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Planetary Prescription Incense

Incense As Medicine
Today is an especially magical day, being the midway point between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice. So that's a great timing to work on new incense and share with you what I've been brewing these past nine months (there has been plenty of incensing happening lately!).

It's been my life-long mission to create incense for the seven ancient planets. I am finally coming close to completing this series to my satisfaction. So far, I only liked the Jupiter incense I've created many years ago, in the very beginning of my incense path. I made a few other incense pastilles but I have taken a break from this technique for many years.

This year I've been catching up and refining my incense-making skills big time. Partly because the space allows it, and partly because I find the actual making of incense very calming, centring, sensual and magical all around. Incense to me is the purest form of perfume. Its most natural state. The manipulation of the raw materials is minimal. The ingredients may be exotic or simple. Lastly there is the actual use of incense, which is healing and transformative on so many planes - physical, psychological and spiritual.

The planetary incense is mostly botanical (except the lunar one, which has a tiny bit of ambergris in it). They are resin-based incense with added herbs, spices and essential oils, and are formed into small candy-like resin crystals. The Saturn ones are Nerikoh - a Japanese style soft-candy incense that is mostly wood and spice based, and glued together with honey or dried plums. Nerikoh were originally compounded as edible medicine - the honey there to preserve as well as ease the consumption of these remedies' rather bitter, acrid and hot flavours.

Solar Incense Pastilles:
Heart opening, sweet, warm and healing.
Includes: Frankincense, Gold Copal, Chamomile, Saffron

Moon Drops Incense Pastilles:
Mysterious, watery, dark womb, new beginnings.
Black copal, Sandalwood, Ambergris, Jasmine, Artemisia

Mercury Incense Pastilles:
Swift, uplifting, communication, ideas, mental clarity, intellectual connection. 
Mastic, Elemi, Mimosa, Yuzu, Sandarac, Sandalwood

Noga (Venus) Incense Pastilles:
Inspires love, beauty and harmony. 
Includes: Galbanum, Benzoin, Roses, Labdanum, Myrtle, Tonka Bean

Mars Incense Pastilles:
Protective, powerful, transformative, healing that comes from destruction and breaking down of old and unnecessary things/thoughts/desires. 
Dragon's Blood, Ponderosa Pine, Tobacco, Palo Santo 

Jupiter Incense Pastilles:  
The teacher, especially plant teachings, healing, cleansing, brings luck and abundance. 
Pinon Pine, Star Anise, Juniper, Sage 

Saturn Nerikoh (Soft Incense Pastilles):
Discipline, analogue to the world and the physical world's lessons, Gives form and manifestation to ideas, Wisdom. 
Myrrh, Patchouli, Cypress, Spices, Vetiver, Agarwood

As if closing a circle, I'm now running very low on the Jupiter incense, so will have to make some more (it's been in the planning for about a month, with all the ingredients measured and set up, just waiting to be pounded, compounded and formed into a very special kind of incense candy!). More on that in the next post! 

Nerikoh

Handful of Nerikoh

Here's a handful of shaped and rolled nerikoh - incense balls from a Saturn planetary blend. The last one to complete my series of Planetary Incense Pastilles. It was a long journey to get to this point, so let me share the steps with you. Unbeknownst to you, I hav been working on a series of incense pastilles for the Seven Ancient Planets. It all went swimmingly well (not counting the years of trial and error prior to that, which began in 2001 when I first tried to make such pastilles, and abandoned it pretty quickly to move onto making the perfumes you've been enjoying all these years).

When I came to compounding the incense for Saturn, I got stuck. I went back to some of the ingredients I've used originally, and that are associated with Saturn: Myrrh, cassia, patchouli, vetiver, cedar and cypress. I changed the formulation to make it a little less harsh. Also I had actual Arizona cypress, which smells amazing - both leaves and twigs - added to this blend, rather than cypress essential oil which I used in the original formula. I was rather happy with the smell albeit it dry and bitter/acrid character (which is rather typical to Saturn energy). However, there was one problem: despite the large amount of resin, these did not form into pastilles when alcohol was added. I really did not want to turn these into incense cones. After consulting some of my incense friends, they've advised me to turn these into Nerikoh, which are Japanese incense pastilles. These are made with any compounded fragrant woods, spices and resins but are glued together with sweet sticky materials such as plums or honey.

Nerikoh for Rosh HaShanah

I made a tiny experiment with just one ball of Nerikoh before leaving for my trip to Canada. It worked well, and didn't get super hard, even though I added some makko powder prior (with the thought of turning this into incense cones). Adding honey to my Saturn planetary incense blend on Rosh Hashanah seems very appropriate. And this is what I did on Rosh Hashanah even. Of course, I added too much honey, so I left it to dry for a few days... In the above photo you can see the first step in making Nerikoh. It looks and feels very much like baking - but smells quite different!

Nerikoh
Now the honey is all mixed in to form a dough. This has a very sticky consistency, not unlike the  honey cookies I make every year for Rosh Hashanah!

Shaping Nerikoh

Shaping the nerikoh begins with making a "pitta" from the sticky "dough" and scoring it into stripes and then further cutting into small tiny squares. From these we'll make little balls, as close in size as possible. The tricky part is that it's a very sticky dough! A little like making honey cookies for Rosh HaShanah. Of course, if your mass is less sticky than the one I made, it would be easier. I also imagine that having a better surface would also help. I imagine a granite or marble surface would be better than the screechy stainless steel I have here. Although it does work quite okay.

Making Nerikoh

Forming the nerikoh dough into tiny balls. A little like making minature chocolate truffles... But way stickier! I used extra powder of sandalwood to avoid stickiness. And even then I had to go over the balls several times in the following days because they kept sticking together. Blame it on humidity. Oh, and the overdose of honey which obviously haven't dried out quite well yet.

Nerikoh
Nerikoh is ready... Almost. Needs to be cured for 6 months though before it is properly dried and develops its full character. And then it can be warmed on a micah plate atop charcoal buried in ash to fully enjoy its aroma. This can be also done with an incense heater, or even an aromatherapy diffuser (a little bowl set above a tea light).


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