Epona

It is early in the morning and you are walking through a green meadow. Birds cheerily sing their dawn songs.  The air is cool and pleasantly damp. You close your eyes and inhale the scents of wild grass and morning dew. There is another scent though; something musky, warm, and vaguely sweet. You have a sense of a massive presence. The presence is not threatening at all, but you feel you should open your eyes and be more aware of it. When you open your eyes, there is a chestnut colored mare only a foot or so away from you. She snuffles and meets your gaze directly. You feel you could melt into her liquid brown eyes. Her gaze is full of intelligence and compassion. You reach out to stroke her face and she allows you the connection. 

You close your eyes again; feeling the smooth horsehair with your hand. You fall into a trance in which you see an ancient stable. There is a niche carved in the wood of the stable with a statue of a horse garlanded with roses. There are sheaves of grain depicted with the horse statue as well. You walk out of the stable and towards the nearby thatched cottage. As you peer through the door, there is a circle of women inside, surrounding a mother who has recently given birth. They are encouraging the new mother to eat a bowl of porridge. She is sitting on the side of a bed; her new baby cradled in her arms, softly mewling. The bowl of porridge that she takes from her sisters is engraved with horses, and there is a horse statue near the bed. 

When you open your eyes again, you realize you’ve been visited by the ancient horse goddess Epona. She was worshipped all over Europe, in Ancient Rome, and possibly in the Middle East as well. She is a goddess of fertility, war, and cavalry. She may be associated with the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, and thereby be a protector of the underworld as well. 

My scent homage to Epona is a blend of musks, hay, and grass with just a hint of carrots and roses. It is a subtle scent meant to be enjoyed as a perfume or as a ritual tool.