Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice: Working with the Chakras, Divine Archetypes, and the Five Great Elements. / Candice Covington, 2017. Healing Arts Press. 212 pages, 1 color leaf, black and white illustrations, resources, notes, bibliography and index.
Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice by Candice Covington has a handbook-like quality. Part of the book’s message is why the energies in essential oils are so important. We need to study and observe their qualities, especially the energies common to essential oils that are both physically and spiritually healing.
Chosen with care, plant substances can strengthen our resolve and lead us towards the goal of becoming our best selves. This I already knew because of my belief in plant healing. Yet I also supposed that essential oils are healing substances that relate to many levels of healing. I wondered, how are spiritual energy and essential oils connected?
I wanted to read Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice because I was looking for why essential oils are considered spiritually vital substances. Author Covington provides theory about the nature of the oils that come from plants and examines concepts about energy and vibrational resonance. Ideas from Ayurveda, Hinduism, Buddhism, pagan beliefs, Jungian psychology, Christianity, and Judaism are examined in some depth; a few impressions from the book are noted here.
Covington describes a selection of more than 20 essential oils as spiritually healing. Essential oils in Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice correspond with the elements, the chakras and the vibrations they’re most known to stimulate or affect. For example, Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) essential oil represents the element of fire. It stimulates the Solar Plexus, the 3rd chakra, and is used for “lighting the way to seeking new solutions for old problems”, with specifics such as “living in integrity, precision and being a specialist.” (p.95)
Eleven other essential oils representing fire or seed of fire are cited by Covington as possessing those qualities. Among them are betel leaf, cardamom, elemi, lemon and vetiver, each presenting subtly different actions.
Essential oils have remarkable qualities, indeed. So much so that we revere, adore, idolize and even venerate certain scents because of what we experience when we inhale them; and because we know collectively that a certain essence is precious and treasured for its effects on us. An essence that engenders such a reaction is co-creating a vibrational response or resonance to the flower’s aroma with us as receiving this power.
Rose is one such admired flower, one that we culturally identify with love and expressions of love. Pure rose essence thus has power to shift our mental and even our physical reactions. In Covington’s description, Rose represents Prabhava, an uber-elemental quality, stimulates the heart and the 7th chakra, the crown, and “vibrates with Love, Grace and Enlightenment”, (p. 102). Her admonition to use rose extends to “enlightenment via the path of the heart”.
Spiritual practice with essential oils involves locating the hidden energy of life. To find our way into that spiritual practice, author Covington suggests acquiring knowledge about vibration as a force in the world, as an activity of the elements, as qualities of each living being and a feature of all things.
Covington explores the term “alchemy” as a type of transformative process, where alchemical change renews and restores energy. Sometimes uncomfortable, exposing painful realities, old hurts and other difficulties, nevertheless alchemy is noted for changes we associate with healing. Even if we are going beyond physical health and are seeking spiritual realms, alchemy holds the possibility of transmuting negative energy into positive.
Vibrational resonance with an energy outside us, Covington explains, is how a particular quality becomes stronger and manifests. In the chapter “Spiritual Alchemy”, Covington brings together the very root of existence, the void, the place where all things in our universe come from and suggests the place of alchemy in our spiritual continuum.
After this introduction, a chapter on spiritual deities from many traditions brings into focus the collective conscious—the place ideas originate in our lives. Therefore, we understand that ancient practices, beliefs and rituals observe all life, all vibration, great and small, from the universe to the human being, and finally make use of it all.
Each living being and thing is interrelated, a part of the whole and capable of being supported by another vibrational being, plant, god or goddess. Some of the archetypes we already have knowledge of and some are new to us, like the goddesses who embody the scents and energies of a number of essential oils.
Covington describes characteristics embodied by archetypal deities from various religions and philosophies, and knowledge from Ayurvedic texts on doshas, chakras and tattvas. Such an array of sources of wisdom offers a variety of ways to approach vibration and understand it as a catalyst for change.
Consider these divine archetypes, one who offers “self-care, kindness and forgiveness”, who resonates with Neroli, Pine and Rosewood: the goddess Iris. Or Ganesha, “patron of sciences, arts, and creative acitivities”, and whose vibes resonate with Rose, Sandalwood and Blue Chamomile (p. 36-37).
There is information on color and shape, numerology, definition for mantras and yantras. The intensity of this knowledge as background for spiritual practice is worth a second read. From a handbook, this is all the more practical as it is easy to locate the point of access desired.
The author writes that when we are stuck in old patterns “[our pure self is buried beneath habituated, dense, negative-energy patterns… We must clear this debris away from our own pure nature…]” (p.177) Sound familiar? These concepts, usually encountered in psychology or self-help theories, are actually part of a larger, more expanded view of the human experience. Along with the help of deities, essential oils, our chakras, the elements, and certain rituals, why we value and desire wonderful-smelling substances becomes apparent.
Powers and energies from the natural world around us yielding vibrational tools such as essential oils, in part enlightened the lives and enhanced the rituals of great sages, spiritualists and diviners of ancient times. Evoking a deity can help shift the reality and patterns of our beliefs and behaviors, according to author Covington. We can affect this with ritual, a way to bridge our appeal to the spiritual realms. Examples of a number of types of ritual are described in Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice.
Covington’s solid scholarship is belied by a personal touch. Reading the source information, you can’t help but feel more community with the universe. And following the assured pace of a practiced teacher, we pick up on why it’s necessary to be open to resonance, ritual and change. And this only underscores the beauty and significance of essential oils as living substances that we can readily learn from and identify as close allies in our lives.
Check out Covington’s website at Divine Archetypes for more details.
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