The Frankincense Incident

Ter called it “a room interrupted”. Despite rearranging the furniture to open up the feng shui, I remained so reluctant to go into my writing room that I began to wonder if it wasn’t me so much as it was the room itself. Sure, my writing had been stalled for some time, but on any other day I was eager to revisit my half-finished projects and maybe start something new ... but whenever I went into my room, I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t lose myself in the flow. I dotted around from piece to piece, getting nowhere but frustrated and quitting well before tea time. Eventually, excuses not to write became conscious decisions not to write. “Nope, not today,” I would say, and eventually I had to ask myself why not. And I had to be honest with the answer.

I think I always knew, but it seemed so silly and implausible that I was embarrassed to say it aloud. It couldn’t be right. It had to be something wrong with me, with my conviction, my commitment, my whatever. It couldn’t be what immediately came each time I asked the question.

Finally, I bounced it off my cool inspector. She would tell me if I was losing it or making (more) excuses. She would also tell me if I was on to something. So I said to her one day, “I don’t want to go into my writing room.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Don’t you want to write today?”

“I think it’s the room, Ter. It doesn’t feel right.”

She gave it a little thought before she answered. “That’s no surprise. It’s a room interrupted.”

She went on the remind me of its history. It began as her bedroom, but she had to give it up because she couldn’t sleep with the neighbour noise downstairs. Her armoire and all her clothes are still in the room, and so, perhaps, is the residual energy of that frustrating time. Then there’s the bathroom upstairs where, as she so eloquently put it, “people shit on that room every day. That can’t be good for anyone’s creativity!” She thought a little bit more, then suggested we do a space clearing. She pulled out one of our trippy hippy guru books and flipped to the applicable page. “Frankincense will do it.”

Not a lot of people have a bottle of frankincense on hand. Naturally, we do. “How much?” I asked, pulling it and the diffuser from the cupboard.

“Eight drops,” Ter replied.

“Does it say that in the book?”

“No, it’s just my sense.”

After thirty-plus years together, I no longer question Ter’s sense.

We set the diffuser on a shelf in my room, cracked open the window to let the negative energy out, and went about our regular business.

I cannot explain how, but it worked. Almost immediately, the room felt better, as if the energy vibration had lifted to a cleaner, more positive level. Since then, I’ve been happy to come in and write. I’ve been comfortable, motivated and able to go with the flow. Whatever magical properties were in that oil, the end result was success!

I suppose I could try to explain. It’s probably better that I don’t. Maybe it won’t work for someone who doesn’t believe it will. So many of our perceptions are based on what we believe. Physical laws always apply, of course. An apple won’t fall up just because I believe it will—but because I believe in a friendly, loving and generous Universe, my reality reflects this belief. I understand and accept contrast (another pesky physical law), but on the whole, my life is charmed in ways I would not change for anything. I know people who fear everything. Their Universe is cold, harsh and frightening—and so the energy of their belief creates a life riddled with things to fear. It’s simple and it’s complicated and I think I just tried to explain the Frankincense Incident, didn’t I?