AROMATHERAPY

A woman's Natural Choice

Whether a woman has children or not, her body is a complex machine for making babies which guarantees her spending 6.2 years of her life, as a well-known tampon advertisement points out , having periods. That's five days , thirteen times a year for thirty-five years. To this inconvenience, if not pain, some must add their days of pre-menstrual tension. The whole business continues until after the menopause.

The only break in this routine is pregnancy and, despite the myth that all women look and feel marvellous during pregnancy, this is when the body is going through dramatic hormonal changes and incurring great strains. Not only may there be morning sickness at the beginning of the term and extreme heaviness at the end, but sebum production increases and greasy or flaky areas may appear on the skin.

Hair may become lank and fatty areas may develop over the body, besides the lump at the front. With all this going on it can be difficult to 'bloom'. However, if you take good care of yourself it is possible to go through a happy healthy pregnancy.

It is important to bear in mind that your baby won't go without - you will. The baby gets the vital nutrients, before its mother does and so the mother can very easily become depleted of nutrients. As a baby's absorption rate is so high, you have to take care of the water you drink as well as the food you eat. Any lead in the tap water will be absorbed by the foetus at a rate five times that of an adult, and in certain areas, notably East Anglia, pesticides have seeped into the water supply. It is therefore vital that pregnant women drink bottled water and use filtered water for cooking  and the kettle. - and don't forget to change the filters regularly.

This is, of course, inconvenient and expensive, but it could prevent a lowering of your child's intelligence by lead and avoid known and unknown problems that may result from absorbing  a wide variety of chemical pollutants. It is also wise at this time to avoid excessive exhaust fumes.

Your baby's care of this stage in its development is part and parcel  of your own. From the moment you conceive, everything you eat or apply to yourself will be filtering through to your baby. If you develop an allergy , your baby could develop it too. If you have a reaction to a certain make-up, your baby could have a similar reaction.

Even hair-dye could travel into the system. Also, the baby will hear all the sounds you hear, so if you go to a rock concert you won't be going alone! It is especially  important to take care of your psychological environment , because if you are tense your baby will be affected. This is the time to cut as much aggravation out of your life as possible, eat the best of everything, stock up with bottled water and of course give up smoking. Indeed, this special care is ideally started even before you conceive.

Not all essential oils are safe to use during pregnancy, although many are. At this time the bias is towards the gentler oils - spearmint rather than peppermint, for example. These are the esential oils you can safely use during pregnancy:

Pregnancy Essential Oils:
Tangerine, mandarin, Grapefruit, Geranium, Chamomile Roman, Rose Bulgar, Rose Maroc, Jasmin, Ylang-ylang, Lavender.

You can use the oils in the bath, shower, as a massage., or in one of the room methods. You shouldn't douche - with essential oils or with any other substance - unless advised by your doctor. When you are pregnant always use the minimum quantity of essential oils.

Reference: The Fragrant Pharmacy: Valerie Ann Worwood

What is Subtle Aromatherapy - 2

Traditional knowledge is the basis of which all modern practice is founded and should never be lightly dismissed. For example, where a modern textbook describes an oil as an antidepressant  and we find an old herbal stating that the plant from which it is distilled 'maketh glad the heart' they are saying exactly the same thing in the differing terminology of their respective historical periods.

When we wish to study the most subtle effects of essential oils, we have even less to go on. If the study of the mind is fraught with difficulty, the study of the subtle body  and the soul or, if you prefer, the higher self or human spirituality, is even more so and if you wish to learn about the subtle or spiritual connotations of essential oils and plants you will find little in the existing aromatherapy literature to help.

You will need to explore the whole books  of the various religions, the writing of mystics, alchemists and astrologers, myth and legend, folklore, fairytales, fables and even old wives ' tales  for references to sacred plants, incenses, anointing oils, 'magical' potions and elixirs and herbal talismans.

You will also need to sift through the nonsense and the work of charlatans that can get mixed up in some of these sources, as well as discarding references to essential oils  that we know are hazardous 9rember that earlier usage probably referred to the fresh or dried plant which may be safer to handle). The knowledge of earlier civilizations who are often closer to the earth and its plants in both their mundane and spiritual lives than we moderns.

None of these sources, though, can take the place of personal experience . Experiencing essential oils as an aid to one's own personal growth or spiritual development , or to bring about healing without 'hands ' treatment is the surest way to learn what effects they have. Next best is hearing of the experiences of other aromatherapists who have used oils in these ways in which knowledge of the subtle or spiritual properties of essential oils is spread, since little has been written about them.

Although most training courses in traditional aromatherapy include some work on essential oils and the mind, few teachers offer guidance on subtle uses when training future therapists. Perhaps this is just as well , for I think it is good to have a solid understanding of traditional aromatherapy before experimenting with more esoteric uses of essential oils. 

Of course, it is impossible to draw a clear line betwen traditional aromatherapy and subtle uses of essential oils and some therapists have discovered these uses for themselves by 'accident'. This often happens with both the therapist and the person receiving treatment are spiritually aware, maybe regular meditators, psychic, or attuned to subtle energies in one way or another. A massage session planned to affect the physical body and perhaps the mental and emotional level may then take on another dimension. The client may report seeng colours or light, or feeling a sensation of floating , as though the massge couch had been removed.

These are the experiences most commonly reported , though a small number of people have described past-life recall, out-of-body-states, vivid visual impressions or a mental state akin to deep meditation, such experiences often leave the individual with feelings of deep bliss. In my work and as a recipient of aromatherapy massage. I have either experienced or witnessed all of these. I consider such experiences veery important because they were not anticipated and this refutes the sceptic's claim that 'You only felt that because that is what you expected to feel'.

Such experiences often serve as a starting point from which an individual begins to explore other possibilities in the use of essential oils. They may be guided by drawing analogies with the physical or mental effects of the oils, and such analogies are valuable indications of what an oil may do when used in the more subtle ways.However, as we enter the dawn of a new age , an increasing number of people feel drawn to using essential oils at subtle levels who have not been through the traditional 'apprenticeship' of learning to use essential oils in physical applications first so they do not have that basis from which to start working. Such people include healers, crystal workers, meditators, clairvoyants and others.

They may have had some experience of essential oils being used in a meditation group, at a meeting or workshop or reeading something about them that has aroused their interest and suggested possible areas of affinity with their own field of interest.

Others, who do have the experience of the physical applications of essential oils, feel a need to move on from this base. A greater awareness of our spiritual destiny is awakened in the world, many people practising physical therapies feel drawn to working in a less physical way. They may wish to incorporate  a spiritual or subtle element  into the work they are doing already, or they may eventually want to change their mode of work completely.

To everyone who would like to explore the subtle uses of essential oils, I extend the invitation to share my journey of discovery.

Reference: Subtle Aromatherapy: Patricia Davis

What is Subtle Aromatherapy ?

 What is Subtle Aromatherapy? in using this expression I have in mind primarily the use of essential oils in non-physical ways. Subtle Aromatherapy makes use of the oils to affect the subtle body, the psyche and, indeed, the soul. In doing so, the user draws on the subtle energetic or vibrational qualities of essential oils, rather than their physical properties.

The expression can be used to denote the use of essential oils to heal the physical body by influencing the subtle energetic body of the recipient so Subtle Aromatherapy may be described as one form of vibrational healing. It also embraces the use of essential oils as an aid to meditation, affirmations, visualization and all transformative techniques based on inner work.

Because of the versatility of essential oils, they can be used in many different ways. When they are used with massage to treat a variety of physical ills ( and this is the most important method of application in what I shall call 'traditional' aromatherapy) they act on the body in a very gentle, though effective way.

This, though, is still a physical therapy and as such is not the main focus of this book, even though it is true that a physical aromatherapy massage can often have a profound and beneficial effects on a less tangible level.Most clients report a feeling of uplift or release of anxiety after such treatment but that is still not Subtle Aromatherapy.

In Subtle Aromatherapy the therapist may not touch the client's body at all, or may incorporate elements of subtle aromatherapy into a hands-on-treatment. In some instances there may be no need for a therapist, as in the use of aromatics in burners and diffusers as a meditation aid, or in ritual bathing.

Some applications od essential oils that can be properly described as Subtle Aromatherapy are auric massage, chakra balancing, absent healing, planetary healing, meditation, ritual and religious ceremony, and the use of oils to help personal growth on both the personality and the spiritual level. These are by no means all the possibilities: you may well find y6ourself guided towards others of which I am not yet aware. There are no 'right' or 'wrong' ways of working in Subtle Aromatherapy. Provided you act with honesty and sensitivity, whichever way you work is right.

In the past decade traditional aromatherapy has been more widely practised, studied and described than ever before. Thanks to recent and ongoing research we now have a wealth of knowledge about the physical properties and actions of essential oils:Their chemical make-up, their action against specific bacteria and viruses, why certain oils are hazardous, how they enter the bloodstream, how they affect the various organs of the body, the mechanics of olfaction and even a little about how they affect the brain.

Essential oils are being discovered and introducted, as well as different varieties of oils we already know.more books are being written, more teachers are travelling around the world sharing their knowledge. This does not necessarily make us into better aromatherapists then our predecessors who based their judgement to a large extent on the accumulated experience of centuries.It does make us better-informed aromatherapists, maybe more 'scientific' aromatherapists, though whether or not that is a good thing is the subject of much discussion and some disagreement.

Parallel with this increasing volume of factual information about physical aromatherapy has been growing a desire to know more about the non-physical effects of essential oils. The action of essential oils on the mind is, of course, far harder to study and far more open to differing interpretation than their physical action. We know very little about how the physical structures of the brain recieve and interpret information from the olfactory cells, and even something about how brain activity changes when essential oils are inhaled.

The brain is not the mind and no amount of physical investigation can tell us how the mind works, let alone how essential oils affect it. The study of psychology can help us to understand something of the workings of the mind, but for any knowledge of how essential oils interact with the human mind, we cannot study the workings, we can nly observe the effects.

This may be throug using an oil personally  and noticing the effect it has on our mood, mental state or emotions, by noting and recording how our clients feel after using various oils, by exchanging information with other therapists in person or reading about their experiences  and - just as with the physical effects of oils - by drawing on the wealth of experience that has been recorded since written records of essential oils, herbs and other aromatics began.

What Is Subtle Aromatherapy?-2

Reference:Subtle Aromatherapy: Patricia Davis 

The contention that essential oils are of great value to heal or treat cancer received an enormous boost through the work of French physician Dr,  Anne -Marie Giraud-Robert, whose study was presented at the 7th Scientific Aromatherapy Conference on Essential Oils, Cancer, Degenerative , and Autoimmune Diseases, in 2009. More than 1,8000 cancer patients , who received allopathic treatment concurrently with essential oils treatment, had significantly higher survival rates than patients with comparative cancers and allopathic treatment alone.

These observations were true for lung, colon, uterine, and breast cancer, as well as for all other types of cancer that were observed.

Dr. Giraud-Robert uses essential oils principally to reduce the often debilitating side effects of conventional treatments. These side effects can be of such severity that they limit the use of the conventional medicines. it can be argued that reducing the side effects of the conventional treatment allows patients to better tolerate those treatments, which ultimately leads to better outcomes.

Reference:The Healing Intelligence of Essential Oils: Kurt Schnaubelt, Ph.D.