Finding Myself Incense Intolerant

I tried this a couple months back, due to discovering that my headaches came on when I burned incense, and it didn't work. I went back to burning incense. Now I've had enough. I have come to the conclusion that I'm incense intolerant. Though in my soon-to-be Libations to Artemis post I will be talking about taking a break from incense until September. I sit here and think about how important the role of incense was in ancient times.

Cultures all over the world burn incense, or burned incense, to their gods and even to Jesus. The ancient Egyptians burned incense three times a day (Frankincense, Myrrh, and Kyphi). Incense was used to cover up the smell of sacrificed animals. Roman Catholics use incense by the boatload, and I mean that. So if your stuck in one of these incense hothouses, and your intolerant to the stuff, lets hope it's not a throat closing nightmare or even a headache nightmare. I don't know when I became incense intolerant.

I use to burn incense when I was Wiccan and I never had this problem. Heck there are some Wiccans, who I still follow, that can't imagine life without incense. Incense was used as an offering to the gods and in modern Hellenic circles it still is. So how do you offer smells to the gods when you can't burn incense due to not being able to handle the stuff? Simple, oil burner and it's accompanying oil. When I became incense intolerant I went out and bought oil.

I already had an oil burner that I had brought down from MA, but I had put it away believing that I would never need it. Well now I'm finding myself using it. I even have a scented candle as another way to keep from burning incense. Looking at the gods, and what certain groups burn as incense, makes me realize that, even though we look up to those groups, we must come to the conclusion that not everyone will be able to burn the kind of incense that they do.

Some people have spouses that can't take incense and we must respect that. So while I don't mind letting my brother borrow a stick of incense I won't be burning it until September comes. If I find that I'm still having problems then I will drop it completely.