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Heaven Scent
The Global Tradition of Smudge and Incense
The smudging ceremony practiced by Canadian First Nations peoples is a centuries old purifying ritual with antecedents around the globe. In cultures as unique as those of Japan, India and Egypt, in countries as distant and varied as Greece and Mexico, smoke from combustible natural ingredients has been swept over people, objects, animals or places in order to bring the human participants into greater harmony with themselves, the natural world and the surrounding spiritual universe.
The collection and trading of plant resins such as frankincense and myrrh has been going on for over 4000 years (those two classic ingredients are still found today in exactly the same place they were then: the southwestern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, in Somalia). From Buddhist shrines to Islamic mosques, from Judaic temples to Christian cathedrals, the cultivation and preparation of incense was regarded as a sacred art. Incense was used not only to counteract disagreeable odours but also to drive away demons. Fragrant smoke both indicated the presence of gods and was meant to please them.
In our fast-paced contemporary world, formal - and increasingly, informal - incense rituals remain popular. Ordinary people in almost every culture continue to seek the serenity, sanctity and sheer sensual pleasure to be gained from burning incense. Our fascination with smoke and fragrance stimulates our brains to conjure up personal sensory memories, kindles individual enlightenment, and connects us with a universal consciousness.
Beginning on the West Coast of Canada HEAVEN SCENT will follow an ancient ring of smoke around the world. The film will explore both the modern manifestations and historical origins of a personal spiritual tradition which spans cultures and seems to defy time. Our host, a young urban First Nations woman making her own spiritual journey, will guide us in this voyage of discovery, constantly seeking the links between past and present. With her, we will attend contemporary smudge and incense ceremonies, visit manufacturers and researchers and witness historical re-creations, with costumed participants in actual locations.
At a traditional Big House on Vancouver Island, our host comes face-to-face with cultural rituals she has long neglected. An Elder explains to her how British Columbia's First Nations burn cedar to dissipate negative emotions and to clear the air after illness. Over charcoal embers, or combined with sage in a smudge stick, burning cedar bathes the participants in a strong but cleansing smoke. A carefully chosen medicine feather brushes the smoke through a person's aura, combing away any clinging, negative energies.
For our host, smudging stirs up warm personal memories and she wonders if such an ancient regional tradition could have relevance to the contemporary global society in which she lives and works. How widespread are such ceremonies? Why do people continue to find solace from burning herbs, oils and plant resins? Seeking answers to questions like these she decides to follow the smoke westward, across the Pacific Ocean, back in time to another island culture which appears, at first glance, to be vastly different from her own.
Along with our host, we now find ourselves in 4th Century Japan, watching an early religious practitioner making pastes from powdered herbs and mixing them with plum pulp, seaweed, salt and charcoal. The pastes are pressed into cones or spirals and then burned in beds of ashes. Our host learns that incense rapidly became a centrepiece of Shinto ritual. So enamoured were the ancient Japanese with the spiritual power of smoke and fragrance, the making and burning of incense turned into an art form (kodo) that is still taught today. We visit a school where contemporary students learn how to burn ceremonial incense and create story-dances for incense burning rituals. A teacher explains that much of our modern incense comes from an even more ancient source.
From Japan we travel to Bangalore, India, where skilled contemporary workers hand-roll pure natural ingredients, blending them into incense sticks for local use and export around the world. We watch the preparation and packaging process as well as visit with researchers who experiment with new fragrance combinations and compositions. As the day ends, we follow one of the workers home to see them light their own personal shrine - a tradition that, once again, draws us into the smoke and transports us further west, to Europe.
The classic Grecian world was also rich in fragrance and smoke. By the 6th Century Athens had become a center for trade in fragrant herbs. Our host leads us even further back, into the ruins of the famous temple at Delphi, to re-create an encounter between the legendary priestesses and warriors who have come to learn their fate in upcoming battles. We watch the visionary women in an oracular trance, prophesying the future, their bodies wreathed in pungent smoke from smouldering bay leaves.
From early Greece, the smoke carries us across the Mediterranean to even-earlier Egypt. As the Egyptians learned to write and build their pyramids, they imported myrrh to use for embalming and fumigations. Inside a torch-lit tomb, we attend the cramped burial preparations for an ancient king. Moving outside, we leap 3000 years into the future. As we gaze on the pyramids of Giza, our host reveals that when King Tutankhamen's tomb was opened in the 20th Century, the faint but distinct odour of frankincense still hung in the air.
From one land of pyramids to another - now we follow the smoke across the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Amid the grandeur of Palenque’s formidable historical monuments we watch ancient Maya burn copal, the New World equivalent of frankincense. Even today this aromatic resin is still offered by their descendants to pay homage to ancestral deities as well as the Catholic saints of their adopted religion. Our host leads us from the jungle ruins to a small town’s modern religious celebration where the fragrance of copal encompasses rituals old and new.
Further north, on the Canadian prairie, our global ring of smoke takes on the crisp odour of sweetgrass, the most common plant used in First Nations smudging ceremonies. Within its leaves sweetgrass is believed to carry the deep wisdom of the earth. This is where our host reaches the end of her personal journey. We’ll follow her as she joins those who gather the plant and watch as the leaves are braided, then burnt to bless participants in a purifying ritual which carries their prayers heavenward on the rising smoke.
Our host points out perhaps the most singular feature of the North American smudging ceremony: its focus on each individual's unique connection to nature and spirit. Despite its widespread historical use, we’ve seen that incense was most often connected with religious teachers or the wealthy and powerful upper classes. The average person could sometimes receive its benefits from a "licensed practitioner", but the secrets of incense (and thus the path to a greater spiritual experience) remained in churches, temples and monasteries right up to the 20th Century. In our host’s culture, smudging - “sweeping the smoke” - has always been a vital, holy part of every person’s life.
As we witness this intimate First Nations ritual on the Canadian prairie, it’s not easy to tell if the scene is taking place in modern times or hundreds of years ago. Even our host now wears clothes her ancestors might have worn. The historical circle we’ve travelled becomes even more keenly highlighted when we reverse our point-of-view to reveal the age-old ceremony taking place against the not-so-distant backdrop of a contemporary urban skyline. Through the smoke, past and present become almost indistinguishable…
Status: Production Package available
Written by Brian Paisley