(Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series of the hundreds of courses offered through the Sauk Rapids-Rice Community Education Program.)
by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Melissa Rieland has learned how to tap into an ancient tradition that has made something of a comeback in recent years – the use of essential oils.
The oils are not only good for her health and well-being and for cleaning products, but they brighten up her house with wonderful scents, and everybody who enters her home says, “It smells so good in here.”
The Sauk Rapids resident co-teaches a class called “Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils” at Sauk Rapids-Rice Middle School as part of the SRR Community Education Program. She’s been offering the class for almost five years, not just through the community education program, but also via expos and at in-home presentations. She just completed one of the classes in late February at the middle school.
Her next essential oils class at the school is scheduled from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 10. To register, call 258-1577 or visit SaukRapidsRiceOnline.org. To see all of the SRR Community Education offerings, visit at www.isd47.org/ce.
Rieland also sells essential oils, products of the “Young Living” brand. Essential oils, she said, are the natural liquid from herbs, spices, flowers, plants, fruit, roots and bushes – a liquid that has been distilled from those substances.
Many people like to put a few drops of the oils in aromatic diffusers that can make a room, house or patio area brighten up with lively scents. But some oils can also be ingested orally via supplements or added to water. Some can also be applied to the skin for absorption.
Rieland said they can do wonders for seasonal discomforts, throbbing headaches, the digestive system or the respiratory system. She was introduced to the oils about five years ago through her husband’s cousin, a woman who was selling “Young Living” essential oils.
“What got me so believing in them (oils) is that they’ve really helped me with seasonal discomforts,” Rieland said. “They are 100-percent pure. I wanted to do something, so I decided to sell them myself and also to inform others about essential oils.”
There are close to 300 essential oils in Rieland’s collection, including lavender, lemon, orange, peppermint, cedar wood, oregano, balsam fir, thyme, cloves and eucalyptus. The more exotic ones include frankincense (from a tree resin), copaiba (also derived from trees) and Panaway (a mixture of wintergreen cloves, peppermint and helichrysum).
“My favorite of the oils are lavender, peppermint and Thieves,” she said.
“Thieves” got its name because during the Black Plague in Europe hundreds of years ago, people were dying right and left of the terrible disease. It was noticed some of the notorious robbers of that time weren’t getting sick as often as others, and it was thought the herbs and spices they carried and used had some salutary effect on them.
Rieland and her husband, Jeff, have three children: Tyler, 20; Zack, 17; and Parker, 11. She operates an at-home daycare business dubbed “Wish Upon a Star.”
For more information about essential oils, visit YoungLiving.com or call Rieland at 320-223-4666.
Melissa Rieland enjoys giving classes about the essential oils and their importance in history, including in the modern world.
