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TT: Frankincense
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Hi Folks -
Sorry to keep tossing out topics here, but I just saw the best
show on Public TV about human smell, emphasizing perfumes.
Frankincense is an amber, a beautiful fluffy gummy substance that
tends to form into beads, with a kind of milky-honey glow about it.
They showed how the Frankincense 'minors' (as they are called)
go into the desert and jab into the trees with knife-edged chisels
to bleed out the amber -- twice a year, careful not to kill the
trees. These are smallish trees with light papery bark like some
birches. Their structures are compacted, reminiscent of cherries.
In ancient Egypt, Frankincense could protect you in both this world
and the next, and so was burned during mummification rituals. Later
in Christian times the sacred hypnotic was prized as a worthy gift
for the Holy Child.
Whoever controlled the Frankincense traffic, literally as precious
as gold (and the myths that kept it that way), would live like kings.
Today Frankincense is not nearly as valuable as in history, and
the traditional trade is slowly dying away ...
(Nice to hear from Laura)!
Richard@Flora.Com
Baltimore USDA Zone 7
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