Breaking news: no whale will be harmed for the coronation of King Charles III in May. This bulletin may not change the course of your day, but I find it rather interesting.
Through the centuries the crowning of a new monarch has been an affair of great pomp and circumstance and in Great Britain there has been a strong emphasis on divine blessing -- who can argue with the Deity?
The event will take place in Westminster Abbey and the Archbishop of Canterbury will preside. And this means that even the content of the oil used for the anointing of the monarch is carefully orchestrated. They don't just grab a bottle of extra virgin olive oil from the Buckingham Palace pantry. A special "recipe" is used and the oil has already been created for the auspicious event. According to a piece in The Guardian:
A ceremony took place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the holy oil was consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, and the Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum. It has been created using olives harvested from two groves on the Mount of Olives, at the Monastery of Mary Magdalene and the Monastery of the Ascension.
The interesting part for me is that Charles has championed environmental issues through the decades and so has arranged for animal cruelty-free oil for his coronation. I now defer to a BBC report about the changes to a formulation which dates back to the 17th century:
The sacred chrism oil has been reformulated and won’t include waxy substances from the intestines of sperm whales or secretions from glands of small mammals like civets, the BBC reported. Instead, the mixture will consist of olive oil, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, orange blossom and sesame.
Okay, perhaps not a special news bulletin, but I think I can hear whale song in the distance.I wonder if a whale will be in the congregation Begrudgingly, well done King Charles III.
3 comments:
Until I read your blog post I was unaware of civets. Now I have a great deal of sympathy for them. Their curse is being utilized for human indulgence -- namely perfume!
"Both male and female civets produce the strong-smelling secretion, which is produced by the civet's perineal glands. It is harvested by either killing the animal and removing the glands or by scraping the secretions from the glands of a live animal." Either way....! -KB
I'm delighted you went in search of civets Kathy. I've known about them for years -- even identified one once watching Jeopardy. I didn't know about the perfume, or anointing oil until reading about the coronation oil piece. We humans are a ridiculous lot, aren't we?
Yes, in general we humans are ridiculous --- but in fairness, I'm giving King Charles a shout-out for his awareness-raising! KB
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