Category Archives: Lifestyle

Living the experiment…part 2

Posted on January 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

After 15 years in the Swedish forest I moved to Luxembourg. I found a nice house with a wonderful garden in a nice village with nice people. Life was great…And comfortable; streetlights, paved roads, water and plumbing all done, woopwoop! I was looking forward to a life more comfortable and easier than the years in the forest, but within a sustainable frame.  Trust me, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It takes thought and planning:

  • Shopping is done in stores – always. This means packaging galore and boy are people into packaging! So I make choices based on the packaging and of course the foodstuffs; no expensive crappy packaged and processed food.
  • Trash: Luxembourg is amazing in that you get little bins for recycling that then are collected at your house every 2 weeks – impressive! I started a compost where a lot of stuff goes, including the ashes from the stove. The bonus of the compost is that the moles have stopped killing off my plants and instead hang out in the compost which we now call the mole-feeder :-) I ordered the smallest dustbin, 60 liters, which is collected once a week. Thanks to the mole-feeder and the brilliant recycling, this tiny dustbin is more than enough, even when my house is full.
  • Heating: Luxembourg is a lot less cold in winter than Sweden and already that simplifies a lot. I have electric heating in the house and during winter keeping the house warm would cost me a fortune, so I installed a wood-burning stove that heats more or less the whole house. It takes work and planning but it functions beautifully and I can keep my living-area wonderfully warm. I absolutely detest cold weather and refuse to go outside unnecessarily in winter, the wood-work forces me out every day for some good strength-training…Automatic health :-)
  • Water: There seems to be unlimited amounts of water all the time, the hot water is created in a boiler. It is so easy to just use, use, use…This is a bit trickier to keep check of, but I keep the usage down, no need to use everything just because it’s there. And the garden must survive the occasional dry spell in summer.

At the end of the day my bills are down, my house is warm, the moles are fed and my garden gives me berries and fruit in abundance…I love making jam :-) I don’t grow my food as I used to in the forest because I am really enjoying the comfort of life here and growing food is a lot of work.

Conclusion: Even if I was stinking rich and could get everything I wanted in the amounts I wanted it, I would still live this way. What might have started out as an economical solution or necessity has turned into a life-style of respect for the Earth and all the gifts she showers us with. Everything has a price even if we don’t notice it and we need to remember that.

Another noteworthy point is that sustainable living is automatically healthy and even if it takes some work and planning, it is still both easier and cheaper than going to the gym or trying to stay on a diet. You can only win.

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Living the experiment…part 1

Posted on January 14, 2012 | 3 Comments

Going back to sustainability: When child nr 2 came we decided to live in the forest where I had a tiny cottage with 2 rooms and a kitchen. The cottage had no plumbing, very little electricity and, of course, no running water. We are talking an original Swedish cottage (torp) more or less unchanged since it was built in 1680. Swedish winters are horrendously cold and life quickly turned into a survival area for us. Slowly we renovated the cottage, one room at a time, and within the first 3 years we got water, plumbing and a bathroom! The point is that we could see where everything went; the plumbing was laid down under the field for the horses, visible from the kitchen window. Whatever went down the drain and out would stay within our “living surface”. Our water came from a well, dug behind the house and every day we could check the level of water to make sure it didn’t dry up…It never did, amazing well. :-)

The point here is that when starting out with no modernities in such a pure space of nature, you become extremely aware of the sustainability of your living; washing-powder and liquids go down the drain and flow slowly beneath the green grasses where the horses graze and suddenly it really matters what you allow into that flow. Taking water becomes an issue as well; if the levels drops you have to ration the water to make it last. Heating; big issue. Electricity was installed in our house – state of the art, we could actually keep a lamp lit while having a fridge! We even had a tiny boiler that would hold 30 liters; just enough to bathe 2 children in the sink, once the dishes were done and more water had been heated in the boiler. :-) Electricity is expensive so we used wood to heat the house, a wood-burning stove is brilliant in the kitchen, filling 2 purposes at once and a tiny house is bliss to heat during the long cold winter. Getting firewood is hard work but we had plenty of forest.

The children used diapers of cloth to save both money and space in the dust-bin. Getting rid of garbage is costly and you don’t know where it goes. Everything that could go on the compost went there and the dogs and cats would eat the rest. Packaging was not a big problem since we  got most of our foodstuffs and milk from the farmers around.

We weren’t looking to be sustainable, it was never a thought or an issue, it just automatically happened. Both me and Hubby were from the city where everything is taken for granted; there are unlimited amounts of water – even hot water – all the time, you can flush most anything down the toilet and the trashcan is a hole in the wall containing a chute that will transport your trash to “somewhere in the basement”, never to be seen or heard from again. In the forest this all changed; nothing is automatic and whatever you do (or don’t) it’s going to stare you in the face all the time.

Lesson learned: Sustainability is about re-using everything and thinking twice all the time. From how you heat your house and get rid of your garbage to how you shop, cook and maintain your stuff. sustainability takes time and work. To be honest, at the time it was also about economy; it’s hard for an entire family to live on one small salary and I really wanted to be with the children full time. I baked our bread, collected fruits, berries, herbs and mushrooms from the forest and the garden…I am a mean jam-maker! I sewed our stuff for the house and some of the children’s clothes.

Now my life has changed a lot and in the next post I will tell you about how this works. Stay tuned folks!

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SUSTAINABILITY of Self

Posted on January 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

When we hear sustainability we think waste-management, renewable sources and other measures to heal and save the earth. Although everybody agrees that these measures are absolutely necessary for our future there always seems to be reasons why it can’t be done, which is really strange since pollution, global warming, toxicity and depletion of sources is a serious matter to every single person. Sustainable living is an issue both on a personal and political level.

People want to be sustainable without giving up comfort; sure recycling is good – as long as I don’t have to think about it. Using less electricity is fine unless it cramps my style. (check out the comments every time there is a suggestion of 1 hour electricity-free time; “Not without my computer, music, tv”….and mind you, this is only one hour!)

I always found it really upsetting or irritating that people would be so lazy and stupid until I looked again and realized that there is no sustainability on a personal level – the Self. Some people starve themselves to death, others eat themselves to death; we are killing ourselves with crappy choices in life. Instead of investing in our health through lifestyle choices, we use surgery and medication to keep our sorry selves alive. How can we even think about sustainable living when we are incapable of taking responsibility for ourselves?

Sustainability starts at home, with yourself. If you can’t even take care of your physical health, how can you ever grasp the idea of taking care of Mother Earth? The trashing we are seeing, the greed and laziness that is depleting and destroying the globe is mirroring how we treat ourselves on a personal level, the lack of (self)respect that is our way of life.

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…and then came Body

Posted on December 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Let’s stick with Body for a while; the joy of body in well-being is severely underrated. It’s always about exercise, food, stay fit, don’t get too fat or too thin… I think a lot of people find this intensely stressful and have problems incorporating a healthy (and happy) body-view in their lives because it’s boring. Being fit and healthy comes from joy, if you don’t find joy in your regime, the body will not answer in a positive way; you will get crabby from not eating enough and pains from a training program you don’t enjoy. Or you will get so stuck in staying “fit”, that it blinds you.

For me it’s dancing and the work with horses, this keeps me fit. Not because I am looking for fitness, but because they are highlights in my life. Being fit, healthy and strong is the added bonus. I also like my short, intense interval trainings because I like the feeling of my muscles. :-) I don’t have to think too much about it since it is all “automatic” somehow. I eat because I get hungry and I sleep well because my body is happy to rest and my head gets quiet.

So try finding something you really like; walking, dancing, riding, running, drumming, football…Whatever. As long as it keeps you moving you will stay fit because your body and mind will wish for it. No more boring exercise and complicated diet-schemes. Clean up your food (easily done) and get that body moving. If this puts a smile on your face, stay with it. Our bodies are made to move and when you give body what it needs you can wave goodbye to hurtful stress, illness and depression. Moving body is the fastest way to an instant high…What’s not to like?

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A NEW HEALTHY LIFE-STYLE – EXERCISE

Posted on July 6, 2011 | 2 Comments

Our bodies are designed to move…a lot. Everything in the body is in constant movement, inside we are like a beautifully designed machine where everything fits together. But the machine needs to work (move) to function. When we move circulation is enhanced; oxygen in, toxins out. There is no other way to do this. When we don’t move the opposite occurs; bad circulation, accumulation of toxins in our system, weak muscles that can’t keep the posture, the skeletal system goes out of whack because there is no muscle support and we end up with a whole array of aches and pains. The way our society is built today does not leave much space for movement. We sit at work, sit in our transportation, sit at home. We take the elevator or the escalator, even if it means waiting. We are constantly stressed and in some kind of pain because the body is not getting what it needs. And when the body doesn’t get what it needs, nor does the mind. When exercising, the brain secretes all kind of yummy, feel-good hormones that make us high and happy.

The benefits of exercise are huge: Less risk for osteoporosis, better circulation, healthy hunger and healthy demands from the body, clarity of mind, improvement of mood, more energy, better sleep-patterns, reduces stress, the list is long. Look at children; they move all the time and their bodies are strong and fit. They don’t have problems with posture, aches and dislocated vertebrae…

If you are not used to exercising, start slow: Take the stairs, take a walk, park your car further away from the mall. Walk those 2 bus-stops (it’ll probably be faster than waiting for the bus), dance. Little by little you add on; walk further, start doing other exercises, run, skip, jump, climb a tree. When you are at the playground with your child, play! Climb, swing and use the playground equipment to exercise. Check out videos on YouTube “playground exercises”.

  • Aches and pains: If you have problems with your body, chances are that they will heal or get better with movement. Just be careful not to overdo it. If you have problems with your knees walk the stairs up and take the elevator down. Going downstairs or downhill creates a much bigger impact on your joints. Walk, don’t run or jump. Climbing is good. Push-ups is a brilliant exercise for the whole body and can be done by anybody. If you can’t do full push-ups, start on your knees or against a wall or an elevated surface. Menstrual pain always lessens with movement. Head-aches often clear.
  • Time: You can get a really heavy-duty work-out in only 15-20 min. Cardio by running, skipping rope, dancing, step-ups or using the stairs. Strength by using interval-training. This can be fit in any time during the day; lunch break, morning, evening. Instead of sitting through stupid programs on the TV or hanging out with your best buddy – the computer, move! You can even fit in more than one session in a day.
  • Expenses: There are none unless you want to. For weights you can use cans, water-bottles, rocks…whatever. You can use an ordinary rope for skipping, your body-weight is already something to work with. You can do everything in your living-room, garden, play-ground, park, forest…use your imagination. If you want to invest, buy some dumb-bells, they are not too costly. I invested in a timer for interval-training, it’s called Gymboss and you can purchase it either in a sports-shop or here. It costs about 20 US dollars. Interval training is hard to do on your own without a timer.
  • Body-weight & Balance: When you do body-weight exercises, you use all the muscles in your body because while you are moving, the body constantly has to stabilize and balance itself. I prefer this to working on machines because the machine targets only one area. By using your whole body you get balance, coordination and strength. There is no end to the movements and combinations you can create, so you don’t have to get bored. Besides, you can do it anywhere. I LOVE interval-training (or Tabata); it’s fun, fast, easy and efficient. I do it in my living-room in winter, in my garden in the summer and sometimes in the forest where I can use nature’s equipment.
  • Warm-up & Stretching: Always warm up before training and stretch after. This will keep stiffness and soreness to a minimum, keeping you muscles long and supple. Some stiffness is to be expected when you start, or step up, your work-out. The best way to get past this is by exercising. Over time your program will get too easy, then you need to add more movements or weight.

Here is a great video to show how interval training is done:

You will love the look and feel of your new body; toned muscle, good posture, looking radiant and strong. You will find yourself taking every chance to move; walk, take the stairs, turn the house-cleaning into a work-out :-) Health is all about loving and respecting yourself.

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A NEW HEALTHY LIFESTYLE – NUTRITION

Posted on July 1, 2011 | 1 Comment

Just because we have a certain age in years, doesn’t necessary mean that we have the same age physically. Some people can carry 10-20 years more in their bodies than their actual age. It depends on a lot of factors; nutrition, habits, sleep, stress-levels, exercise and thought-patterns. I think this is not understood by most people and that if we knew, we would pay so much more attention to our health and well-being. This age-pattern can be tested and analyzed when necessary, showing black-on-white how body is doing inside.

We are not always very careful about our physical health and sometimes it’s shocking to see what people do to themselves; Obesity and stress are 2 major factors in accelerated body-age and both these groups are growing fast. In these days of pollution (all kinds – including “bad” foods) we need to inform ourselves how to live healthy and take necessary measures. It will not happen by itself, every person is responsible for his/her health and needs to do the job. It is never easy to change lifestyle, especially when food has become your drug, but it can be done and within a week you will feel the benefits; more energy, stronger, healthier and happier.

You might think; “Nah, I don’t have time, money, energy….(fill in the blank) to do this”. Trust me, the day your health is endangered by your bad life-style and you are facing disease or worse you will find that you are prepared to do almost anything to reverse your condition – no matter the cost, time and energy. Better then to do it straight away and save yourself the anguish which disease brings – especially when you brought it on yourself!

  • Nutrition: Basically the most important factor. Food can act as a catalyst to our health or it can become a drug that pollutes the body. It’s all about choices. I have come to realize that not everyone is aware of what they are putting into their bodies so learning and understanding is needed. I have found that the best way to understanding is doing. Start with an elimination diet for one month to clear and heal your body. From there you can, little by little, re-introduce different foodstuffs and really feel what they do to you. Allergies or over sensitivity to foods are not always obvious and you might find you are sensitive to certain things once your system is cleared and you can feel what happens in your body; bloating, gas, pain, indigestion. You can download an excellent, free, elimination program here that I have used both for myself and clients with great results. Use it for a month and see what happens. It might be a good idea to keep a diary so you can stay aware of the changes and reactions. The Elimination Diet program also tells you how to prepare yourself. Eating healthy is not more expensive than eating unhealthy – on the contrary; you will find yourself saving a lot of money when you change your eating-habits. You will also, more or less automatically, lose weight and then you can use that money to buy funky clothing for your new and beautiful body :-)
  • Abuse: (or addiction) This can be anything from certain foods, sugars, coffee, alcohol, fats, tobacco, aspirin (yes, aspirin) and drugs. This all needs to go. Once you start your elimination diet you will, after an initial withdrawal reaction, feel less and less need for the stuff. Addictive behavior is always emotional and the more you have “screwed up” your system, the more you feel the need of your “drug”. The body – and mind – goes out of whack.
  • Withdrawal: I address this because I have found that many people give up because of withdrawal symptoms, often believing something is wrong. You will have to go cold turkey if your lifestyle has been bad. Every addiction creates a huge imbalance in the body, keeping it craving for more. Withdrawal symptoms can be head-aches, nervousness, irritability, emotional yo-yo, and even aches and pains. They usually last around 3 days, by then the body has (under the right circumstances) cleared itself and you should start feeling very good. The natural high you get from a healthy body is amazing! This might be a good time to go for massage or sauna which will help the detox move faster and more efficiently.
  • Water: Water is life and makes up ca 70% of our bodies. Water is the most important nutrient to our bodies and is involved in every bodily function. We need to drink between 1.5 – 3 liters/day.  Don’t drink massive amounts in one go, drink steadily through the day. During the detox stage this is most important since your body will start getting rid of toxins and the water helps flush them out. Think of it as an internal shower. Most people today are dehydrated and with bad eating habits this gets even worse: Sugar, for example, is extremely dehydrating, so each time you drink a soda you are actually dehydrating your body instead of hydrating it! If you want to know more about what water does in your body read this article. (I highly recommend you to read it.) Get a filtration system and use it for your tap-water. Not only will it save money but it is also sustainable; no more PET-bottles littering the globe! Tap-water goes through more control processes than any bottled water (which sometimes is just….tap water in a PET-bottle)
  • Stress: Stress puts an enormous pressure on our body-systems. Not only does it overload but it also increases fat-deposits in the body. When you are stressed, the digestive system closes down and stops working properly which means that instead of using fat for fuel, the body starts breaking down and using muscle tissue. So along with getting fatter, you get weaker as well.
  • Fat-cells: We have a given number of fat-cells in our bodies and they stay constant, so when there is weight-gain the cells actually get larger while the overall number stays the same. The fat-cells are an important part of our health and liposuction is not an option for weight-loss. Liposuction is a huge attack on our metabolism and can be very dangerous. We need all our fat-cells – and we want them lean and mean…
  • Accountability: This is IMPORTANT! Find somebody you trust that you are accountable to, a little like a coach. Tell this person about your plans to clean up your diet and ask them to back you up. It can also be a therapist or a coach. Write a contract with this person, keep a diary, connect with this person on a regular basis and be honest about what you are doing (also when you fall off the wagon) and how you are doing. When you feel yourself flagging, reconnect with your “coach” to get back on track. Another option is to go through this program with other people, staying accountable to each-other.
  • Habits: Habits are hard to break and when you start a dietary program you are always facing your habitual every-day-life. You need to make changes. If you have a family they will also have to change (clean up) their nutrition. Don’t fall for the habits; pizza and beer with the friends, Friday cosiness with the family. You can do all what you used to do, you just need to tweak it; have a salad instead of pizza, have water instead of alcohol. Exchange the crisps and candy for nuts and fruits – there are always options. And if you feel you really can’t handle it, then don’t go there until you feel strong enough.
  • Falling off the wagon: This is a biggie. We all fall off the wagon every once in a while and this does not mean that we have failed. Brush yourself off and get back on that wagon! Apologize to yourself, forgive yourself and get back on track. This does not need to be a major set-back. Talk to your “coach” and try to figure out how and why it happened. Once you understand that, you can refrain from falling into the trap again.
  • Alcohol: Not only is alcohol toxic to your system, it is also a mental trap: Even one little glass of wine or a small beer will set you in a different mind-set; the “I can handle it” mind-set. This is when you screw up big time. There is a reason why ex-drug-addicts don’t drink alcohol; not because alcohol as such is a drug to them, but because it increases (actually maximizes) the risk of falling back into old patterns. So: NO ALCOHOL, not even the tiniest sip of champagne at a wedding…
  • Planning: To make it easier on yourself and diminish the stress of changing your lifestyle you need to plan ahead. Make schedules one week at a time: Plan every meal for the week and put the schedule on the fridge. Make sure you have everything you need at home so you don’t run out. Unscheduled visits to the grocery store (especially when hungry) is the worst trap ever. You will end up buying stuff you should not eat. If you are clever you can prepare meals ahead of time to simplify your life, then you can also plan ahead for days when you know you will have less time. Plan your lunches and snacks that you bring to work and prepare them the day before. Make it as simple as possible.

In the next post I will talk about exercise and show you how you can easily incorporate it into your daily life without taking a lot of extra time or paying a fortune at the gym.

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STRESS, the disease of discontenment?

Posted on June 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

In 19th century Sweden the “torpare” or crofters were farm-laborers with a cottage. This already brought their status up compared to the ordinary laborers. They had the use of a tiny cottage; 1 room and a small kitchen with dirt-floors and some land around it for planting crops. The “rent” for the cottage was to work for the landowner and sometimes also with payments in the form of  crops. The families were usually large with 6-12 children and everybody had to work; man, wife and the children over a certain age. The average working-hours were from 4am – 7pm. They were allowed 13 Sundays  per year to go to church. For each hour of missed work, one entire work-day was demanded. Besides this, the rules for how to run the cottage were very strict; the lands and cottage had to be well-tended and in perfect repair. Their food and survival came from the crops they grew at the cottage, usually on very meager soil. Pregnant women usually worked until the contractions started and a day after giving birth, they were back at work. Smaller children were tended by one of the older. With all this work for the landowner, when on earth did they manage their own land? Herculean effort 24/7, 352 days/year. Oh, almost forgot, the landowner also had the right to beat them if they did not perform. Slavery? not quite, for extra work (extra work? you’ve got to be kidding, right?) they would receive a pittance. And these were people that were enviable to others…

This kind of living ended as late as the early 20th century, there are still people, albeit old, who have some memories of this kind of life through the stories told by their parents. The industrial revolution came as a blessing; regulated working hours, regulated salaries, medi-care, insurance… still, to us living today, even the industrial era is an unimaginable hardship.

Hard life? Stress?

In comparison our lives today are comfy, lazy, luxurious ….and whiny. How did these people survive such a hard day-to-day life? And what about when really tough times hit? Drought, famine, death, inability to work… they would be out on the street, entire families with no possibility whatsoever to feed or clothe themselves, let alone all the children. From my point of view this kind of life would induce such tremendous stress; people must have been constantly in a state of burn-out, heart-attacks galore, aches and pains, sleeping problems, nervous break-downs, psychological wreaks and what-have-you.

I see people every day that complain of stress and sometimes I honestly wonder “what is their problem?” Over time I have found a red thread: dis-contentment. Society today showers us with ideas of what we could have. And everybody is believing it. Nothing seems quite good enough and everything is exchangeable. Tired of your sofa, car, man, woman, house, stereo, TV? …exchange it. Values disintegrate and the rat-race is on. Now we talk about sustainable living, 6 hour workdays and our rights. What rights? Who’s rights? Who are going to give us these rights? Aren’t we all responsible for our own reality? You want to be sustainable? Keep your stuff until it falls apart, don’t throw your food away, be grateful for all that you have and repair!

We complain about stress, how awful it is, how it is the new disease. Still, we all know about stress, it doesn’t come as a surprise and with this knowledge we should be able to nip it in the bud, don’t you think? If you know that you will break your leg by jumping off the roof, will you still jump? With the basic living quality we have today…how can we have such huge personal problems with more or less everything? Don’t accept stress, say no. Keep remembering your “good place” and pay attention to stay there and most of all; find contentment. I believe today’s stress has more to do with dis-content than actual pressure. And if you are angry with me now for saying this, maybe you should read the first paragraph again.

Be grateful you have a car, even if it looks like shit and you would like a Mercedes. Be grateful for your health and, when you fall ill, that you get medical care and are not left to die by the roadside. So you have to wear last year’s dress…at least you have one or two or more. Every time you run your washing machine, give thanks that you don’t have to wash by hand – all that extra time saved. Next time you are about to throw out the left-overs, think again and turn them into another meal. Take a moment every day to think about all the blessings in your life and feel the gratitude. Your ancestors worked themselves to death to create this abundant life for you. I think they’re turning in their graves at how ungrateful and whiny we have all become. Find contentment and you will beat stress faster than a cat sneezes.

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EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

Posted on June 9, 2011 | 1 Comment

You know how little irritating things happen that might throw the day of course? Like forgetting your keys, taking the wrong turn or dropping a glass that explodes in one million shards… It’s really annoying and can put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day. We get hooked on that first negative moment and then we are blinded for all other possibilities. I have been working on a way around this, I look at the other side – the silver lining of the cloud. Sometimes, admittedly, I have to look really hard to see any redeeming qualities in what happened, but they are always there, or maybe I have gotten really good at finding them (what else can a desperate girl do?).

I made a poster where I write such situations, minor stuff. (see pic) To the left is “negative”  in red and on the right is the “silver lining” in green. Some things are really obvious when they happen, others take some pondering :-) I have 3 such “obvious” silver-linings:

  • - Falling    + Not hurting myself and realizing that I can fall without hurting myself :-)
  • - Stomach illness    + Lose some pounds
  • - Make a mistake with a recipe    + A new exiting product

The thing is that it sits there, the poster, reminding me of little silver-linings and inviting me to write more. I am having a tough one right now and I don’t know how it will end up, but I am sure there will be a silver-lining and then it gets easier to handle.

 

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WHERE WILDERNESS CREATES ABUNDANCE

Posted on May 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

One of the nicest thing in my life is my garden. I always had one, no matter where or how I lived; little tiny gardens in my window, a somewhat larger one on the balcony, or even a few different ones when I live in a house surrounded by land. When I feel depleted or exhausted I go into my garden to replenish; smell a flower or a herb, replant something, clear some weeds…having my hands touch the earth is soothing and healing. I can spend hours in my garden and I love all the scents!

For an outside garden I have found it takes 5 years to reach balance, that is when the garden has found its rhythm. Some plants have an affinity for each-other and thrive together – in my garden the most obvious at the moment are the different thymes that are so loved by the roses…I can feel their harmony.

Some plants just can’t stand each-other – lately it has been the rosemary and parsley – and need to be moved apart. Other plants are okay, but not happy and it takes me some time to realize that they need other neighbors. It also happens that plants shrivel up and die, very quickly, when they are not happy. When a new plant comes to my garden, I place it in different spots, with different “friends” to see where it is the happiest, it actually perks up when it hits the right spot. I tried, at one point, to plan my garden – to no avail. The plants, herbs and flowers were not always happy with my planning and I had to start moving things around a bit. This is why it takes time…plants live, breath and have different personalities; I’ve got the pushy roses, the shy ones and the very careful, sensitive ones. They are all roses but oh so different in character. I had a beautiful Aquilegia that just shriveled up and barely survived, so I moved her to the back-garden which is wilder and rougher…she has now become a huge family, lining the neighbors wall and thriving with high grasses, blackberries and nettels…she likes the wild life!

Most of my berries live in a totally wild area behind my house. It is a tiny jungle of currants, black and red, gooseberries and raspberries mixed up with a jumble of vague bushes. Each year they deliver such an abundance of fruit that it keeps us with jam and juice for the entire winter season. Once I tried “cleaning up” the jungle a bit, that year we had no berries… so I go with the flow and allow it to happen as it will. Sometimes the plants that arrive chez moi are hot-house bred and they almost always need to die the first season, no matter how diligently I try to nurse them, only to come back with a vengeance the year after. Some of the stuff in my garden just moved in by itself and stayed, chatting happily away with the neighbor.

We don’t create our gardens, we open a space where creation is allowed and then it happens. This is my best tip for stress-management :-)

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THE MAGIC OF SCENTS

Posted on May 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Ever since I can remember scents were always important; they would work on my imagination and carry me off. I never thought about it because it has always been such a vital part of who I am, but lately I have looked at what scents do to me. (Mind you, scents can even be smells or stinks…it doesn’t matter, I make no difference.)

When I think of scents, there is a whole world opening up in me; scents are the embodiment of history, every single story told and untold. They evoke mystery and adventure, they are the whiff of faraway lands, dreams and colors, displaying a whole array of emotions and music within. Scents are truly Grace.

I believe scents have not changed that much through history; lavender probably smells the same as it did centuries ago, so we might actually have the same experience now as was had then…scents span time. A story from the bible tells of Maria Magdalene rubbing Jesus’ feet with the oil of Spikenarde (Nardostachys jatamansi). I love that oil with its fresh, deep and musky scent. Knowing the properties of the oil (calming, grounding…) makes the story so much more interesting. I can rub my feet with Spikenarde and have the same experience 2000 yrs later – mind-boggling! Look at ancient poetry and you will find that the herbs, plants and oils haven’t changed. The poems speak of rose, jasmine, sandalwood, aloeswood, rosemary and thyme…

In the bible, poems and other written work through history we can find recipes for perfumes and scents that were used at the time. By recreating them we get an idea of the evolution of perfumery. Every century had its own “scent-fashion” and it has changed over time. Some of the perfumes, or scents, from ancient times would not be very popular today. At the time much of the known perfumes were connected to religious ceremony since scented matter oftentimes was costly and difficult to come by. By offering these expensive and evocative perfumes to the God(s), people hoped that the gods would be benevolent towards them.

The earliest perfumes were usually made from resins and woods, mixed into fat and then burned or anointed. Little by little, over time, the art of securing the evocative and fleeting scent of flowers was found and has been perfected ever since. Today lots of synthetics and alcohol is used in perfumes which somewhat takes away the “heady emotional reaction” to a scent, though the pleasure of it is always there. Everybody reacts on scents in some way, even anosmic people. Scents evoke memories, even long-buried ones, to be brought forth in vivid detail; matter might desist, but scents remain forever.

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Posted in Aromatherapy, Lifestyle, perfume, Scents

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