Thursday, October 19, 2006

When a Rose is a Rose

by David Stewart, Ph.D., R.A.

Most men and women enjoy perfumes, whether they be colognes, aftershave lotions, sachets, or costly potions to titillate emotions. There are perfumes for the morning, for the working day, for occasions of entertainment, for the evening, and for the night. Some people wear different fragrances according the occasion and the time of day. People usually wear fragrances for a purpose.

Flowers do the same. If you have a rose garden, you may have sampled their perfumes individually by putting your nose right into the bloom. If you haven’t done this, I recommend it. The first thing you will notice is that every variety of rose has its own distinct signature of scent.

People are like that, too. They pick perfumes that suit their personalities, which is an individual thing for each person. We express our personalities through our choices of the scents we choose to wear. Roses do the same. From an individual rose’s point of view, they want to be a rose that stands out, one that is different from the rest of the bushs and even from every other rose on the same bush. Try smelling several roses on the same bush and you will learn that there is not just one scent associated with that variety, but a suite of scents. While each rose flower shares the common characteristics of its family, it expresses a unique individuality as well.

Another thing you will notice about roses is that they also change their perfumes with the time of day. What they wear in the morning won’t be the same as in the afternoon or night. Jasmine, for example, attracts certain night flying insects. Hence, its strongest fragrance is released after midnight, before sunrise. Since the primary purpose of a flower’s odor is to attract pollinating insects, adjusting scents throughout the day actually attracts different insects at different times, just as different insects come out at different times from early morning, to late afternoon, to evening, and through the dark of night.

Flower fragrances also change with the aging of the bloom. You will notice in smelling your rose blossums closely and individually, is that what they waft as a new partially opened bud is not the same as in the mature blossum. Scents are normally not strong in the bud because at that time, the petals are not yet open and ready for pollinating visitors. It is when they are newly and fully opened that their perfume is the strongest. When a flower ages and its pollination is complete, it loses its scent, its purpose having been fulfilled. All of this is something you can experience in your own rose garden (or someone elses).

Gertrude Stein, has aptly said in her poetry, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” (Sacred Emily, 1913). It was her attempt to express the unexpressable—the singular beauty, touch, and fragrance of a rose. Rose oil is probably the most expensive of all essential oils and has the highest electromagnetic frequency (320 MHz) (you can read more about the frequency of essential oils in my previous post, The Vibrational Frequency of Essential Oils ). Thousands of pounds of petals are required to distill even one pound of precious oil. It’s aroma is physically, mentally, and spiritually elevating. Many eye witnesses to miracles, visions, and spiritual manifestations have reported the scent of roses lingering about the site of the experience.

Most people cannot afford to purchase rose oil, but you don’t have to wait until you buy it to experience it? It is available at no cost to everyone. Just find a blooming rose bush and start inhaling. What you will receive is true, pure, unadulterated rose oil directly from the flower, itself. You will also enjoy the visual beauty of its appearance at the same time. By caressing the flowers gently with your fingers and by letting your nose come into contact with the velvet surface of the petals, you will experience the rose with three senses, not just one—sight, smell, and touch. Some people even eat rose petals, thus engaging the sense of taste, taking traces of the oil internally.

This is the way God originally meant for us to enjoy essential oils, by inhaling and contacting them directly from nature the way Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:8) In our busy lives, we mustn’t forget to stop once and a while to “smell the roses.”

NOTE: The excerpt above is from Dr. Stewart's book titled, The Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple and its subtitle is God's Love Manifest in Molecules. 485 pages, its price $29.95 and can be purchased to the link in the left colum of this website.

If you would like to purchase high quality Rose essential oil (item # 3623), which is absolutely heavenly, you can do so through my product website at The Very Essence