Happy St. Patrick's Day, Creating a Soul Synergy

St Patrick died on March 17, 460 AD and the Irish people set aside the day to mourn. He became the patron saint of Ireland. Mourning turned to commemorating him and celebrating his life. Americans have inherited this custom. On St Patrick's Day in the United States, millions of people celebrate whether they are Irish or not! While this is a day that many of us in North America celebrate and have fun on, have you ever thought about creating a special essential oil synergy to capture the true essence of this holiday? If you did what would you put into your synergy?

I find creating synergies that capture a mood, or an idea, or a person to be truly fascinating and both an art and a science. First one tries to unravel the mystery around the concept and then once one has identified the oils one creates a synergy that is both aromatically pleasing and energetically potent.

Today I thought that I would share some ideas I have around a synergy for St. Patrick. When it comes to creating these sorts of blends, I do often fall back on the knowledge I have gained taking the Spiritual PhytoEssencing Diploma and if you are interested in knowing more about this modality you can read about it in the Spiritual PhytoEssencing Soul Blends article in the newsletter on the website.

While there are a number of legends that have grown up around St. Patrick the only undisputed record of his life appear to be a couple of documents that he wrote himself. What seems to be fact is that:

St. Patrick was born in Britain into a wealthy Christian family that had strong church connections.

As a young man, some say around 16 years, he was abducted by raiders and taken to Ireland where he was kept as a servant to herd sheep.

After more than six years, he said he heard the Voice of God telling him to leave Ireland. He escaped and walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast.

After escaping to Britain, he reported that he had experienced a second revelation. In a dream an angel told him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission-to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish. Although the date is not mentioned in his writings it is generally accepted that his mission in Ireland started in 432.

Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish.

Legend

Saint Patrick became a cult figure in Early-Christian Ireland and was soon proclaimed a saint.

• He is credited with driving all the snakes out of Ireland.
  
• He is said to have fasted for forty days and nights of fasting on Croagh
• Legend also has it that he light a paschal fire to defy the High King of Tara and his druids?
  

Saint Patrick is always shown with the shamrock because he tried to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to some Irish pagans using the analogy of the shamrock.

A Spiritual PhytoEssencing Blend is usually very complex and can contain up to 25 different essential oils, however the synergy I am making for St. Patrick's Day will be very much more simplified and only consists of 5 oils.

Several themes present themselves very clearly in the information above and these are the themes I have chosen to reference Dr. Berkowsky's material to identify essential oils for my blend:

Abducted: Benzoin
Druids: Oakmoss
Religious:Bitter Orange
Snakes: Basil
Visions: Cedarwood

I hope that you have fun creating a synergy for St. Patrick's Day and the day itself!

Workshops for 2010
These are offered once a month, generally the third weekend of the month so follow the link and browse through the offerings for 2010.

March 20
Advanced Massage Techniques
$150.00 plus GST
Prerequisites: some training in bodywork

As always the self-directed home study Aromatherapy Courses are available. When you are ready they are only a click away, a click that will lead you into a world filled with information, self-growth and delight! Perhaps they will be a gift you give yourself this year!

If you don't want something as formal as a course perhaps you'll find what you are looking for in one of our E-books or our Aroma Massage DVD.

E-books currently available:
Infant Massage,
Subtle Aromatherapy,
Aromatic Gifts for All Ages and All Seasons
Aromatic Lords and Ladies of the Zodiac, an exercise in energetic blending .

The Hawkins Protocol is now available as an E-book.