A Weekend Essential Oil Retreat - Diving Deep Into the World of Plant Medicine (Part 3)

Hi everyone! I want to share my journies of an essential oil retreat that I recently attended in Oregon. The retreat was 5 days long at the beginning of June, and I am still swimming in the bliss of the oils. The retreat was held on land that Lucid University just acquired, close to Ashland. Lucid University described the weekend as follows:

Join Dr. Nick for an interactive learning experience taking place at the wild historic Trillium farm found in Southern Oregon at the height of summer's explosive boom. Get fully immersed with a beginner's course of essential oils, take plant walks through the wild hills and learn about some secret alchemical techniques in Essential Oil Wizardry's processes. Create your own customized blend and share your personalized blend with the group. Dive deep into the world of plant species and different extraction techniques - learn and apply the use of therapeutic essential oils into your day-to-day life. Enjoy some time with Ecstatic Dance playing games of scent, learn about essential oils and energy healing with Carter Lipnick, explore an impressive set of rare/exotic essential oils/absolutes/CO2 extracts and celebrate plants in a sacred plant ceremony.

How cool does that sound? I couldn't miss this opportunity to dive into alternative plant medicine. To be honest, I wasn't fully sure why I was going until the first night that we gathered in a circle and Dr. Nick said, "The essential oil is the soul of a plant". At that moment I thought to myself, "Ohhh, I understand why I'm here now - to have a deeper connection with the plants that I am growing and hope to one day provide to the community for their healing properties."

We spent the 5 days immersed in learning, playing, creating, and sitting in ceremony with these plant medicines. I want to share some of what I learned with you, and I hope that you may find this information valuable :-)

You can find the other parts of this series here:
Part 1
Part 2

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Blending Essential Oils for Botanical Perfumes

• On the second day, we began the fun process of creating our own botanical perfumes.
• This is the process of blending - set an intention for the blend, pick out essential oils, decide how many drops of each essential oil you want to add to the blend, decide in what order you want to add the essential oils, top it off with organic sugar cane alcohol
• Dr. Nick asked us to set intentions for the botanical perfume we wanted to create for ourselves. My intention was presence and awareness.
• We then walked around the tables that stationed all of Dr. Nick's essential oils, feeling out which ones resonated with us in the moment. Dr. Nick suggested that we blend between 3-7 oils together.
• We were given 2 hours for the entire process, as many people took a long time deciding what essentil oils to use. I, on the other hand, only needed 10 minutes to pick mine out. I didn't know ahead of time which oils were calling to me, but the minute I walked around the table, my hands were drawn to 5 essential oils.
• I chose chinese cedar, rhododendron, howood, red mandarin, and mugwort. At the last minute I added dragons blood, but was unsure about that choice. I then asked Dr. Nick to come over and assess my choices. Dr. Nick uses muscle testing to decide yes or no answers. You can read more about muscle testing here: http://www.holistichealthtools.com/muscle.html
• Through muscle testing, Dr. Nick got a "yes" on all of my essential oils except for dragons blood. This was on point, because that was the one oil I was on the fence about, and he didn't know that I added it the last minute.

• He then asked me what order I intuitively wanted to blend them in. This is important, because smells and how the molecules interact changes based on the order the oils are blended. I decided on the order of chinese cedar, rhododendron, howood, red mandarin, and mugwort. However, if I chose to add mugwort first, for example, it would be a different botanical perfumery. After seeing my order, Dr. Nick said I was in the right direction with my blend.
• Dr. Nick then asked me how many drops of each oil I wanted to add to my blend. I asked his advice on this one, since I didn't know the oils well enough. He gave me some advice, saying that mugwort is very overpowering and that I should only add a drop of it in. He also suggested that chinese cedar and rhodondendron be the base of the perfumery and have the most drops out of the blend. I decided on 31 drops of chinese cedar, 30 drop of rhodondendron, 17 drops of howood, 3 drops of red mandarin, and 1 drop of mugwort. I muscle tested for these numbers as well.
• I slowly started to add drops into my vial, channeling my intentions of awareness and presence the whole time. I finished up with one drop of mugwort, and then topped off the vial with organic sugar cane alcohol. The oils took up about 50% of the vial, with the organic sugar cane alcohol filling up the other half. There are around 30 essential oil drops per ml, so if you know how many ml your vial is, you can figure out how many drops of essential oils to add to it. Voila! I had made my first botanical perfume, and it smelled so good! I've been wearing it every day since the retreat.
• Dr. Nick mentioned that there are oils that do not linearly blend, like rose. This means that if I had rose in my blend, and I wanted to scale up my blend, the rose would end up overpowering the other oils and I would have to use a smaller ratio of rose oil to the other essential oils.
• Dr. Nick also mentioned that it is best to use a scale when blending because drops of oils are not consistent in their volume, so it would be hard to exactly replicate or scale up a blend unless using a precise scale to measure the amounts of oils.

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Theraputics

• After everyone had made their own blends, we transitioned into learning about the theraputic properties of essential oils. I was blown away at all the medicinal properties of each oil, and it really reaffirmed my belief that plants are the most powerful teachers and healers on this earth.
• Essential oils are extremely concentrated, and you need to use caution when ingesting them because the body cannot always take such concentrations - less is more! When in doubt about oral ingestion of an essential oil, consult a trained practitioner or be under a physician’s care
• Clove is an original dental anesthetic. It contains eugenol, which is a major phenolic constituent. It is anti-microbial, anti-viral, extremely powerful for infections, and works as a topical anesthetic. It can really irritate the skin, so it is recommended to add it to a carrier oil like coconut oil or sesame oil before applying it topically. Its anti-inflamatory and antioxidant properties are through the roof. I personally use clove bud essential oil in my diffuser to combat any mold in my greenhouse and my room.
• Black cumin (CO2 extraction) is a super supplement. It is high in good fatty oils like such as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids . There was a doctor in Egypt that used black cumin for everything. Any time a patient would come in with any ailment, he would give them black cumin oil. It can be ingested in small doses (one drop per day), and this drop can potentially be blended into a salad dressing.
• German chamomile is a natural green/blue dye. The color comes from chamazulene, which is an anti-inflamatory and anti-allergenic molecule. The blend of 50/50 helichrysum and german chamomile is great for adding underneath the nose to soothe allergies. This blend can also be used topically to speed up the healing of wounds and burns. If you want to explore some other properties of german chamomile mixed with other oils, search "oilhuasca". This is not a recommendation to experiment with these blends, just a note so you are aware of potential side effects of blending chamomile with other plant essential oils.

• Cistus essential oil is a powerful healerfor scars, wounds, and cuts. It can also be used to help a person stop bleeding. It cuts through negative energy and is a great protector for one's personal energy field.
• Arnica essential oil is great to add with fractionated coconut oil and applied to any area that is experiencing pain. Arnica is known world wide as a pain reliever.
• Dragon's blood essential oil is an Amazonian secret. It is from the resin of a tree in the Amazon, and a small amount can be put into the water of the Amazon to purify it. It can treat infections by topically rubbing it in. It also helps with food poisoning. It comes from the tree "Croton lechleri".
• Galbanum comes from a resin as well. It is used to treat skin conditions like eczema. It is also potent as an energetic oil and can be applied around the auric field, and it can also open up the throat chakra. Is is a great healer of scars or wounds.
• Helichrysum is the most powerful healing essential oil on the planet. It grow in mediterranean area and has a poor yield. It is used to heal broken bones and hurt muscles. It is anti-inflammatory and anti-allergenic. It acts as a stress reliever if applied to the bottom of one's feet. It is used to heal burns, bug bites, and reduce itching. It should be added to a carrier oil before applying to the skin.

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Fun Methods of Use

On the evening of our second day, we dove into a ceremony of essential oils and tuning forks. We all chose a tuning fork from Dr. Nick's collection, as well as two essential oils. We were then instructed to find a partner and to each create a unique experience for our partner with our tuning fork and essential oils. With my first partner, I rubbed together howood essential oil into my hands and placed them over her nose, instructing her to take 3 deep breaths. I then massaged the oil into her scalp. After, I hit the tuning fork on the ground to initiate the vibrations, and I placed the tuning fork on her right temple and then her left temple. I then used the "root chakra" essential oil blend and massaged it into her feet. I finished by placing the vibrating tuning fork on the bottom of her right foot and then her left foot. We switched partners and kept rotating for the next 30 minutes. It was a magical experience.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using this product.

If you're interested in exploring some of Dr. Nick's wonderful oils, you can find them at essentialoilwizardry.com :-) I'll be covering therapeutic essential oils in my next post!