There are moments in life that deserve to be marked.
The beginning of something.
The ending of something.
A passage into an unfamiliar season.
A time when we recognize that the woman we have been is changing, even if we don't yet have the words to describe who we are becoming.
For thousands of years, human beings have used aromatic plants, fragrant oils, and intentional touch to honor moments of significance.
We have anointed bodies.
We have anointed sacred objects.
We have brought fragrance into temples, ceremonies, offerings, and rites of passage.
And long before we understood the olfactory nerve, the amygdala, or the relationship between touch and the nervous system, we recognized that scent belonged in experiences considered sacred.
Today, neuroscience gives us an extraordinary understanding of how fragrance and touch are processed by the brain. But there is another part of the conversation.
What happens when we bring these sensory experiences together with intention, reverence, and the willingness to be fully present in our own bodies?
This is where my work as a Scent Priestess lives.
1. What is Sacred Anointing?
At its most fundamental level, anointing involves applying a substance, traditionally oil or an aromatic preparation, to the body or an object. But historically, anointing has often meant something beyond the physical application.
It could signify blessing.
Consecration.
Honor.
Preparation.
Recognition of sacred status.
A transition from one condition or role into another.
Across cultures and religious traditions, the purposes, substances, and meanings of anointing have varied considerably.
Not every anointing tradition came from one original source or that all cultures understood the practice in the same way. But a recurring theme emerges.
The application of oil becomes an act of significance. Something was being acknowledged. Someone was being honored. A sacred relationship was being expressed.
And the physical body (or the sacred object being anointed) became part of that expression.
Consider how different this is from our usual relationship with the body.
We wash it.
Dress it.
Exercise it.
Evaluate how it looks.
We may spend considerable time trying to improve it.
But how often do we deliberately honor it?
Not for what it looks like.
Not for what it produces.
Simply because this is the body through which we experience our human lives.
Sacred Anointing invites us to approach the body as worthy of reverence.
2. Anointing in ancient Egyptian temples
One of the most compelling examples of historical anointing comes from ancient Egypt.
In Egyptian religious traditions, aromatic substances were important components of temple ritual. Oils, incense, resins, and other fragrant preparations appeared in ceremonies connected with divine offerings and the care of sacred images.
And we have physical evidence. At the mortuary temple of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, at Deir el-Bahri in Egypt, archaeologists discovered ointment jars within foundation deposits.
Some still contained remnants of their original preparations, including plant or animal fats and fragrances. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds one such jar, dated to approximately 1473–1458 BCE. According to the museum, these deposits were intended to provide for the continued anointing of sacred images as prescribed in daily temple ritual. The jar carries an inscription identifying Hatshepsut's offering to the god Amun.
Think about that for a moment.
An aromatic preparation was placed into the foundation of a sacred building. Its purpose was connected with the continuing care and honoring of the divine. Fragrance was woven into the very conception of the temple. This was not merely about creating a pleasant smell. The aromatic substance belonged to an established religious practice.
Hatshepsut's involvement demonstrates the royal patronage of these sacred preparations. This gives us a remarkable example of a woman whose reign helped sustain a sacred world in which anointing mattered.
The Temple of Hathor at Dendera
Another fascinating place is the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. Hathor was an Egyptian goddess associated with love, music, joy, fertility, motherhood, and several other dimensions of religious life.
The surviving temple complex includes spaces associated with the preparation and storage of ceremonial aromatic substances. Inscriptions describe sacred perfumes and fragrant offerings associated with the divine.
In one temple text, aromatic oil is offered to the goddess Isis, with language connecting fragrance to the divine body and its adornment.
Fragrance was prepared with purpose. Oil was applied with reverence. The body, the senses, and the sacred belonged in conversation.
I find that profoundly moving. Because it reminds us that honoring the sacred through sensory experience is not a recent invention. Human beings have been creating these relationships for millennia.
3. The women who carried the fragrant offerings
When we explore the history of anointing, I want us to pay particular attention to women.
Not because every aromatic ritual was conducted by women. Because women have occupied meaningful roles in religious, ceremonial, and aromatic traditions across different periods and cultures.
Some served as priestesses or temple musicians.
Some participated in offerings and devotional practices.
Some prepared aromatic substances.
And others appear in religious texts through acts of extraordinary devotion.
One of the most compelling examples comes from the Gospel of John.
The oil of spikenard
In John 12:1–8, Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus' feet with costly perfume made from spikenard. The passage describes the fragrance filling the house.
The account is striking. A woman takes something valuable. She uses it in an act of devotion. And the fragrance becomes part of the atmosphere surrounding that moment.
The Gospel connects her action with Jesus' approaching death and burial.
This is a biblical narrative, not an archaeological report, and its meaning belongs within the Christian tradition.
We should also distinguish Mary of Bethany from Mary Magdalene and from other women described in different Gospel anointing accounts.
These women have often been combined or intertwined as the same (and I am no authority on interpreting ancient texts, but from what I've found, the texts - the parts we have access to - do not establish that they were all the same person.)
What interests me in Mary's story is the relationship between the oil, the body, and the act of honoring.
The aromatic substance was costly.
The act was deliberate.
And the moment carried profound religious meaning.
The fragrance did not exist separately from the devotion. It was part of how devotion was expressed. There is something worth remembering in that.
Especially in a culture where we often reserve our most deliberate gestures for special occasions, while the ordinary experience of being alive receives considerably less ceremony.
4. When scent meets the skin: the neuroscience of touch
Throughout this series of articles exploring scent, we have explored the olfactory system.
We now understand that odor molecules activate receptors in the olfactory epithelium. That those receptors initiate electrical signals carried through the olfactory nerve, Cranial Nerve I. And that information reaches interconnected brain regions involved in perception, memory, emotional significance, and learning.
But anointing introduces another sensory experience. Touch. And the neuroscience of touch is equally fascinating.
Your skin is not simply a covering for your body. It is a complex sensory organ containing numerous specialized nerve endings.
Some help you detect pressure.
Some detect vibration.
Others respond to temperature, stretch, or potentially damaging stimuli.
When another person places a hand on your skin, sensory receptors begin responding to the mechanical contact. These signals travel through peripheral nerves toward the spinal cord and brain.
But not all touch is processed in exactly the same way.
Discriminative touch: knowing where and what
One major category is called discriminative touch.
This allows us to recognize where we are being touched and distinguish features such as pressure, texture, and movement.
Fast-conducting nerve fibers called A-beta fibers play an important role. Signals involving fine touch and certain other sensations travel through pathways that include the dorsal columns of the spinal cord, the brainstem, the thalamus, and the somatosensory cortex. These systems help us identify and locate physical contact.
If someone places a hand on your forearm, you can recognize where the hand is.
You may notice whether the pressure is light or firm. Your nervous system is providing information about the physical qualities of the touch.
Affective touch: the emotional experience of contact
Touch can carry another dimension.
Researchers studying the emotional aspects of touch have identified specialized nerve fibers called C-tactile afferents, or CT fibers. These are slow-conducting, unmyelinated sensory fibers found primarily in hairy skin. They respond particularly well to certain forms of gentle, slow-moving touch.
Research suggests they contribute to what scientists call affective touch—the emotional or pleasant qualities of tactile experience.
These fibers are associated with processing in networks that include the insular cortex, a brain region involved in bodily awareness and the integration of sensory and emotional information.
The posterior insula, in particular, has been implicated in processing the affective qualities of touch.
However, not every pleasant touch depends on CT fibers, and stimulation of these fibers doesn't automatically make an experience enjoyable.
The meaning of touch depends on many factors.
Who is touching us.
Whether we want the contact.
How it is delivered.
Our previous experiences.
The environment.
And how we feel in that particular moment.
This is why consent is essential in intentional bodywork.
Touch cannot be considered comforting or sacred merely because the person offering it intends it to be. The person receiving it must have agency over the experience.
In ordinary language
Your skin can tell your brain where you're being touched. But your experience of that touch involves much more than location.
Your nervous system also participates in interpreting whether the contact feels welcome, uncomfortable, familiar, reassuring, or emotionally significant.
When touch is combined with fragrance, several sensory systems are engaged at once.
The olfactory system processes the aromatic information.
The somatosensory system processes the physical contact.
And wider brain networks contribute to the emotional, cognitive, and contextual experience.
This is one reason anointing can feel different from simply smelling an essential oil.
The experience is multisensory.
And that creates the opportunity for several forms of meaning and association to develop together.
5. What does intentional touch do to the nervous system?
Research on pleasant and socially meaningful touch suggests that it can influence emotional experience and, under certain conditions, physiological responses.
Studies have explored relationships between touch, perceived comfort, social connection, and autonomic nervous system activity. Some have investigated changes in heart rate, stress responses, and other physiological markers. But the findings should not be interpreted as proof that every form of intentional touch produces the same result.
Touch is context-dependent.
And what feels nourishing to one woman may feel uncomfortable to another.
For me, the opportunity of intentional touch lies in the way it can become part of a larger experience of presence.
A woman may choose to receive care.
She may become more aware of her body.
She may notice emotions, memories, or thoughts that arise.
She may simply enjoy the quiet and the attention.
There is no single response she is supposed to have. And there is no particular emotional outcome she must achieve.
The experience belongs to the woman receiving it.
6. The body remembers—and the body continues learning
We've heard the expression that the body keeps the score.
It's a compelling phrase, but I want to be precise about what it means when we're discussing scent and touch. Our experiences can influence how we respond to sensory information.
The brain learns associations involving touch, fragrance, relationships, emotional states, and environments. Those learned associations may shape later responses.
A familiar fragrance might bring forward a memory.
A particular kind of touch might evoke comfort or uneasiness.
A ceremonial environment might remind us of previous meaningful experiences.
Memory involves networks throughout the nervous system.
The body can show learned responses, while the processes underlying those responses are complex.
This distinction matters because we should never feel obligated to find a traumatic explanation for every bodily sensation. Nor should we assume that a profound emotional experience proves something specific has been healed.
What we can say is that our sensory systems remain responsive to experience and learning. And that new experiences can become part of the associations we carry forward. This creates room for curiosity. For reflection. And for making intentional choices about the environments and rituals we bring into our lives.
7. Why receiving can be its own threshold
I have spent two decades guiding women through major life transitions.
Pregnancy.
Birth.
Postpartum.
Motherhood.
The changing relationships we have with ourselves and our bodies.
And throughout that work, I've noticed how much responsibility women often carry.
The responsibility of caring.
Organizing.
Anticipating.
Providing.
Keeping things moving.
For some women, the experience of receiving sustained attention can feel unfamiliar. Even uncomfortable.
They may be accustomed to giving care more readily than allowing themselves to receive it.
And I don't think we need to make that into another thing to fix about ourselves. But I do think it deserves our curiosity.
What happens when a woman deliberately creates room to receive?
When there is no immediate task she is expected to accomplish?
When she doesn't need to explain every feeling?
When she can take her time?
When the experience has been prepared with her comfort, boundaries, and preferences in mind?
These are some of the questions that interest me in Sacred Anointing. Because the act of allowing time for ourselves can challenge familiar patterns.
It may invite us to consider what we believe we must do to deserve attention. Or whether we've come to associate rest with having completed every responsibility.
Sometimes the significance lies in the ceremony itself. In deliberately deciding that this moment matters. That the body matters. That the woman receiving the experience matters.
8. What makes Sacred Anointing different from a massage?
A massage and a Sacred Anointing ceremony may both involve oils, touch, and time devoted to the body.
But their purposes can be quite different.
Massage therapy typically involves techniques directed toward soft tissues, comfort, movement, or specific physical concerns, depending on the practitioner's training and the setting.
Sacred Anointing, as I offer it, is a ceremonial experience. The intention is not to manipulate muscles, diagnose physical conditions, or provide medical treatment. It is to create a sacred experience in which fragrance, intentional touch, presence, and personal meaning come together.
The oils are part of the ceremony.
The touch is purposeful.
The environment is carefully considered.
And the woman receiving the experience is invited to encounter it in her own way.
This distinction is important.
Anointing isn't simply a massage with essential oils added. It belongs to a different framework of intention and meaning. For me, the physical act of applying oil becomes an expression of reverence. And the experience is shaped by the relationship between the woman, the ceremony, and what she brings into that space.
9. What happens during a Sacred Anointing with me?
My Sacred Anointing experience is approximately three hours.
It is deliberately spacious. Because when we are creating room for something meaningful, I don't want the experience to feel hurried.
We begin by making space for conversation. An opportunity for you to share what has brought you here. Perhaps there is a transition you are moving through. A particular intention you wish to honor. Something you are ready to acknowledge. Or perhaps you simply feel drawn toward the experience without being able to explain why. You don't need to arrive with a perfectly articulated purpose.
From there, we move into the ceremonial experience.
Aromatic oils are incorporated with intention, care, and attention to their suitability for the individual. The anointing itself takes place through intentional external touch, with your boundaries, comfort, and consent guiding the experience.
I bring my experience as a Scent Priestess and my years of working with women through meaningful life transitions.
There may be moments of quiet. Moments when a fragrance evokes something familiar. Moments when you become more aware of the physical sensations of your body. Or moments when you simply rest. There is nothing you need to manufacture. No particular emotion you must access. No expected revelation. And no prescribed experience of transformation.
After the anointing, I make space for nourishment, reflection, and integration.
You may wish to journal. You may want to share something about your experience. Or you may prefer to remain quiet for a while.
The following day, I check in personally to hear how you're feeling and whether there is anything you would like to discuss.
The care extends beyond the application of the oils. Because the ceremony is only one part of the experience. How a woman returns to her ordinary life matters to me, too.
10. What happens after an anointing?
I find the days following a meaningful ceremony particularly interesting.
Sometimes we leave an experience with immediate clarity. Other times, its significance develops gradually.
We return to our homes.
Our relationships.
Our responsibilities.
And ordinary life resumes.
Yet we may find ourselves reflecting on something that was spoken.
A feeling we noticed.
A question we had been carrying.
Or a part of ourselves we want to give greater attention to.
This is what I mean by integration.
Giving ourselves room to consider how a meaningful experience relates to the lives we're actually living.
I often encourage time to spend in nature.
To notice the trees.
The plants.
The animals.
The changing light.
To move their bodies in ways that feel supportive.
To give themselves opportunities for quiet attention.
These are invitations to reflection and connection; not claims that nature or movement will release a particular substance or guarantee a spiritual outcome.
A ceremony can be beautiful. But what matters is the relationship we develop with our experience afterward. Because the sacred was never meant to remain confined to the ceremonial space. It belongs in our ordinary lives.
11. Self-anointing: bringing ritual home
There is also something deeply meaningful about anointing ourselves.
Self-anointing can be a simple practice. One that requires very little time or preparation.
You might begin with a fragrance you have chosen intentionally. Perhaps you've learned about the plant from which it comes. Perhaps it has a place in a spiritual tradition you honor. Or maybe you have been developing a relationship with it through repeated experiences.
Choose an oil preparation that is safe for your skin, with essential oils appropriately diluted if they are included.
- Roll the oils between your palms - slowly.
- If your oil has an invocation - speak it out loud or repeat in your mind.
- Hold the oil to your heart and pause.
- Open the oil, breathe her in.
- Place as many drops as you feel called into a palm.
- Rub your palms together - slowly.
- Breathe the scent in from your palms.
- You may desire to wave your palms over your aura, or above the crown.
- Apply oil from palms where you are called: wrists, third eye, back of skull, heart, anywhere you feel called.
Bring attention to the reason you've chosen this moment.
Perhaps you are beginning your day. Perhaps you are preparing for an important conversation. Perhaps you are honoring a transition. Or perhaps you simply want to offer yourself a moment of reverence.
And to allow the act to become meaningful within your own life.
(The sacred quality of the practice is not dependent on using the strongest or rarest aromatic preparation.)
The intention is carried by the person participating in the ritual, not proven to reside within the oil itself.
12. The sacred feminine and the return of reverence
When I speak about restoring the sacred in women's lives, I'm not speaking about creating a life filled with elaborate ceremonies.
I'm speaking about changing how we relate to the lives we're already living.
I think of the women I have supported through pregnancy and postpartum. The extraordinary physical and emotional passage of becoming a mother. The way a woman's body changes. The ways her identity may change. The relationships, responsibilities, and expectations that shift around her. And how quickly the world can expect her to return to ordinary life. I think about the transitions that arrive later.
When children need us differently.
When relationships change.
When familiar roles no longer fit.
When we begin to recognize parts of ourselves that have been waiting for our attention.
These are thresholds. And I believe they deserve acknowledgment.
Not every threshold requires an elaborate ritual. But many deserve more reverence than our culture typically gives them.
Sacred Anointing is one way of creating that acknowledgment. It is part of a larger devotion to bringing the sacred into the human experience.
To remembering that women's bodies are worthy of care throughout their lives.
That our transitions matter.
That receiving can be meaningful.
And that our spiritual lives don't need to be separated from the physical reality of being human.
The sacred feminine, as I understand it, is not something we have to earn.
It is a dimension of life we can choose to recognize, honor, and embody.
13. Before words, there was sensation
We've traveled a remarkable distance throughout this series.
From the microscopic receptors inside the olfactory epithelium to the electrical signals traveling through Cranial Nerve I. From the olfactory bulb to the interconnected networks of the amygdala, hippocampus, and cortex.
We've explored how the brain interprets scent. How fragrances can evoke personal memories. How attention, expectation, and learned associations contribute to our experiences.
We've examined what scientific research does and doesn't tell us about aromatherapy and physiological well-being.
And we've explored the long relationship between aromatic substances and human religious practice.
Now, at the end of this journey, I want to return to something very simple.
Our senses allow us to encounter the world.
And we can choose how deliberately we participate in those encounters.
We can recognize the science without reducing every meaningful experience to a biological explanation.
We can appreciate ancient ritual without pretending that every spiritual tradition was the same.
We can develop intentional practices without expecting a fragrance to cure our suffering.
And we can honor the human body without requiring it to become something different.
Scent can remind us of what has been.
Touch can bring our attention to what is happening now.
Ritual can help us recognize what matters.
And together, they can become part of how we create meaning in our lives.
Maybe the most sacred thing about anointing isn't what the oil does to us.
It's the reverence we bring to the life and body receiving it.
I believe we are living in a time when many women are ready to reclaim a more intentional relationship with themselves.
Not by abandoning their ordinary lives.
But by allowing the sacred to have a place within them.
At the kitchen table.
At the beginning of the day.
During seasons of uncertainty.
Through our relationships.
Within our bodies.
And at the thresholds that change us.
The ancient traditions remind us that fragrance has long accompanied moments of devotion.
Neuroscience helps us understand the extraordinary sensory pathways through which we experience it.
And intentional ritual invites us to decide what meaning we wish to bring into our own lives.
This is where science and the sacred can meet.
Without either needing to diminish the other.
This is the work I am bringing forward as a Scent Priestess.
And this is what I hope you remember from *Before Words*.
**Your life is worthy of reverence.**
Not someday.
Not when everything has been resolved.
Not when you've become someone different.
Here.
In the body you're living in.
In the life you're living now.