NAME
Frankincense

LATIN NAME
Boswellia carteri

ORIGIN
Yemen, Somalia.

PARTS USED
Tree sap.

TRADITIONAL HERBAL USES AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
Frankincense has long been attributed with spirituality. Like Myrrh, it was a prized possession in the ancient world, rivaling the value of many precious gems and metals.

It's centering aroma slows the nervous system and promotes feelings of calm and introspection. Frankincense enhances immune, respiratory, epidermal, and nervous systems.
It encourages deep, rhythmic breathing and a relaxed state of mind. It's especially useful to the respiratory system during seasonal changes.

It is relaxing, uplifting, calming and mildly antiseptic. It is excellent for tiredness, grumpiness, negative moods, lack of confidence and emotional turmoil, It helps to slow the breathing and has a calming effect.

Psycho-Emotional Benefits
* Deepen meditation
* Helpful during labor
* Lessen stress
* Dispel gloomy thoughts
* Clear obsessions
* Dispel fear
* Dissipate obsessive thinking
* Dispel nervous tension
* Lower anxiety
* Post-partum depression
* Ease nightmares

Frankincense or olibanum is used in incense as well as in perfumes.
Frankincense is tapped from the very scraggly but hardy Boswellia tree through scraping the bark and allowing the exuded resins to bleed out and harden. These hardened resins are called tears. There are numerous species and varieties of frankincense trees, each producing a slightly different type of resin.

These trees are also considered unusual for their ability to grow in environments so unforgiving that the trees sometimes seem to grow directly out of solid rock. The deep roots prevent the tree from being torn away from the stone during the violent storms that frequent this region; the tears from these hardy survivors are considered superior due to their more fragrant aroma. The aroma from these tears are more valuable for their presumed healing abilities and are also said to have superior qualities for religious ritual.

Tapping is done 2 to 3 times a year with the final taps producing the best tears due to their higher aromatic terpene, sesquiterpene and diterpene content. High quality resin can be visually discerned through its level of opacity. Omani frankincense is said to be the best in the world, although quality resin is also produced in Yemen, and along the north coast of Somalia.
Frankincense comes in many grades, and its quality is based on color, purity, aroma, and age.


FOLKLORE AND HISTORY
Frankincence was traditionally used in many ancient cultures for ceremony, prayer, healing and ritual. Most famously frankincence is known to be one of the gifts brought by the Magi. It is said to help open the higher energy centres and facilitate the user in meditation, prayer and connection.

Frankincense was reintroduced to Europe by Frankish Crusaders. Although it is better known as "frankincense" to westerners, the resin is also known as olibanum, The lost city of Ubar, sometimes identified with Irem in what is now the town of Shisr in Oman, is believed to have been a centre of the frankincense trade along the recently rediscovered "Incense Road". Ubar was rediscovered in the early 1990s and is now under archaeological excavation.

The Egyptians ground the charred resin into a powder called kohl. Kohl was used to make the distinctive black eyeliner seen on so many figures in Egyptian art. The aroma of frankincense is said to represent life and the Judaic, Christian and Islamic faiths have often used frankincense mixed with oils to anoint newborn infants and individuals considered to be moving into a new phase in their spiritual lives.



CONSTITUENTS
Frankincense contains terpene, sesquiterpene and diterpene.


TYPICAL PREPARATIONS AND DOSAGE
It is good to use a several frankincence tears when burning on a charcoal disk.

PRECAUTIONS
None known.