The Magick of Scents

Follow your Nose

I am very much lead by my nose in things. I can't easily be in a space that has a smell I don't like in it. I can smell much from people too. Sometimes just standing down wind from people is enough! I can tell health, habits, pregnancy and death.

They all have very distinctive smells.

Little wonder aromatherapy makes sense to me. That the too much of this or that in someone's scent can be balanced with oils. Too hot and dry, rich fresh and moist scents. Too sickly sweet, something spicy or herbaceous.

This instinct is also how I mix my herbal mixes for spells, spirit dolls, oils, salts and incense.

Much of my life I have studied herbs, flowers and trees to try and explain what I know with my nose.

When I make a blend of herbs or an incense I make a scent-scape.

A moment or and idealised moment in a ritual or spell. 

My Yule incense HAD to have pine needles, real pine needles in it. Nothing else smells like it. Nothing else makes me feels so full of the holiday spirit as that smell! Growing up in the 80's with a mother who hated the holiday's with a passion we had the worst fake pink and white tree you ever did see. I would see the great giant trees we had at school and feel sad and embarrassed.

No the smell of the tree is as important to me as the smell of orange and clove, or the crackling fire. Of the sweet herbs and resins, and the smell of rich fruity cakes and puddings.

Yule to me is sitting by the fire with a slice of Christmas cake and mug mulled wine, orange and clove pomades, the tree bedecked with lights and shimmering baubles in the low light.

That is place I want to smell. That moment of peace and stillness. Something warming and comforting. A little bit magickal for no reason, except that feeling of possibility.  

I haven't been in much of the seasonal spirit but as the storm passed over us yesterday I climbed up to grab some whole bay leaves and found an unmarked jar. 

"Oh, is that my Yule mix from last year?"

I opened it and had a good whiff, and it was. That little sparkle of that moment washed all over me.

No tree up here yet, but I am definitely feeling the spirit now!

Bright Blessings

Lucy Drake