The Real Gift

The Real Gift………. I have had occasion over the past year and a half to study aromatherapy. It is a beautiful and fascinating field of study. Plants have always captivated me since I was a child, trying to grow my own . As I studied and made blends I developed some favorites. I think which ones I love depend upon the day and my need. I remember one day feeling really sad and kind of despondent and had some house cleaning to do. I got out my cleaner, made with orange and some other citrus fruits. Now for those who don't know , citrus is particularly uplifting, helps depressions and sadness. I wasn't really thinking about that, just needed to clean. Well, by the time I was done cleaning, I felt amazing. What a beautiful lift, just what I needed. One of things that I found so interesting when creating blends for people is the unique response each person has to the same oils. For example, I was blending for two women, they each were struggling with the same emotional challenges that we were blending for. I sat with each one, individually and opened the bottles so that they could get a sense of the resonance of the oil for them. What really felt uplifting and healing to one, the other had total disdain for. It became apparent how incredibly individual we are from how our emotions impact our bodies, to what creates a healing space in them. One of those young ladies particularly loved the oil spikenard. I used it in a number of her blends and I grew to love it myself. In using it I became aware of the special properties of spikenard, and maybe some of the reasons that I loved it. Spikenard is a very calming and grounding oil. IT helps one connect to themselves. It lifts the heart when experiencing deep sadness. It calms the heart, the mind and the thoughts. It has anti-inflammatory properties and is of special value with difficult skin conditions. I have another friend who has struggled with some very serious mental illness and have made some blends for her to provide emotional support and stability. She called me today to tell me how much she appreciated the spikenard blend that I had made for her. As I listened, I was taken back in time to the story of the woman anointing the feet of the Saviour with the oil of Spikenard. I recall that in the story she offered him something that the hosts of the house did not. And when she in her total offering not just of her oil, but the manner in which she knelt and anointed his feet and then as though she had nothing else she wiped his feet clean with her hair and tears. While offering this beautiful gift, the significance was totally lost on those also present. The murmured and talked of the waste. They missed the beauty of the love offering, that would bathe his feet in tears, wiping the oil, whose properties would be to give him comfort in sadness, provide healing to his feet and to calm his heart as he offered his perfect love to all mankind. While they were carefully preparing their outward vessels to fullness of hypocrisy, self interest and greed. She wept at his love and offered in the deepest humility not just a precious oil, but her heart. What I realized after my friend called me was the impact this would have had on her. Oils can be most powerful in a huge does like that. I once while working in a store broke a bottle of Japanese mint oil. I had a sinus problem at the time and the effect was HUGE, the amazing opening of the space that was congested and the lift. I felt it all night and still the next day when I went back to work and that oil was not on my body, only in the air. So, imagine the woman, who knows what her life was, but she was touched by the Saviour, by his love and was seeking relationship and healing from him. I don't know her story, but I do know that if she loved that oil enough to anoint his feet and offer it to him in a gesture of love she had felt the healing properties herself, both of the oil and of him. As a woman I suspect she also realized that perhaps he could use that healing lift. While anointing his feet and using her hair and tears to dry them she would have been covered herself in that beautiful aromatic oil. It would have stayed with her. Her hair would have held that healing lifting power for days upon end and the sweet memory of him as well. Could it be that the real offering of a gift is one that will also heal you, bring you closer to the Saviour. The pharisees mocked her gift, but the Saviour was and is less concerned with our outward manifestations, but what the real gift is…………..it is the one that is unique and individual in the giving and holds your desire, your ideas, your love, your healing and your heart. There is no design as to how that should look. I cannot make a successful aromatherapy blend without understanding the resonance that is in the body and soul of the person I am blending for, neither can a gift to the Savoiur be offered designed by someone else, or offered to be like everyone else, whether in your own mind or to be seen of men. The only real gift we bring resonates to bring healing and love to us, first, and then to the world. WE can and will be misunderstood as we follow the Saviour, but to know and to feel how your offering resonates with both him and you that is the real gift. That will bring real healing and real love to the world.