#Incense

An incense burner is a ritual vessel that transmutes the smoke of prayer into a mask of virtue. In reality, it simply grills burned sawdust to cover the emptiness within with olfactory illusions. While it lends sanctity to shrines and meditation corners, it equally serves as a clever tool to mask the lingering stink of your failed cooking experiments. What remains are fleeting wisps of fragrance and a tragic heap of ash long after piety has vanished. Sacredness drifts away with the smoke ultimately settling as dust in an ashtray a poignant metaphor for all hollow ceremonies.

A thurible is a sacred “smoke generator” relegated to the corner of ritual or home, producing nothing but smoke and ash. It heralds the start of prayer and meditation in rising fumes, only to be forgotten under a mound of ash once the ceremony ends. Although incense is said to calm the mind, in reality it leaves nothing but cleaning chores and swirling fine dust. The more ornate its design, the more its practicality diminishes, so much so that its handler prays to the housekeeper rather than to the divine. Watching it burn itself out in service is a strangely hollow symbol of ritual.