Incense is a substance that is burnt to produce a sweet smell. At Home on earth we use it to make people feel comfortable in our shop. However, it has several uses:
- In meditation, incense is burned to help the practitioner achieve states of clarity, focus and calm.
- Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it.
- It is also used often by people who smoke indoors, and do not want the scent to linger.
- Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other aggravating, distracting or pestilential insects.
- The regular burning of direct combustion incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks.
- The last example of its use is the giant Botafumeiro thurible which swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Incense is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
The incense of Fran
Fran is one of our incense suppliers, he is producing it since three years ago. It has a purely manual method, and therefore it is quite slow. Fran would like that people use his incense to energetically clean spaces or people as used by shamans and medicine men in the jungle.
He has an inspiration: “the smells and resins of the Peruvian jungle like rosewood and copal. After having been in this jungle, I had the idea of making these incense sticks, totally natural, without any chemicals or phosphorus oils”.
The materials he uses to create the incense are Arabic gum, natural glue of a tree, bamboo charcoal, distilled water, cornmeal, plants and natural resins, bamboo sticks and sawdust.
Finally, Fran discovers his secret to make incense. He explains that “first, I bray all the resins and plants. Then I mix all the powdered materials until it gets like a paste. After that, I pass them through a tube, insert a bamboo stick, one by one, and coat the outside of the incense with plants or sawdust”.