This time of year

This is the year that my oldest daughter deemed herself too old to trick-or-treat.
A bittersweet time. Being in between. Not one of the little kids but not on her own either.
We trick or treated with our dog, Jupiter, our younger daughter and a couple of her friends and a couple of ours.
Our dog's birthday is Halloween, he is now 8.
Almost every day I think of the inevitability that we will lose him.
Dogs don't live long. Having pets is an act of faith that most people don't go into with clear heads. I did. The ages of our children, the lifespan of a black lab, all planned out. But what you can't plan out is how much you can love your dog and how much you want to protect your kids (and yourself) from the loss, more loss, of losing your beloved. We've had frogs, fish, rabbits, birds and now chickens and a dog. We have buried so many beings in our sweet yard, so many crying processions in the rain, before school or whenever death occurred. The funerals always end with a planting. If only we had made markers. Which roses can we transplant? Or remove? Is this the tree with Sugar under it? It makes me feel like I have done a poor job in the burial department even though we buried our animals with precious baby blankets, silk scarves and all kinds of sweetness, I have no clear memory of who is where. Does it matter?
This time of year is about ancestors and where we come from and having the courage to make it through the winter. It's about death and decay and compost and rot and knowing that if we do indeed survive the winter we will be nourished by all the decay of the winter to enable us to thrive when the sap begins rising in the trees and the blood begins to rise within us in the glorious impossibly far away springtime.
But for now we take our dog trick or treating and know that he is part of our family and I yearn to have my older daughter with me. As we walk I make plans for next year so that we can all be together to celebrate the darkening of the year by lighting fires, drinking hot sweet cider, going out into the dark and begging for candy to say that we have courage in the darkness and we want sweetness and joy, but we also yearn for the scary and mysterious to be shown, because we all know it exists and for one night at least we are comforted by the belief that others can see the deep dark in themselves and others and it's alright.

(The picture is of me & my girls and Miss C. their preschool teacher 2005)

recipe exchange

I was invited to join a recipe exchange.
Really this is just a friendly, non-threatening chain letter.
But a chain letter nonetheless.
Most of the time when I receive something like this in my inbox I say a quick blessing and hit delete.
For some reason, partly because I really like the person who sent it to me and partly because it was raining and I was daydreamy, I sent a recipe.

Here is the recipe I sent:

recipe for...
the perfect bath

tuck kids into bed (if you have them)
turn off phones, tv, radio, stereo etc
boil a big pot of water & add one or more of the following but not all:

(with suggested quantities for each item)

sliced apple (one apple)
sliced quince (one quince)
sliced oranges (one orange)
ginger, fresh- good for warming-(1-2 inch piece cut up)
~~
rose petals (up to 2 lg handfuls fresh and 1 lg handful dried)
lavender flowers (handful or less)
chamomile (1/2 cup)
peppermint leaves (1/2 cup)
thyme leaves (1/8-1/4 cup)-good for stuffy nose

*the top set of suggestions should be simmered for 15-30 minutes
*the second set should be added to boiling water, heat turned off, lid on and steep for 15-20 minutes

while the herbs/fruit are steeping/simmering
gather:

robe
towels
washcloth (to dry off your hands if you have a book)
book
tea (can be the same as you are making above)
or water
candle/matches
sea salt

making sure there are no stray bits of other peoples hair (eww) fill the tub with the perfect temperature of water.
add a handful of sea salt to the running water, this will help to release any negative or stale thoughts and energy.
light your candle/s
arrange book, washcloth & tea/water on a stool or small table so you can easily reach them.

now, carefully! pour the tub tea into your bath, it's actually better to have someone do this for you. You can strain it if you like but I prefer not to.
adjust the lights to your reading or not reading needs
get undressed and step into the bathtub.

relax and know that you are taking time for something very important, time for yourself is good for everyone around you.

drink in the goodness of the experience and know that even if you are reading a trashy paperback that magic is happening and you will be transformed in small & maybe barely perceptible ways, and who knows maybe this is the thing that shifts the multiverse and we just needed a recipe exchange to make it happen.

xoxo

Tea

I love tea.
Tea pots, tea cozies, tea leaves, herbal tea, black tea, green tea, jasmine tea, honey, cream & sugar, I could go on & on but you get the idea. I'll even drink basic black bagged tea when it's offered, just keep me away from anything with the word spice in it; orange spice, market spice and the even worse holiday themed spice teas. These are generally mediocre to bad tea with the addition of essential oils! Perfume in my tea, no thank you. And cinnamon perfume at that. No, really.
Real tea and spices have flavor and scent isn't that enough?
This is the tea you get stuck with if you ask for herbal in most suburban households.
My partner worked at a coffee roastery many moons ago and after a day when they made flavored coffee (another terrible sin) he would come home smelling of generic "spice". He informs me it was cinnamic aldehyde.
Sorry for the rant, I didn't know I had so many issues with the "spice tea".

The point is I do love tea and I had intended to make and sell tea in my shop, but as it is super busy having a shop without making a million new products I have let myself off the hook (is this a reference to Ereshkigal & Inanna?) and ordered tea that someone else will package and label and name.
Loose leaf teas from The Tao of Tea and bagged tea from Treleela. I am so excited.
Tea, to make, share and drink!
And teapots!
Still so excited.
Julia, who is my right hand woman here in the shop loves tea just as much as I do. It was one of the first things we bonded over, so many years ago.
I also just ordered some porcelein teapots that look as if they are carved out of pure white branches, can't wait.
So, now we have the tea and are happily drinking it and it's given me a place to practice mono-tasking. Mono-tasking is the very difficult concept of doing one thing at a time. This may be easy for some, but not for me, and not for Julia. The other day we tried it, I was serious about it. We're going to have tea. Can we go over what needs labeling? No, we're just having tea. OK. How about we just look over that new catalog? No, just tea. Drinking tea. Nothing else. It was difficult to imagine having enough time in the day to do only one very simple, slow thing. And a pleasurable thing at that, like taking a bath in the middle of the day.
Really it was only ten or fifteen minutes but we did it. I challenge you to try it. Mono, really just the one thing, and tea is a great place to start.

4th of july

is a heartbreaker.
and maybe a time to make changes.
Today a friend of mine had a little breakdown that sent her to the hospital, another friend got broken up with via text message and I tried to make new memories of the 4th as I sat watching the amazing display of color and light with beloved friends.
I don't need to go over all of the reasons I don't like this holiday, but trust me I have plenty.
This year, this morning actually, I made the choice to have fun.
Having fun is sometimes a choice you make. Not having fun is sometimes a choice too.
My teenager definitely made a choice to not have fun, and sure enough she succeeded.
I chose to have fun, to find a little magic and beauty in a traditional Americana adventure. I succeeded as well.
The thing is I don't like fireworks, picnics, hanging out at the park with other random portlanders, loud noises, random fire bits shooting about. Not much to like about the whole experience and then put it all together and it's a disaster of epic proportions.
Somehow, I had a good time. The food was great, that helps, but the food has always been great and I haven't always had fun. Our friends are sweet, kind and generous.
Maybe next year we'll have a buffy fest as requested by my teenager, that sounds fun to me, but for today, this year, I had a pretty good 4th.
xoxo

love note

I came to work today to find a love note!
I always stop at the threshold of my store to gather myself to be ready for my day, to go in fresh each day.
Often I will glance at the pile of bills on the other side of the glass door and remember to be grateful not overwhelmed by them.

But today was not like other days, today I saw this through my door:




I was so excited I could hardly put my things down before I opened it.
The message is personal as are all love notes, but sweet for sure.

the coolest thing ever: pinkontour art to help spread love.
my love note was delivered by bicycle as part of a moving art installation.






from my dear friend Martie,who not only takes care of my girls whenever I need her to, but also brings me these amazing arrangements
Days like today it's easy to feel grateful and beloved.

Loss, moving on, catching up

A few months ago, my dad, who had been suffering from lung cancer that had moved to his brain began going downhill very fast.
He had been at death's door for the past 4 & 1/2 years while remaining hopeful, funny, charming and strong.
During this last bad patch I spent most of my energy trying to decide if I should be with him, driving to be with him, or just trying to cope with losing my dad, while still doing all of the things one must do as a mother and store owner, and the: what if it's like all the other times and he pulls through? and the: can I close my store that I just opened to go see him even though he may not even know I'm there?
It was a terrible and incredibly sad time. He did pass and the devastation, even though we were "prepared" for his death, it did not and does not make it any less devastating.
I have been trying to "catch up" which is what people do. What we are expected to do. But life is not linear, at least mine isn't and I've been working through the reality that I cannot just catch up on the weeks that I fell behind on, but that all the pieces of my life are new again and I need to re-frame and re-evaluate and not make things happen but to make assessments as needed without assumptions based on past experience.
How do we re-create ourselves in small indescribable ways while keeping on with the grocery shopping, bill paying, bed-time stories and walking the dog?
Just by staying open and not assuming anything and not taking on too many new things, or any new things.
For me it has been a time of relative seclusion. I say relative because I work retail and am out in the world every day, but the way in which I am in the world is more inward, a bit fragile, but in some ways very powerful because I am not diffusing my energy by chatting with everyone about this personal experience. It makes me wonder what I am doing right now, writing about it, but it's been over two months now and I am feeling at a transition.
The ways in which it has impacted my work as an herbalist and shop keeper is profound and subtle.
Just before my dad started going down hill I had taken on 5 new perfumery clients and had done the initial intake interview the week before.
This has been the most pressing thing for me to catch up on. All of those who are much delayed getting their first perfume samples are amazingly understanding.
It would have been a great disservice to them to make a quick perfume in my grief and in my responsibility to get a "product" out to them.
I am back in the swing of things in some ways/on some days and when I'm not, I make no products.
I just be.
I know this sounds incredibly "be here now" but really, it is profound and difficult. The older I get the more profound it is.
This is the point at which you are either thinking "yeah, me too, I so get that" or "what a freak, I'm never reading this blog again".
Either way, one day you will have the moment when just "being" seems profound.
Life is swirling around us at a frenetic pace and my work right now is to not rush in and try catch up, my work is to just be in the moment.
xoxo

Botanical Perfumery

The process that I go through to create a natural perfume is one of mystery, even to me.
I may wake up with an idea or dream of a blend when I have been stuck in the light of day. I sometimes make amazing mistakes that are fabulous.
Some of the most well thought out processes make the most terrible scents.
I love to explore and experiment with the gads of essential oils, absolutes, concretes, resins, waxes and butters that I have on hand.
People who walk by my store often assume it is a spa. I understand, it's modern, beautiful and there is a curtain to who knows where. This is where it is assumed you can get a facial or a massage. Brilliant really. It was a hope I had while looking for a space, to have it big enough for both a store and a spa, but no. The back room is part office and part blending studio. I make a fair number of my products right here in the shop. Talk about local.
The only service I offer is custom perfumery. This is a before or after hours service that is one on one. I ask a lot of questions and you (we'll pretend I am making it for you) get to smell tons of scents. Some blends but mostly single notes.


It takes about 90 minutes, we drink tea and get into the scents and I take a lot of notes.
It used to be closer to 60 minutes, but I keep getting more oils and I want to have a chance to step outside and get fresh air every now and then. It has been overwhelming for a couple of folks.

After our initial meeting I will go over my pages of notes and create some ideas for recipes and work on them for a week or so. Letting them rest, tweaking, going back over my notes and so on.
When I feel I have captured the perfect essence of what you are looking for and what will match you, taking into consideration any things that need treating on an aromatherapeutic level. Anxiety, depression etc
This takes (for me) being in a particularly good and even space.
I am re-membering our time together, re-creating a feeling that is the intention of the scent and crafting out of botanical materials.
I generally can have 3 folks at a time that I am working on, but I had a very busy week a couple of months ago and I had 5 appointments in one week.
I had a pretty open following weeks so I thought it would all be fine.
Sadly there became a pressing family issue for me to attend to and I became very behind with my perfumery.
My perfumery clients have been incredibly patient & kind and I am finally in a space to begin this work again.
My assistant, julia the beautiful, keeps reminding me of the other products in the store that we are low on or out of. Yes, I know but this is where I'm at. I'm working on these scents and it's nice.
I have sets of initial scents for 2 of the 5 clients and a good direction with the 3rd, so I feel good about that.
I have one client who was worried that I couldn't make something for her because about 75% of what she smelled she didn't like. I think she was worried that she was being "difficult", I hope not, I found her charming and hilarious.
I had another client who liked the scents that I do not.
I can't say it isn't challenging, but I do enjoy the process.
We'll see how they like them.
xoxo