Palo Santo is something new to me in Aromatherapy. I just got my first bottle of it in the mail today, and I have to share about it with you.
Here is the information I took off the website of the company Artisan Aromatics--
Description and Uses: Our Palo Santo Essential Oil (Bursera graveolens) – (Spanish for “saint wood” or “holy wood”) comes from one family owned distillery in Ecuador which only distills the heartwood of Palo Santo trees that have died and fallen. No live trees are harmed. The Palos Santo tree belongs to the same family (Burseraceae) as frankincense and myrrh and its wood and resin oil has been widely used in the traditional medicine and ritual ceremonies of the region. The indigenous peoples of Ecuador refer to the Palo Santo tree as “The tree that perfumes the axe that wounds”.
Palo Santo products include the essential oil, the resin oil, the natural wood itself, and an incense made from the natural wood. Palo Santo has a powerful plant spirit. Both, Palo Santo´s essential oil & resin oil, have subltle healing aromas, something different in the world of plant spirit medicine. In Ayurvedic massage therapy, the elemental properties of the PALO SANTO confer equilibrium; having the power to regulate/calibrate the Chakras. If depressed, it uplifts, if euphoric or agitated, it calms. It confers a perfect balance producing relax and special states of peace and inner examination.
More Info: The energy of Palo Santo is like a “Holy Spirit”, one that helps to increase trust, to overcome fears, to suppress the pain body and deeper traumas into a few therapy sessions. Traditional medicine says that Palo Santo oils produce a spiritual film over the skin that works like a protective shield, reinforcing the positive that our electromagnetic body generates and strengthen the aura and is perfectly absorbed by our neuro system, expelling negative energies. Palo Santo Essentials oil often evokes strange reactions. Some people love it and find it liberating, but for others, the aroma is something that they do not like and sometimes a refuse. In some ways, these reactions are similar to what happen with Spikenard (Jatamansi) essential oil.
Our distiller says that by his personal experience, he has found that there are two kinds of people that react quite differently to the smell of the Palo Santo. Ones who have an illness often react quite positively to the smell while others who have black entities inside and reacts like “Dracula to garlic”. Others say that the green plant Spirit from the Palo Santo works into the ultra violet spectrum, others in the perfect Green of angelic healings, what is sensed by the observer is often relative to their own perspective. Personally, our distiller has seen the casting out of the burning Palo Santo wood pieces during the shamanic sacred ceremonies, rotating in counter-clockwise using it for healings and protection and has really seen many incredible healings, cleanings, exorcism, miracles.
According to our distiller, legend says that if you are going to be a Light Warrior it is good to have a shield – a protected film over the Chakras area of your physical body and Palo Santo oil is perfect for type of this film. If you are ready to increase frequency at a high vibration level that is in synchrony with that of the New Age one, what we live in now in this period of change and the time of the fresh Green Angel – Palo Santo is what you seek. Palo Santo oils work faster with children, elders and animals (sometimes in seconds) with the best New Age green healing spirit and works on skin, breathing, arthritis problems and more.
Process of life and death of the Palo Santo Tree: There is little research based study on the tree of Palo Santo and its ecosystem, so that the data presented her are based on the personal observations of our Palo Santo distiller in the dry forest of Manta – San Mateo province of Manabi – Ecuador.
The process of life of this tree begins with the seed that is swallowed by small animals of the dry forest in Ecuador. The digestive process aids the seeds to germinate when expelled. Tree growth is quite slow, partially because they pass almost into a state of hibernation in the summer, or the season of no rain. The tree drops its leaves until the return of the rainy season. Occasionally the dry forest will go through a period of up to four years without significant rainfall. It takes a calculated minimum of 50 years for the adult tree trunk to reach and approximate diameter of about 45 centimeters. The age of the oldest trees is not known for certain but, by counting tree rings, that some may be more than 100 years old.
The Forest of Palo Santo is classified as xerophytic or dry; it is a primary Tropical dry forest. Within this forest there is a density of approximately 30 adult trees per hectare in the area indicated. The death of tree comes by natural processes, and one of them seems to be caused by an insect: a variety of coleopteran. The insects select a tree, perhaps at random, or because they choose a tree that is weak or sick, and deposit their eggs inside. The larvas consume the inside of the tree and it that dies slowly and it either falls or is left standing.
It is interesting to see how the Comejen (a species of white termite ants) that build nests in the Palo Santo tree respect and protect the tree while it is alive and can inhabit and dwell in it and not harm the tree. When finally the tree falls to the ground, it is eaten by the Comejen which eventually leave only the hearts or skeletons of trees.
Only the Palo Santo trees that have been dead for at least three years have accumulated the natural resin that is slowly absorbed into the heart wood and can yield this pure essential oil renowned for its healing powers.
I think you're really going to like it, too.
(direct link is here--which includes ordering information--http://artisanessentialoils.com/shop/all-essential-oils/palo-santo/ -)
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
