Every tradition that hasn’t been flattened by Western psychology or colonized by academic frameworks knows a truth about the spiritual path: You don’t start with the otherworlds. You start with the ground beneath your feet.
And:
Every tradition that hasn’t been flattened by Western psychology or colonized by academic frameworks knows another truth about the spiritual path: You aren’t here to be purified into perfection, and you aren’t here for an endless healing loop. You are here to remember your true nature — which is loving, creative, and powerful.
Does this resonate?
I think a lot of us who have been on a spiritual path for a while somehow get twisted away from the very reason we began.
Rather than deepening into more nourishing relationships with Earth and spirit, we end up traveling through disembodied astral realms (I mean, there is a place for that…but we aren’t meant to live there!).
Rather than deepening into the cosmic knowing of our limitless and vast selves, we end up focusing on endless trauma healing — always trying to purify more, meditate more, heal our ancestry and karma and codependency and whatever it is…
One direction bypasses the pain. The other keeps us looping within it.
Neither offers what we actually need: a loving path to remembering our true, whole, beautiful, and creative selves.
There are sooo many reasons for the twisting of the spiritual path — I mean, how do you keep disciples…sorry, “students”...coming back for more unless they always feel incomplete? How do you control a population that remembers how much agency for creative change they actually have?
I believe a spiritual path should make you more present to your life, not more preoccupied with escaping it. It should give you more ways to perceive. More ways to listen. More ways to relate. More ways to create.
And this is a huge part of why I created Sacred Aromatics Foundations.
Scent brings us back down to earth, literally. Every oil we anoint with began as a root, resin, flower, fruit, or leaf growing from the soil. We can only access smell from within our bodies and in the present. So scent keeps us here, embodied and in relationship with the living world.
Anointing has a very different history than the healing loop, too. For thousands of years, anointing has been a rite of consecration. Priestesses, kings, statues of the gods, and the beloved dead were anointed to honor and awaken the divine. Consecration begins from wholeness. Nothing about you needs fixing before you're worthy of the plants' blessing.
And fragrance moves us toward coherence — our thoughts, actions, and beliefs coming back into alignment with the essence of our soul. In the body, remembering feels like becoming more loving, more creative, more powerful, and much more present to our lives.
In Sacred Aromatics Foundations, we spend six live weeks anointing, burning sacred resins, and meeting five plant allies in depth: rose, frankincense, bergamot, vetiver, and juniper. You'll leave with a daily practice that roots you in your body and the earth, and supports you in creating the life you're here to live.
We begin with the ground beneath our feet, and let the plants help us remember the rest.
Our first circle is October 14. Earlybird pricing ($497, payment plans available) ends October 11.
→ ENROLL TODAY
Many blessings,
P.S. If you want to experience an anointing with me first, join our live monthly Rewilding the Temple ceremony this October 10th at 10am PT. Usually, these circles are $22, but this month I'm opening it to everyone at no cost :) Save Your Seat for Free
P.P.S. The Companion Kit for Sacred Aromatics Foundations contains all our aromatic allies in ready-to-use anointing oils, along with a resin for sacred smoke and a hydrosol for aromatic water. I’m putting these kits together now and will ship them early October, so order asap if you want one!
>>>Get the companion kit.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing more about the aromatics arts, plants, and fragrance as a path to soul coherence. If you want to opt-out of the sacred aromatic foundations series, you can simply click here.
Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.
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