A note from Daisy: This post is courtesy of Jordan River, also known around these parts as The Fragrant Man. As I have been inundated with work these past few weeks, I am quite grateful to place you in his capable hands for a little bit of a departure from our regularly scheduled programming 🙂

Since this post went up yesterday, there has been a little bit of confusion created about the religious nature of it. I would just like to say that I am not a religious person. I did not choose to publish Jordan’s post in order to impose any kind of ideology. What I did like was the idea of being able to travel back in time through scent.

Sometimes when I smell something, I feel instantly transported to another time and space. Those memories need not always be personal and yesterday’s post is an opportunity to reach back and feel a small sliver of what the past might have been like.

Now without further ado, Jordan will take us on a journey to a faraway land filled with mysterious women, men, and precious oils . . .

by Jordan River

Are you spending too much on perfume? Here is a scented tale for you.

The Oil in the Alabaster Box

There are many faiths in this world. There are also many myths and legends. It’s up to you to find the truth on your fragrant journey. Let’s travel to the east this Easter to visit a woman living on the boundaries of her culture.

She has recently met a man. She believes him to be her spiritual guide. He is surrounded by men at a dinner party. She is uninvited and has to make her way past the guests in order to be able to offer her teacher a scented gift.

The gift is spikenard oil, an expensive perfume ingredient which at this volume — a Roman litra* — is the equivalent of spending a year’s salary on a scent. The scent so potent that the home where this story takes place becomes filled with fragrant air.

The room grew still
As she made her way to Jesus
She stumbles through the tears that made her blind

She felt such pain
Some spoke in anger
Heard folks whisper
There’s no place here for her kind

Still on she came
Through the shame that flushed her face
Until at last, she knelt before his feet
And though she spoke no words
Everything she said was heard
As she poured her love for the Master
From her box of alabaster

Don’t be angry if I wash his feet with my tears
And I dry them with my hair
You weren’t there the night He found me
You did not feel what I felt
When he wrapped his love all around me and
You don’t know the cost of the oil
In my alabaster box

– lyrics: Janice Sjostran
for chanteuse Cece Winans
– an interpretation of Mark 14:3-9

Judas the accountant thought this money would have been better spent as food for the poor. Nevertheless the teacher accepted this gift from a woman’s heart.

Jesus looked at her with a smile “Your deed will never be forgotten. Your story will be told throughout all the lands, for all time, and in ways you have never even dreamed of.”

Never could she have imagined that one day the story of her alabaster box would be told on the World Wide Web.

* A Roman litra ~ 327 grams

Album Version – Cece Winans – The Alabaster Box
A more melodic version.

Easter Giveaway: Spikenard Foot Oil

We also have a gift to give away. Brie in New York has made some spikenard foot oil especially for this post. If you would like to encounter this scent and look after your own or your loved one’s feet, please leave a comment below or follow Daisy and/or Jordan on Twitter.

The gift recipient will be announced on Easter Sunday and your package will be lovingly mailed to you on Tuesday.

Spikenard or nard originates in India and Nepal, high in the Himalayas. The root of the plant is the source for one of the rarest and most precious oils.

Brie would like to say that she is not a professional perfumer. This is an interest for her. She blends with the best of intentions, carefully choosing oils for their healing properties as well as for their scent. Brie says that spikenard is quite tenacious and challenging to work with. In her experience, it can easily take over the blend (as tea tree oil similarly does).

This giveaway is appearing on multiple platforms. Please visit the other participating blogs for more chances to win. You can enter more than once!

Australian Perfume Junkies

Scents Memory

The Perfume Dandy

All I Am – A Redhead