“….diffusing the scent of cinnamon and bedewing the air with rose and balsam."

 

Beautiful cakes of the finest incense ingredients ….each stamped with an Ankh, the Egyptian key of life. Inspired by the Greco Roman Mysteries of Isis in which roses were filled divine meaning and offered to the Goddess.

I have always been fond of Apuleius's “Metamorphoses” and his descriptions of the Epiphany of Isis and her rites of initiation. -I imagine an incense-like “Rose of Isis” smoldering on those ancient altars. It has been a wonderful meditation creating these fragrant cakes of Resin, Sandalwood, and Rose.

 

 Contains:

 

3 types of fine Rose Absolute (Damascena)

Mysore Sandalwood

Sahul Myrrh

Saigon Cinnamon

Hougary Frankincense

Benzoin

Dusted with Agarwood powder

 

Roses have a sort of hidden power.  In fact, even as far back as Ancient Egypt, the rose was a powerful symbol of love and beauty.

The rose became incredibly important to the Egyptians as they believed it had both powerful healing and aphrodisiac properties.   

The Egyptians also believed that the “magic” properties of roses would extend beyond the grave.  Rose fragments have often been found inside burial tombs and even inside the binding of mummified bodies.  Roses made a tangible connection between this life and the afterlife, serving as a metaphor being that they flourish in the Sun and are reborn each Spring.

Perhaps the rose’s most important role in this ancient culture was its close association with the Egyptian Goddess, Isis.  The rose was her symbol and was often depicted alongside her in Ancient Egyptian art, most predominantly within her temples at Thebes.

 

These special cakes are about 1” dia, hand-formed and stamped, some even have hand-painted gold ankhs on them. They come in a gold tin are nested rose petals from our garden and scented resins. This price is for .5 oz (about 12 cakes)

 

From Lucius Apuleius “Metamorphoses” (c.155 CE)

 

“When I had ended this prayer and made known my needs to the Goddess, I fell asleep, and by and by appeared unto me a divine and venerable face, worshipped even by the Gods themselves. Then by little and little, I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, mounting out of the sea and standing before me, and so I shall describe her divine appearance if the poverty of my human speech will allow me or her divine power give me eloquence to do so.

First, she had a great abundance of hair, dispersed and scattered about her neck, on the crown of her head she wore many garlands interlaced with Roses, just above her brow was a disk in the form of a mirror, or resembling the light of the Moon, in one of her hands she bore serpents, in the other, blades of corn, her robe was of fine silk shimmering in divers colors, sometimes yellow, sometimes rose, sometimes flame-like.

…..Thus the divine shape breathing out the pleasant spice of fertile Arabia, spoke….”