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Fragrant
Notes
11/29/09 Sitting on the couch re-reading Chandler Burr's "The Perfect Scent" while a tuberose bloom above my head opens and wordlessly spills it's song into the air. 11/26/09 "still here actually and carrying
one of your hydrosols!! Part of your spirit here..we visited some
islands, malolo, treasure and now in Nadi, a couple of nights in Sigatoka,
its mainly a business trip but lovely place to be in, all the big
smiles and BULA!!" Francesca Brice 11/22/09 Feeling kinda low last night and wanted to tuck myself into bed with a Teddy Bear I didn't have. So my inspiration muse gave me the thought of "Neroli comforts you; let that be your 'Teddy Bear'. So I dabbed some on lightly and climbed into bed, feeling comforted and snuggly. I slept 11 hours! 11/21/09 The Sweet Violets have just led me through a treasure hunt all over the garden as I searched for them to start a new tincture jar. They tend to throw their seeds about with wild abandon. I'm also starting a tincture jar with Winter Honeysuckle; it smells of Lily of the Valley, and hopefully I can harvest the tiny blooms all through the winter. My plantings of 'Surround Scent' are paying off; fragrance happens all year around here! 11/19/09 11/17/09 Got this from a happy customer
today.. 11/11/09 Did a batch of pomegranate today and it did not work out.Will have to try that one again. BUT. Just combined vanilla and tuberose and put my brainwaves in the stratosphere.
10/24/09 The day's ride, I mean perfume (? what's the dif.) Brilliant sunshine filtered though cold air (yes it does have a scent), wood smoke, the sharpness of fermenting fallen apples, followed by the sweet mustiness of aforementioned apples, slow moving water, mustard, a few draughts of Oklahoma air, dried fields, dank shadows, all couched in cattle. Packaged in clear blue air, splashed with burning russets. A sweet l'il 100 miler/mls. I call it 'Hadtuv BeenThere'. 10/22/09 Doing a batch of Green Tea this morning and another WOWee! Very pronounced anti -oxidant activity. It totally amazes me how, when you get inside a plant and unlock the cell walls, what treasures comes out! 10/21/09 The last few days have been clear, but today, with rain still a 100 miles away, there is enough more humidity to enable me to smell the ginger lily as I walk by. 10/20/09 Heading to bed with frangipani on the tips of my brain cells. Made a perfume tincture with her tonight. Takes me back to Fiji.....where for four straight weeks I always had blooms in my hair, in my clothes, in my hands. 10/11/09 How often do I distill? Sometimes a couple a times a week, sometimes a couple a times a day. New things keep appearing on my event horizon that keep the game exciting, while at the same time I go deeper into the experience and come back with better technique; which is really more intuitively derived. Then I go through 'dry spells' where I need to get away from it; in order to return refreshed. After over 20 years, I have bumped myself to the intermediate level. 10/10/09 Last night or early this morning I had two dreams 'from' my Rose Geranium, who was outside it the COLD; sending me messages No Doubt. I have no doubt that plants have their own distinct consciousnesses. Our communications feel more like a blending of energy fields with 'thoughts' passing back and forth.Well, I don't like being COLD either.
10/9/09 Vetiver!!!! I think vetiver is really
an amphibian; it is Very Happy when it is wet, as the Indians know
well. It expresses it's glee by being very generous with its mesmerizing
aroma. I am smitten and want to swim off into the unreturnable depths
with it.
10/1/09 Visited the greenhouse last night and caught the tuberose and lemon tree singing softly to each other. :) 9/26/09 The ginger lilies gently eased into the upstairs bedroom window just before dawn this morning. 9/16/09 Doing something a little different
with some Paw paws I was given. They are going into alcohol! One by
one, each one morning after the other. When I changed # 1 to # 2,
the 'potion' was already very strong and I could smell it on my hand
for a few hours! This will make a fabulous contribution to
something tropical! 9/16/09 I find that I initiate quarrels round the garden whenever I declare a 'favorite' flower scent. To make peace and share the glory, now they each get a turn and my favorite is whomever is blooming NOW. 9/1/09 I'm doing a small batch of cistis today, which is one that I connect with on a very deep level. I would love to put on 'energetic glasses' and see what is happening on the cellular, spiritual and psychic levels. This is one that is in the Bach Flower Essence "Rescue Remedy". The 'type'; " A person who approaches risk with proactivity, self-direction and self awareness." That fits.
8/24/09The wheel of the year turns me around to Raspberries again! :) I love turning 'round on this wheel of the seasons. And each season brings a renewed friendship with old friends.
7/24/09
I received a small sample of Ambergris today...that most fabled and elusive of all perfume ingredients, from the Perfumer's Apprentice. I could smell it before I opened the package! (No whales were harmed) I put a small dab on the back of my hand; as from skin is the truest way to 'sample' a fragrance. This was only a 3% tincture but it lasted for h o u r s... taking me on journey back into childhood. Somehow this was familiar to my cellular memory, but it was beyond me to remember when I might have whiffed this before. I turned off my rational thinking and went immediately to my Grandfather's stone farm house in northern Virginia..a house that took a canon ball during the civil war. But no, wait; the scene shifted a few miles across town to my steeple chasing great Aunt Peggy's farm. Yes...here it is. If the word 'patina' has a smell to it; this is it. Vignettes flashed through my thoughts in no particular order... Uncle Connie's riding boots in the closet; the ones he wore riding in the Olympic Games (1929?). There are layers of horse, root cellar, pipe tobacco, saddles cleaned with saddle soap after every ride, blue shadows from The Shenandoah Mts, a mustiness but not unpleasant, maybe from heavy curtains in an upstairs bedroom that haven't been drawn in decades. This was the fragrance of a bygone way of life; where there is more space between the clock ticks. I spent the afternoon as a ten year old again, in her father's family's fold in time. 7/10/09 I did a small batch of blackberries this morning...to fulfill a promise I had made last summer. I was a bit taken off guard at how nice it actually was. Somewhat deep, not too fruity. Masculine, even. Really quite nice. I will have to add this onto my list of regulars. 7/9/09 Nice ride this morning. Before I left
there were a few green blobs on the weather screen so I strapped on
some rain gear. The wind was out of the south pretty good and as I
made slight changes in orientation the wind would push against my
right shoulder or left. But The bike and I had that smooth flowing
energy where you are given room to be a little adventuresome; a bit
more lean in the curves; that sort of thing. I passed numerous body
shops and was reminded of the dent I have adorned my tank with, but
did not catch any of them in time to slow and pull into a driveway.
I have looked for them in town but they are out here, where they have
room to sprawl broken vehicles about their yards.
7/2/09Sometimes I get confused, and need to
re-convince myself that creating 'beauty' is worthy unto itself. It
initiates that shift within that moves us from contraction to expansion.
Inspires. Some 'beauty' is long lasting, like a painting on our wall.
But after time, our senses dull to it. Some 'beauty' is very ephemeral,
like a fragrance, but still it shifts us. One is not better than the
other. 'Beauty' is essential, and we hunger for it as much as a bowl
of rice at the end of a long day of toil.
6/28/09 I have had mango on my brain since
last summer and finally found some aromatic, organic mangos. Gee,
smells like mango! I like it. He's now on the Hydrosol page.
6/27/09 Look Ma, I wrote a book! "The Alchemy of Hydrosols" for those wanting to try distilling at home. Version One. See About Distilling Now on to more Elderflower. 6/26/09 RoseBerry...Rose and Raspberry; a match that has been waiting since these two first stepped onto the planet. As nice as you would think. 6/10/09 O Goody Goody fruit drops! the raspberries
have started to ripen! This one will remain one of my all time favorites,
I know that already. The world just has no clue as to how delightful,
delightful can be.
6/5/09 I'm not so much a 'homebody' as a 'gardenbody'. This is where I feel most welcome. Stepping into the garden IS stepping into another dimension; the vitality goes up several notches (the more you are in tune, the more you notice). Time kicks back into 'ethereal time'. The moments have more space on all six sides of them. The flowers dictate my days. Whenever I am away from the garden, I always want to hurry 'home'. A friend commented on all the happy nature spirits she was picking up on. Now that I am ready to click my heels together and go back to N. C., I hope they and the devas will move with us! 6/4/09 The luxurious energy of Gardenia enters
this time/space known as garden. She lingers on my fingers as I go
another hour with this and that.
OK now, with four drops in a sip of water, they all
have room to expand into their own identities again. I am enthralled.
6/1/09 We are entering the time of year when I take up jogging to keep everyone watered. Each year there are non-fragrant plants that don't make the cut. The lilies stay! I continue to learn who prefers their drink at what time of the day.
5/29/09 My little line-up of lemon trees have all decided to put out another flush of blooms. I can't imagine a nicer gift from the garden! This was something I actually wished would happen, without thinking that it would. I will have plenty to layer with coconut oil, which was so phenomenally successful for me earlier this spring. This time I am drying these a day beforehand. The whole upstairs room is scented with their ethereal breath. When I wake at night, I smell them whispering in the dark. 5/27/09 Taste and smell have Got to be related, at least in this body I am presently inhabiting. Early this spring I had the immense good fortune to be living in the same vicinity as a lemon tree. I harvested many blossoms, distilling most of them into 'mock orange' hydrosol, but also trying my hand at enfleurage as well. For my 'fat' base I used unrefined coconut oil, which, at that time of year was a soft solid. I was feeling very grateful that I possibly had an alternative to lard. ick. I wanted to do wonderful things with this pomade and lard would have kept the idea on the shelf. The first evening I saved back about ten blossoms, that's not many. There is nothing about this out there in googleland so I let intuition gently take my hand and lead me to separating the petals from the pistil. The pistil itself still held fragrance, but I knew better than to let pollen grains collect in the oil and decompose. As soon as the next morning, there was fragrance in the coconut oil! O I was so thrilled! I repeated this enactment for 5 more 24 hour periods. I think on the third, I did actually use the whole flower without separating it. How else would I know? I thought maybe I detected a slight degradation in the quality and allowed intuition to lead me back to separating the flower parts again. On the last cycle, I forgot and left the petals in for an extra 24 hours, which was Not the thing to do. I quickly pulled out the petals and decided I should end it there, while I still had something nice. I didn't know how nice. But I would find out. From the start it was remarkable; just the tiniest portion, no bigger than my pinkie nail, had enough fragrance to scent my skin. I am a big Neroli fan so this was at the top of my pleasure scale. I only ended up with perhaps a tablespoon and a half...and this had to last me till next spring!?!? It would only come out for those exquisite moments in life, you know...the 2 or 3 you get a year. But one night I couldn't sleep and came downstairs for my usual banana-mush. (Have I mentioned that Intuition is one of my best friends?) She led me to the lemon blossom coconut butter pot in the fridge. I scooped out something a little bigger than a pencil eraser, let it warm and soften and mushed it in. 0 my 0 my 0 my 0 my 0 my 0 my. Here, creamy smooth and melting on my tongue was absolutely the most delicious, luxurious thing I had ever put in my month counting in all of my 52 years. My knees were weak. This is something too good for mere ointment. Only my mouth could do it justice. Since then I have parceled out a bit or two for toast with agave syrup.(Honey would be too strong smelling.) As it comes up to my face, I inhale and breathe in the scent of lemon blossom, softened with a hint of cream. But inside my mouth, the fragrance magnifies many times and I am smelling and tasting and swooning, and this is the moment of the year. 5/24/09 Acquired some Vetiver and Patchouli
plants and really looking forward to experiencing these as hydrosols...and
hope to offer them later this season.
5/23/09 I read somewhere that the Greeks or Romans declared May 23as Rosalina Day,but I can't find where I read that! 5/22/09 Just received a lovely box of goodies from distiller Jessica Ring in Oregon! For starters, it's fun seeing what plants other people from different regons of the world/country have to play with! I can definitely feel 'western energy' in my living room. She included several conifer tree hydrosols as well as essential oils and I was quite surprised at how sweet the Western Red Cedar can be... the perks of 'Fresh'! Her juniper oil is heavenly captured. My favorite is the quince hydrosol and my gears are turning as to how I could use some. Jessica has benevolently passed on a few of her perfume creations and it's fun to encounter what comes out of others' creative matrixs. I am really enjoying her Tomar! 5/21/09 Sweet ride; after a morning of collecting
honeysuckle, distilling yarrow, and pruning roses, I jumped on Peggy
for a 90 mile loop through the hills. It was fun picking out that
this curve had a higher proportion of rose or this low spot was straight-up
honeysuckle.( My dad was found of saying "the Rose nose knows") 5/17/09 And yes, it is true, I don't have running water where I live. I've been here going on ten years in this little dwelling place. My kids, Rose and Spruce, on their weekends here have always good naturedly taken their baths squatting in the tub, scooping out water from a five gallon bucket. I have come to passionately appreciate this bathing system, turning down many offers of showers at friends'. (I don't even get those offers any more). My 10 minute ritual has turned my bath from mindless to mindful. I like that. ( I wouldn't be surprised, when I do move to another home, when I need some comfort and grounding, to give myself a squat bath.) A garden hose and duct tape make distilling possible. 5/15/09 Every year Jay has the very minor whine of; "But we don't get to see our roses bloom...") 5/14/09 Doing two different batches of roses
today, back to back..luxuriousness at it's finest! (Roses don't just
open once a day, so sometimes I wander the garden and pick them now...
and later; Rose Water at it's very freshest, here!) Centifolia vs.
rugosa; the centifolia continues to be my shining star. I received
a sample of this absolute from Eden
Botanicals and never before have I experienced so much space between
each individual note in a drop . Blew me away!! This afternoon I plan
to double distill vanilla beans for a cologne in the works. Every
time I walk past the table where they lay waiting, in a plastic bag
no less, I smell them whispering to me. 5/13/09 What do I see!?!? On the lemon tree's new growth are tiny flower buds! She will bloom again this spring! 0 thank you, you dear sweet creature! 5/12/09 I see the multitude of multiflora rose faces peeping out from their foliage, looking for the honeysuckle to sing with. The honeysuckle is slow to come out this year. 5/8/09 Dashed across town this morning earlier than sometimes we are out of bed. Miraculously we have had 2 days of sun and we wanted to go harvest more rose petals before the 80% chance hits again today. A very sweet way to start our anniversary day. :) 5/7/09 Yes, (I get asked) Rose is my birth name. One of the grand coincidences (?) of my life! Visually, to my eye there is no more sumptuous blossom than the rose but she is not my favorite fragrance. (shhhh) Usually it's the lemon blossom. When my nose gets the rare frangipani whiff, then she is favorite. 5/5/09 Rain, Rain, go away! Go to N.C. or Fl where the folks are too dry. Cool rain for a solid week...the distiller's nightmare. 5/4/09 Exploring the idea of cologne...The Lemon Blossoms, coming out of the enfleurage, went into a jar of Everclear. They still had fragrance to extract! Now that alcohol has done it's job and actually smells Nice! Today it got combined with some of my double distilled L. B. hydrosol. Zowee! I'm wearing some now, what do you think!? Can't wait to try it with Rose... I need to start looking for cologne bottles so you can wear some too. OHhhhh...now ground that with vanilla..ummmm. 5/3/09 My nose found them a few days before my eyes did; growing in a tall bower above the mailboxes..the multi flora roses! 5/2/09 OKaaaaay! We have gotten enough rain now, thank you very much! Although this is made-to- order weather for transplanting the new rose, I imagine the lavenders could be getting grumpy by now. All over the garden the flowers are looking like unwrung mops. :( But Jay has very sweetly arranged vases of the new rose blossoms along the back of the kitchen sink. I couldn't resist picking a few to sprinkle on my already fragrant mango salad. 5/1/09 May is the month of fragrance. Honeysuckle will be here soon, especially after these nourishing rains. When the multi flora roses are having a good year and coincide with the honeysuckle, I want to squeeze out tears at what it means to ba alive in a physical body, on this planet, in May. The new rose I distilled yesterday seems to have more depth than my centifolia, not as sweet, a bit more spice.
4/30/09 Rose Rustlin'! Right off Gregg St in town,
something large, in full bloom and very fragrant! This morning Jay
and I raided this vacant lot rose and brought back roots to plant
and blooms that are in the still pot as I type. Looks like a rugosa.
4/24/09 I got to ride my bike up to Eureka Springs yesterday on a 'business trip'...delivering hydrosols. I am gone for one day and this morning the roses and lavender have fat buds all over them! 4/22/09 Today, Lily of the Valley (whom I first met in my Grandmother's garden in Charleston, W. V.) throws her ground hugging yet classic fragrance up to the breezes who then carry it over to me watering the lemon and the two of them swirl around my head. Heady! 4/20/09 The end of the lemon bloom saddens
me like the end of summer. But the first rose went into the pot today! 4/16/09 Sometimes when I walk through the garden I don't know for absolute certain which particular fragrant plant is at the moment singing...and I play along with this delicate mystery.
4/13/09 My jasmine harvest this morning...One bloom! Into the still pot, these babies can't be wasted. By the end of the summer maybe I'll have 5 ounces or so which will probably all go into the 'Luminous' I'm creating. Help is on the way; friend Jacquie from N.J. is sending me a couple of plants. Thank you! 4/10/09 I continue to play around with the lemon blossom enfleurage and it totally entrances me. So simple, so beautiful. Two ingredients and here is something that adds enchantment to food and skin (I will tell you it's sublime to use with Another body). I raised the bar and put in a third ingredient, cacao butter; so after my bath I walk around in a cloud of lemon blossom and chocolate. Transcendent! 4/6/09 Can't sleep; I just got out of bed,
followed my intuition into the kitchen and ate the most incredible
thing...my usual banana mush with a little, just a little bit of this
lemon blossom 'butter' and almost swooned. (OK, I am a big neroli
fan.) And I did come home with another lemon tree this afternoon.
:) Tomorrow I want to come home with some Lavender stoechas 3/28/09 I have finally gotten Cistus into my life. I love this scent so much I still have a bottle of oil that I bought over 20 years ago...it's empty of all but fragrance. Now I have two plants that I distilled and I love it more. Before I even pulled the plants out of their packing paper I could pick up on it's robust energy. For a few days, while it meshed with my energy field, I could feel it as a dominant vibration. Now that it is settled into the garden, I feel the whole 'garden energy' enlarged (as I do with each new plant) but this one remains a strong voice. A high energy entity; "Rock Rose is a powerful antiwrinkle treatment when misted on the face two times a day or compressed around the eye area...it seems to exhibit microcluster behavior in the way it plumps cells, smoothing fine lines." Catty SWEET! 3/24/09 As I peel the limes for a batch
my thoughts jump to..."this would be nice with vanilla"
and thusly a new harmonic comes into being. (now add a little cardamom)! 3/22/09 Scents floating on the breezes today...star
magnolia, sweet violet, narcissus, buffalo currant, hyacinth, wild
plum, winter honeysuckle, and viburnum. What a symphony! I can count
on the currant, each spring, to have it's full throated song greet
me every time I walk out the door. A robust, spicy clove. Most of
the others are shy and I have to introduce myself anew for each encounter.
3/20/09 I wait all year for this one...my
lemon tree, and her first blossom opened today. She
is more heavily laden with buds than I have ever seen her! 3/18/09The buffalo currant is blooming by the front step and throwing clove spice into the air. I want to distill this one too, but it would take too long to stand there and pick the tiny yellow jewels and I am reminded, (again), some things are meant to be enjoyed for just what they are. 3/10/09 I need to face reality and admitt I didn't
get witch hazel flowers distilled. I at least took the time and effort
to gather some but by the time I was ready for the still, they were
way past. The other half of me; colorist/painter/breadwinner! has
been dominant lately. Creating art is not That bad of a thing.
2/27/09 OK! It's there! Very low yield, which means by the time it's finished blooming I'll get a few ounces. But nice. 2/27/09 Ahhhh! Coming out of winter hibernation! Except I might have slept past the witch hazel flowers. Ouch. :( That will bother me for the whole year till next February! BUT on my doorstep the winter honeysuckle is blooming....will it carry over??? I'll find out after dinner tonight. If so, a new flower! These little sweeties waft of jasmine with a top note of lemon. Everybody, cross fingers.
"Humanity will be
saved through the flower"
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Even
though this is getting on into November, fragrance still calls from
corners of the yard. The warmth of the large doorstep stone has lulled
Sweet Violets to show their little faces while directly above them
the Winter Honeysuckle has just a few buds opening along the curving
stems. A few stalwart Lavenders have been blooming since mid summer
and seem to know not when to quit. The Ginger Lily has also been bravely
putting out flowers sporadically all along the fall season, especially
after rains. I cut it back today, frost is eminent, and a soft ginger
scent hung in the air.
Speaking
of communicating; just went and dug up my Prunus mume, to get her
back into a pot for the move. Want to overwinter her in the sheltered
'home' garden; kinda like a first-string pony. But I have been 'text
messaging' her for many weeks in advance to curl up her toes and be
prepared. If you don't know her, go google her. 
10/5/09
Finally getting Grapes onto my 'distilled' list. Concord Grapes...'heirloom'
grapes with all their fragrance intact. WITH seeds. Grape seed extract
has been getting a lot of press lately. As far as a skin tonifier, this
one is off the charts. I sprayed it on and over 2 hours later my face
is Still tingling, but not red! Maybe a bit much to use straight. But
blended with Cistus and Raspberry, I bet we have something alone in
its class. I bet. 
8/28/09
The end of summer gears back up after a lull from the heat.
Which is just what Tuberose has been waiting for to send up its torches.
8/14/09
We arrived home from wandering the United States Interstate System
for two weeks to catch the first fragrant exhale of the ginger lilies.
I had been looking forward a whole year for their breath. (Stepping
out of the car, the garden was lost from sight. Jay spent the next
day carving it back from the weeds. Here, again, are all my friends!)
And it's tuberose season! And the jasmine is still throwing out blossoms
so I can at last move on to my "Luminous", which has been
waiting in the wings for these 'end of summer whites'.
6/3/09
Lemon Velvet...sound like a dessert?
I am co-distilling lemon blossoms, roses and four cloves. 
