Asarum canadense/Wild Ginger/Canadian Ginger

pH 5.4

Aroma and Taste The fragrance is incredibly mild, almost faint; there is no hotness to it, rather a sweet, not quite spicy note, with only the barest resemblance to real ginger. The taste is even milder, so mild I often double the dose if I drink it just for flavor, and the flavor is just gorgeous. It is delicate, gentle, and closer to a flower than a root, neutral or perhaps on the cooling side instead of heating like the oil.

Stability and Shelf Life Despite its pH, this hydrosol seems to have a long shelf life, eighteen months or more. I have one batch at two and one-half years that is still totally stable.

Properties and Applications Native Americans drank a tea of wild ginger for treating arrhythmia and heart pain. The cardiotonic properties of wild ginger are mentioned in several herbals, and I have found the hydrosol useful in calming and balancing people prone to anxiety attacks, type A personality, and illness-related stress states. The powdered root boiled into a tea was used as an antimicrobial by several First Nation tribes, and based on this I have also tried the hydrosol on respiratory infections with some success, taking one tablespoon undiluted every hour for as long as necessary in cases of bronchitis and severe chest colds. One woman claims it cleared up her chest in three days with no other remedies.

Wild ginger also has traditional uses as a digestive and carminative, reducing gas and abdominal bloating, especially when caused by stress. Its effects on the nerves has also led to its use for neuralgia, sciatica, and headaches, including migraines. It was used by the Pomo Indian women of California to balance the menstrual cycle and so may affect the endocrine as well as nervous systems.

Chinese medicine uses wild ginger to open the meridians and improve the movement of chi, and it can be used in vibrational healing for balancing energy, with good results. I have consumed as much as three hundred milliliters of this hydrosol in one day and felt quite fantastic afterward.

Highly energetic, this tiny plant with its barely belowground creeping rhizome has been overharvested to extinction in many places. It is important, therefore, to buy only from sources that you are sure do not upset the balance of nature by unscrupulous wild-crafting.

Boswellia carterii/Frankincense

pH 4.7–4.9

Aroma and Taste Extraordinary. The scent is sweeter than the oil but unmistakably frankincense. Slightly resinous, like the conifers can be, the odor is also a little warmer than the steam-distilled oil, reminding me more of the CO₂ extract. The taste is quite bitter when undiluted but not unappealing. Diluted, it is divine and loses all the bitterness, becoming soft, warm, and very dry.

Stability and Shelf Life Unknown. Estimated at eighteen months.

Properties and Applications Experimental. The first effect is of energetic expansion. Taking a drop or two undiluted gives the distinct sensation that the “energy body” is expanding outward, rapidly, from the solar plexus. Try it before meditation, in ritual work, with crystals, or any form of energy healing. The oil is known to deepen and expand breathing and open airways, and the hydrosol seems to retain that property and can dry up excess mucus in the lungs and help expel phlegm. In “aromapuncture” treatments, one drop of frankincense on the lung points elicited a deep breathing that manifested an altered state almost on contact. Quite astounding and worth further exploration.

Internally frankincense is diuretic and very drying, and it should be explored for use in conditions where pus or discharge is present. It may be particularly beneficial in mouth or gum infections as a gargle, perhaps combined with immortelle, as well as for infections of the reproductive and urinary systems, in combination with sandalwood or Cistus.

Topically frankincense is fantastic on the skin. Mist over the face and leave it to air dry and your skin will have a noticeably finer texture almost immediately. Of great value where summer heat is combined with high humidity. Frankincense can be used in face masks for an instant lift or combined with rock rose and others for daily wrinkle treatments.