4 oz (120gm) Dittany of Crete
1 dried Vanilla pod (2 if small)
2 oz. (60gm) Benzoin
1 oz. (30gm) Sandalwood
1/2 oz. (15gm) Pine needles (better cypress if available)
half a dozen goat hairs if available
Break up the Dittany of Crete flowers with your fingers, powder the vanilla, and
mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
This is known as "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" incense.
Dittany of Crete, incidentally, is an excellent herb for stews and casseroles, and for cleaning the remnants of infection, such as common cold, out of the system.
(from The Witches' God by Janet & Stewart Farrar)
"my feeling is that Pan is about celebration and the natural and healthy permission for the self to indulge in luxury. Natural luxury: like a scented bath; like admiring the human body with eyes, touch, taste and any other senses you want to play with; like spending the energy that you have accumulated in it's condensed money form on yourself.
I guess it comes down to the difference between alcohol as a drug for escapism or for joy. Recreational in the healthy sense of the form.
*sigh* I think it's probably a sign of the times that where for a while masculinity was almost politically incorrect, now joy and indulgence have gone that way also. "
Ralf