Mmmmmm. You smell good!
I woke up today thinking about our senses. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. I wondered, “Which brings me the most joy?”
Sight. Oh so important. Kind of the Queen of the Senses. We need her to get around. We appreciate beauty and the smile of a friend because of our sight. But she has to do the dirty work too. Keep us on our toes. Make sure danger is clocked and we swerve to avoid it.
Sound. OH wonderful! The music that moves our bodies! The owls that hoot at night! The ridiculous sound of my cat meowing because I’ve opened a can of tuna. Nothing better. Except. Well, then. There’s also the hammering and yammering of the construction across the street from my office. There’s the alerting sound of the alarm each morning (I will never hear chimes the same way again….). So thank you sound, but you do take on a lot.
Taste. Yes. Delight. But without smell, what is taste? When we’re congested, nothing tastes great. Nothing tastes at all. I’m actually struggling to know whether or not we could taste without smell. So is taste its own sense?
Touch. Well, come on. Touch is life! Touch is pleasure. But touch is also pain. And discomfort. We curl into touch, and we shy away from it. It makes up a huge part of my working life as a massage therapist. I couldn’t work without my sense of touch intact. And every other moment when I am aware, I am aware of the sensations of my body. For better or for worse.
So that leaves us with smell. I have landed on smell as the scent that brings me the most uncomplicated joy.
We smell our babies. Our lovers. Our pets. Our gardens. We inhale our food and our wine and the smell of coffee beans being ground in the morning. Now tell me WHO doesn’t get out of bed because of that?! To be sure, our sense of smell also provides us with awful information. Like that can of bamboo shoots we opened this week for a stir fry. WHY did it smell like poo??!? WHY?!?! But it did.
I have to say, upon reflection, these awful smells (a skunk? Ew! a little doggie’s breath? Peeee-yewwww!) even these that we know aren’t “good,” are somehow invigorating. Is that weird? I mean, think of a skunk spraying. It’s not a smell we want to carry around with us, but it invigorates us—calls us to action because of course we have to clean it up. I think these “bad” smells remind us of LIFE. And we do need to be knocked out of our stupor sometimes to be reminded that life is a stinky, smelly, crunchy, velvety, sweet, and beautiful engagement.
This is how much lavender essential oil we distilled in our 10 L copper alembic still. It takes A LOT of plant matter to get even 5 mls of essential oil! Precious stuff right here. Use it sparingly, and for a purpose.
Market visitors cracking Jordy up.
“Mmmmm, you smell good.”
Who doesn’t like to hear that?! I find that if I hug someone after applying my Lavender Geranium Facial Oil, I get that comment more often than not. It does smell good, and that is just part of why I love using it multiple times a day. The other reasons? My skin glows when I apply it. It’s a clean, pure, and simple product, made with organic ingredients: locally sourced herbs, nourishing oils, and just a few drops of essential oil.
I am drawn to creating and using products with a few powerhouse ingredients over products that contain many ingredients. Because, powerhouse or not, if there are twenty-four oils in your one-ounce bottle, can each one really have an opportunity to shine? I often wonder about this, and I am open to discussion, as I know many formulators choose to go a different route. So please, reply here and let me know your thoughts on this.
I love watching people visit my market table and try different products. So often their faces light up when they smell a cream or an oil blend, and that is what I’m going for. The herbs I infuse into oils and the essential oils I choose have their practical purposes (antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic), but what is also important is that they smell good. Naturally. NO fragrance oils here. Only pure, organic plant matter, grown and infused or distilled with respect. I source my herbs through Herb Exchange or harvest from friends’ gardens, and my essential oils mostly through Eden Botanicals. I trust their judgement, and their sites are FULL of information.
If you take a moment to check labels on your home and skincare items, you can cross check here to make sure what you’re using isn’t posing a risk to your health and wellbeing. Those fragrance oils aren’t as sweet as they may seem. This study is full of information on why it’s best to avoid fragranced products. Armed with information, we can make choices that will support our wellness and the sustainability and health of our planet. Cheers to smelling, and feeling, good!
Karen, her truest self shining through as she holds up part of our amazing natural world.
I captured this from Karen’s instagram post. She called it “The bones of the poppy pod.” She, a Scorpio, knew how to respect the bones of a thing. The structure that gives stability, and what will be left behind, eventually, to return back to this grand planet that we are blessed to be riding upon.
Two weeks ago, our herbal community lost a most beloved teacher. Karen Aguiar passed on October 9th and behind her she left a long line of herbalists who were lucky to learn from her.
Whenever I label my potions, I make sure to put the label on the jar instead of the lid because lids can be separated from their jars and then who knows what’s in there? Is it passionflower or damiana?
Whenever I grind my herbs, I make sure to grind in pulses so as not to overheat the precious herbs in the blender, degrading their medicine before they have a chance to offer it.
And whenever I take a moment to remember the long, long lineage of people who have been revering and working with plants, I think of Karen. I met her at the Northern California Women’s Herbal Symposium many years ago. Well, at first I just observed her because I was too shy to approach—she was one of the creators of the Symposium so to me, she was a rock star. I’d see her sitting around the campfire, comfortable around so many people who loved her, and I’d think, “I want to be friends with her.” When I joined the California School of Herbal Studies, she sat at the head of the platform with an amazing group of teachers, and because she was there, it instantly felt like home.
Karen graciously and generously passed on her love and respect for plants and the process of making medicine. But really it’s a love and respect for life that she cultivated and taught. She is so missed. Thank you, Karen.
