• Provides profiles for dozens of absolutes, exploring their physical and emotional healing properties as well as myths, poems, and stories that evoke the experience of plant absolutes

• Explains the author’s unique system for working with absolutes centered on viewing the body as made of story and emotions

• Shares recipes for making absolute blends for specific conditions and teaches how to create blends to express specific feelings

One of the most concentrated forms of fragrance, cherished in natural perfumery and aromatherapy, floral absolutes are created through a gentle heatless extraction process that coaxes the aromatic signature from delicate plant materials such as flowers. Absolutes contain the essential oil of the plant and a higher density of coloring, waxes, and other constituents, giving them healing effects often different from the plant’s essential oil.

As aromatherapist Candice Covington explains, absolutes convey the synergistic story of the plant through its scent. They offer healing effects for the body, yet their greatest strength lies in their effects on the emotions and spirit. Covington provides profiles for dozens of absolutes, exploring their physical and emotional healing properties and their mythos—stories, poems, and experiences that convey the subtle qualities of each absolute directly to the subconscious—giving you a deeper, intuitive understanding of how to use each plant and its absolute. She also examines the energetic signatures of base oils, which are required for working with essential oils and absolute blends. She explains her unique treatment system for using absolutes centered on viewing the body as made of story and emotions, which conveys why you would apply certain oils/blends to specific parts of the body. She shares recipes for making absolute blends for specific conditions and also teaches how to intuitively create blends to express specific feelings.

Revealing the power of scent to help us blend and balance emotions, this book shows how aromas can reawaken us to ourselves and reconnect us to the greater story of Nature.

Candice Covington is a certified aromatherapist, massage therapist, healing arts master, and energy worker. A former aromatherapist for the Chopra Center, she is the founder of Divine Archetypes, an essential oil and flower essence company, and the author of Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice. She lives in Oregon City, Oregon.

Foreword by Elizabeth Ashley

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Meeting Nature in Story

PART 1
The Profiles
Energetic Signatures of Nature’s Gifts

1 Absolutes
Solvent-Extracted Concentrated Plant Extracts

2 Essential Oils
Steam-Distilled or Expressed Plant Extracts

3 Fixed Oils
The Carriers for Blending

4 Other Tantalizing Tidbits
Macerated Oils, Milk Baths, Plant Butters,
and Unrefined Salts

PART 2
The Body Ecstatic
Exploring the Body’s Energetic Patterns

5 Our Body as Expressed in the Elements
Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether

6 The Chakras
The Seven Centers of Spiritual Power

7 Symbolic Anatomy
The Body as Story

PART 3
The Blends
Recipes, Prompts, and Inspiration

8 Alchemical Creations
Blending Story, Art, and Sensations

9 Butter, Scrub, and Oil Recipes
Waking Up Archetypal Stories Within

Appendix Practices for Growth, Heart
Opening, and Deep Purification

Resources

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author