– a review of Opus Oils’ The Divine Collection – Isis

Many, many gods and goddesses have made their indelible impressions on history, imagination and the human mind. Mythology is nothing more nor less than the sum total of every lesson we humans need to learn in order to evolve and move forward, and so those many gods and goddesses are all expressions of basic human truths and a basic human need for the numinous, the sacred, that which is both above and beyond us and connects us with that deep, secret bedrock of our very selves.

Among all those many gods and goddesses of our storied past and present futures, one of the most important of all is the Egyptian goddess Isis. She was the embodiment of the ideal woman, wife of Osiris, mother of Horus, the Queen of Heaven and the giver of eternity in the afterlife. When Osiris was murdered and thoroughly dismembered by his brother Set, Isis walked the earth to find for all his scattered parts, and when she had them, she transformed herself into a kite, flew above him and breathed him back to life.

Even Christian iconography and its many thousands of images of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus traced their origin directly back to Isis and baby Horus. She was worshiped from Egypt to Britain and from Tingis (in modern Morocco) to a remote Essene stronghold near the Dead Sea. The Roman writer Apuleius in the second century quoted her:

I am nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen of the ocean, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses that are, my nod governs the shining heights of Heavens, the wholesome sea breezes. Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names … some know me as Juno, some as Bellona … the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning and worship call me by my true name…Queen Isis.

All these many years later, Isis is also an all-natural perfume in Opus Oils’ Divine Collection, and all these many perfumes later, her arcane magic has been so very hard to resist.

Kedra Hart told me that that Isis contains no less than three different kinds of lotus absolute – pink lotus, white water lily, which is often called lotus but in fact is another species of flower, and the fabled blue lotus which was used everywhere in ancient Egypt.

Blue lotus is an intriguing bloom. Every morning, it emerges from the water and opens up its petals to the sun, only to close them up at noon and retreat back into the water. It was a symbol of immortality, used in many medicines, presented to the Gods – and even to Isis – and its blooms were famous not just for their haunting perfume, but for their effect – they were soaked in wine and drunk as an aphrodisiac. The very scent of blue lotus itself has been shown to have psychoactive properties on the brain, and recently, a study proved the Egyptians were on to something – blue lotus contains phosphodiesters – which make Viagra so effective!

Isis is a hard perfume to pin down. Those three unmistakable lotuses – the blue, the pink and white water lily might make you think that Isis would be aquatic and ethereal, when in fact it is nothing of the kind.

A very long time ago, I once had a boyfriend who made a point of taking me to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Copenhagen when the blue lotus bloomed to present me with a flower or two. Once you’ve sniffed a lotus, it’s impossible to mistake it for anything else – it is floral and green, earthy and warm, heady and haunting.

Right from the beginning, lotus is apparent – a juicy, jasmine-flecked, deep, complex lotus. The spicier pink lotus peeks out among the jasmine and the more ethereal white water lily too, all of them somehow a sum total of lotus both magical and alluring. As it opens up its fragrant petals on your skin, that exquisite sandalwood note I find in many Opus Oils is detectable in the far distance, but for a very long time, it’s all about those lotuses. Isis is no ordinary Goddess – and these flowers are no quotidian blooms. They entwine themselves around you in a warm, sensuous hug, and after a stressed out day that has you spread thinner than gold plating, suddenly, all your missing pieces come together into one fragrant entity, standing tall, standing proud, as serene as a secret lotus unfolding its petals in the sunrise among the reeds of the Nile.

I may be only frail and human, and I may never be immortal, but even I sometimes need a little centering calm in my own busy life, a reconnection with all I hold sacred, and Isis does just that.

When you are centered at last, secure as any earthly goddess can ever be, that beautiful sandalwood sings with frankincense and myrrh their redolent tales of sacred and profane, of worship and adulation, of all the many secrets Isis knows and shares with every woman who needs that grounding, that centering in an often frantic life, and finally, you can – as I did – imagine yourself as Nefertari, Ramses the Great’s queen, in the wall painting above. She has passed her test and weighed her heart on Anubis’ scales, Osiris has proclaimed his judgment, and the Goddess Isis – protector of all women in life and in the afterlife – steps forward to bestow immortality upon her or even you – that Breath…of Eternity.

Notes: Blue lotus absolute, pink lotus absolute, white water lily absolute, jasmine, sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh

Opus Oils – The Divine Collection – Isis is available as perfume oil, parfum and Eau de parfum, bath and body oil, bath salts, body lotion and body butter directly from the Opus Oils website. It will no eternity at all before I buy up one of everything!

Image: Nefertari and Isis, from Nefertari’s tomb, 19^th Dynasty, the Valley of the Queens, Egypt.

Image of “Pink Lotus”, © Cecilia Webber