Sacred Aromatics Foundations
Six Live Weeks in the Temple Arts, the Wild Ways, and the Plant Perfumes That Bridge the Two.
October 13 – November 17, 2026
Six live circles · Tuesdays · 10am PT - 12PM PT
$497 | payment plans available
An Initiation into the aromatic arts
For most of human history, fragrance was never merely decorative.
Fragrant smoke filled temples and homes.
Bodies were anointed for blessing, ritual, and burial.
Scented oils and sacred resins were offered to gods and ancestors.
Across cultures and throughout human history, scent has been one of our oldest ways of entering into relationship with the more-than-human world.
Yet somewhere along the way, much of this relationship was lost.
We live surrounded by fragrance, yet many of us have forgotten how profoundly scent shapes the way we move through the world. Aroma changes our state of consciousness before our thoughts get it in the way. It helps us locate ourselves within culture and earth. It can draw us toward food and flowers, alert us to danger and decay, evoke memory with startling immediacy, and connect us to the particular landscape beneath our feet.
For our ancestors, fragrance was also a threshold: a way of marking sacred space, making offerings, preparing the body, accompanying the dead, and entering into relationship with the unseen.
Scent belongs to the body, the imagination, the nervous system, the landscape, and the spirit.
Sacred Aromatics Foundations is a six-week initiation into the spiritual, historical, practical, and relational arts of fragrance.
Together, we will explore anointing, sacred smoke, plant relationship, scent perception, energy anatomy, and five remarkable aromatic allies. You will learn to work with fragrance in ritual, beauty, and soul healing — building a foundation you can continue deepening for years.
I use the term sacred aromatics to describe the ancient and evolving practices of working with aromatic plants as more than ingredients or pleasant smells: as living beings with whom we can build real relationships, and as honored materials for anointing, smoke, ritual, art, devotion, and spiritual practice.
This foundational course opens the doorway into everything deeper at Nectar & Alchemy. The intensives, blending and perfumery courses, and practitioner tiers all begin here.
After six weeks, you will have:
A living personal anointing practice
A foundational understanding of aromatic materials and how to work with them safely
A deeper relationship with five aromatic plants
Language for understanding scent through physical, symbolic, energetic, and relational lenses
Historical context for incense, anointing, and aromatic ritual
A shared foundation for the deeper work of Nectar & Alchemy
Is this right for you?
Sacred Aromatics Foundations is for people who feel that scent can be more than pleasant — that fragrance can become a way of knowing, relating, remembering, and practicing.
This is for you if:
You love essential oils, incense, natural perfume, or aromatic plants and want a deeper relationship with them
You are tired of shallow correspondences and invented histories, and want real research alongside living spiritual practice
You understand that plants are somebody rather than something, and want to explore fragrance through an animist lens
You already practice ritual, prayer, energy work, herbalism, astrology, or plant medicine and want aromatics to become part of your work
You are drawn to both the wild and the refined: forests and temples, resins and roses, earth and beauty
You want a practice with enough depth to still be teaching you twenty years from now
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No prior experience is required. The plants will meet you where you are. Whether you’re new or have been practicing for decades, you will find depth and wisdom that transforms your relationship with plants and scent here.
What Sacred Aromatics Foundations Is — and Isn't
Foundations is an initiation into sacred aromatics as personal and spiritual practice.
It is not a clinical aromatherapy certification, a natural perfumery course, or a training in providing anointing or aromatic services to clients. Those deeper skills belong in their own dedicated trainings.
We begin closer to home: with your own body, your own senses, and your own relationship with the plants.
What We'll Explore Together
Over six weeks, we explore the sacred, practical, historical, and often overlooked arts of aromatics as spiritual practice:
The real history of anointing, drawn from temple records and archaeology rather than the invented lineages circulating online
Scent and the subtle body — exploring how aroma changes attention, atmosphere, sensation, and energetic experience, and how to work intentionally with fragrance in your own practice
Per fumum: sacred smoke as the oldest aromatic technology we hold, and its role in temple, hearth, funeral, and offering across cultures
The art of anointing for healing, protection, and blessing — anointing points in the energy body, and the anointing of altars, statues, doorways, and offerings
Clairolfaction (clairalience), how we intuitively perceive through scent, and learning to listen to what your nose knows
The intelligence of plant parts — why root, resin, flower, leaf, peel, seed, and wood carry different material and symbolic relationships, and how this can deepen your practice
Safe and ethical practice: dilution, extraction methods, contraindications, storage and shelf life, and sourcing in an industry full of adulteration
Five allies in depth — rose, frankincense, bergamot, vetiver, and juniper — and how fragrance returns you to your divine blueprint and soul coherence
And so many more wonderful surprises… ;)
THE FIVE ALLIES
Five Ways Into the Aromatic World
Throughout SA Foundations, we work in depth with five aromatic allies:
Rose
FLOWER
A doorway into beauty, relationship, devotion, and the mysteries of the heart.
Rose teaches us about the flower as an aromatic offering: ephemeral, sensual, and deeply entwined with human ritual and perfume.
the opening
frankincense
RESIN
A doorway into sacred smoke, prayer, offering, and the ancient art of perfuming the space between worlds.
With frankincense, we explore what happens when the aromatic material itself becomes smoke.
the ascending
BERGAMOT
FRUIT
A doorway into brightness, pleasure, atmosphere, and the remarkable intelligence held within a peel.
Bergamot introduces us to citrus, expression, and the immediate way fragrance can shift a room, a mood, and our attention.
The awakening.
VETIVER
ROOT
A doorway downward, helping us ground in strength.
Vetiver brings us beneath the surface, into the aromatic world of roots: earth, depth, embodiment, and all that holds us steady.
The rooting.
JUNIPER
LEAF · BRANCH · BERRY
A doorway into purification, protection, and place.
With juniper we meet several parts of one plant, exploring how our relationship change sdepending on what we receive.
The clearing.
We aren't just learning five essential oils. We're learning five different ways plants become aromatic — and five different ways humans can enter into relationship with them.
☆ BONUS ☆
The Green Path: A 7-Day Journey into Plant Spirit Medicine
Plant spirit medicine is the art of building a strong and consistent healing plant practice by rooting your work in relationship with the plants around you.
This bonus brings you a 7-part class that shares a foundational introduction to partnering with plants in all forms.
Available immediately upon enrollment.
How our program Works
6 live circles, 2 hours each
on Zoom, every circle is recorded, yours to keep
Tuesdays, October 13 - November 17, 2026
10am - 12pm PT | 1pm - 3pm ET
Dedicated course portal
with an in-depth bonus module + weekly PDFs, study guides, and more
Membership in a private online community
Prerequisite for all depth-tier courses
in the Nectar & Alchemy lineage
The Green Path: A 7-Day Journey into Plant Spirit Medicine
Available immediately upon enrollment.
Optional Aromatic Companion Kit
all materials shipped to you • $168
Special Founding Cohort Pricing • $497
or 3 payments of $179
Enroll in Our FOUNDING COHORT
$497 · or 3 payments of $179 | Doors close October 12
OPTIONAL COMPANION
The Foundations Kit
Everything the course invites you to smell, arriving in one box · $168
All together, you’ll receive:
Five ready-to-use anointing oils in a keepsake tin: each 3ml, professionally diluted to 10% in jojoba and ready for skin application — featuring rose, frankincense, bergamot, vetiver, and juniper
My own copper-distilled juniper hydrosol (1oz) for clearing yourself and your space
Frankincense resin with a set of charcoal discs for our smoke work
Practice cards for each ally
Free shipping within the United States (international shipping rates apply)
I created the kit so you can arrive ready to practice without spending hours researching suppliers, calculating dilutions, sourcing containers, or wondering whether what you bought is appropriate for this program.
Kits must be purchased separately using the button.
Ships by October 6 · order by September 28th for on-time delivery
The kit is optional. You are welcome to take this entire course with oils you already own, or with no oils at all. Inviting the spirit of a plant into your field is enough.
International orders: shipping rates apply and kits ship without charcoal discs.
Your Guide
I’m Juniper Stokes, a botanical perfumer, clinically trained aromatherapist, herbalist, and teacher of sacred aromatics.
For more than three decades, I have studied the ways humans enter into relationship with plants: through scent, ritual, healing, ceremony, art, and direct experience. I have spent thirteen years working professionally with botanical perfume (over two decades as a hobbyist) and have completed a 610-hour clinical aromatherapy training, alongside formal herbalism study and ongoing mentorship in natural perfumery and alchemical anointing.
My teachers and influences span botanical perfumery, aromatherapy, plant medicine, Taoist alchemical healing, energy anatomy, mediumship, and ecospiritual practice. I have studied with and been mentored by teachers including Roxanna Villa, Anya McCoy, Mindy Green, Tiffany Carole, Jessika Siorai, and others whose work has shaped my understanding of scent and the living world.
Sacred aromatics is where these paths meet.
This work is my own synthesis. I care deeply about historical accuracy, ethical sourcing, material safety, and direct experience. I also believe that a plant can teach us something no textbook can provide once we have learned how to listen.
I teach sacred aromatics because this relationship changed my life. And because I would like more of us to reclaim our birthright of aromatic medicine, beauty, and knowledge.
Words from previous course students
These Anointing Ceremonies offer an opportunity to foster a new relationship with the sacred plant that is chosen each month. I have been anointing myself with Blue Tansy this month since the New Moon and have noticed that that I am just being more authentically myself and especially bringing my sense of humor out into the world more and more. —Kerry W.
I felt safe with Juniper’s integrity and genuine care. I was able to learn so much and retain it. —Jill S.
Juniper is a wealth of knowledge that I was so excited to learn from. We journeyed together, we laughed, we cried and we ate plants — all in honor of their spirit and strengthening our connection to them. — Morgan R.
Juniper’s classes are well thought out and executed. She maintains a calm, reassuring presence as a teacher and guide while helping her students step into their own intuitive power with confidence. — Donna J.
Your First Step Into the Temple
You do not need to become an aromatherapist to have a meaningful relationship with aromatic plants.
You do not need a cabinet full of oils.
You only need curiosity, a willingness to practice, and a desire to meet the plants more deeply.
Over six weeks, you will build a foundation in sacred aromatics that can support years of study, practice, artistry, and relationship.
You will learn how to smell differently. How to anoint intentionally. How to work with smoke and scent in ritual. How to approach aromatic plants with skill and reverence. And how to begin building a practice that belongs to you.
Foundations Is the Beginning
Sacred Aromatics Foundations is designed as the shared language of Nectar & Alchemy.
Once you understand the basic materials, safety, plant relationship, anointing practice, and aromatic framework we use here, you can move into more specialized work without having to rebuild the foundation each time.
After Foundations, future depth-tier courses may include:
Botanical perfumery and blending
Plant signatures and aromatic materia medica
Clairalience and intuitive scent work
Elemental and planetary anointing
Egyptian and Taoist aromatic traditions
Advanced sacred smoke and temple arts
The practitioner path, for those called to eventually work with others
Some workshops and Rewilding the Temple ceremonies remain open to everyone, with no prerequisites.
FAQs
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No. You are always welcome to source your own oils, or to join with no oil at all — inviting the spirit of the plant into your field is enough. The kit provides you with everything you need in one set, with me having done the sourcing for high quality materials for you :) Plus, it include my own alchemically distilled juniper berry hydrosol while supplies last!
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The kit contains all the aromatics you’ll need. If you don’t purchase the kit, you’ll want to source your own essential oils, bottles, and carrier oils — the course platform will have a full breakdown of sourcing recommendations.
To join our work with sacred smoke, you’ll need a safe way to burn resin: a charcoal round in sand or a dedicated burner, or an electric resin burner. Instructions will be covered in class, and your platform will have sourcing recommendations.
That said, you are always welcome to participate energetically only, and source supplies later if you feel called.
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Absolutely — it’s called foundations for a reason ;) By starting here you’ll cultivate a foundation for lifelong learning that even folks with tons of years under their belts often lack.
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I highly doubt it. I’ve never encountered a synthesis like the one I offer before, in any of my three decades of research and study. Yes, this is foundational, but it's also a unique, transformative initiation. Even if you’ve trained in anointing before, I think you’ll find something new here. Plus, the live calls will let you ask me questions about your own practice – an invaluable opportunity to go deeper.
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No. Foundations does not certify you to work with clients. The practitioner path of sacred aromatics is real — and it begins with this program — but the training to actually work with other humans continues elsewhere.
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Not in Foundations. Blending is its own art and its own course. Foundations gives you the relationship and the practice, which allows the making workshops to unfold directly into greater artistry and depth.
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Every advanced and specialized course at Nectar & Alchemy assumes a shared foundation: the relational language, energy awareness, the anointing practice, and an understanding of what sacred aromatics actually is. Rather than repeat that ground in every intensive, we lay it once, together, in Foundations.
Many single topic workshops and our monthly Rewilding the Temple ceremonies remain open to everyone with no prerequisite at all.
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Every circle is recorded and posted within 24 - 48 hours. The live experience is richer and encouraged, but you will still be able to participate fully if you watch the replays.
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Yes. We cover safety, contraindications, and dosage carefully. If you are pregnant, nursing, allergic, or under medical supervision, consult your health provider before using any plant medicines or topicals. The course teaches safe, conservative anointing protocols and offers alternatives when necessary.
Sacred Aromatics Foundations is educational and devotional in nature. Nothing taught here is medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and none of these statements has been evaluated by the FDA. Essential oils are not for internal use in this course. If you are pregnant or nursing, living with a health condition, or taking medication, please consult your healthcare provider before using any aromatic material. Always patch test a new oil before anointing.
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Yes — three payments of $179.
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Attend the first live circle. If Sacred Aromatics Foundations turns out not to be right for you, email me within 48 hours of the first live circle and I will refund your course fee in full.
We acknowledge that this workshop takes place on land ceded under pressure to Oregon Territory in the Treaty of 1855 by Paiute, Wasco, and Warm Springs tribal chiefs. May our work be in service to the benevolent beings who still tend this sacred land.