Why?

I've been burning incense since I first encountered it at festivals and concerts and gatherings when I was a young hippy in the early 1970s. I have enjoyed the aromas as well as the experience of the smoke - the appearance of the smoke rising and drifting in patterns across the room as well as the pleasant enveloping of the smoke. Burning incense is a broad and complex sensory experience which can't be compared with other forms of freshening a room. Air freshener sprays are harmful to the atmosphere, chemical, sharp and unpleasant. The spray tickles my throat and stings my eyes, and the aromas never smell fresh and natural.

As well as the sight, the feel and the scent, incense burning is a pleasure because of the historical and cultural associations. It's not just the association with my hippy days, it's also the association with other people I know who enjoy incense who tend to be rather cool, laid back, liberal, curious, tolerant, interesting people who also seem to enjoy literature, music, and the arts. It's also the association with the cultures who have and still do make incense - ancient cultures: Indian, Chinese, Egyptian. It feels ethnic, rootsy, in touch with our past, and in harmony with nature. I like that native Americans also make incense.

While I have been burning incense for many years, I've never really paid it much attention. I would tend to buy what was available in shops for a reasonable price. I liked to get variety packs, because I like variety, rather than to explore which scents I preferred. There is a sense that most incense has a base smell of wood smoke and sandalwood. There are varieties on top of that, and some I would like more than others, but in general I was happy with all incense, and as such it didn't make sense to pay a lot for what I felt was in effect all pretty much the same thing. The only brand I was really aware of was Spiritual Sky, as that was the main brand when I was a young hippy.

Then a couple of months ago my local shop didn't have the cheap green box of 107 sticks of assorted scents that I usually bought, so I bought a small blue box of Satya Sai Baba Nag Champa. O gosh! What a scent. My attitude to incense changed. I wanted to know more about this incense, and I wanted to find out if there were other incenses that were also great but I wasn't aware of. So I started looking into it, and buying incense from the internet. And then I thought it might be an idea to keep track of my explorations, and share them in a quiet blog with any others who also might be interested in exploring the world of incense.

That's why.