May I explain to you a story? It starts with a question. Remember the times of your 1960s and early 1970s or have you heard about the subject? Those were the times in the Cuba Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The days of ‘The Beatles’ requesting ‘Love, Love, Love’, Janis Joplin, Bob Marley, the ‘Rolling Stones’ and Cat Stevens on his ‘Peace Train’, the days of Hare Krishna, Make Love-Not War, the days of Woodstock, Hippies and Flower Power, the times of Ravi Shankar regarding his Sitar, Yoga, Yogis and India. Does some of this ring a bell with you? Well, which had been even the time once i had my first encounter with Incense sticks. It was actually absolutely ‘en vogue’ to lose incense sticks especially on parties and also to drift away on swath of incense smoke in the field of dreams of an improved world. Yes, in the 1960s we had been ready to create a world without injustices and wars, briefly, to help make the world a better place, or more we thought, “Peace, brother.”
In those days once i have had my first ‘Incense Party’ experiences I did, and others, not know two things, namely that this dream about a greater world would, alas, not become reality and therefore the soothing fragrance of incense sticks would a day become an everyday reality of my well being.
That which was back in the 1960s the exotic pinnacle of living as an adolescent in Germany, who with Ravi Shankar playing from the background burned incense for no reasons apart from to take pleasure from the sensory pleasure and the exotic atmosphere coming as well as it, did later become an important part of my everyday routine. Without Ravi Shankar, though. Which had been twenty five years ago when after some years in South Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand – all countries by which incense sticks play an important role within the people’s lives – I did so, finally, put down roots in Burma.
Inside my today’s life I am in the middle of the smoke and aromatic scents of incense sticks at almost every corner. At home in my family’s Buddha altar, about the streets in nat houses that are put into or at Banyan trees, in my friends’ homes, inside the many smaller and larger temples and pagodas that happen to be lining the streets, as well as offices and lots of local stores; everywhere are incense sticks slowly burning away, mostly emanating their lovely fragrance of sandal wood, which is the most important and mainly used ingredient in Asian incense. However, in case the incense sticks are used like a repellent to hold away the troublesome mosquitoes it is citronella which is used as natural insect repellent.
When looking at it closely my article should actually be titled ‘Burma, Buddhism And Incense’, not ‘Incense Sticks’ for that sticks are merely supporting the layer of aromatic elements which is mounted on it and burned by means of combustible incense an activity which is also called direct burning. Aromatic elements or aromatic biotic materials useful for incense are generally all sorts of woods, roots, resins, flowers, seeds, fruits, herbs and leaves that release a pleasant fragrance when burned. Dependant upon the intended use several of the mostly used materials are sandalwood, agar wood, pine, Cyprus, cedar, star anise, vanilla, cardamom, frankincense, benzoin, myrrh, mastic, Dragon’s blood, galangal, sage, tea, rose, lavender, clove and saffron.
The incense stick is just one of several possible types of combustible incense. One other forms are cones, coils, ropes and paper. However the sticks are definitely the by individuals worldwide most generally used form of incense. Also, these folks were the 1st method of incense I have experienced which is therefore specially the incense sticks that remind me on those occasions in the 1960s as well as the pleasant feelings the incense sticks have caused then and do still cause nowadays while they are slowly burning away who have triggered my want to write this informative article.
Incense sticks are generally red, occasional yellow or dark gray to black and offered in two forms, which are the cored stick and also the solid stick. The cored stick which is mainly made in China and India where they are called Agarbatti (produced by the Sanskrit word Agaravarthi, gara = odour, agar = aroma, varthi = wound) comprises incense material and also the supporting core of the stick mostly manufactured from bamboo whereas the solid stick that may be mainly manufactured in Tibet and Japan is created entirely of incense material. However, considering that the solid stick has no reinforcing core it is actually breaking easily. One special form of solid incense stick is the ‘Dragon Stick’. These sticks tend to be very huge and therefore are burned in open space simply for they produce such a great deal of smoke that in case the incense would happen inside closed space people in the room would be quickly suffocated.
Amazing Thoughts And Feelings 