Hello, natural beauties! An old friend of mine died the other night. It was unexpected. He was funny, generous and kind. He was popular and well-loved around the world. He will be missed. Remember to smell the roses, the lavender, the muraya, the jasmine, the osmanthus, the frangipani and all the beautiful scents of nature.
Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here:
This post is for him. Just all the pretty things I love – botanical scent and flowers. His name was Steven “Tizza” Taylor and he enjoyed life. He was the good-time guy. He smelled the roses, tasted the roses, gifted the roses, accepted the roses,, lived with the roses, lived without the roses, saw the world through rose coloured glasses and was very a rosy friend. Thanks, Tizza.
Just enjoy life people. Take time to smell the roses, especially when things get tough.
bliss with roses, by meJasmine officinalis by mefrangipani, Sydney, by meOsmanthus fragrans, by meAcacia (wattle)in Hanoi – pretty in pink, by mefragrance in Saigon, by meLavandula stoechas, my own pic thanks yes it is wonderfulFlowering rosemary in my client’s gardenI’ve got these gorgeous chamomile flowers in a teapot nest to my bed – sweet dreams!wild freesia , Freesia alba x Freesia leichtliniicinnamon – by me pretty wild violet, by meJuniper berries at the spice market, by me
Yes, it’s a new year (almost)! How was your pig year? It seems to me there were a lot of people feeling pushed towards the end of the year, but sometimes that’s just life. The rat brings exciting times as the first animal in the Chinese Horoscope. The rat is smart, fast and engaging and has an attractive personality and an outgoing lifestyle. What does the Year of the Rat have in store for you?
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This year is connected to metal and water andcould see an increase in those industries.
Money and finances for all signs could increase, but only with the will, planning, and determination. Luxury, opulence and shiny things are characteristics of the rat year too.
The rat year brings new opportunities and new experiences for the ones who jump on their lucky opportunities quickly.
Hello natural beauties I hope you’re all well and happy. I had a fabulous weekend on the Gold Coast in Australia at the Aromatica Australia 2019 conference. Here’s my little movie so you get an idea of how energetic it was.
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I barely had time to do any filming as I needed to shop (of course), chat and eat. The day’s agendas were jam packed, so stay tuned next time I’ll tell you about each presenter and their talk.
Please forgive all my “fantastics” and “amazings”.I was feeling inspiredand excited and tired and busy.
There is a bright future for aromatherapy and essential oils but we must look at sustainability and absolutely be more aware of where our money goes. Plant medicine and nutrition will always connect us to the earth. We must look after our planet.
Hello natural beauties I hope you’re all well and happy. Spring has sprung in Australia and there’s no better way to appreciate the weather than with a bush walk, talking to the flowers, hugging the trees, listening to the cockatoos and kookaburras overhead and breathing the wild bush air.
Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here:
The Kuringai WIldflower garden in St Ives, a northern suburb of Sydney, boasts a few walking tracks, lots of protected bush, a fern garden, a playground with a tame swamp wallaby and a very beautiful lace monitor (big lizard) in its midst. It borders Kuringai National Parkand the lovely Kuringai creek. We walked the Mueller track which takes about 1.45 mins and listened to whipbirds, admired angophras and delighted in the bright wild flower colours.
Acacia (wattle) in the Kuringai Wildflower Garden
Last week i wrote about Japanese Forest bathing, well this is Australian bush bathing at its best.Here’s a little snippet of what we experienced.Being in the bush helps me relax and expand my awareness, and appreciate life in the simple and bold colours and scents of nature.
Grevillea …I loved the bright orange flashes of fungi
The visitors centre has a display of “what’s flowering now”and sells some natives in pots too.
I loved this little soft pink flower that seemed to be everywhere
Enjoying nature in the the lovely weather is a true gift.
Yes it’s a new year! Was 2018 a dog of a year for you? It seemed to me that it was for a lot of people, and maybe that’s because it was Year of the Dog. The pig year will bring lots of fun things so please read on the find out which oil is your power oil for 2019. Essential oils and botanical extracts are wonderful conduits for invoking new energy, are helpers in everyday life and they smell wonderful!
Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here:
Hello dearest natural beauties wherever you are! I recently found a beautiful article on the American poet Emily Dickinson. The article talks about her love of flowers and her craft of growing, collecting, pressing and recording them in books. Her ‘herbarium” is a 60 page collection of around 400 flowers from the Amherst region in Massachusetts.The original article from Maria Popova for brainpickings.org can be found here.
Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here:
Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)
“Dickinson started studying botany at the age of nine and assisting her mother at the garden at twelve, but it wasn’t until she began attending Mount Holyoke in her late teens — around the time the only authenticated daguerrotype of her was taken — that she began approaching her botanical zeal with scientific rigor.”
brainpickings.org “Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium” by Maria popova
Emily Dickinson, daguerreotype, ca. 1847. (Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, gift of Millicent Todd Bingham, 1956)
Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)
First page of Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)
The article also quotes another author, Judith Farr, in her book The Gardens of Emily Dickinson . Farr makes an important note about the first page of Dickinson’s herbarium:
On the very first page, the first flower pressed by the girl Emily, was the Jasminum or jasmine, the tropical flower that would come to mean passion to her as a woman. This “belle of Amherst,” … was profoundly attracted to the foreign and especially to the semitropical or tropical climes that she read about in Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly-Santo Domingo, Brazil, Potosi, Zanzibar, Italy… Domesticating the jasmine in the cold climate of New England, writing sensuous lyrics about forbidden love in spare meters, Dickinson followed a paradoxical pattern that related poet to gardener in one adventurous pursuit. Just as her fondness for buttercups, clover, anemones, and gentians spoke of an attraction to the simple and commonplace, her taste for strange exotic blooms is that of one drawn to the unknown, the uncommon, the aesthetically venturesome.
Judith Farr “The Gardens of Emily Dickinson”
Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)
The page below collects 8 different types of violets – how divine!
Violet varieties from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)Page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (Houghton Library, Harvard University)
Hello natural beauties, have you ever experienced the delightful scene of an English country meadow? Sweet flowers, tall grasses and buzzing bees abound.
In Sydney we have a ‘pop up” meadow in the gorgeous Botanic Gardens and its lovely.
The Summer Meadow – pic by my friend Darryl, The Vitalist
“We have seen hundreds of people wandering through the interactive display, but it’s also humming with healthy insect life” said David Laughlin, Horticultural Supervisor at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
“We wanted to create a beautiful, unique feature that challenges peoples’ expectations about what a botanic garden can display, but that also gives back to the urban ecosystem it grows in.”
“A meadow of wildflowers is great because it provides a paradise for hungry insects in our city environment before it transforms itself into green or plant-based manure to enrich and fertilise the soil it sprouted from.”
Welcome again natural beauties. I hope you are feeling positive wherever you are and whatever season you find yourself in. I find it much easier to be positive in spring and summer – how about you? I have friends who absolutely love colder weather and don’t like the heat at all. Here are a couple of pics from my week and a reminder for a great way to stay positive…
Here’s a gorgeous rose chai latte from The Rabbit Hole Cafe in Sydney
oh beautiful jasmine I love you
pretty in pink – cherry blossoms
Ok I’m cheating here – this was a month ago in Hanoi – but these lotus blossoms are still pretty in pink!
“positivity” – the perfume
Stay positive with positivity.
This hand-made, organic, vegan, oil based roll-on perfume, is a green, sappy, delicious fresh scent with basil leading the way. Supporting basil’s cool positivity are tangs of lemon and lemongrass, highlights of rich feminine geranium, the cedars of two continents and a secret, soft, barely there, warmth of liquorice.
Be kind to yourself and exude positive vibes.
Ingredients: essential oils of *lemon, *basil, *geranium, *mandarin, *fennel, *lemongrass, *cedarwood Atlas and cedarwood Virginian in *jojoba. *certified organic
Hello natural beauties for the next month I’ll be blogging from my phone while I travel Vietnam. Please forgive any typos or mistakes as it’s slightly more difficult doing this from a little device than it is from laptop. I’ll be searching for some fragrant moments for you and here is what I’ve found on my first few days …
The most aromatic moment so far has to be the Vietnamese coffee. The robusta bean is mostly used which is more bitter than the arabica. Coffee culture is a serious thing here and being a diabetic vegan I have to drink it black without sugar – on ice! Iced coffee and iced tea are what most of the locals drink and I’m down with that because it’s soooooo hot! I’m surprised how much I love it!
Ca phe den da (iced black coffee)
So many beautiful teas – literally dried flowers at the Ben Thanh Market
A little star jasmine flower on the streets of Saigon
A Vietnamese orange – the rind smells like a mix of mandarin and orange and the fruit has a mild mandarin flavour.
Incense at the Buddhist Jade Pagoda was absolutely divine
Fragrant Lilies at the jade pagoda
And finally a trip to Villa Royale Antiques and Tea Room for a fragrant jug of Iced Sillver Moon (peach) tea
I’ve loved my first few days in Vietnam in the beautiful city of Saigon.
Stay tuned for the next episode where I’ll be posting pics from the Mekong Delta and the beachy Nha Trang.
Hello natural beauties! Flowers and fragrance never get old! Looking for inspiration, I’ve found some lovely poetry about roses. Continuing on from last week’s An Afternoon with Roses I hope you enjoy this romantic interlude …..
The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple’s a rose, And the pear is, and so’s The plum, I suppose. The dear only know What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose– But were always a rose.
Persian Love cupcakes with rose water and rose petals from That Vegan Lady
The Grave and The Rose by Victor Hugo
The Grave said to the Rose, “What of the dews of dawn, Love’s flower, what end is theirs?” “And what of spirits flown, The souls whereon doth close The tomb’s mouth unawares?” The Rose said to the Grave.
The Rose said, “In the shade From the dawn’s tears is made A perfume faint and strange, Amber and honey sweet.” “And all the spirits fleet Do suffer a sky-change, More strangely than the dew, To God’s own angels new,” The Grave said to the Rose.
Rose is the Queen of oils
A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve’s like the melodie That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.
bliss with roses – a botanical perfume by me available at suzannerbanks
Nobody knows this little Rose by Emily Dickinson
Nobody knows this little Rose — It might a pilgrim be Did I not take it from the ways And lift it up to thee. Only a Bee will miss it — Only a Butterfly, Hastening from far journey — On its breast to lie — Only a Bird will wonder — Only a Breeze will sigh — Ah Little Rose — how easy For such as thee to die!
A bunch of mixed roses in a cafe. The large pink rose had a mild scent but the little white ones didn’t
Stanzas to the Rose by Mary Darby Robinson
SWEET PICTURE of Life’s chequer’d hour! Ah, wherefore droop thy blushing head? Tell me, oh tell me, hap’less flow’r, Is it because thy charms are fled? Come, gentle ROSE, and learn from me A lesson of Philosophy.
Thy scented buds, LIFE’S joys disclose; They strew our paths with magic sweets; Where many a thorn like thine, fair ROSE, Full oft the weary wand’rer meets; And when he sees thy charms depart, He feels thy thorn within his heart.
When Morn’s bright torch illum’d the sky, Vainly thy flaunting buds display’d Enamell’d leaves of crimson die, Ill-fated blossoms doom’d to fade; So ’tis with BEAUTY, hapless flow’r, Its lustre blooms but for an hour.
Come blushing ROSE, and on my breast Recline thy gentle head, and die; Thy scatter’d leaves shall there be press’d, Bath’d with a tear from PITY’S eye; There shall thy balmy sweets impart An essence grateful to my heart.
Thus SYMPATHY, with lenient pow’r, Shall bid thy fading charms bestow Soft odours for life’s happy hour, Kind, healing balsam for its woe! If such thy virtues, ROSE DIVINE! OH ! MAY THY ENVIED FATE BE MINE
suzannerbanks 