Incense & Insects

Thinking on that pinyon pine resin lately, what to do with it, who to formulate it within incense, and I've come up with something relatively simple, semi-bioregional, an absolutely gorgeous smell. I only made a tiny bit experimentally, and today I'm going to warm it on the heater to smell what we've got, then age the little batch for a few days to see what changes take place. Some of the materials in the formulation have a tendency to morph into something stunningly beautiful after a long time has passed, a year or so, creating something completely unrecognizable from the original. So during all of its life phases, it will be something spectacular and spiritual and prone to change -- like us. I'm also pulling things together for another batch of The Ram incense. The problem is sourcing good costus root, because, as we are all aware, there is costus root and then there is costus root, baby! 

A day or so back, while hunting down materials to use in The Ram, I found a sealed jar of licorice root slivers and a host of wee dead worms at the bottom that had obviously been feasting on the licorice root! It's been a while since I received the licorice root, and it went immediately from the parcel it was shipped in into a sanitized glass jar, so there is very little chance the insects in question found their way in there from the studio but was harbored in the root when it arrived. The jar was immediately removed from the shelf and emptied into the outside dumpster, and then scrubbed and sanitized and got a turn through the dishwasher to boot. I can't tell you how disappointing it is to order goods and then have them ruined by bugs. I contacted the supplier to let them know, but thus far, crickets from their end. Keep an eye on your plant goods, folks. Check them periodically and use them up if they are getting close to their expiry date, whenever that is.