Category: Blog

From the collection: Three Wise Trees.

I coined the affectionate term of “Three Wise Trees” for Pine, Juniper and Cypress while studying their volatile, aromatic essences, captured ‘for eternity’ by us at EssènciesCat. 

The exploration continued with images and musical echoes from the baroque repertoire that I play as a cellist and sing as a ‘wanna be’ mezzo soprano. Pine began humming through the Suite in C major by J.S. Bach, Juniper was the ground bass of Henry Purcell’s arias and Cypress was in the opening phrase of the Goldberg variations. Three workshops of aromatherapy with music grew from the material.  I was invited to inaugurate a distinguished baroque music festival ‘Espurnes Barroques’ with an installation called ‘Breathe Tree’ with the Catalan artist, Marina Berdolet. Her smoke, oil and ink paintings created a dialogue with our tree essences, my poems and baroque music. It was intensely moving, especially as it commemorated 25 years of devastating forest fires in central Catalonia.  

These poems are improvisations on the breath of our elders, who, I might add, are rather delighted to be able to move into your hands, easing their consciousness about yours. They are eager to share their shadows and play of light, sound and echo, movement and gesture with you. They want to be a part of your imagination, your dream, your flow of life. 

They are very much alive. 

They want to remind you that you are not alone. 

Mine is the Pine

who deftly spills over barren hills,

overflowing heady thoughts 

to those who refuse to close the door.

Mine is the Pine

whose warbling trunk

creases and divides

in concubine chunks

driving incessantly

deeper.

Mine is the Pine

whose fragrant whine

doesn't baffle or detract

but wells up and builds

hurricane walls

to hide in.

Mine is the Pine

whose air trembles

through fragmented hands.

Regenerative sap

claps

ecstatically over me.

Oh Juniper, Oh Juniper,

Oh weighted finger, Juniper.

Your twisting hope

clenches clean the mist.

Defy the might of those who fight

and lend a secret to those who resist.

Cade Song

It echoed on and on inside of me.

The cave grew, the cave shrunk

The cave stopped the clocks, locked the locks

and occupied time.

Walls of compassion, bed of rest,

shelter from the past, cocoon of future.

Slice time to create cave,

smoke of the ages hollows stone,

cradles your weighted bone.

Rest, my swan, my child, my bear.

Tuck your head away from their stare.

Imagine again who you are,

Imagine your universe, birth your star.

You are the light in cave’s darkness

you are the life in cave’s cold

you are the breathing walls of empathy,

solid, kind, warm, old. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T57_R5HNlr0

“I give my heart to you, Forest”.

“We will hold it, as we hold the mist.

You are in our breath.”

Are we drunk on dream

or death?

The dream of life rests

as if asleep

but it’s dead.

Dream me again

and again.

Are you ready to witness

death

again

and again?

Resurrect the dream,

the imagined life

and you will be enchanted

by your will

to live;

Entwined in the dance

of dream and death.

The upheaval of the resurrection

sways our staggering psyches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttqtt26PTy4

CYPRESS SONG

Capriccio's arrow joined mine, 

fizzing, arching over time,

cleaving, marking, anchoring memory

to the dewy innocence of morning.

Arrows flew, arrows fly,

satellites circle an ancient sky.

Trigger me, trigger you,

war’s been called, death’s a cry.

For death is what an arrow seeks

aghast, the mouth, silence speaks;

stuck the scream, stuck the screw

winding down, knotting true.

Beg for a pause, a breath, a beat.

Daren’t look down at my feet

only to be gorged into the vast

bedrock below, alive whole cast.

Throw me a line, hoik me out,

words I mouth, hope I shout

from these tunnels of despair,

from these whirlpools of no air.

Apollo watches, concerned no doubt,

for the gifts he gave have turned about

in giddy circles, uncanny looping,

hooking disaster in shoals, swooping. 

Time strides, the inevitable unfolds,

the bow tremors, splicing worlds,

the salty spray bites my lips, 

the winds of destiny crack their whips.

Meltwater rises, time dissolves

the old is new, the new revolves

in mirrors and shadows, pits and ponds

chase it, catch it, carry it beyond

this death, this age, this crack, this shell,

this calving ice, this echoing well.

Let her flash up and in,

another arrow, green and thin

to mark the spot where indeed we wept

for all the loss, the promises unkept.

For cypress holds and cypress knows

about the blood that surely flows

about the blue that veins the white

about the beat, the warmth at night. 

Calendula
I hid in your skirts, my face between the folds,
denying the light and clinging, I curled.
“Let go of my dress,
go into the glades, the fields, the whole earth;
explore freely.
Get dirty, get earth under your nails,
get scratched, get burnt, get sticks in your hair,
go through a hedge backwards,
your skin caressed by the sun.
May your lips shape kisses
May your heart shape spirit
May your hands shape love.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ZzjXplGdY

Everlasting

Heart hunter

burns time.

Smoke tendrils

crying tremors

misty stillness

eternal currents.

Papa heaven and mama earth dreamt you.

Light beacons pulsate,

the stars receive your song.

Spaces emerge between halls of consciousness.

Sink further in

drift further in

into the starlight sunlight, heatlight, everlastinglight.

Fennel
The wind is racing and I am facing
what I hope is the last blast out of this cast rigid sense of stone self, moan self, croan before my time self, mutterself, stutterself, grinding sense of doom self.

The wind is racing and I am pacing
what I hear is the true call into this body fluid sense of cell self, float self, present in a time self, listenself, christenself, rolling sense of essence self.

The wind is indeed racing
and blasting self, face, body, stone
into one cast, one egg, one unit of birth.

Senses that have been buffeted,
self that has been garrotted
are swept to the land of forgotten
horizon of distant smudges.
Singing wind exalts in her tidying
her swarming organising efficiency.
Fennel metronome beats in swaying agreement.

Loosen clods of time
embedded within my cells.
Erode my memory of self
with white shark roots that snap through my days.

Storm clouds surrender to the land
in relentless accumulation
of sun in soil
time in terrain,
and us, we cower under mirages of our soul.

Fennel shoots,
our list to do to do,
clatters as loose stones, teeth falling,
tinkling in unmusical clatter.
Our soul lifts, lightly rising,
guilt evaporates.

Iris
A particular blue, of purple hue
A flag to all forgotten
A gesture to excellence
provoking the horizon
to receive.
With tongue unfurled
the truth will out
the lies remembered well.
A balming call
to receive them all
and transcend, blend
forgiveness all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l96pJ_mRk70

Roman Chamomile

A fine rain clings.

Nuances suggest a funnel

a pressure, a zip.

The sun is juiced on the horizon,

the violence of disappearing and appearing;

of time

manifests

when we hold on

to this immense weight.

So let’s let go,

stretch,

flex,

become.

Lavender

Clean bones cry,

a dazzling horizon breathes
the ringing tune of total surrender 
dilating veins and eye.
Rings beam from stillness.

We are submerged together, 
held in blue waters.
Electric pulsations
reveal a beating life.

Rose
In the silence there is space.
In the space there is being.
In the being there is bliss.
Sweet memory of being.
There is
this.
This is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye3-bfUWMHU

Rosemary
When I had thought my time had gone
you get me up, move me on
mountain is high, sea is so wide
you cling to the path, waves you ride,
Oh a thousand streams, a thousand paths flow through you.
Through you are the golden rings
through you is the blue sky
through you is the cleansing;
our memory - Rosemary.

When I feel disconnection
trembling fear, hesitation.
remember this; we are, I am
keeping moving onwards up,
Oh a a thousand streams, a thousand paths flow through you.
Through you is the eagle’s gaze
through you comes spaciousness
through you is togetherness;
our memory - Rosemary.

Oregano is a Lamiacae, rich in essential oils, and with 38 species of oregano, 6 subspecies and 17 hybrids, it is one of the most important culinary and medicinal plants of the Mediterranean basin. 

Instead of writing the usual list of chemical components with the traditional and therapeutic uses of the plant and oil, I will use music as a metaphor to describe the action of oregano as I experience it through the sensorial approach. (A long olfaction with the 1 drop of oil on a perfume paper stick.)

As I emerged from meeting the genus of the plant, the music of Vivald’s Summer from the four seasons came to mind. What better music from the underworld to echo the intensity of this aroma! I will refer to this recording throughout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5hCGaOWdwE

In the baroque era, when this music was composed, the devil was depicted playing the violin and violinists virtuosity were stretched by ‘devilishly difficult’ passages that stretched musicians' technical mastery. 

The opening of the violin concerto is of musical breaths entitled ‘languishing under the harsh season of the sun’, similar to the altered breathing needed to first approach oregano, difficult to inhale due to it’s intense burning. These first breaths are written ‘in thirds’,  the melody being strengthened by a second voice sounding three notes lower. This technique of enhancing a melody with a parallel line a  third below is extremely common, originated in the baroque period and we still hear it today in alot of pop music. Now, oregano has two phenol compounds, thymol, carvacrol and P - cymene  interact with each other, creating an additive effect, much like the second voice a third below adds to the emotional power of the melody. 

A great descent begins and we hear it in the creeping sinews lower into the lava shoot as Vivaldi’s orchestra depicts, the man, the flock languishes, the pine burns’; we almost hear the hissing of the wood as it catches alight. The  birds are melting, the whole landscape is being crushed in the heat. As we descend into this densifying, tight space, it’s like breathing underground with no fresh air shaft.

 “I am the spirit of the volcano.” Let’s skip to the final, third movement of the concerto (minute 7,36”) where the explosions sound. Let's also refer back to those phenol compounds that have an ability to permeabilize and depolarize the plasma membrane of invading microbes, causing their ‘skins’ to explode, leaking out their vital energy. These phenols partition the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane, making it more permeable and so causing the leakage (or shall we say explosion) of cell contents. Oregano’s phenol compounds exert an antibacterial activity on the cell membrane by altering its structure and function, usually causing the death of the cell. Thymol and carvacrol (our melody in thirds) can bind to membrane proteins and lipopolysaccharides, reaching the innermost, most vulnerable membrane. The spirit of the volcano touches the bacteria and provokes it to behave in the same way, destabilizing its surface, and causing its destruction. 

This heat is tied tightly to the heat of rage, followed by the intense sadness and heaviness felt after a falling out with a loved one. The solitude of anger is depicted beautifully in the second, slow movement at minute 5,08”. We are hiding in the cave, licking our wounds with our ring of fire fiercely guarding the entrance. We are alone and the memory of the argument alive; the exchange, the release of furious words and physical energy rumbling closely next to us, heard in the orchestra’s tremellos. 

How many bacteria invade us after the frustration of not being heard, of expressing our rage, of not expressing our rage, our blind anger, resentment, even disgust? We are at our most vulnerable after an explosion, when our shadow, our dragon has woken from the deep, passed through the smoke and breathed fire! Ah, yes, it is then, afterwards, in the descent after the fury that we sink and are exposed, exhausted, spent, all the fight gone. A fertile ground for passing bacteria indeed. 

Treat like with like. Perhaps Oregano compact’s fire is perfect for treating illness and physical / emotional imbalance for people who want to explore their relationship with anger, rage and resentment, for those who express it too readily, who have ‘anger issues’, who are blocked to express themselves freely and others who have felt the desolate shame and tragedy of a relationship breaking down and are now suffering heaviness and physical weakness.

Let's consider where oregano compact dwells, it’s dark chamber. There are textures, lights of minerals on the walls, there are secrets and mysteries here behind the veil of fire. Memories of smoke. Perhaps as we spend time with the spirit of the volcano, we get accustomed to the stillness between the explosions and our breath sinks into the abyss. We feel the compression and resist no more.

There is another ‘version’ of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, recomposed by Max Richter. Do have a listen to ‘Summer’ here: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrIRbytwpAMm1lScWvQfBm2v-TSDoVOFv

Intoxified leaping 

through midsummer shadows

through ring of fire

through wall of flames

through burning piles of memories.

Fury is consumed.

‘The Great Descent’ begins.

Concentric ripples ride in rounds,

breaths drop as stones into the darkness.

A memory of smoke, of arguments, of solitude after the fight echoes in this chamber.

Walls are studded in minerals I cannot name; lost dreams encrusted underground.

The veil of fire protects deep mystery here. 

You can purchase both Oregano vulgaris virens essential oil and hidrolates from us.