Spikenard
Nardostachys jatamansi
“Spikenard, no question, delivers at the front nariz what seems a steamy impression of exotic slightly funky spiciness, or lightly spicy funkiness.”
(Saffron begins to pass along visibly viscous distillates spotted on blotter strips. Procured from dried rhizomes, the samples run for the most part from bluish to greenish, while one is cafe-colored.)
A rosy to red hue would likely suggest that something’s up, in the sense of dupery, as this oil is frequently doctored on the World market. The plants are often co-gathered in the wild with accidental or deliberate (or both) adulterants, then subject to shifty shenanigans of fragrance brokers who are enticed to cheat, especially when populations diminish and prices rise.
“Thieving dealers continue to take naive dreamers like essential oil healers to the cleaners.”
The herbaceous plant, endemic to the high Himalayan mountains and … in trouble, is another with a résumé of formidable biological activity and cultural consequence, another renowned for its spiritual conductivity and historical prominence, another that is … in trouble, another biochemical portfolio that is legend, another novel slice of Creation increasingly threatened, another for addition to the big list of notable botanical species … in trouble.
“Who volunteers to untangle the knotted nomenclatural history?” Saffron whispers to me.
The appellation spikenard (and the names nard and nardos too) have curiously been mistaken and misassigned for thousands of years, to such dissimilar plants as spike lavender and Ferula sumbul and ginger grass, and other species of Cymbopogon, and also valerian and some New World herbs including Aralia racemosa and false Solomon’s seal.
“Metabolic odor elements that set spikenard apart are initially penetrating in a warm aminic manner, mellowing midway though still pungent, the balm being biding in a calming context, in a softening setting, then patchoulenes make their presence, soon effusing rooty as a rotting root would, the exudations thereafter dwindling yet latterly lingering.”
We take it from Christian scripture that Mary of Bethany was carrying an alabaster vessel filled with a pound of pure nard perfume (an infusion, we suppose), then broke the jar’s neck and poured the oil over the feet and head of Jesus from Nazareth. Those present were overwhelmed by the mighty industrial-strength dose she administered (for the purpose of comparison, just a single drop dabbed on one’s neck would generate an aromatic bouquet to last for over a week) —
“The undercurrent of volatile compounds on exhibit evokes rich peaty wetted earth with leafy organic matter not fully decomposed and covered by cobwebs and cardamom combining as an underpinning that’s both heavy and exalting.”
…we gather, from reading the gospels of Matthew and Mark, that soon after that was the re-entry into Jerusalem, during which Jesus sat upon a burro, unquestionably still emitting an abundance of scent principles. Then a couple of days later was the last supper, and Jesus was still discharging those fragrant vapors. Likewise as he was subsequently tortured and tried, and tortured some more. The aroma was continually pouring out from him, as he was ridiculed and paraded along the Via Dolorosa, dragging the wooden cross —
“This gives out a quality like floating folds of a chemical cloth that’s green and mushroomy or maybe moldy or rusty or, trust me it’s musty, or forgive me that’s musky, or maybe that’s leathery or foxy, that it displays thusly yet subtly as some such animalic representation.”
…during this period, throughout the entire arduous procession, Jesus was announcing his presence by projecting the diffusive perfume, leaving also a trailing sillage, and the crowds around him waved palm branches, which would have caused the fragrancy to radiate in all directions, the resonant molecules beta-gurjunene and alpha-patchoulene and patchouli alcohol all spreading out and thus beheld by anyone in the area —
“This accord, less a tone and more a chord, issues a parade of notes strange and known, combinations of evocative issuances inferred as olfactive nuances, for example, it seems rancid and cheesy in a valerian way, sweet and woody in the way of patchouli, dry and resinous as with a frankincense specialness, and lastly warm and grassy in the way of straw and hay, makes sensory sense?”
…then Jesus was finally crucified. Nails were driven through his hands and feet, twisted thorny twigs placed by Roman soldiers on his head as a crown, and eventually he was speared through his torso. The beatings and mortification, the sadism and final breaths were mediated by the perfume emanating all the while … by spikenard.
“The thrust of this Bible study? that expressions of beauty and meaning are permitted by those of pain.”
Or that broadcasting a potent aromatic emissary of Creation is a highly subversive act.
