A Rose is a Rose is a Rose
By David Stewart, PH.D., R.A.
Originally Posted May/June 2004
Most men and women enjoy perfumes, whether they be colognes, aftershave lotions, sachets, or costly potions to titillate emotions. There are perfumes for the morning, for the working day, for ocassions of entertainment, for the evening, and for the night. Some people wear different fragrances according the occasion and the time of day. People usually wear fragrances for a purpose.
Flowers do the same. If you have a rose garden, you may have sampled their perfumes individually by putting your nose right into the bloom. If you haven’t done this, I recommend it. The first thing you will notice is that every variety of rose has its own distinct signature of scent.
People are like that, too. They pick perfumes that suit their personalities, which is an individual thing for each person. We express our personalities through our choices of the scents we choose to wear. Roses do the same. From an individual rose’s point of view, they want to be a rose that stands out, one that is different from the rest of the bushs and even from every other rose on the same bush. Try smelling several roses on the same bush and you will learn that there is not just one scent associated with that variety, but a suite of scents. While each rose flower shares the common characteristics of its family, it expresses a unique individuality as well.
Another thing you will notice about roses is that they also change their perfumes with the time of day. What they wear in the morning won’t be the same as in the afternoon or night. Jasmine, for example, attracts certain night flying insects. Hence, its strongest fragrance is released after midnight, before sunrise. Since the primary purpose of a flower’s odor is to attract pollinating insects, adjusting scents throughout the day actually attracts different insects at different times, just as different insects come out at different times from early morning, to late afternoon, to evening, and through the dark of night.
Flower fragrances also change with the aging of the bloom. You will notice in smelling your rose blossums closely and individually, is that what they waft as a new partially opened bud is not the same as in the mature blossum. Scents are normally not strong in the bud because at that time, the petals are not yet open and ready for pollinating visitors. It is when they are newly and fully opened that their perfume is the strongest. When a flower ages and its pollination is complete, it loses its scent, its purpose having been fulfilled. All of this is something you can experience in your own rose garden (or someone elses).
Gertrude Stein, has aptly said in her poetry, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” (Sacred Emily, 1913). It was her attempt to express the unexpressable— the singular beauty, touch, and fragrance of a rose. Rose oil is probably the most expensive of all essential oils and has the highest electromagnetic frequency (320 MHz). Thousands of pounds of petals are required to distill even one pound of precious oil. It’s aroma is physically, mentally, and spiritually elevating. Many eye witnesses to miracles, visions, and spiritual manifestations have reported the scent of roses lingering about the site of the experience.
Most people cannot afford to purchase rose oil, but you don’t have to wait until you buy it to experience it? It is available at no cost to everyone. Just find a blooming rose bush and start inhaling. What you will receive is true, pure, unadulterated rose oil directly from the flower, itself. You will also enjoy the visual beauty of its appearance at the same time. By caressing the flowers gently with your fingers and by letting your nose come into contact with the velvet surface of the petals, you will experience the rose with three senses, not just one—sight, smell, and touch. Some people even eat rose petals, thus engaging the sense of taste, taking traces of the oil internally.
This is the way God originally meant for us to enjoy essential oils, by inhaling and contacting them directly from nature the way Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:8) In our busy lives, we mustn’t forget to stop once and a while to “smell the roses.”
NOTE: The extract above is from Dr. Stewart’s new book to be released in the Fall of 2004. It is entitled The Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple and its subtitle is God’s Love Manifest in Molecules. 485 pages, its price will be $29.95
You Can Make a Difference Even100 Years From Now
by Vicki Opfer
When I first joined Young Living, I was not very happy that it was a network marketed company, because as a teacher of natural healing, I was not familiar with the model, and what I did know about it I didn’t like. I figured that products which were network marketed were way overpriced and of low quality.
Once, an old college friend asked to come over to the house to talk about something really important. Of course I said yes, and when he and his wife arrived, their only intent for being there was to sign us up in Amway. How disheartening…
So when I realized that YL was network marketed, I actually tried to talk my daughter into letting me buy her oils at the health food store instead, and when that didn’t work, I told my sponsor, very sternly, “I will NEVER share these with another living soul!” Famous last words…
It took me quite awhile to get comfortable with network marketing. Once I fell in love with the oils and saw what they could do, I was determined to share them with others – with integrity and without hype. I read books on MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing), went to lectures, listened to tapes, etc. I found that some of what I learned was relevant to me and how I did business, and some wasn’t, but it was helpful to see how the MLM experts conducted their businesses and were successful. I now believe that network marketing is the best way to market our products.
What I learned was that in a typical business environment, the company who produces a product is paid 20% of the retail price for producing it. The other 80% is split between the national distribution company, the regional distributor, the local distributor, and the retailer. If you’re not sure of this, look it up. If you have a product that you want to sell, you have the right to take it to small shops and ask them to carry it for you. But if you have a product for which you want a wide distribution, you must use the system in place, which is what I mentioned – national, regional, local, and retailer…
Network marketing works differently. At Young Living, 52% of the cost of the product is retained by the company and 48% is distributed, in very small amounts, to quite a few people like you and me… For example, if you were in my group, and spent $100, I might get nothing, $1.50, $5, or even $15 from your purchase, depending on where you are in my organization. These are not large commissions. The beauty is that when I enroll you, and you enroll several friends, and they each enroll several friends, eventually, even though the commissions on each purchase are small, they can add up to large commission checks. This takes time, patience, and active participation, but for those who have the tenacity to keep working and the willingness to learn new skills, it is quite amazing… very joyful, actually…
Interestingly, there seem to be two kinds of companies who use network marketing. One is a company which has come up with a “very cool” compensation plan, and they want to see how effective the plan would be. They look for products to “run through the plan”… Quality may or may not be an issue…
The other kind of companies who uses network marketing are those who have exceptional products which they would like to effectively distribute to a large group, as quickly as possible. Through network marketing, and the fact that they are able to keep more than 20% of the cost of the product, they are able to use the very finest, and often expensive, ingredients… THEY have to find a compensation plan worthy of their products, which is often a trial-and-error process, much like what we’ve experienced with Young Living…
Other GREAT news about the company being able to retain 52% instead of 20% is that it not only allows them to use more expensive ingredients, it also allows them to create farms, do research, and develop educational materials and incentives for us.
Another GREAT thing about network marketing is that it is RESIDUAL income – not income based on the number of hours a person can work. Once the business gets rolling and new leaders develop in your organization, it seems to grow on its own – whether or not you get out of bed that day. This can be a HUGE blessing if someone in your family needs your help or attention, and you have to change your focus temporarily – the business continues, and you still get paid. Several years ago, I had the privilege of studying privately with Dr. Bernard Jensen for a month. At first, I was concerned about my Young Living business, but I just could not turn down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I went. At the end of the month, my business had actually grown – in my absence!!!
Another very important part of network marketing is that, say, for example, as we’re playing with the oils, someone realizes that by rubbing frankincense and lavender (mixed together) on their breasts every morning, their fibroids disappear… (This happened to someone in my group, who shared it with me, and I had the same experience… ) IF a research group learned of this, and set up studies (who would pay for them, I wonder?) several years from now, this information might help women prevent breast fibroids… (Hmmm… do you think they would go to the expense of using high quality oils in their research? What would happen if they didn’t?)
Since we’re network marketed, we can buzz this type of information around throughout our groups, and women, everywhere, can begin to take advantage of this protocol NOW… See what I mean? This is a MAJOR advantage over traditional marketing, don’t you think?
Probably the most marvelous part of doing business this way is the family that develops. Richard Bach, author of Illusions and Jonathan Livingston Seagull says that our real family is the one we choose, not necessarily the one we’re born with… Many of the friends I have made in Young Living are more like brothers and sisters to me than friends, regardless of which organization they’re in… In Young Living, we’re all wonderfully interrelated because of our desire to help ourselves, others, and the world. It’s HUGE… It’s EXQUISITE… It’s LIFE-CHANGING…
And the very very best part about working with Young Living is that I feel useful here – like, together we really CAN make some small difference in the world we live in. 100 years from now, people may not be as sick because of what we learn and share with each other today… This is intriguing to me, and keeps me going when I’m tired…
So I know that I’ve rambled here a bit about network marketing… I hope that you can understand WHY I get so excited and why I think that this is the best method to market our oils and other wonderful products…
Editor’s Note: Personally trained in the early years of YLEO by Gary Young, Vicki Opfer has been a teacher in the use of essential oils and a trainer in raindrop technique for many years. As a top earning Diamond Distributor, she is one of the ten most successful leaders in Young Living.
