ON FREEDOM

In 2022 we created a pair of fundraiser oils adapting a chapter from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet into scent. Considering the challenges that await in 2025, we’ve decided to continue this work with a monthly series of fragrances that will gradually complete the entire book.

Proceeds from these scents will be donated to a series of trustworthy charitable organizations, selected month by month; everything above the cost of production will be donated.

First published in 1923, The Prophet (Gutenberg Press link) has been translated into more than 100 languages, continuing to inspire new readers with its lyrical observations of human nature and open-ended spiritual instruction.

The book imagines a series of pronouncements offered by the sage Almustafa (“the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day”) to inhabitants of the fictional city Orphalese as a gesture of gratitude for their hospitality during his twelve-year stay. One by one, various citizens step forward and ask for Almustafa’s thoughts on a long list of topics such as love, death, commerce, justice, and religion.

The Prophet responds with wisdom that could be considered non-denominational, though clearly influenced by the Lebanese author’s familiarity with Sufi and Maronite beliefs as well as the work of Transcendentalist poets. After satisfying the Orphalesians’ many queries, at last he boards a ship setting sail for his homeland.

Since Gibran set these events outside of any known time or geographical location, Almustafa’s wisdom can be received today, or in the future, and ring just as true.

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off, that cart has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

When the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light: frankincense and myrrh smoke, silver musk, ambergris accord, ti leaf, benzoin, and violet ash.

The sales from June’s scents from the Prophet series benefits Lutheran Settlement House, who provides food access, homelessness services, domestic violence services, senior care, and educational resources to Philadelphia’s communities.