Healing Oil and Grief Oil: Magical Oil Recipes for Restoration and the Holding of Loss
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The magical tradition has always understood healing and grief as inseparable companions: genuine healing — not the suppression of pain but its genuine movement through and out of the system — requires the capacity to grieve what has been lost, to feel the full weight of the wound before it begins to close. These two oils work in sequence as much as independently: the grief oil is often needed before the healing oil's deeper work can begin, because the healing that has not grieved is not healing but covering. Together, they address the full arc of the heart's restoration — the holding of what hurts and the gradual return of wholeness.
Healing Oil: The Restoration Blend
Purpose: To support physical, emotional, and spiritual healing; to assist the body and energetic system in returning to wholeness after illness, injury, trauma, or the depletion of the vital force.
Essential oil formula (per 10ml carrier):
- Frankincense: 4 drops — the supreme oil of healing across the world's traditions; anti-inflammatory, deeply restorative, and specifically supportive of cellular renewal and immune function
- Myrrh: 2 drops — frankincense's ancient companion in healing work; specifically supportive of wound healing, both physical and emotional; deeply purifying
- Eucalyptus: 2 drops — the respiratory and immune support oil, clearing what has accumulated and supporting the body's own healing intelligence
- Tea tree: 2 drops — the powerful antiseptic and immune-supporting oil that assists the body in clearing what has compromised its integrity
Carrier oil: Calendula-infused oil (the most healing of the botanical carriers, made from the marigold flower that has been used for skin and wound healing for centuries) or rosehip seed oil for its regenerative properties.
Botanical additions: Clear quartz chip (to amplify the healing intention), bloodstone or green aventurine chip, a small piece of dried calendula flower.
Best time to make: Sunday (the sun's healing and vital energy) or Wednesday (for Mercury's governance of health and the body's intelligence). The waxing moon for building and restoring vitality.
How to use: Apply to the area of the body that needs healing, with the hands held gently over the area and the clear intention of restoration held in the mind. Apply to the solar plexus for overall vitality restoration. Anoint healing candles (blue or green) moving from wick to base (drawing healing toward the self). Use in conjunction with whatever physical healing care is being provided — the healing oil works at the energetic level to support what medicine and rest are doing at the physical level.
Grief Oil: The Holding Blend
Purpose: To create a gentle, containing energetic field around the grieving heart — not to remove the grief or speed its passage, but to hold the one who grieves with the same quality of gentle, encompassing presence that genuine human comfort provides; to make the grief bearable to feel, and therefore to move through.
Essential oil formula (per 10ml carrier):
- Rose absolute: 3 drops — the oil of the open heart; rose does not suppress grief but holds it with a quality of warmth and genuine care that makes the feeling of it less isolating
- Frankincense: 3 drops — the oil of the sacred, of the larger perspective that grief eventually opens into; frankincense holds the grief within a context of meaning rather than mere pain
- Cypress: 2 drops — the tree of the graveside in the ancient Mediterranean tradition, specifically the oil of mourning, loss, and the transition through grief toward acceptance
- Sandalwood: 2 drops — deep, warm, and containing; the oil of genuine presence with what is, rather than the avoidance of it
Carrier oil: Jojoba or sweet almond, the gentle and skin-nourishing carriers appropriate for the tenderness of grief work.
Botanical additions: Rose quartz chip (for the gentle holding of the grieving heart), smoky quartz chip (for grounding the grief in the body so it can be felt and moved), a dried rose petal.
Best time to make: Any time grief is present — the grief oil does not wait for a propitious moon phase. It is made when it is needed.
How to use: Apply to the heart center (center of chest) with both hands placed over the anointed area. Apply to the temples if grief is accompanied by crying — the scent of rose and frankincense at the temples during weeping is one of the most ancient forms of comfort aromatherapy. Apply before grief ritual, before visiting graves or sacred places of loss, before any practice that works deliberately with the movement of grief. Use gently and consistently — the grief oil is not a one-time working but a companion for the journey through loss.
Both complete recipes — with full moon phase guidance, crystal pairings, and all 20 magical oil blends — are in Magical Oil Recipes: 20 Blends. 35 pages. Digital PDF.
