Making Homemade Incense

Lately, I've been rather enamored of the idea of making my very own incense. I've long loved the resin-based style incense (i.e. dragon's blood, frankincense, copal, styrax, etc.). A few years ago, however, my husband bought me some really delicious church incense from the Holy Rood Guild; two cannisters of the most amazing floral- and wood-based scents in the world, Laudete and Jubilus. (I had wanted to try their third scent, Cantica, but it appears that the monks have stopped selling it to the general public. Darn!)

For my birthday, my husband bought me some lovely "Melchior" resin, and a powder-based rose & frankincense from Scents of Earth. He also got me some beautiful red roses. Each time I get flowers from someone, I have a tendency to let them dry out with the intention of making potpourri. (Whether or not I actually follow through with potpourri is another story!) This time, though, I thought it would be really awesome to try making my very own incense.

The first thing I did was to take the parts of the bouquet that I wanted to turn into incense. I removed all of the red petals and placed them in a small plastic tray; then I snipped away some of the leaves of the roses, as well as some of the bits of fern "garnish" that came with the bouquet. Then I took a few pieces of the baby's breath and added them whole, figuring that they'd all be crumbled to bits after everything dried. At that point, I was unsure about whether or not to use the bud remnants for the incense, so I decided to trim them from the stems and set them aside and put them in a glass nearby. I could always add them in later if I wanted.




It took about a week for the petal-leaf mixture to dry. I didn't do anything special to help them along, just left them in my little plastic tray. I would toss the mixture around in the tray once each day while I waited for it to dry. From time to time, I also gently mixed the glass of buds, but not quite as often. They're really delicate. They also took longer to dry than the petals. (Later, I decided not to use the buds for this project; instead, I saved them for a similar but related mini-project.)

Of course, the petals didn't smell as good dried as they did when they were fresh, so I knew I'd have to add some yummy scent to the mix. First, though, I crushed all of the petals, leaves, and baby's breath into a fine consistency. (It's more coarse than powder. Just a bunch of little bits.) Then, I added some Egyptian Rose essential oil, and a few drops of clove oil for a little extra dimension. I mixed it up really well, and then tried it out on my burning charcoal. It was awesome! I've already got ideas for the next batch of incense!! :)

Putting the Smackdown on "Perfect"

OK, I’ll admit it. I am a recovering perfectionist. Within the past couple of years, however, I realized that always trying to give 999% is not always the best course of action. It’s not an easy process, but I have begun to extract myself from the hold that “Perfect” has over my life.

Have you ever been so focused on doing everything right that you feel too overwhelmed to do anything at all? Check out my story and see if it rings any bells:
I remember when I first started my own retail business. I’d perpare orders for my customers, worrying incessantly that everyone’s names or addresses were spelled correctly, that a label wasn’t straight, or — cue the scary background music! — ZOMGZ, maybe a hair had somehow slipped onto the packing tape while I was using it to close a package!! (This last nightmare scenario was what probably caused me the most grief, as the first two can usually be prevented with a little care. The hair, however, was not so easily avoided, as my office was flooded with hundreds of pounds of synthetic hair at any given time. I remember being so horrified by the appearance of a stray hair that I’d have to toss the packaging and start again!)
What I hadn’t yet learned at the time is that, regardless of what our inner voices tell us, perfection is not always the answer to everything. I didn’t realize that while I was doing my best Hyacinth Bucket impersonation, making sure that every stamp lined up exactly with every envelope corner, I was also wasting my valuable time and energy on something that only I gave a shit about.
My friend, Sabrina, also helped me realize that my package obsession was pretty lame; “I get so excited when something comes in the mail for me, I don’t even care! I just rip the package open because I’m so happy to get my cool new stuff!” she told me once, as I struggled to remove a stray synthetic hair that’d gotten stuck under a piece of tape on a customer’s package. Maybe I’m unusual in my own observational skillz, but once I got something that had the sender’s *own* hair stuck to the UPS packing slip thingy, and I was almost physically ill by just the sight of it.
After realizing that no one else cares nearly as much as I did, I lighted up a bit on some of the other details. Now I slap the stamp onto my envelope someplace in the upper-right quadrant and finish living the rest of my life without losing sleep over it. The mailman knows where to look for it, and he’s probably sleeping just fine also. I am still a stickler for spelling people’s names and addresses just as they indicate, even if it’s wrong, and find creative ways to avoid {or at least reduce} the amount of flyaway fake hair in my office. A person’s still got to have some standards, after all. :)

I am also wizened enough to now realize that the concept of “perfect” is a total pain in the ass, if it exists beyond our imaginations at all. Sure, sometimes striving for the absolute pinnacle of awesomeness is worth it. But do you REALLY need to spend that kind of time and energy on everything? If you do, you probably have OCD, and in that case, I applaud you; it’s hard living with that kind of stress. Also, may I extend an invitation for you to visit and clean my house?
A lot of times, having these expectations for oneself and others is extremely destructive and ridiculous. It wastes your time because you slave away trying to make everything super-awesome; it wastes your money, because (a) time is money, and (b) you’re likely using up valuable resources. It wastes energy because you’re stuck stressing endlessly about something when you could be doing something else — having fun, just chillin’, accomplishing something great — or anything else. Even having nothing to do is better than being in possession of that cold knot of “Oh shit, did I make a miniscule mistake that only I will notice?” at the pit of your stomach.
I’m not saying that there aren’t times when “Perfect” is important, such as when you’re performing brain surgery or dismantling a bomb. There are probably other circumstances too. But for the rest of the time, I think the focus can probably just stay on “Pretty Good.” Do you really think that your friends are going to check under your couch to see if it’s been vacuumed this week? If so, get some new friends, because the ones you have sound like total assholes!
Rather than stand immobilized in fear of failing to achieveperfect, let’s celebrate ourselves for accomplishing things that are pretty good.Perfect will keep you mired in self-doubt, dwelling on any perceived inferiorities. Pretty good enables you to forgive yourself (and others) while helping you move on to bigger and better things. Perfect is all about drama and bullshit for the sake of nothing. Pretty good is the stuff that makes up the rest of your life — messy, weird, and definitely not for the weak or self-delusional — but certainly more interesting than a bland, cookie-cutter existence.
Letting go of perfect will enable you to find joy and pleasure in even the most mundane things, instead of shitting your pants as you turn each corner. Letting go of perfect, and enjoying your life with all of its interesting flaws can be daunting, however. It's like crossing a bridge at night; it can be terrifying and tough to see the way, but all you really have to do is keep going until you reach the end, focusing on light spots along the way.
Although it is difficult to change a lifelong habit of perfectionism, it can be done. The journey is a long one, and it’s not always easy. But slowly, with some effort, even the tightest of asses can let go of his or her perfectionism paralysis, and venture into an awesome new world of non-perfection, and celebrate the greatness of pretty good. Try it and see!