The fragrance of God

Did you know that petunias have fragrance? I used to believe they didn't, but one evening after planting some petunias when I first started gardening, an amazing deep, sweet, spicy smell arrested my attention, and it wasn't till I'd checked almost everywhere else that I thought to lean into a petunia blossom. Oh. My. God. You can't normally smell them in the morning--they seem to release their intoxicating aroma in the late afternoon and early evening.

The dark purple ones especially put out the perfume, and the purple-veined light ones pictured below do as well. It may be my all-time favorite smell, and, with a collection of hundreds of essential oils and a garden full of fragrant plants, including aromatic roses, that's really saying something. I have a spiritual experience every time I stick my nose into a petunia flower and inhale. So do yourself a favor and go on a petunia-sniffing quest. Even if you just go to the garden center in the late afternoon, you will thank me if you've never encountered the petunia magic.

Okay--shivers-up-the-spine time. After writing the foregoing, I decided to Google "petunia essential oil" to see if someone had distilled petunia magic. I couldn't find much to vet the petunia fragrances that came up as being natural, but I did find something that made the hairs on my arms stand up and my spine tingle. According to several sources I found, petunias (petunia violacea) are traditional entheogens, used by the shamans of South America. What, you may ask, is an entheogen? I'll let this bit from Wikipedia explain:

"The word entheogen is a neologism derived from the ancient Greek : ἔνθεος (entheos) and γενέσθαι (genesthe). Entheos literally means "god (theos) within", translates as "inspired" and is the root of the English word "enthusiasm". The Greeks used it as a term of praise for poets and other artists. Genesthe means "to generate". So an entheogen is "that which generates God (or godly inspiration) within a person."

How cool is that? I knew I smelled God!