One of the practices that has kept me feeling true to myself and whole since art school has been to follow my heart and what brings joy. Great stories are one of those vibrating threads.

When I moved to NYC, I would bring a book with me while taking the subway from Brooklyn into Manhattan. Most of those books were either epic or mythic tales. I had been deeply inspired by that fabulous interview series from 1988 when mythologist and storyteller Joseph Campbell joined Bill Moyers to explore what enduring myths can tell us about our lives.

I began to see these great myths as mirrors and pathways to understanding myself, using those archetypes as touchstones. The Odyssey is one of those epic tales that can be understood as an archetypal hero’s journey.

In watching the latest cinematic interpretation of this story by Christopher Nolan recently, I was immediately inspired and began pondering the concept of one who journeys → Journeyers.

When I moved from LA to NY, I left what I knew to be tossed into a new way of navigating the world. In the process there is a loss of self, and challenging encounters with monsters, both real and imagined.

We experience loss, we forget, we remember, learn and we change. If we are fortunate, after that cocooning phase, we eventually find our way home. Home meaning different things to each of us: a place, a person, a landscape, a childhood memory. The concept of home might be much more mysterious, like a place inside ourselves that we recognize as true, an anchor point, such as our true north on a compass.

Penelope

Of course, Odysseus is the one who physically travels through the world, but Penelope has her own Odyssey as well. She waits while weaving and unweaving, keenly observing and listening. She receives information and must determine what is true and what is deception. Her journey is solitary, measured by the passing of time, rather than by miles across the sea.

We have been conditioned to give our attention and admire the one who leaves, conquers, accomplishes, discovers and returns with the prize.

Yet there is another kind of journey here, the journey of holding something sacred while everything around you is changing. And within that process is the journey of remembering.

Consider Penelope’s loom, she creates a tapestry during the day and unravels it at night, buying herself time. There is something profoundly archetypal and alchemical about this making, unmaking, and making again through Sun and Moon. As the hero goes outward into the ocean and uncharted territories, our heroine, Penelope, stays grounded, spiraling inward to find inner wisdom and stay anchored. Symbolically, Penelope is steering her own ship on the land by controlling what can be remembered, revealed, delayed and concealed in her textile work.

We create ourselves, then circumstances unravel us, we then gather the threads and weave another pattern. In the destruction a part of our self is lost, then something that was hidden suddenly becomes visible.

The invisible map

Scent provides us with a recognition that can feel mysterious. It is not a map in the ordinary sense; instead it gives us something much more. Have you ever smelled something and then suddenly been transported somewhere by a memory? I observe this often at the scent bar or in classes, when individuals suddenly recognize something they haven't consciously remembered in years. Some common threads include: a grandmother’s kitchen, the inside of an old house, a garden, a lover, a particular summer, the smell of rain on dry earth, pine trees, orange peel, an old book, etc.

We don’t decide to remember, the scent arrives and finds us, seeming to bypass the rational mind and go directly into the chambers of memory.

In the ancient world, this was understood, and hence the associations of scent with the mystical and sacred. Perfumed oils, resins, aromatic woods, flowers and incense were part of daily life as well as ritual. Fragrance could mark sacred space, accompany offerings, adorn the body and create an atmosphere for communicating with the invisible.

One particularly fascinating aspect of scent is that it cannot be seen or held. Despite this, the ghost-like molecules change the space around us, entering the body through the nose and immediately shifting our experience, like a doorway.

The Anchor, the Guardian and the Thread

In imaging embarking on the journey, I see three archetypes that resonate with the scent triangle of perfumery, base, middle/heart, and top/head notes, is a language that comes from music.

Abundance is a very complex perfume, including three chords and individuals essential oil. Below are just a few to illustrate the concept of anchor, guardian and thread.

The Anchor: our base notes, relating to being in the moment and feeling roots in the earth. A few of the anchoring notes in Abundance include:

• Vetiver (roots)

• Frankincense (resin)

• Benzoin (resin)

These scents bring us back into the body, remind us that underneath all of the movement, there is ground.

The Guardian provides courage to meet what comes. The word courage comes from the Latin root cor, meaning heart. It entered the English language around 1300 through Old French, where it originally described the heart as the seat of feelings, spirit and innermost thoughts. Heart/Middle notes in Abundance include:

• Pine, Fir & Spruce (conifer needles)

• Geranium (leaves)

• Cypress (needles)

The Thread is like the top notes, illuminating the path as we re-member ourselves into wholeness. Abundance contains top notes of:

• Citrus (rinds)

• Bay laurel (leaves)

• Juniper (leaves)

The Thread is a lantern light, the olfactory equivalent of Penelope’s weaving. It is the little strand that connects us to ourselves when everything seems dark and as if things are coming undone.

When the map disappears

It appears many of us are living through our own Odyssey right now. The maps we were provided with don’t always seem correct, both figuratively and literally.

Things and situations we thought were one way are upside down; what was once permanent reveals itself to be temporary. Directional signposts are unclear, revealing the destination is set, but the route is not. And in all the chaos, the most challenging part is admitting that we don’t know.

Ritual can help in entering the unknown by slowing us down long enough to listen and provide a sensory anchor. A ritual reminds us that although we cannot always control the sea, we do have the power to re-member who is steering.

There is something so simple about the act of anointing, placing a few drops of an oil into the palm of the hand. This small gesture brings us into the present. The here, the now, into the body, experiencing the air and the scent. The invisible becoming intimate.

Following the thread

Following one’s bliss by finding passion, purpose, and stepping outside our ordinary routines can help rediscover what makes us feel alive. In my personal experience, purpose isn’t something discovered by sitting still and figuring everything out.

We discover it by following the thread of aliveness: what makes us curious, makes us want to get up in the morning, what makes time disappear.

I’ve noticed these threads appear when gathering in a group, as if our hearts are creating a resonance. So much of our modern lives are inside routines, or in front of screens. Something special transpires when we journey, meet people out of our ordinary circle, hear music or experience new smells. Then, quite suddenly, we remember that there are other ways of being in the world, and feel the support of a collective heartbeat.

The Sensory World, Abundance, the Moon & Bees

While watching the Odyssey film, and for hours and days afterward, I contemplated what it might be like to create a scent ritual before embarking upon an Odyssey, a modern ritual inspired by the sensory world of the story.

I imagined clearing a small space for ritual, with a strong intention of entering a terrain where scent can move into personal mythology and empower our intentions.

One of the many lessons of the Odyssey is that the sea cannot be controlled and the gods cannot always be persuaded. Then I re-membered the anointing oil I recently completed, launching this Thursday under the light of the full Sturgeon Moon.

This brings me to my new Abundance Anointing Oil, a concept first conceived with the fragrance Sierra, and expanded upon last year with my collaborator Meghan. I don’t mean abundance in the conventional sense of accumulating more. I am much more interested in abundance as a living relationship with nature, the plants, each other, the unseen and the intelligence of the natural world.

The Abundance anointing oil is a thick forest bouquet of tree essences: needles, bark, resin and cone, featuring piñon, cistus and frankincense. When I smell it, I feel the trees, our greatest teachers of abundance, providing us with so much—from shelter and habitat to food and oxygen. They hold the earth in place with their deep roots, while living through the changing seasons. Trees point us to a different definition of abundance, one that features connection and capacity to receive, to give, to participate.

And then there are the honey bees. The hive is a living organism made up of many beings working in relationship. The individual bee is important, but it is not separate from the whole. They communicate through dance and vibration, each with their individual tasks yet working as a unified field.

I love resonance and what happens when we allow the hum of the bees to become something we feel rather than simply hear. What happens when we become quiet enough to notice the subtle vibrations around us?

This month we are gathering for the Abundance Sturgeon Full Moon Ceremony. The Sturgeon Moon carries its own ancient associations with abundance, survival and the rhythms of the natural world.

The sturgeon itself is an ancient creature, an animal that has been here for millions of years, moving through the waters while civilizations rise and fall around it. Reminding me of the wisdom of endurance. We have become so accustomed to speed, rather than following nature’s rhythm.

The seed, root, moon, migration, hive, heartbeat, seasons, river and the body are not meant to be hurried, like wild horses out of control pulling a speeding carriage.

Abundance offers an invitation to learn to live according to these deeper rhythms. At the ceremony, we will work with the resonance of the honey bees. Other people often can often co-create the container so that we can travel inward and hear our own true voice.

A ceremony can be about creating enough beauty and stillness so that you can hear your own voice.

Coming home

Odysseus eventually returns to Ithaca as a different man, changed by the journey and the landscape. Returning home is about carrying enough of ourselves forward so that we can create home wherever we are.

Scent is a beautiful companion for that journey since it can travel with us. A tiny bottle containing aromatics from lands across our realm. With one drop on the wrist, it can lift us out of the depths of despair and return us to something we remember as home.

A fragrance has the ability to become a healthy boundary, a ritual, an invisibility cloak to accompany us through the visible world. You can leave home, cross an ocean or enter a new chapter wearing it, and although a scent won’t change the world*1, it may change the way you enter into it.

The next journey

In a related essay over at Illuminated Perfume, I will to take this journey into what the Odyssey might smell like. Where this essay asks what scent can do for a Journeyer, the next one asks what the Odyssey itself smells like.

Related LINKS →

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth

The Vocabulary of Scent

Abundance Event

Abundance Anointing Oil

For those interested in attending an immersion into distilling with perfume making, my colleague Cathy Skipper, is offering an wonderful workshop titled Spirit of the Still 2026 Retreat. We are also bringing back Fragrance of the Ancestors, a two day workshop at the perfumery in Santa Fe, NM.

As a teen, during the summer, I was a junior lifeguard at Zuma Beach with my best friend Angela. Each day, upon arriving, we would have specific drills, like running and swimming out to the buoy and back a few times. We learned how to understand the ocean, stay safe in it, work as a team and develop confidence through challenging outdoor activities. One skill set was learning to identify rip currents and how to escape them. Fighting them was exhausting; the way out required understanding the invisible forces beneath the surface.

Often, when I begin writing a story, I recognize spiraling patterns that had previously remained hidden. Many of these tangents take me into the underground of unfamiliar territories. One recent thread has been light and lighthouses.

In an eclectic group of misfits and visionaries that gather twice a week to explore architecture and unravel history through alternative lenses, we often discuss lighthouses. Recently, one member shared an extraordinary family history, which took us into deeper waters of exploration.

A few days ago, while reminiscing about childhood travels to Buenos Aires, I became nostalgic for the beautiful, striking mix of historic French-style aristocratic mansions, green open spaces and old world architectural landmarks. It is quite a contrast to where I have currently made my home in mud-flooded New Mexico. I recalled a specific marble fountain when driving to and from my grandmother’s fabulous apartment in the 70’s. She lived on Avenida del Libertador, one of the city’s most important and prestigious grand thoroughfares, stretching roughly 25 to 35 kilometers from the Retiro district north into the northern suburbs.

My memories of her home are filled with family gatherings around her grand dining room table. A simple breakfast often featured medialunas, while her extravagant family luncheons included homemade pasta among the many entrées.

Rather auspiciously, during my digging to locate the fountain, I came across the Palacio Barolo building in downtown Buenos Aires. This architectural wonder is something I’ve often marveled at and referred to in another essay linked below titled Cartographies of Lost Knowledge. This time, I came across a new detail that I found absolutely thrilling. There is a lighthouse at the top of the building, and it ranks the fifth tallest in the world! I also learned that the building has a twin, supposedly created by the same architect across the Rio de la Plata in Montevideo, Uruguay, called Palacio Salvo, which also contains a lighthouse.

The Palacio Barolo was inspired by the cosmology of Dante’s Divine Comedy, motivated by the architect’s admiration for Alighieri. There are 22 floors, divided into three “sections”. The basement and ground floor represent hell, floors 1-14 are purgatory, and 15-22 represent heaven. The building is 100 meters (330 feet) tall, one meter for each canto of the Divine Comedy. The lighthouse at the top of the building can be seen all the way in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The grand-level floor (lobby) of the Palacio Barolo represents Hell in the building's allegorical tribute to Dante’s Divine Comedy. The space features a central octagonal dome surrounded by nine vaulted archways that represent the nine circles of the Inferno.

Looking back, I recognize that lighthouses had appeared long before I consciously understood why they fascinated me. They had surfaced repeatedly in architecture that captivated me, in my illustrations and eventually in the philosophy behind my perfume work. In all of this exploring, the symbol was seeking me out.

My first profession was as a freelance editorial illustrator. I worked conceptually and used quite a bit of anamorphic imagery. I often transformed humans into other images, such as flowers or lighthouses, like one of the cards in the Four Agreements Deck by Don Miguel Ruiz. Under the umbrella of the Third Agreement, "Don't Make Assumptions," this specific card emphasizes that the antidote to assumption is active inquiry. By transforming the human mind into a beacon of light (the lighthouse), it visually prompts you to "Communicate with Clarity" rather than filling in the blanks with mental fog, preventing unnecessary misunderstandings.

In hindsight, I see a theme of light weaving seamlessly across my life, professional transitions and the specific mechanics of mindfulness. I named my perfume house, Illuminated Perfume, to express an intention: to shift consciousness and illuminate a greater awareness of oneself and the realm in which we dwell.

The term “Illuminated” is a nod to 15th-century illuminated manuscripts, where sacred texts were hand-painted with gold leaf and vibrant colors to make the divine words literally glow off the page. By transitioning from visual illustration to botanical perfumery, I began using raw plant matter to “illuminate” the senses, creating a bridge between physical aroma and higher spiritual awareness.

In the anamorphic lighthouse image, the transformed head contains a light beam directly where the human mind resides, visually mapping the concept of the Third Eye and Crown energy centers.

In The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz often describes the human mind trapped in assumptions as a mitote: a dense, chaotic fog where no one can see clearly.

The red and white structure of the lighthouse stands firm in a pale, cold blue fog. It serves as a visual reminder that clarity requires structure, boundaries and intentional action.

The act of authentic, clear communication is what sends out the beacon. When we stop assuming and begin communicating clearly, we act as our own lighthouse, cutting through the mental projections of both ourselves and others.

In my current artistic expression with aromatics, I treat scent as a form of volatile light. Plants capture actual sunlight through photosynthesis and store it as chemical energy and essential oils. My work with plants unlocks that trapped light to activate human memory, ground the spirit and expand awareness. This is the same gesture as the lighthouse card, just translated from the canvas into a bottle.

Further exploring →

Towers (this has been kept secret for too long) with Jon Levi

Traci Derwin also did a deep dive on the topic in this video.

Cartographies of Lost Knowledge here at Wandering the Wonderland

The Palacio Barolo webpage

Today’s inspiration is from the legendary design editor Robert Rufino. Early in his career, he designed windows for iconic New York institutions, from Henri Bendel to Tiffany & Co., a pioneer of the evocative display style known as “street theater.”

In the '80s, when I lived in NYC, store windows were one of my favorite art forms, and very accessible since I would do so much walking. I was in my twenties, working as a freelance illustrator and living on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights.

It was Marilyn Neuhart, my first husband's mother, who awoke a sense of design beyond the fashion component learned with my mom. Marilyn possessed an impeccable grace with design, whether it was her home, making a quilt, decorating a table for a meal or assembling images on a board, just to name a few.

She could set a table where every object seemed to belong to the next, or pin together a collection of images that felt inevitable. Marilyn embodied what appeared as an effortless attentiveness to orchestrating harmony that went beyond the veneers we witness today via social media.

Beauty had a calming influence on the way I moved through the day. And so, inch by inch, I observed not only Marilyn, but others as well.

I began to notice that well-curated environments brought me more happiness and put my consciousness at ease. There was an understanding that life itself was worthy of beauty, worthy of attention. Fashioning yourself into that story, as the lead character, was deeply participatory.

In hindsight, I realize that creating harmony in my spaces was a way of romanticizing my life, a quiet rebellion against the chaos. In the mindfulness of noticing details and patterns we elevate the ordinary. Each simple choice becomes an opportunity to consider life more deeply—to curate it with intention and create sanctuary.

Discovering Robert Ruffino, via this mini documentary linked below, I recognize an affinity between Robert and Marilyn that has certainly impacted me profoundly. If you’ve visited one of my perfumeries, this may be evident. I jokingly refer to it as OCB: Obsessive Compulsive Beauty.

Beauty is more than decoration, it is a form of attention with a silent geometry to it, expressed through proportion, rhythm, relationship and pattern. My work with natural botanical perfume is essentially invisible design. I arrange aromatic materials the way Robert arranged windows or Marilyn arranged a table. Each is an act of composition.

When I arrived in Santa Fe in 2017, my plan was to buy a home, instead, life asked me to cultivate patience. Nearly a decade later, I closed on a house today. The feeling leans toward being entrusted with a precious canvas. I look forward to shaping it with meticulous care, as I've shaped so many other spaces throughout my life.

Beauty is the pattern of attention we bring to our lives.

Happy Solstice to those in the northern hemisphere. Yesterday I burned some white sage leaves in an abalone shell at the perfumery, once it got going I set it down to infuse the space. Later when I came back into the room, I smelled roasting meat, then realized it was the sage.

A few nights ago, I reached into the kitchen cupboard for spices to brew up a cup of chai. While pondering which jars to gather, a scent thread wafted my way. Immediately I felt a warm cozy feeling, and thought, is that vanilla? No, it was thyme. I closed my eyes and tuned into the scent. Once more, I picked up on distinct balsamic notes. “Interesting!” I proclaimed out loud. The thinking mind would never put thyme and vanilla together, whereas sage and meat are an obvious partnership.

We often forget, due to the chattering mind, that the nose knows—although sometimes it will take us on wild rides before grounding us back into our body. This is why I encourage students to smell blindly, not actually “knowing” what an aromatic is. This way the mind doesn’t get involved and we can access other realms of knowing.

Thyme and vanilla share several key volatile aroma molecules, bridging herbaceous notes with sweet, spicy nuances. The chemical crossover is what my nose picked up on.

Scent is invisible, yet the aromatic molecules waft into our spaces and vibrate the tiny olfactory threads in our noses, like plucking a harp. This sensory process, where receptors in the nasal cavity catch airborne odors, reminds me of an antenna.

Those two aromatic moments at the perfumery and in the kitchen opened onto a horizon much larger in scale. In both insects and mammals, the olfactory system operates like a biological antenna, scanning the environment for invisible signals (airborne molecules) and translating them into electrical impulses the brain can understand.

Insects, like the honey bee, use physical antennae packed with sensory hairs (sensilla) to catch odorants. In mammals, the equivalent “receiver” is the olfactory epithelium deep within the nasal cavity. Both are tuned to capture incredibly faint molecular signals. Much like a radio antenna converts electromagnetic waves into electrical signals, olfactory sensory neurons convert chemical signatures (odorants) into electrical action potentials.

Another way I sometimes imagine this is that aromas behave like rhythmic pulses of data. There is also a more speculative idea suggesting that receptors “listen” to the specific vibrational qualities within molecules rather than just their shape.

The captured signals are then beamed to the brain’s primary relay stations, called the antennal lobe in insects or the olfactory bulb in mammals. These regions filter static, amplify weak signals, and identify patterns before passing the data to higher cognitive centers. In my mind’s eye, I saw a correlation between old-world architecture that used mercury-filled spires as antennas to harvest and draw in atmospheric energy, the “aether.”

Airborne volatile molecules act as a kind of biological “aether”, an invisible, information highway. Humans and bees possess highly sensitive biological systems designed to register these subtle traces, translating them into neural maps of meaning and memory.

The internal nasal architecture of a human functions like an inverted, hidden antenna array. When we breathe, air is drawn upward into a specialized recess at the top of the nasal cavity. This area houses the olfactory epithelium, a localized patch of tissue that behaves like a biological sensor field.

What I described as a signal and antenna is, in practice, is memory. Many experiences lie dormant for years, only to reappear when a familiar scent knocks on a forgotten door.

Nineteen years ago, under a canopy of oaks, I launched Illuminated Perfume with the emblem of the honey bee, and an intention to bring light to the lost art of plant fragrance.

In that stretch of time, resembling more a spiral than a line, I’ve deepened my relationship with the plants, landscapes and storytelling. Like the molecules of thyme, resonating my olfactory receptors, the story of that little bottle of juniper essential oil at the sweat lodge so many years ago, spiraled back while I was at the Galisteo Basin last weekend. It’s as if I have a juniper plant tattooed on my arm, and while in Galisteo it became visible again, calling up a memory through a scent, spiraling back through time.

Earlier this week I shared a Field Notes post about that visit to the Galisteo Basin and gathering juniper berries. The essay explores observations about scent and landscape. If you’d like to follow that scent thread, you can read it here.

Those nineteen years are a labyrinth woven of scent and memory, each return carries the same origin story, but at a different scale of awareness. With each turn of the wheel, I continue the dance with the invisible aromatics that first called me onto this fragrant path.

Wafting gratitude to Sandy Messori of Rivendell Aromatics, whose invitation to the Lavender Festival helped set so much in motion. Her encouragement inspired me to gather my aromatic creations, become a presenter, and share my work with the wider community. Nineteen years later, I remain grateful for that fateful invitation.

I was about to post a few photographs from my upstairs perfume laboratory with the words: “Wafting love, beauty, harmony, bees and bunnies from my upstairs lab at the perfumery” to my instagram feed….and then, Venus entered the room with a whisper and a scented kiss.

The energetic transmission led me to wonder about the old cults devoted to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty, fertility, gardens and flourishing life.

Out of curiosity, I typed the words Beauty Cult into a search engine expecting to find the foot steps of Venus. What proliferated instead, were museum shows and cultural criticism examining society’s obsession with physical appearance. I realized that in this dualistic reality where we dwell, we have two very different ideas of beauty, the first is ancient, and the second is modern.

The ancient cult of beauty was understood as a force of nature: composed of both the material and invisible realms, such as a flowering rose, a songbird, a fragrant blossom, the curve of a shell, a ripening orchard, the face of a beloved, a dance, a poem, a scented offering rising from an altar, etc.

Beauty was affiliated with the feeling of harmony. If you've participated in one of my classes or visited the perfumery, you've likely heard me mention that the word to feel is closely related to the word to smell in several Romance languages. Fragrance bypasses the analytical mind and speaks directly to memory, emotion and intuition. When we truly feel, we move beyond the thinking mind that is often trying to direct us elsewhere.

The Greeks associated beauty with kalos, a quality that united goodness, order, proportion and grace. The Romans dedicated temples to Venus, while in Egypt we find Hathor, goddess of beauty, music, joy, fertility and harmony, whose great temple at Dendera still stands as one of the most beautiful sacred sites of the ancient world.

Perfume belonged naturally to this ancient world. Consider the root of the word perfume: per fumum, meaning through smoke. Early perfumes were offerings to the Divine, often the Gods and Goddesses who dwell above, and thus the smoke carried our offerings upwards to them.

Fragrance is invisible, we cannot hold it in our hands, yet it moves us by altering our mood and transforming a space. At the scent bar I have observed that memory is awakened by scent. Perfume is a re-minder that some of the most beautiful things in life cannot be seen.

The fragrant resins of trees, the blossoms gathered at dawn and the sacred oils prepared by hand, were vessels of beauty and devotion, presented as offerings.

To create perfume was (and still is in small circles) to participate in the artistry of nature itself. Where, by contrast, the modern cult of beauty often operates through dissatisfaction. The message is subtle yet relentless: improve, correct, optimize yourself and purchase your way toward acceptability. Beauty ends up becoming a moving target, dictated by corporations. The industries surrounding beauty depend upon the feeling that something is lacking, while perfection remains perpetually just out of reach

Yet nature teaches something entirely different, for example a wild rose does not compare itself to another rose. A rabbit does not wonder whether it is sufficiently beautiful. The bees visiting my garden, are participating in a living pattern of relationship, pollination, abundance and mutual flourishing. The rose, the rabbit and the bees are living in the present moment.

Digging deeper, the little forage bees in a garden are part of a collective of females, all working together with a Queen at the helm. Perhaps this is why natural perfumery remains so dear to my heart and continues to captivate me after all these years.

Toward the end of this month will mark nineteen years since the “official” launch of Illuminated Perfume at the Ojai Lavender Festival. Working with botanical materials re-minds me that beauty emerges, unfolding petal by petal, revealing itself through relationship and attention.

Heady white jasmine blooming at dusk, resin slowly releasing its hidden fragrance through smoke, the intricate sacred geometry of a flower, and oh, the patient labor of bees. All of these are expressions of beauty that ask nothing of us except being in their presence.

The true cult of beauty, is a devotion to being alive and in appreciation for harmony, recognizing that beauty is something we each participate in.

From my upstairs laboratory, where I am surrounded by glass jars of fragrant botanicals and inspirational images, Venus is present every day. By Venus I mean the ephemeral one who walks through gardens, accompanied by doves and her honey bees. She is the one who reminds us that beauty is a vital force, intricately woven with nature through fragrance, creativity, love and most often with our own hands. And that is a cult I am happy to belong to.

More than two centuries ago, John Keats expressed this understanding of beauty far more eloquently than I ever could.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Endymion by John Keats, A Poetic Romance BOOK I

I threw my great-grandmother’s silver napkin ring into a fire beneath a full moon. What followed was a story about a house I didn't get, an heirloom I reclaimed and the women in my lineage who have been invisibly guiding me all along.

Last summer, in the second half of August, I was still feeling somewhat untethered after returning from Los Angeles, where I had helped empty my childhood home and prepare it for sale. The experience had left me floating between worlds, one chapter closing and an uncertainty of what would come next.

One afternoon on the phone, my daughter asked, “Mom, have you started looking for a house?”

“No, not really,” I replied.

Then, almost as if by magick, the next morning I spotted a house on Zillow that immediately pulled at my heart. Up until that moment, nothing within my price range had sparked any interest, this one was different. I contacted Zillow and was connected with a local agent. The next day I toured the house and made an offer immediately.

The selling agent happened to know mutual acquaintances in Santa Fe and reminded me of a witch who had once helped a friend sell his home in Northern California. For months I had considered reaching out to him, and suddenly the timing felt right.

We met at the perfumery, where he generously shared instructions for a spell intended to help me obtain the house. A few days later, I received an invitation to a Moon Ceremony. Participants would create what was called a “witch’s ladder” from yarn with the addition of small trinkets. The ceremony took place beneath a new moon, a time associated with planting seeds and setting intentions. It felt perfectly aligned with my desire to manifest this home.

We were instructed to bring an object of significance. As I considered what to bring, my eyes landed on a silver napkin ring that may have belonged to my great-grandmother Rosa Groppo, or her daughter Ani.

Of course, the choice felt obvious! The ring represented my maternal line, carrying history and surviving generations. I imagined it lending strength to my intention and helping turn the tides toward obtaining the house.

The next day I learned that the house had gone under contract with someone else, and my offer had been placed in a secondary, backup position. While patiently waiting, I created an altar with the small framed photographs of women from my maternal lineage, the spell pouch, the witches ladder from the ceremony with the napkin ring, a paper with my intention and a printout of the house.

An anticipated second invitation arrived, for part two of the Moon spell, where we would gather, this time beneath the light of the full moon. We were instructed to return with our witch’s ladder.

Following a long day of work, I prepared a dish for the shared feast, got dressed and carefully lifted the necklace from my altar.

After food and conversation, we moved outdoors into the moonlight. One by one, with participants entering the circle.

The mountain air was crisp and smelled of late Summer mingled with earth and smoke, while the moon illuminated the gathering with its silvery glow. We were instructed that when our turn came, we would state our intention and cast our witch’s ladder into the fire. The remains would later be buried.

Ugh, my stomach dropped, I breathed deep. As the participants before me spoke their intentions and tossed their creations into the flames, I frantically tried to remove the napkin ring from the yarn. My fingers worked quickly, the knot would not release. Again I tried, nothing. As my turn approached, panic rose in my chest. Finally, believing I had no choice, I threw the necklace, and my great-grandmother’s ring, into the fire.

I remember justifying the action with the thought that perhaps I needed to let it go. A few days later, however, something deep within was festering. The ring was an heirloom I had found amongst my mothers belongings, no one had explained beforehand that our chosen objects would be sacrificed.

I picked up the phone and called the facilitator, explaining that I wanted the napkin ring returned. What followed was a lecture about how retrieving the object would break the spell. I listened, then I checked in with myself. The more I empowered my inward listening, the clearer I became.

“No,” I explained. “I don’t believe retrieving it will break the spell. Participants were never informed that these objects would be permanently surrendered.” Eventually I was told the object would be dug up and placed on an altar until I could retrieve it. The experience reminded me that while teachers, healers and facilitators may offer guidance, there are moments when our deepest responsibility is to listen to our inner knowing.

At the time, I was worried that reclaiming the ring might indeed interfere with the spell, and reminded of how the word FEAR stands for: False Expectations Appearing Real). Looking back, from a higher perspective, I wonder if retrieving it was the actual spell.

The house was ultimately sold to someone else. Friends reassured me that although it seemed perfect, it simply wasn’t meant to be. The perfect home would appear when the time was right, it was looking for me just as I was looking for it.

In the clearing of this unraveling tale, is that the object holding the memory of my maternal lineage was returned to me, opening a different doorway.

When the disappointment dissipated, I found myself turning toward a tangent. I began diving more deeply into ancestral work with my friend and colleague Cathy Skipper.

In researching my maternal lineage, I reached out to my cousin Gaby in Argentina. As children, Gaby and I had been like two peas in a pod—sensitive, artistic and imaginative. Soon we developed a ritual of speaking every Monday, she in Buenos Aires and I in Santa Fe.

One weekend, while attending a concert at the Scottish Rite Temple, as I gazed down from the mezzanine, the thought of perfume and music sharing a common language wafted in. Both are composed by an individual, both unfold through time and both create emotional landscapes.

During my next conversation with Gaby, I asked whether she remembered any musical traditions connected to our maternal ancestors. She told me about a relative who had come to Buenos Aires from Italy to play violin at the Colón Theatre.

I then asked her about scent, what fragrances do you recall from your lineage? Gaby’s answers came immediately, her grandmother had grown a jasmine vine in her garden. That conversation inspired a simple perfume composition centered around jasmine—a fragrant thread connecting memory, place and lineage.

When I later shared the story with Cathy, it became one of the foundational inspirations for a workshop we had began developing together.

The deeper I traveled into ancestral research, the more I started noticing patterns.

• Stories

• Objects

• Flowers

• Music

• Scents

All of them were functioning like portals.

As the workshop continued to take shape, another thought surfaced. It was time to retrieve my great-grandmother’s napkin ring! Once I finally had it back in my possession, another layer of symbolism revealed itself.

The ring was circular, like the full moon. It was silver, the metal traditionally associated with lunar energy. And perhaps most importantly, it had belonged to one of the women whose story I was unraveling.

Following Cathy’s suggestion, I performed a ritual cleansing. I offered prayers, sang songs and passed the ring through the smoke of California sage. Then I placed it in a vintage silver cup filled with sea salt and set it atop a piece of shungite gifted by a friend. Nearby, I arranged Rosa’s old postcards and placed them next to the silver cup.

While sitting with these objects, the roses outside of the perfumery were starting their bloom cycle. I remembered that the deconstructed rose fragrance I had created in her honor had sold out and was due to return. Once again I am immersed in re-building the intricate chords that form the main structure of Rosa.

The ring remained in the salt through an entire lunar cycle. When the next full moon arrived, I removed it from the cup, gathered Rosa’s postcards into my hands and held them against my heart. That evening, I placed the ring beneath the light of the moon.

In the process of transcribing this tale, I no longer believe that obtaining the house was the true prayer working beneath the surface. What has arrived in its place, is a deeper relationship with the women whose blood, stories and memories flow through and in me. A small silver circle, used during meals, that passed through generations, found its way back into my hands. Along with its voyage, new questions, new fragrances and a new body of work have emerged.

I’ve come to see that each lineage contains hidden treasures: stories, songs, recipes, gardens, flowers, objects and scents waiting to be remembered. Sometimes all it takes is a single thread vibrating in the field to begin unraveling the tapestry.

The workshop that emerged from this journey is an invitation into that same process → listening for the stories hidden within our ancestry, discovering the scents that carry memories and creating perfume as a bridge between past and present.

The napkin ring currently hangs from one of my mother’s silver necklaces that I’ve been wearing regularly and rests near my heart. In hindsight, I am aware that the house was never the point, its the women, the lineage and their stories.

Standing on this plateau, I wonder whether the house simply served as the thread that led me in a different direction. Had the offer on that house last August been accepted, I might have spent the year renovating, purchasing and arranging furniture and settling into a new address. Instead, my attention was drawn toward something much older, a silver napkin ring disguised as a key. I believed I was seeking a physical home, instead I found lineage.

We each have a different journey, for me, the ancestral work was entwined with an object. Perhaps your path will begin with a scent, a photograph or a story that teases loose a single thread. Follow it long enough and you may discover an entire tapestry waiting to be re-membered.

The ring passed through fire, water, earth, salt and moonlight before returning to my hands. As I approach another solar return, I suspect I’ve traveled a similar path. A desire for a house became an initiation into memory, intuition and ancestry.

Like the moon, revealing itself in phases, the deeper purpose of the experience only became visible over time.

That realization became one of the seeds for Fragrance of the Ancestors, a two-day workshop that Cathy Skipper and I will be leading later this month at my studio in Santa Fe, NM. Together we’ll explore how scent can help us access memory, deepen our relationship with our ancestors and create a meaningful perfume rooted in personal lineage.

If you’ve ever wondered what stories, flowers, places or fragrances are waiting to be rediscovered within your own family tree, we invite you to join us.

Certain sectors of a population have more sensitivity than others, for example, visual artists are often able to perceive subtleties in color, texture and patterns, like the quality of light.

As a highly sensitive child, living in a dystopian family, art became a solace, a secret place to self soothe and find comfort in distress. During art school I learned foundational skills involving shape language, lighting, color theory, arranging elements, managing space, visual flow and most importantly “how to see.”

Fast forward, fifteen years later, as an initiate with a shaman, she had us pausing to notice and acknowledge tiny details normally invisible. Each moment, each breath, the gap between the inhale and exhale, that instant just before you set your foot down to take a step, the vivid color of the flower we passed on our way to the front door of her loft in downtown LA.

To live with intention, in the present moment means to be engaged with the senses, to fully inhabit the body. How does what I smell, touch, or taste make me feel?

Life, with its abundance of chaos and transitions can easily take us out of the body, spinning off into the elaborate stories of the mind. Modern life pulls and tugs us into abstraction with screens, speed, consumption and mental noise. The realm of synthetic fragrance mirrors this disconnection.

Consider how in the not so distant past, milk produced from local cows was bottled in glass and delivered to the front porch of peoples homes.

More intimately, connected to my work, perfume emerged from ritual, medicine, prayer and a familiarity with plants. Modern fragrance culture, like the conglomerate, grocery store, has trained us to consume scent rather than truly relate to it, and use aroma with intention.

Some of the scent tendrils I experienced the last couple days include warm pinon and balsam fir resin on my fingertips, bruised rose petals on the ground in front of the perfumery door and the petrichor rising from the damp earth after recent rain.

Fragrance made from living botanicals can quiet the analytical mind and return us to the body and softening the nervous system. When we inhale the tiny, invisible molecules of plants, time is collapsed as we enter into an embodied sensory awakening with nature.

For me, perfume goes beyond adornment, entering inhabitation, a return to the body, to attention and an intimacy with the senses.

Witness the transformative power waiting just beyond the veil of ordinary perception by becoming rooted in the living world. If you feel called to deepen your relationship with scent, plants and embodied creativity, I invite you into these offerings, each designed to awaken intimacy with the sensory world and re-member how to listen through the senses.

• Discovery set of plant fragrance

• Custom perfume experience for yourself or group

• Alchemical incense making

• Ancestral Perfume, Two Day Workshop

Like an animated gif looping through time, I saw myself walking a winding path, stopping occasionally to look back at the gently trodden tracks behind me. The routes have rarely been conventional, more often I have followed the compass of the heart, feeling a path before it fully existed.

This essay is published in collaboration with the companion piece, A Secret in the Forest, over at Illuminated Perfume.

PART I: Re-membering the Forest

The world we inhabit today is quite different from that of our ancestors. Across cultures and continents, the past feels strangely hollowed out, as though something essential has been removed. Ancient landscapes, once dense with trees, mystical language and ritual, have been stripped down to fragments. Remnants remain in the form of standing stones in fields, half-buried towers, forgotten alphabets, and myths.

Ireland is often cited as one such place of loss and memory. Once described as a forest culture, it is now among the least wooded lands in Europe, with only traces of its native trees remaining. Long before modern agriculture and industry, the land was covered in dense forests of oak, yew, birch and ash. Trees were the spiritual imagination of the people. The oak in particular was revered, with its image woven into architecture, governance and sacred practice. When the forests fell, permanently altering the ecology, a way of perceiving and being in the world fell with them.

Many ancient traditions understood trees as vertical bridges between earth and sky, drawing energy upward through roots and soil while reaching upwards toward the light and plasma. In this worldview, trees were understood as living intermediaries between the earthly and celestial realms…, subtle transmitters of atmosphere (atmos sphere), chemistry, rhythm and presence. To walk among them was to enter a different state of mind. Even today, people instinctively report a sense of calm, clarity, and expanded awareness beneath towering redwoods or ancient yews.

Language itself was once entwined with this living forest. Early Irish script, known as the Ogham, was structured around trees and plant spirits, and said to be a secret ritualistic language. Each letter corresponded to a specific tree, color, sound and quality of being.

To speak or inscribe them was to engage with the natural world as a living intelligence. The title of this post “knock on wood” is a phrase that may have been derived from the Celtic peoples belief that trees have the power to heal humans.

Over centuries of upheaval: deforestation, cultural suppression and the reshaping of language, much of this intimacy was lost. Forests were cleared, alphabets expanded and shifted. Sounds became less musical, and more rigid. As the world shifted what remained were standing stones, ruined abbeys, hidden tunnels and myths hinting at an earlier harmony between land, language and consciousness.

The seed pods of Sierra were planted in the loamy soil among the great redwood trees of the Pacific coast. Like these tall, elder, awe-inducing beings, Sierra seeks to translate that experience into a ritual symphony of scent.

The giant redwoods still embody a palpable awe-inducing stillness that seems to slow human thought. Their vertical majesty invites awe, deep breaths, patience and perspective. Although these ancient dwellers do not speak in words, they communicate nonetheless.

In Sierra, woody, resinous, and coniferous notes echo this ancient dialogue. The fragrance evokes the feeling of standing tall amongst them. Like the old tree-based alphabets and forgotten spells, the perfume works through frequency and association.

Scent, like music, bypasses language. The invisible molecules move directly into the body, gently nudging memory, and expanding imagination. Sierra acts as a bridge to re-connection, a pathway to step back into a world where exhalations of the trees were our teachers and where the forest itself participated in shaping human consciousness.

Sierra is an offering to that lost conversation. A re-minder that magic awaits, rooted deep beneath the surface, for us to slow down enough to sense it again.

PART II: Sign Posts Along the Path

The formulation of Sierra evolved gradually. Looking back, I can now see a series of sign posts scattered along the path—moments of initiation, memory, scent and awakening that slowly braided themselves into the fragrance. Though time appears linear on paper, the experience itself has felt more spiral-like.

→ 1978 The Giving Tree

Even then, trees already occupied the symbolic landscape of my imagination.

As a freshman in high school, I was encouraged to join SPEECH club, probably due to my quiet and shy temperament. Of the three options: Drama, Debate & Storytelling, the latter felt the least intimidating. The children’s book I choose to memorize was The Giving Tree, about a boy and a tree.

→ 1992 Essential Oils & Rebirth Work

While pregnant, my sense of smell reached epic proportions. I had already become mindful about the use of synthetic perfume due to asthma. A friend suggested I use essential oil of orange peel to help with morning sickness and while giving birth.

During this time I also began exploring conscious breath work, known as Rebirthing by Leonard Orr in 1975. Leonard was one of the pioneers of this circular breathing technique which was advocated for unlocking the effects of traumatic events, including birth trauma. A friend had mentioned that it could be useful since I was intent on birthing my child outside of the traditional western medical model.

→ 1996 Divorce, rebirth & juniper

After attending a large group rebirthing session, I was invited to a sweat lodge at the home of Lynn Creighton. The long room, normally her sculpture studio, had been set up in the center with women sitting around its oval edges. As Lynn began calling in the directions, a tingle of remembrance pulsed through my body. Once this initial phase of the ceremony had ended, a friend placed three little amber bottles in the center of the circle and encouraged us to smell and anoint ourselves. I curiously picked up a bottle, closed my eyes and inhaled.

In that moment of inhalation, the world around me disappeared, with an alternative realm of perception made visible out of the mists. This awakening likely lasted for seconds outside the constraints of time. In that moment, I became one with the tall redwoods in Northern California. My roots sank deep into the earth, while my limbs reached high into the heavens. I felt deeply connected to a vast family. Somewhere deep within stirred a recognition that exceeded any prior experience, including mushroom trips as a teen in the high Sierras. I had a sensation of an ancient cosmic force, sending a message of unity that immediately provided comfort and strength during a time of chaos.

Upon opening my eyes, I said to my friend, “What is in this bottle?!” She answered, “Cedarwood1 essential oil.” In that inciting incident, between worlds, I was put on the path of professional aromatherapy.

During those early studies of aromatic medicine, I created a bath salt titled Forest. Due to customer demand, I modified the original blueprint of Forest to create a liquid perfume that would become Sierra.

Auspiciously at around the same time of being introduced to essential oils and aromatherapy, I became conscious of working with magic shortly after making my own hoop drum and participating in drumming circles. In tandem, I began learning the properties of essential oils while peeling away some of the veils to conscious living and working with magic.

The first perfume I created utilizing many of the techniques learned was with the formulation of “Q”, the oak perfume. Intention and mindfulness were, and are still woven whenever a chord, tincture, infusion or perfume are crafted. Weaving magic has many deep layers and a few of the perfumes contain more magical fibers than others.

Sierra solid perfume was created utilizing numerous magical techniques with the intention of prosperity by employing essential oils and plants with both ancient and modern affiliations to the concept of abundance on all levels. This research was conducted using physical books in my library.

→ 2007 Ojai Lavender Festival

What began as a deeply personal and spiritual experience slowly evolved into tangible form. Over time, Forest transformed into Sierra — first as a liquid perfume, and later as a solid perfume infused with ritual intention. Sierra was debuted at the Ojai Lavender Festival on Saturday, June 16th, 2007, along with Aurora, Lyra, Q, Chaparral and Vera.

→ 2008 Sniffapalooza

At the NYC Sniffapalooza2 Fall Ball I debuted Sierra Solid, the first fragrance in the new solid perfume line. I had been invited to be a guest presenter at the Saturday morning brunch held at Bergdorf Goodman on October 26, 2008.

→ 2008 First Press

One of the earliest and most memorable responses to Sierra came from poet Heather Ettlinger, writing for Memory & Desire in 2008.

For the last four days, I have been delving steadily deeper into the forest of the green-colored sample of Sierra. The first time I applied it, I was stunned by its lush dark greenness - almost the blackgreen of the evergreens in Austria, and a real sense that I was deep inside that forest in the midst of a snowfall, with the black branches blocking out light and snow and creating an otherworldy pocket of warmth. The top notes are quite camphoraceous in the first few minutes, and I was a little concerned that this would go bitter, as some camphoraceous notes can turn bitter on me.

How astonishing, then, to find that just fifteen or twenty minutes into that lush forest, I found myself enjoying what seems like it must be orange, spice, and perhaps the ambery resin of labdanum?

It’s as though in the middle of an immense and forbidding black forest (Percival probably entered the Great Woods in search of the Grail at just such a point of darkness) I was standing at the doorstep of a cottage, the candlelight and shine of warmth and laughter radiating from within it. I imagine here that it is advent, and this couple is celebrating the winter festivals in their hidden forest home, but they have spared no expense for their guests who have wandered here, enchanted, just as I have. The lady of the house has taken us all in, the fugitive princess hiding in a tiny cave, the weary beggar, the dancing girl, and two tiny little men with bright violet eyes, who speak no language we know, but understand all we say. We sit late into the night; the table is decorated with living branches, sap pouring through the greenery onto the table and crystalizing into amber gems before us. An intoxicating tea is served with exotic fruits, studded with spices. It is a long, marvelous evening, much longer than we thought possible.

This scent lasts much longer than I would ever expect a botanical scent to last, and it has real backbone - real courage! I adore it, Roxana. Sierra remains lively and interesting through a good eight hours..

I am very happy to have had the opportunity to try this lush green walk in an enchanted woods, and if I am the princess hiding in the cave, I am brought out of it and into a home of safety through this deliciously inviting scent. In short, I love it.

Inspired,

Heather

This beautiful short film captures some of the awe and vertical stillness that helped inspire Sierra.

Sierra began as memory, atmosphere, and feeling long before it became perfume. The companion essay, “A Secret in the Forest,” follows the fragrance deeper into the forest of woods, resins, and ritual formulation. Find the solid perfume jar here

Wafting love to all the Mamas today, and every day.

While contemplating what to write, the image of the Hathor appeared, she is an archetype of a mother goddess from ancient Egypt, depicted on temple walls and surviving manuscripts. She appears as benevolent, one who nurtures the land, her people and the dead. Like Venus and Aphrodite, she represents love, beauty and harmony, unlike the Roman and Greek goddesses, her symbolism goes much deeper.

At the temple of Dendera we see her on the tops of columns and walls as a celestial cow deity, sometimes with ears, wearing a solar disc and/or with a headdress of horns.

In studying her through various texts and workshops with teachers, I noticed that having context in a linear format helps me understand the material more clearly.

This becomes very relevant, since ancient Egypt extends over a vast timeline, especially if the theories of grand cycles are correct. In those large swaths of time, we have the descent and ascent of consciousness. Alongside established archaeological chronologies, we also have mud floods and other various disasters, which are much harder to track and find evidence of.

Below is a basic chronological construct based on archaeological finds, temple imagery, inscriptions, funerary texts and surviving manuscripts. This timeline remains fluid, in full awareness that the frameworks we use to interpret ancient data may continue to shift.

Timeline of the Imagery of Goddess Hathor in Ancient Egypt

• Predynastic Origins (c. 4000–3100 BCE)

  → Sacred cow imagery and proto-Hathoric fertility symbolism

• Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BCE)

  → Royal mother goddess and protector of kingship

• Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE)

  → Pyramid Texts and emergence as a major state deity

• First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BCE)

  → Expansion into regional and non-royal worship

• Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE)

  → Funerary goddess, “Lady of the Sycamore,” protector of miners and travelers

• Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650–1550 BCE)

  → Continued worship during political fragmentation and Levantine influence

• New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE)

  → Peak worship, temple art, Book of the Dead imagery, Hathor welcoming the dead

• Third Intermediate & Late Periods (c. 1069–332 BCE)

  → Syncretism with Isis and revival of traditional temple religion

• Ptolemaic Period (c. 332–30 BCE)

  → Dendera Temple theology, astronomical ceilings, full ritual canon

• Roman Egypt (30 BCE–4th century CE)

  → Final flourishing and gradual decline of temple worship

This ancient Celtic holy day, Beltane, marks the threshold into the light half of the year. I’ve always felt its fabric woven deep into my bones—a quiet recognition that something in the world is opening, quickening, coming alive.

The big seasonal wheel has reached an important notch this day, often referred to as May Day and Beltane (Beltaine) in the western world. The fabric of this day is woven deep into my bones, with a of the old world and that something is opening as we shift to the “light” half of the year.

Traditionally on Beltane, people gathered boughs and flowers to adorn their homes in honor of the rising sun. When I lived in the Santa Monica Mountains among several elder oaks, I gathered leaves their leaves, mindfully cleaning and drying them for tinctures and infusions. This oak medicine, was used as the backbone, the foundational trunk, of the perfume Q for Quercus. The scent of the fresh leaves was green, grounding, with শক্ত. The ritual felt like a conversation with these mighty, beloved trees.

At Waldorf Schools, all over the world, there will be dancing around the Maypole. Beginning in first grade, my daughter Eve participated in this activity while attending Highland Hall Waldorf School. It was a heartfelt and deeply moving as the children the weaved colored ribbons, with the rhythm of the music and their steps. The was a deep sense of community and continuity with an older, seasonal language.

The marriage of the Lord and his Lady, God and Goddess, sky and earth is another aspect of this day, symbolizing the sacred union between the masculine and the feminine. The maypole, planted into the ground, becomes a living symbol of this relationship: energy descending from the aetheric realms to be received by the feminine. These dances act like acupuncture for the Earth itself: small, joyful gestures that help restore balance, and inviting awareness of how these dualities play out all around us in nature.

In Celtic tradition, Beltane is also considered a time when the veil between worlds is thinner, especially on the eve of Beltane and Samhain. As Caitlín and John Matthews write, these are moments when both spirits and humans are more open to transformation. Whether understood as myth, metaphor, or an embodied experience, there is a palpable sense of heightened possibility in the air.

The symbols of this holy day align beautifully with the spirit of my work. Beltane ushers in light with boughs and blossoms gathered in devotion to the sun, garlands worn, offerings of cakes and milk left for the unseen. It is a celebration of vitality, beauty and connection.

Within Druidic lore, the elements sit at the heart of these traditions. Beltane is one of the great fire festivals, honoring fire as a primordial source of life and transformation. Water, too, is essential, with rainfall blessing the fields and ensuring abundance in the months ahead. Yet, another image of duality working in harmony to form a balance that sustains both land and spirit.

Throughout Druidic lore we find the elementals to be at the core of the mythology. Beltane is one of the four “fire” festivals, fire as the primordial source of Life. Water is the second element to be honored for the much needed rainfall assuring abundant crops.

In the early 2000s, while part of a natural perfume group, I created “Q” in honor of the oak (Quercus agrifolia). In the Celtic tree calendar, May is devoted to Duir: oak, a symbol of strength, endurance and wisdom. This perfume remains a favorite, especially for those drawn to pagan traditions and the subtle presence of the natural world.

Even Arbor Day, which falls near this time of year, echoes the same reverence for trees and our living landscape. With so much unfolding in the wider world, this seasonal turn, offers us a shift toward the light, with the fragrance of flowers, leaves and renewal.

Read about the perfume “Q”, devoted to the oak in this essay here.

I’ve been practicing being more like the wind, rather than rigid like the element of earth. During an astrological reading a few years back, it was suggested that I embrace the unknown, shifting into a state of curiosity and walking the path of uncertainty.

Letting go of the need for control runs counter to the conditioning of the tribe. It’s a practice of embracing flexibility and welcoming in spontaneity. The astrologer made this suggestion, specifically in reference to a new phase I was embarking on. The death of my mother, who symbolized Saturn's influence in my chart, pushed me into uncharted waters. It felt like the perfect moment for a cosmic invitation to let go of rigidity and embrace the unknown, despite the initial discomfort. The mindset of embracing the unknown transforms anxiety into potential.

In one such moment, I allowed myself to follow a spontaneous urge after making a delivery. A favorite street here in Santa Fe beckoned to me, one I’ve found enchanting since my first visit in the ’80s. Initially, I hesitated, but chose to follow my heart. I parked along the tree-lined street and wandered through the quiet, characteristic beauty of the old city. It was a reminder that the best experiences often come when we surrender to the flow.

So now I give myself permission to wander into the wonderland often. On such an occasion, while the soup I had prepared was gently simmering, a songwriter whose music I adored popped in and surprised me. The artist’s name is Christopher Cross. His song 'Ride Like the Wind,' blends soft rock with storytelling. I was immediately transported back to being a carefree teen, in my red VW bug on my way to art classes and meeting dear friends. A sense of freedom and possibility filled my being. Listening again, I was reminded of the power of letting go—of following the wind wherever it may lead.

In December of 1979, when his self-titled debut album was released, I was in high school. The album featured hit singles like Sailing and Ride Like the Wind. As I listened to the music, I became curious about what might have inspired Christopher’s song Ride Like The Wind. It turns out, like so many young lads of his generation, Christopher watched lots of cowboy movies and TV shows, like The Lone Ranger, which featured cowboys chasing a bad guy.

Pausing here for a moment as I reach for my pot of Chaparral, anointing and breathing deep. I created this fragrance in 2006 while living in California, inspired by traditions of incense, and the plant Artemisia californica, known as cowboy sage. Read about the perfume here.

When speaking about his inspiration for the song, he mentions growing up in San Antonio, Texas, near Mexico, and an allure associated with the characters from westerns escaping the authority across the border.

Another tidbit I learned is that he wrote the song with a red Sharpie marker on lined yellow paper while sitting in the passenger seat of a van on an acid trip. He and his band were living in Houston at the time, and were on their way to Austin. The band played lots of covers, including a 1973 song by Paul McCartney and Wings titled Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five. Christopher mentions performing a “big jam in the middle of it,” which prompted Cross to create a vocal riff: “ba da da da, da da, da da”. He noticed the audience reaction to this inspired mid-section and built his hit Ride Like the Wind around it.

LABYRINTH

While reflecting on Christopher Cross’s journey of inspiration and the openness to creative possibilities, another winding path appeared, like aromatic molecules drifting on the wind. I received an email from my friend Cathy Skipper writing about the labyrinth.

Cathy and I first met as presenters at an Aromatherapy conference held at Bastyr University in September 2014. Meeting Cathy felt like discovering a kindred soul. It wasn’t long before I invited her and her husband Florian to present Alchemy & the Medicine of the Soul at the perfumery in California. That took place almost nine years ago and became part of the reason I ended up in New Mexico.

In Cathy’s latest newsletter, titled Trust in the path ahead when it’s not obvious, she wrote about one of the oldest turf labyrinths in Europe. The timing of this arriving in my inbox felt like another auspicious moment. Walking the winding path of a labyrinth is a meditative ritual used as a tool for transformation. Some view it as a physical, geometric metaphor designed to evoke a spiritual pilgrimage. Moving forward and backward, in a type of sacred, choreographed dance, the path evokes a spiraling inward as you move through the ebb and flow patterning. This journey, like the wind, twisting and turning, teaches us to trust the flow, even when the destination remains unclear.

The labyrinth as metaphor resonates deeply, as it mirrors my own experience of navigating uncertainty, where progress sometimes feels like a step backward, yet part of the journey. The move from Los Angeles, California to Santa Fe, NM in 2017 was a leap of faith. I jumped off a mountain, intending that the winds of fate would support the journey.

With each step on this reflective path, winding back and forth, I am reminded of the way the warp and weft weave of a pattern, like the knitted clothing my mother made that I still wear, and keeps me warm.

The more I let go, the more magic arrives, like Christopher’s song, Cathy’s labyrinth and the invisible threads that connect us all. These small, seemingly insignificant moments remind me that the best way to navigate life’s twists and turns is to embrace the unknown and follow where the wind may lead.

This is my third essay exploring the work of Philip Pullman, following earlier reflections in The Æthe-Real and Cartographies of Lost Knowledge.

Continuing the ongoing exploration of Philip Pullman’s work featuring the young protagonist Lyra Belacqua, I find myself constantly fascinated with how they reveal aspects of perception itself. Having burrowed into so many tunnels, a query that keeps rising to the surface is: what if imagination is a deeper form of perception?

Lyra’s story unfolds across two trilogies, His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust, both tracing her movement from a mysterious child into a young adult confronting increasingly complex, and often disorienting, realities. She travels between parallel worlds, accompanied by her daemon, Pantalaimon, whose presence gestures toward a deeper metaphysical structure that is only partially revealed.

The original trilogy follows a path of discovery, alliance, and eventual separation, as Lyra encounters Dust, forms a bond with Will Parry and moves through fantastical and strangely familiar worlds. The later trilogy, beginning with La Belle Sauvage and continuing into The Secret Commonwealth, shifts from being less mythic, turning toward questions of belief, reason and a widening gap between Lyra and her own inner life.

There are also smaller companion works: Once Upon a Time in the North, Lyra’s Oxford and Serpentine, as well as The Imagination Chamber. Technically, La Belle Sauvage precedes the original trilogy, much like The Silmarillion in The Lord of the Rings, offering a deeper layer of context. The emotional and narrative arc is best experienced by beginning with His Dark Materials into The Book of Dust.

In revisiting Lyra’s journey, I am now partway through The Secret Commonwealth, the book that inspired adding rose to the latest edition of Lyra, the botanical perfume inspired by a sequence of events and the character by the same name.

I tend to perceive the world from a lonely mountaintop, where deeper meaning is revealed, this is why Pullman’s work resonates so strongly. Like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, he constructs expansive fantastical worlds, but without the framework of theology, Pullman moves toward a mode of inquiry that invites a more open form of perception.

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It’s April Fools day, which has a rather interesting origin that I’ve been exploring related to the number thirteen. Pope Gregory XIII changed the start of the new year from April 1st to January 1st. By 1884 every major nation had reorganized its relationship with time, the standard explanation shared was the importance of railway scheduling. The people who choose to ignore this change and continued to celebrate on April 1st were called fools.

Bison (Buffalo) has been trotting in strong lately, first with making a couple jars of my ode to Bison, the solid perfume B for Bison. I anointed myself with the remnants left in the porcelain casserole and marveled how my respiration opened up due to the camphor notes from the artemisia.

The next day, I came across a street here in Santa Fe County called Cibola (pronounced see-bo-lah). To my surprise, its a Spanish term derived from a Zuni word meaning buffalo or bison. The Spanish definition refers to “female bison” or a 16th-century name for buffalo hunters. It is thought to be the original Zuni Indian name for their pueblos or tribal lands (specifically the Hawikuh Ruins). In other legends, the Spanish conquistadors misinterpreted this to mean the “Seven Cities of Cibola,” a mythical place of unimaginable wealth, prompting explorers like Coronado to search the region.

Geographically, Cibola County is located in west-central New Mexico where the longest and most scenic stretch of historic Route 66 is, home to the Pueblo of Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, and sections of the Navajo Nation.

I have not yet been there, and based on the photos, am super excited to visit and check out what looks like more local meltology here in the land of mud floods.

It seemed like a pattern surrounding bison was forming, and that perhaps I should pay attention. The next day, I came across an image painted on a home that looked a bit like a bison. As I stood on the quiet street marveling at the image, my inner creative said, pay attention, while my inner critic scoffed, and said get real.

Meanwhile, in the downstairs library of the perfumery there is a book of inspiring quotes from the indigenous people of the Americas. Here is a Lakota Prayer that supports the prime directive from my inner creative, pay attention.

Neurodivergent is a term I recently heard used to describe a basis for creativity and imagination relating to individuals who have the ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated things. It’s a clinical term used more in a broad context of individuals .

Convergent thinking, what the educational system is based on, left brain and analytical, is what is considered and re-warded as acceptable behavior. My brother was a convergent thinker, I was the opposite.

Here are a few key characteristics & traits related to the label Neurodivergent.

• Unique Cognitive Styles: They may have intense focus on specific interests (hyperfocus), exceptional pattern recognition, and creative, non-linear thinking.

• Sensory Sensitivities: Many experience heightened sensitivity to sensory input, such as sound, light, or texture, which can lead to over stimulation.

• Alternative Social Approaches: They may process social cues or conversation in ways different from the “neurotypical” majority, often preferring direct communication over small talk.

• Asynchronous Development: Their skills may be uneven, excelling highly in some areas while struggling with daily tasks, such as organization or time management.

I sense an overlap here with the work of Carl Jung, who titled some of the characteristics & traits listed above as psychological. The ability to perceive archetypal patterning and possessing a more direct, less filtered relationship to that material and having a a more permeable boundary between conscious thought and the unconscious.

So perhaps the fool is not the one who keeps a celebrates the new year today or keeps a thirteen month calendar, but the one who refuses to see the patterns emerging all around them. I have been ever so slowly aligning once more with my intuition, to trust what doesn’t make linear sense: narratives we are told to believe, the echo of Cibola across time and the insistence of an image on a wall. If this is what it means to have a heightened sense of perceiving archetypal patterning, then I will take it as instruction to trust, enter my Sacred Space, love beyond my fear, and thus Walk in Balance with the passing of each glorious Sun.

On this April 1st, I’m interested in what becomes possible when we follow what others have been taught to ignore.

Spring in the Santa Monica Mountains began in January with the rosemary hedge at the back of the house. Like an alarm clock, the fragrant, spiky herb would suddenly come alive, buzzing with activity.

I’d spend hours hanging with the girls, observing them and attempting to get the perfect photo. The scent rising along with the sun, was an intoxicating, mix of sharp, clean, green herb with that subtle menthol note that opens up your lungs.

Up in the Santa Monica Mountains, where my bees worked the landscape, the native sages would bloom in clusters along the edges of trails and near my hives. There were the indigenous plants, like Artemisia californica, commonly called cowboy sage (although not an actual salvia), a large variety of Rhus, also known as Sumac, lots of California buckwheat, coffeeberry and elder and tobacco, just to name a few. And then there were the plants in my garden, which were mostly natives I had picked up at Theodore Payne Foundation and all my potted flowers: huge amounts of jasmines, roses and plumerias.

You could hear the buzzing amidst the plants before you saw the hard-working foragers. With steady precision, they zipped from one flower to the next, barely pausing. They were so focused, fairly oblivious to me and my camera. I would often follow one as she worked, disappearing into a bloom and then re-emerging dusted in pollen. The whirling and constant hum was an intoxicating sensory loop.

Around the hives, a similar rhythm would show up, but with a slightly different tone. There was the bees arriving and departing, crossing paths midair, finding their way back. Some would arrive heavy with pollen, others arrive, have a quick exchange with another bee, then slip inside and disappear from view.

If you stood there long enough, you start to notice other subtleties, like how bees from one hive would shoot out like cannons, while from the hive next door they would depart in more of an s-curve shape.

Bees checkout everything available to them: gardens, trees, fields, roadsides, and wild edges. If something is in bloom, they’ll find it, and they’ll report back to the rest of the hive. This also means that they move through everything we’ve added to the soil, the plants, and the environment around us.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and the dominant herbicide in global agriculture, is now part of that equation. Its use is pervasive, both wide and deep: sprayed on agricultural fields, along highways, and settling into our Earths mantel and water. It’s an invisible poison we’ve welcomed into our lives without understanding its scope.

Watching the girls work the the flowers and herbs in my yard, I’d think about where else they’ve been before eventually taking the nectar and pollen into their dark laboratory they’ve constructed in perfect sacred geometry.

Many grass root organizations, including Organic Consumers and the Moms Across America Movement, share that because of pollinator-killing neonicotinoid seed treatments, 2025 was a particularly lethal year for bees, with beekeepers losing upward of 60 percent of their hives, and that glyphosate is a “poison” causing severe reproductive, physical, and mental health crises.

According to a recent New York Times report, the facility that produces key materials used to manufacture glyphosate is also the only domestic source of elemental phosphorus used to make white phosphorus, a chemical used in incendiary weapons.”

White phosphorus burns intensely when exposed to oxygen and can cause devastating injuries.

“It has horrible humanitarian consequences,” said Bonnie Docherty, a senior adviser at Human Rights Watch and director of the Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative at Harvard Law School. “It causes really deep burns,” she said. “It’s notorious because it burns when exposed to oxygen, and wounds often reignite when bandages are removed.”

Read more on this page of the Mom’s Across America site and at the Organic Consumers Associations page.

Our elected officials, who are in office to serve the people, instead have made a decision to allow the US to begin producing this toxin, AND remove accountability for it.

In February, an Executive Order granted legal immunity to producers of glyphosate and phosphorus-based agricultural chemicals. The justification centered on agricultural need, the idea that these inputs are essential to maintaining productivity.

This is a false premise. There are other ways of working the land that don’t rely on toxic chemical input. Farmers who build soil, who work with ecological cycles, who produce food without depending on synthetic herbicides is where farming started and where it is returning.

Rudolf Steiner introduced bio-biodynamic gardening and agriculture in June 1924. He presented a series of eight lectures, known as the “Agriculture Course,” at Koberwitz, Silesia (now Poland), which laid the foundation for this holistic, ecological approach to farming. These lectures were in response to concerns about soil degradation and declining crop health.

Regenerative farming practices, such as agroforestry, polyculture, and composting, have roots in Indigenous agricultural traditions spanning thousands of years. The formal term “regenerative agriculture” was coined by Robert Rodale in the early 1980s, emerging from the organic movement to describe farming that restores rather than just sustains soil health.

The honey bee, our food and our water is a challenge that affects every single human. Even “Breath-erians”, those evolved human beings that no longer need to consume food are affected by toxins in the air & water.

Granting legal immunity to glyphosate and phosphate producers isn't just a question of policy, it’s a matter of who bears the cost when our ecosystems and health are harmed. For too long, chemical producers have been allowed to sidestep accountability. The consequences of that shift are felt in our food, our water, and the soil.

When standing near a hive, ones perception is heightened. Bees re-mind us of the ever present moment, the importance of working together and that the plants, water and sunlight are basic necessities, that like the propolis in a hive, binds everything.

I wrote to Congress in support of the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act (H.R. 7601), which would reverse this policy and restore the ability to hold producers responsible. If this issue concerns you, I encourage you to reach out to your elected representatives. The power of our voices is stronger than any lobby. Below is a simplified letter you can send, or adapt as your own →

Subject: Protect [Your State] Families from Glyphosate Exposure—Please Cosponsor HR 7601

Dear [Representative/Senator],

I am writing to urge you to cosponsor the bipartisan No Immunity for Glyphosate Act (H.R. 7601), introduced by Representatives Thomas Massie and Chellie Pingree, to reverse the February 18, 2026 Executive Order granting legal immunity to glyphosate and phosphorus producers.

Glyphosate, classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, is widely detected in food, water, and the environment—creating multiple pathways of exposure for Americans. Jury verdicts and settlements have already required Bayer/Monsanto to pay over $10 billion to individuals harmed by glyphosate exposure, with tens of thousands of cases still pending.

The Executive Order justifies this immunity by claiming that limiting glyphosate would threaten agricultural productivity and food security. However, this assertion is not supported by evidence. Organic farmers and a thriving $70 billion organic sector demonstrate that productive agriculture is possible without reliance on glyphosate-based herbicides.

At the same time, independent research links increased glyphosate use to serious public health concerns, including elevated risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and negative impacts on rural communities, such as reduced birthweight and shorter gestational periods.

The Executive Order also shields phosphorus and phosphate producers, despite the well-documented environmental and public health harms associated with phosphate mining, including water contamination, habitat destruction, and exposure to hazardous waste.

Granting blanket legal immunity to chemical producers undermines accountability, public health protections, and the integrity of our regulatory system. Americans deserve policies grounded in science—not protections for corporate interests at the expense of community health.

Please cosponsor H.R. 7601 to restore accountability and protect public health.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

Hello from New Mexico, the enchanted land, which over time has become a global hub for eco-conscious living and alternative building.

In the 1990s, shortly after awakening to the dysfunction of big pharma and the influence of corporate systems, I was introduced to Dennis Weaver and the concept of Earthship homes. Concepts of off-grid living, homes designed with passive solar heating, water harvesting, and being self-sufficient, weaved in nicely with a vision of a holistic lifestyle.

In September of 2017, when I made the move to New Mexico, that self sufficient seed that had been planted, began to take abstract form, opening new doorways.

Tracing How We Build

Recently, I came across two documentary-style videos that trace how modern systems have both shaped and limited how we build our homes today.

Adobe Construction

The first focuses on adobe construction: a simple, ancient method using earth, sand, water, and straw to create sun-dried bricks. This technique has been used for thousands of years across the world. Adobe creates thick, breathable walls with high thermal mass, meaning they naturally regulate temperature without the need for complex systems. There are no cavities, nor synthetic layers, just solid, earthen structure working in harmony with the environment.

Adobe, offers a range of compelling properties:

• Thermal mass that naturally regulates temperature, keeping interiors cool in the heat and warm in the cold

• Fire-resistant due to its dense, earthen composition

• Naturally breathable, allowing moisture to move without trapping condensation

• Non-toxic, made entirely from earth, water, and plant fibers

• Durable in dry climates, with structures lasting hundreds to thousands of years

• Provides natural sound insulation due to thick, solid walls

• Made from locally available materials, requiring minimal energy or industrial processing

The second video explores hempcrete, a material made from the woody core of the hemp plant combined with lime and water. According to the video, hempcrete offers a range of compelling properties:

Hempcrete, like adobe, offers a range of compelling properties:

• Fire-resistant at extremely high temperatures

• Naturally mold-resistant due to its high pH

• Does not trap condensation

• Resistant to pests

• Strengthens over time through mineralization (forming calcium carbonate)

• Breathes in a way similar to wood

• Can be grown from seed and harvested in roughly 120 days

History, Power, and Profit

The Hemp-crete video shares how a small group of powerful figures and corporations, including William Randolph Hearst, the DuPont family, and Andrew Mellon, played a key role in shaping policies that effectively criminalized hemp. Each had financial interests tied to industries that hemp could compete with, from paper to petrochemicals.

Andrew Mellon was the US secretary of the Treasury AND the Chief banker of DuPont. William Randolph Hearst was the publisher of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications and politician. William entered publishing in 1887 after taking over The San Francisco Examiner from his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.

In 1937, Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat posed to his lumber and paper mill industry. Men and corporations and politics aligned to protect their fortunes and insuring that all building in the future used chemically treated pine, fiberglass insulation, dry wall, and created a system that supported constant updating instead of one that did not degrade and was carbon negative. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.

The alignment of men in power, their corporation and political manipulation protected their industries while sidelining a material that could have supported more durable and sustainable construction practices.

Adobe Bricks and the Building Codes

The story of adobe bricks follows a parallel path. As railroads expanded in the late 1800s, the U.S. lumber industry rapidly scaled, pushing the accessibility of milled wood. In 1927, the introduction of the Uniform Building Code formalized construction requirements to make owner-built methods like adobe more difficult to pursue.

Adobe, like Hemp-crete offers a range of compelling properties:

• Thermal mass that naturally regulates temperature, keeping interiors cool in the heat and warm in the cold

• Fire-resistant due to its dense, earthen composition

• Naturally breathable, allowing moisture to move without trapping condensation

• Non-toxic, made entirely from earth, water, and plant fibers

• Durable in dry climates, with structures lasting hundreds to thousands of years

• Provides natural sound insulation due to thick, solid walls

• Made from locally available materials, requiring minimal energy or industrial processing

By 1949, policies tied to the Federal Housing Administration reinforced this direction by only allowing mortgage insurance for conventional wood-framed homes, effectively excluding alternative building methods from mainstream financing. Then, by 1970, updated code requirements with increasingly mandated materials like steel reinforcement and “Portland” cement, creating additional barriers for earthen construction.

The video points to how the Portland Cement Association, dating back to 1902, became influential in promoting modern building codes which evolved alongside the interests of large-scale material industries.

Adobe bricks and hemp-crete raise the broader question: how much of what we consider “standard” in construction based purely on systems set up by men in power to line their pockets versus for the betterment of humanity and the environment.

From Buildings to Perfume

This repeating pattern extends beyond how we build our homes and what we put on and in our bodies. As a botanical perfumer, I see a parallel in the dominance of synthetic fragrance, where mass produced, petrochemical-based ingredients and regulatory frameworks have shaped the perfume industry.

Just like adobe and hemp-crete, botanical perfume is rooted in materials that are renewable, complex, and alive, yet do not fit in the standardize, corporate model. The same question is raised: are we choosing these systems because they are truly better? Whether in the walls that surround us, the food we consume or the scents we wear, the deeper question remains the same, what kind of world do we want to live in, and what are we willing to stand up for?

Bee Fever, an intoxicating rush that overtakes the novice beekeeper, the feeling is beyond enthusiasm, it’s a bit like an embodied surreal thrill with purpose. I learned the term at the first meeting of the Backward Beekeepers. The swarm that had arrived at the compost bin had infected me, and with that profound sense of wonder, I was ready to get hands on.

The doorway into the vast honey bee universe opened into a new language, a new skill set. Besides saving local oak trees, I was now off on bee rescue missions!

I began my apprenticeship with unbridled enthusiasm, a vintage Parisian bee veil and elbow length gloves. The learning curve included marveling at the efficiency of these tiny creatures and realizing that, like a beehive, great teamwork can achieve extraordinary results.

My second experience with a hive, was transplanting bees that were living in a birdhouse. I remember thinking that the vibration and hum wafting out from the box, was like listening to the om chant of one thousand devotees at kirtan.

I painted the pine bee boxes with periwinkle blue chalk paint left over from the front door. The color was like the glorious, expansive sky the girls took off into each day. Near the hive, I placed a rock with holes into a terra cotta pot saucer which I added water to each day. This provided them with a nice place to drink and hydrate.

The birdhouse bees were eventually taken out by large, dark robber bees, honey bees from another hive who must have smelled the vulnerability of the colony and came for the stores.

The photo above is the corpse of one of the girls with golden beeswax scattered like shrapnel from the war. While lamenting the loss, my friend Jamie called to say that a swarm had appeared in her neighbor’s white mailbox and could I come and get them, and so I did.

The Squirrel Box Bees

Meanwhile, Roberta, a fellow BB (Backwards Beekeeper) member and pro, offered me a hive that had fallen out of a tree. She referred to them as the Squirrel Box Bees, and had placed the bees, comb, brood and honey into a big cardboard moving box. An hour later she drove up the driveway, in her bee suit, with the the wooden Squirrel box, the cardboard box and bees whirling around her. We set to work cutting and transferring the entire organism into our empty second hive boxes.

The following morning there was complete mayhem in the garden. Hive wars had erupted, including an ant attack. YIKES! In the end the Mailbox Bees chose to leave and Squirrel Box bees prospered.

I let go on what the future would hold in these new adventures in Bee Ville, resolving myself that learning was the only constant, and that bee keeping was a form of spiritual practice. I contemplated writing a book titled The Zen Guide to Feral Beekeeping. Despite the challenges, I still most gleefully suffered from bee fever and looked forward to more bee adventures.

The Red Barn Bees / Warrior Girls

In February, nine months after the Compost Bin Swarm and at the start of bee season in Los Angeles, I was alerted about a hive in a garage roof. After inspecting the situation, the job looked a bit out of my range so I recruited Maurice, one of the master mentors in the BB club as well as a few others to form a tight team.

Our mission, amidst the scent of wood and honey, was to prep everything in advance: saw open the boards, cut out the combs, place them into a hive box, and transport them to my home.

It was a large, established hive and thus required ample preparation. As we worked, the soundtrack of angry bees filled the air. They attacked from all angles, the agitated buzzing penetrating the core of our nervous systems.

I’d never been so happy to have a new bee suit. Later Maurice shared that these were the meanest bees he’d ever encountered. In hindsight, I understand that these girls weren’t mean, they were intensely sovereign.

A bonus from rescuing the Red Barn Bees was the huge amounts of honey that was part of the cutout. The honey stores in this hive were so vast they were split four ways amongst the three beekeepers and the bees.

The benefit to these feisty, feral girls is that they were highly productive, highly unlikely to be troubled by local robber bees and capable of surviving nearly anything!

Shortly after setting up the Red Barn Bees, Roberta and Ceebs, two members of the BB club, came by to assist in performing a hive inspection. I arrived few minutes late to find them standing next to the hive filming the girls. To my surprise neither of them were suited up or being attacked. Cool, I thought, perhaps these warrior bees aren't quite as fierce as I thought. Witness the girls flying backwards, trying to pull string out from their hive in the video above, filmed by Roberta and Ceebs.

Timeline of just a few various swarms and hives →

• May 2010: Compost Bin Swarm

• June 2010: Birdhouse Bees

• August 2010: Mailbox Swarm

• August 2010: Squirrel Box Bees

• February 2011: Red Barn Bees, “Warrior Girls”

• June 2011: LA Times Bees

Survival in Bee Ville is no longer only about robber bees or ants. The fields beyond our gardens are changing. The threats are quiet now, written policies acting as invisible force fields.

Bees forage two to five miles from their hive, they cannot distinguish between wild sage and sprayed alfalfa. Peer-reviewed studies have shown that sublethal glyphosate exposure can disrupt honey bee gut microbiota and impair navigation, effects that don’t look dramatic like a mass die-off, but weaken colonies slowly over time.

The recently introduced Farm Bill signals a shift in agricultural policy, expanding protections for chemical use at a time when many have been working toward more mindful ecological practices. I can tend the hive, but controlling what happens on the horizon is far more difficult. Over time and practice, I learned that I was not a bee “keeper”, I am a bee guardian.

It took one year and about eight different hives to finally get to the point where I had two thriving. There is a Japanese proverb that states “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” Honey bees cycle through each season, expanding in spring, reducing their numbers as they prepare for winter.

They have learned to survive bears, winters, and scarcity, yet their most relentless predator has been the expanding technological footprint of humanity. Perhaps moving backwards, toward restraint, reverence, and reciprocity, is the only real way forward.

The Farm Bill and Executive Order

Farm Bill

Buried in the 2026 Farm Bill draft are Sections 10205–10207 - provisions that could:

• Grant pesticide corporations sweeping immunity from lawsuits when their products cause harm

• Strip state and local governments of their authority to enact stronger protections

• Exempt EPA-approved pesticides from additional environmental review

Companies like Bayer and Syngenta have already paid billions in settlements tied to pesticide harms. Now the industry is pushing Congress to shield them from future accountability.

Farmers, workers, families, and communities deserve the right to seek justice. States deserve the power to protect their residents. Our environment deserves stronger safeguards - not weaker ones.

Executive Order

Last week, President Trump signed an executive order using the Defense Production Act to prioritize domestic production of glyphosate and the phosphorus needed to make it, calling it “critical” to national and food security. This allows the federal government to direct production and support manufacturers of these chemicals.

But true food security doesn’t depend on a pesticide that is endangering our health. We need a plan to help farmers transition to regenerative, chemical-free agriculture and to focus on growing real, nutrient-dense food for American families, not protecting chemical companies.

Derived from the Greek word étymon, meaning “true sense” or “true meaning,” etymology is the study of the origin and structural development of words. If we trace the forms and meanings of words far enough back, we can then decipher a code embedded within language itself. And perhaps, begin to understand why words are spells.

Etymology investigates the evolution of language by analyzing word roots, tracing their transformations, tracking borrowings across cultures, and identifying ancient Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek foundations. It reveals that language is alive, layered, and encoded.

Words, particularly when spoken, are something we often take for granted. We live in a society that demands to be heard rather than to listen. I was once told to notice that we have two ears and one mouth, pointing to perhaps listening is twice as important as speaking.

The origin of words is fascinating, and requires some diligence, since meanings have changed over time. Tracking the oldest origins is where, quite literally, the magick is!

Spelling

Pay attention to what those who rewrote the dictionaries want you to believe in the first few words →

“The oldest senses are obsolete.”

From circa 1200, spell meant “an utterance, something said, a statement, remark.” By the 1570s, it carried the meaning: “a set of words with supposed magical or occult powers; incantation; charm.”

The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore notes:

“The term ‘spell’ is generally used for magical procedures which cause harm, or force people to do something against their will — unlike charms for healing or protection.”

Yet this harmful connotation does not appear in early Middle English.

Gower (1390) refers to “spelling of charmes” as the casting or reciting of spells. Chaucer uses night-spell to mean “a charm for protection from evil spirits in the night.”

The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1941) states:

“In general terms, the belief underlying the use of spells is that the wish they embody will be fulfilled, so long as the formula has been correctly pronounced.”

Spell and prayer, magic and religion, variations of intention. In Old English, spel also meant “doctrine; sermon; religious instruction; the gospel; a book of the Bible.”

Consider gospel —> “good spell.”

The 11th-century glossaries even give spel as a translation for the Latin fabula: a story.

A spell, a story and a doctrine, all spoken.

Language has the ability to shape beliefs, which then shape perception and then perception shaping reality.

Inspire (n.)

The word inspire (mid-13th century) originally meant “life, the animating principle in humans and animals.” It comes from the Latin spiritus, breath, respiration, wind, and also “breath of a god.”

To be inspired was once to be filled with divine breath.

By the 1400s, inspired meant “communicated by supernatural powers.” By the 1660s, it described someone infused with seemingly otherworldly influence.

As Thomas Browne wrote in Religio Medici:

“In brief, conceive light invisible, and that is a spirit.”

To inspire is to breathe into. Words are breathed, caring sounds of intention. Consider the resonance found in old cathedrals.

Cursive (adj.)

Cursive (1784) refers to writing in which letters are joined and formed rapidly without lifting the pen. It comes from the French cursif, from Medieval Latin cursivus, meaning “running,” from Latin currere, to run.

In cursive writing, letters flow together. Running, current, course, and perhaps, curse.

According to Webster, “curse” may stem from the Latin cursus, the course of daily liturgical prayers.

Language moves like a current, carrying force.

Grammar (n.)

By the late 14th century, grammar meant “Latin grammar; rules of Latin.” It derives from Old French gramaire, which also carried a secondary meaning: “magic, incantation, spells.”

Learning itself was once associated with the occult. During the so-called Dark Ages, literacy was rare. Knowledge, especially of Latin, belonged to the learned class, which included astrologers, alchemists and magicians.

Thus grammar evolved a secondary meaning: occult knowledge. In Scottish usage, this eventually became glamour. To understand grammar was to wield power.

A grammar school originally taught Latin by memorizing grammatical forms. In the United States, the term later came to mean a school between primary and secondary levels, but the original association with sacred language is telling.

So What If Spelling Is Spells?

If words once meant incantations, grammar occult knowledge and inspiration divine breath, then what exactly are we doing when we speak?

If speaking once carried magical force, what does it mean that we still “spell” our words? Perhaps language is not merely descriptive but creative, every sentence a subtle ritual.

In the ancient Egyptian funerary texts, what we now call the Book of the Dead, there are spells addressed to the Goddess Hathor. One such spell is spoken so that the deceased may “be in the presence of Hathor.”

The ancient Egyptian word often translated as “magic”, ḥeka, was a cosmic principle. To speak the correct words, in the correct sequence, with the correct breath, was to participate in creation itself.

And Hathor, goddess of beauty, music, intoxication, and perfume, presided over this sensory theology.

Her rituals involved:

• Incense rising like prayer

• Oil poured onto skin

• Sistrums shaking rhythm into air

• Names spoken into vibration

• Breath carrying sound

• Smoke carrying scent

Scent is invisible, altering mood, while summoning memory and changing a perception, without ever being seen. Words operate in a similar manner, as unseen forces that enter through breath and alter inner states.

We can observe how both perfume and language are structured invisibility. A composed formula of aroma molecules can enchant a room, as a composition of syllables can enchant a mind.

In Egyptian ritual, the god was invited through scent and through speech, the two as intwined arts. When we spell, we are arranging symbols with intention.
When we speak, we are breathing life into those symbols.

And when intention, breath, and structure align, this becomes a ritual. Consider each word uttered into the air is a kind of incense, an invisible offering shaping the unseen.

Thanks to Etymology online for assistance with translations.

This is part I, from a series of writings, originally started in 2009. More threads to those initial stories are being added from learning the way of the bee, over the past 17 years.

The Bee as Muse

My obsession with the honey bee began during art school via old engravings. Her iconic image contained a magickal shimmer that resonated with my art spirit.

Then came Love in the Garden, a tiny book gifted to me by Greg at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum’s Bug Fair. The garden was depicted as erotic, cunning and alive with urgency. Tales of seducing flowers and deceiving insects were featured with themes of survival and desire all intertwined.

It was Spring 2005, I was teaching aromatherapy at the Massage School of Santa Monica, still working as a freelance illustrator and getting my perfume brand organized. After reading the eight page poetical fancy of a velvet corseted bumblebee, I became keen on using the bee as part of the visual language for Illuminated Perfume. As an indie, plant fragrance maker, the symbol of the honeybee felt like a perfect emblem.

A hive of honey bees is largely female with their ability to work as an individual and at once as a collective, within a team. She is focused, devoted, and creative, while producing an intoxicating elixir. I recognized myself in her and the parallels with working as a natural perfumer.

The Bee as Matter

In the palette of the natural perfumer, the predominant essence that embodies the honey bee, is the solid, buttery beeswax absolute, termed Absolue Cire d’Abeille in French.

This beautiful golden substance contains notes of sweet hay warmed by the sun. Like honey, the odor of beeswax absolute, will depend on the terrain from whence it is derived, carrying the memory of thousands of blossoms1 and soil.

In her daily work, the honey bee gathers nectar from thousands of flowers to create a unified yet complex sweetness in the production of honey. Like her, the perfumer gathers essences from roots, resins, petals, and bark to compose fragrant chords. This shared skill set goes beyond manufacturing, into the terrain of alchemical transformation.

Over the years I’ve worked with beeswax, tinctured hive materials, and even created a fragrance titled To Bee. In handling these materials, I am reminded that scent bridges us to an intangible sphere, which elevates and transports, beginning in the relationship between flower and pollinator, sun and soil, plant to human.

The Bee as Teacher

My longing to tend a hive grew over time beginning with a visit to friends with bees in Ojai and Carpinteria, CA. In August of 2009, I read an article in the LA Times mentioning an event at the Atwater Village restaurant Canelé, featuring a menu built around local honey, the urban beekeeping scene and a club titled The Backwards Beekeepers. This club was co-founded by Kirk Anderson, a Los Angeles beekeeper known for practicing a non-traditional (“backwards”) style of tending to bees.

Excited and intrigued, I attended a meeting close just 20 minutes away, led by Kirk, whose stated mission was simple: “To change the world.” with chemical-free beekeeping, by learning, listening and working with the feral bee.

He taught us much about the mis-information about the little native feral bee, how she has been weaponized by using adjectives like Africanized or killer.

In May of 2010, I was in the midst of writing a post about nasturtiums, when a gift from the Goddess flew into my life. I found it auspicious that is was Friday, the day attributed to the planet and Goddess of the same name → Venus. Her counter parts in other cultures are Aphrodite in the Greek tradition and Hathor in the Egypt.

The gift was a swarm of winged alchemists, honey bees, which arrived at the compost bin of our little woodland home in the Santa Monica Mountains. Fellow bee club member and mentor John Lyons, who happened to live close by, came to transfer the bees from the compost bin to a temporary nuc box.

1. Bees on the compost bin.

2. Frames inside cardboard bee box for temporary home.

3. Pouring honey on the hive frames to entice the move.

4. Most of bees including the queen were clustered in the compost lid. John tapped them into the hive box.

5. John with fashionable headgear

6. Most bees follow the queen into the box, stragglers are helped into the hive’s opening with gloved hands and trowel.

We stood in awe as my mentor John, from the Backwards Beekeepers, worked to transfer the bees into a temporary hive box. The sound was like a humming intelligence reminiscent of the Om chant.

Regrettably that swarm choose to depart, but kindly left with a terrific learning opportunity, got me started on the bee adventure and bequeathed a small piece of white comb that they had already started to fill.

Modern literature and ancient mystics alike revere the little honey bee. Tom Robbins writes of the overlap between our “light brain” and our “smell brain.” The honey bee navigates by the sun, guided by subtle intelligence.

The bee is my muse, I create with her matter and she will always teach me. Her arrival that May day deepened and clarified the multi-colored tapestry that I had begun to unconsciously weave while plotting my path her on planet Earth.

At the NAHA Beyond Aromatics Conference in 2016, I did a presentation and workshop titled Scent and the Honey Bee: A Natural History of the Dancing Winged Alchemist. Since the presentation is visual and was recorded, my intention has been to share it and create a live and online workshop with the content.

In the layered scenarios depicted across these six books, Pullman curiously refers to topics that in the past were considered fringe. I started questioning narratives more deeply in 1992, while pregnant with my daughter. Over the past thirty four years, I continue to stay flexible, curious and explore alternatives.

Read more

Illusive thoughts, full of meaning, often float down into my consciousnesses. Sometimes I am able to capture them. I label them of another realm due to their wyrd-ness.

Æther

The thoughts are definitely not part of the big box, systematic, rational thinking mind. As I ponder this, it becomes clear, that I am from Ætheria, like Aeternitas1 pictured above. In the image, she contemplates the dualistic realm set in place by the authoritative, patriarchal systems as she holds the ouroboros in her other hand.

These ethereal (æthe-real) thoughts exist in this world for a limited amount of time before they disappear. To capture, harness and crystalize these mystical threads requires the paradox of being anchored without attachment. I do feel that our language is limited as to how to describe this enchanted space.

Many deep thinkers and mystics have discussed and written about this subtle and invisible substance as æther.

In Phillip Pullmans trilogy His Dark Materials, Dust is a fundamental particle discovered by scientists, strongly associated with consciousness, self-awareness, experience, and maturity. Æther is the medium or substance that fills the universe, it is the environment or field in which Dust exists. Æther, in both Phillip Pullmans series and in old physics/philosophical writings, is an invisible force flowing through everything, a bridge between matter and divinity.

Modern day, left brain, patriarchal systems, dismiss the concept of æther, and have eliminated it from the original periodic table of elements. Newton perceived æther as the hidden order beneath matter, a subtle, invisible medium, necessary to explain gravity, light, and motion and the carrier of forces and order. Pullman uses the same interface, the æther is the essential, invisible fabric of reality. Both view cosmic law as based on awareness having a thermodynamic cost, consciousness must be contained, grounded, localized, otherwise it drains the system. Ethics arise from relationship, not obedience to authoritarian constraints.

The Golden Compass & The Amber Spyglass

The Persian astrolabe, in the images above, is said to have been made in AD 1712–13 by ‘Abd al-A’imma, one of the finest and most prolific astrolabe makers. It resides at the Museum of the History of Science, in Oxford. Phillip Pullman, the author of The Golden Compass teaches at Oxford, thus it is possible this may have been his inspiration for Lyra’s golden compass.

Richard Lovett in “The Subtil Medium Prov’d” speaks of æther as a dynamic, electric force in the cosmos. He shares how specific substances, such as amber, called elektron by the Greeks, demonstrated a mysterious power of attraction, what we now understand as electrical properties.

In Pullman’s story, amber is a fossilized, transparent resin associated with magnetism, electricity, and the soul. The alethiometer reads meaning, embedded in reality by interpreting symbolic relationships. The main character Lyra learns to use her intuition to resonate with the device. This is pure æther theory mirroring Lovett’s ideas. Truth exists in the medium and can be accessed by those aligned with it. Amber stores a charge, symbolically representing a memory made visible in fossilized form.

Lovett saw electricity as proof that the universe is responsive, Pullman extends that claim → the universe is meaningful, and meaning is physical. He re-imagines early electrical æther theory as a cosmology where consciousness itself is a natural force, and amber is the key that lets us perceive it. We are once more re-minded of an intricate, invisible orchestration where each note vibrates the web of life, resonating hidden harmonies.

I’m planning a second post on this topic that will dive deep, keep your antennae pointed to the north and stay tuned.

Check out the post titled LYRA over at Illuminated Perfume, to read about my natural perfume inspired by Phillip Pullmans heroine.

Credits: Words and photographs ©Roxana Villa unless otherwise noted

References

“A Dissertation on the Æther” by Bryan Robinson (1743)

“The Subtil Medium Prov’d” by Richard Lovett (1756)