Anointing

What ceremonies do you, your family, your community participate in to transcend the everyday into significance?  What ritual do you observe to assist your mind, body and spirit into awe, reverence, peace, gratitude? 

Ritual is always transcendental for they involve the participants into a valuable, purposeful, transformational event. They bookend our lives.  Sometimes our rituals are small, individual acts, sometimes they are a communal, grand event.  Our births to our deaths involve ritual. The everyday dining room table is transformed into a platform of festivities and gifts.  The event center becomes the bookmark where two become one for life. The house becomes a home when the family prays blessings and anoints the doorway. These ritualistic ceremonies nourish and develop our spirit. Spirit is transcendental, while our physical and cognitive selves are tethered to this physical world. 

Plants, resins, and essential oils have assisted in spiritual and religious rituals & ceremonies for millennia. Historical records tell of different types of plants and how they were used in various ceremonies to express faith and to worship God. The Christian’s religious document – The Holy Bible also describes formulas of various components and products produced from plants used to worship; anoint; cleanse; and purify.

Anointing is a specific ceremonial ritual using a carrier oil, aromatic or essential oils from plants to 1. dedicate or mark the practices as sacred; 2. invite God and 3. recognize the sacred in our everyday lives. Unadulterated plant essential oils were the only type acceptable to God for anointing. The first record in the Holy Bible is in Genesis 28. Jacob (grandson of Abraham, renamed Israel), after a dream, awoke to anoint with oil the stone he had been sleeping upon in recognition that God was indeed with him.

Anointing is a practice of the priesthood. After Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, who is anointed (if you know your Christian Holy Bible. See what I did there? ) a priest in God’s eyes changed from a specific tribe to all those who believed and accepted Jesus Christ as incarnate God and human fulfiller of God’s promises (1 Peter 2:9, Revelation 5:10). 

Anointing as a sacred practice with transformation qualities is practiced in some Christian faith groups and not in others.  It is a tangible exercise in faith such as the voice in our heads or spoken out loud become prayer when spoken to God. Our spiritual selves take an everyday task such as washing the dishes as Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), a 17th century Carmelite friar did and transform it into a spiritual practice of selflessness and service to others.  

Anointing rituals are done upon animals (not for sacrifice anymore); homes; upon each other as part of a specific worship service; tools; and objects.  In Exodus 20 when God gave a recipe for the temple anointing oil, only the priests could anoint.  These aromatic oils of liquid myrrh, cinnamon, fragrant cane (reed plant, possibly sweet calamus), cassia and olive oil became the unsellable, holy oil.

To make your own anointing oil to signify the sacred presence of God; ask God’s blessing; or to assist in overall wellness, use only premium essential oils if you want to benefit from their frequency and diverse molecular components.  Reputable companies will share their process in ensuring that the essential oil you intend to purchase is the only item you will be receiving.  Essential oils can be combined with many other ingredients to reduce cost.  Real frankincense is grown and harvested in only certain parts of the earth. 

Frankincense and myrrh are the most spoken about in the Holy Bible.  Combine these two with a carrier oil (such as olive, almond, grapeseed, flaxseed) and store in a dark colored glass container.  Many use an anointing oil with prayer.  If you are interested in learning more, email me at: pichpsvcs@gmail.com.