but of his unusual ones. Thus familiar mysteries are created in us which are expressed in rare symbols. It is near water and its flowers that I have best understood that reverie is an ever-emanating universe, a fragrant breath that issues from things through the dreamer (1983: 6).
I’m not sure when I’ll be done with this book, but this I can say: I’m writing it. I’m writing it as I contemplate, experiment, and participate in the creation of new fragrances out of the ones that surround me generously. I’m also guided by this clear thought: I’m so lucky. I’m so lucky to have my oud blend with my sandalwood, and my frankincense blend with elemi and the poplar tree. All in my vintage pharmacy bottles. I’m so lucky to find just the words that describe this universe, or the world that always goes up in smoke.
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While waiting for my book on Scents and Divination, you may want to read other books of mine. There’s quite a number of them to look at, if you care to peruse, and wonder.
