The world (Earth, Gaia) needs us and our strange, feral loving. However it manifests.
After after my oldest son, Jason, died, there was no hope for me. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to see and hold my son again. I did not want to be in such a world that Jason couldn’t take anymore, his pain, his fears, his longings, his Love. (He died of an opioid overdose – but he hadn’t been sold heroin which he thought, he had been sold fentanyl and it killed him. If he had lived, he might still be alive, but who really knows? Not me.) It was Earth, roots, worms, dragonflies, plants that struggled and. . . . lived . . . perhaps given life by my own tears as I shed buckets of them into the soil that grew my herbs and flowers. I know I would not have survived, would not be the woman I am right now, without the beings who called my garden home. And the landscape of my heart surrounding me, the mountains I grew up
with visible every day (except for when they were hidden by clouds, but their presence still strongly felt) from my garden, from my bedroom windows, from the kitchen window where I stood looking out so often. The river, almost within sight, and just a short trek away, upon and within whom I canoed, and floated, and swam in from as early as I can remember.
My sickness was different than a named disease or ailment, and people generally don’t die from it, but they often times do not recover. Losing a child is indescribable except to someone who knows. Yet, one day I woke up and the grief was IN me in a different way. I realized that, like a new part of my DNA, it was a part of me and would be going forward. But it also had cracked my heart open so wide that it would never heal, would forever remain cracked open and therefore touched, always, leading to such feelings and intuitions and unknown directions. I realize that part of my purpose now is to weave my writing and intuition with my love of fragrance and my “work” with natural perfumes. I cannot, realistically “justify” buying and working with such incredible, rare, exquisite, expensive ingredients, blending and musing with them to create what I hope are beautiful, sensuous offerings most people I know cannot afford. Many of the ingredients in my perfumes are resource intensive in the sense that so much of a flower or herb or plant are needed to make just a tiny milliliter of essence. Or the sustainability issue, the exploitation of land and people . . . I am grateful that I have met and connected with small-scale distillers and fragrance seekers, amazing people who trek Earth to meet with and experience the places and materials first hand – so they support rather than destroy the lands and cultures from which these rare materials, often woods and resins, are harvested. I feel so blessed and honored to be able to do this work, and I am compelled to integrate it into a story of synthesis and permeability and cellular connection and allowing our natural, sensuous natures the freedom to dance and experience and participate – and fall ever more deeply in love – an erotic love, a gentle love, a love that digs us deeply into the soil and roots and pith and heart of the rooted beings and the places they create, nurture, and evolve with.
As I grasped every word, my senses awakened to that special place in the small town of Maine…the sounds in the air which danced around your herbal garden. Such a presentation that intrigued my eyes. I remember looking out of your kitchen window towards the horizon and the surrounding beauty at your garden’s gate, while the the smells of your divine apothecary lingered in your home always made me feel eased and comforted. As I did then, to hold you in my arms for your loss of your Jason, I will be here for you. My dear Goddess…always with an ear, a shoulder, or open arms. Grateful to have you in our Universe. Blessings.