Life is Weird, Then You Die, So Smell the Roses. These are my Flowers for Tizza

Posted on February 21, 2020 by suzannerbanks

Flowers for Steven “Tizza” Taylor

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:

suzannerbanks.com.au

Digital downloads and paper backs of my book Revelation! Reveal your Destiny with Essentials Oils here:

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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.

Lavandula stoechas, my own pic thanks yes it is wonderful

Flowering rosemary in my client’s garden

I’ve got these gorgeous chamomile flowers in a teapot nest to my bed – sweet dreams!

wild freesia , Freesia alba x Freesia leichtlinii

Juniper berries at the spice market, by me

Kohler’s Beautiful Botanical Books and Illustrations

Posted on November 15, 2017 by suzannerbanks

I absolutely love vintage botanical illustrations. And there’s no better reference and guide than Kohler’s Medicinal Plants, published in German in 1883. They are now in the public domain which means you can use them without paying royalties. I’ve also included a link so you can download them all too. Here’s a few plants I love …

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Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here: suzannerbanks.com.au

Digital downloads of my book Revelation! Reveal your Destiny with Essentials Oils:

Barnes & Noble Booktopia AU Amazon UK

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“Köhler’s Medicinal Plants is an abbreviated English rendering of the book title Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Texte : Atlas zur Pharmacopoea germanica etc.. This is a German rare medicinal guide published by the company Franz Eugen Köhler from 1883 to 1914 in Gera. The first complete edition in three volumes was published in 1887. It was mainly written by Hermann Adolph Köhler (1834-79), edited by Gustav Pabst, and contains some 300 full-page chromolithography plates by the illustrators Walther Otto Müller, C.F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther.”

Wikipedia

Calendula officianalis

Cocos nucifera

Citrus aurantium

Lavandula angustifolia

Iris germanica

Picea abies

Download the volumes here:

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/623#/summary

Do you love vintage illustrations? Hard not too really!

A Walk through the Herb Garden

Posted on June 21, 2017 by suzannerbanks

Spending an afternoon in the Herb Garden in the Royal Botanic Gardens ,Sydney was a sheer delight. Even just the little signs with the herbs and plants make me feel good. Herbs, fruits and flowers have been our food and medicine for centuries, give or take a millennia. Here are some pics …

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Buy my 100% natural and organic botanical perfumes, and paperback book here: suzannerbanks.com.au

Digital downloads of my book Revelation! Reveal your Destiny with Essentials Oils:

Barnes & Noble Booktopia AU Amazon UK

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lovely lemongrass

Ah the beautiful lemon!

A culinary delight – Vietnamese mint

Tumeric! The anti-inflammatory wonder plant

Thyme is not vulgar! Hehe but very antiseptic

Melissa is a strong anti-stress herb

Citrus aurantium is bitter orange

remember with rosemary

Oregano is often used as an antibacterial oil and herb

the one and only – Lavender is actually a herb

I can never get enough citrus!

Me with a shard of sunlight right through my third eye chakra

Take a walk in nature it will do you the world of good.

Plants are healers!

Winter Flowers in My Neighbourhood – A Photo Essay

Posted on August 3, 2016 by suzannerbanks

Looking for inspiration today I quickly walked around the block and snapped a few happy winter flowers. This is what I saw:

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

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and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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A pretty camelia round the back lane:

camelia

And my forever favourite, lavender. The girls next door just planted these plants called “Avonview”. It’s Lavandula stoechas ssp Avonview:

lovely lavender

A distant shot over the fence, up the laneway, in a grey sky:

magnolia

A stunning lilly opposite me in my little street:

Arum lilly

A cute little pansy with a face, spotted on my way back from the post office:

pansy

My red zygo cactus (the pink one has already flowered:

zygo cactus

And some beautiful ornamental kale in a bunch of flowers for my mum:

ornamental kale

And finally the beautifully illustrated paper from the local book shop. They gift wrapped a book I bought for my 86 year old mum in hospital:

botanical gift wrapping paper

Thank you.

The end.

Remember to treat yourself first, then everyone will benefit.

Check out my YouTube channel too, thanks.

Flowers in Purple

Posted on May 11, 2016 by suzannerbanks

Hi natural beauties! This week I am republishing a post that Portia Turbo from Australian Perfume Junkies curated for me. Because I’m busy. That’s my excuse. And the pics are all by me, and they are gorgeous! Thanks nature x

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

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and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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Hi APJ,

I’m looking though my photos and everything seemed to be purple. Peaceful, perfect, poignant purple.

Purple: Photo Essay

Flickr

“I might just stop talking again and not do interviews.”

Prince

Vale Prince

A (Botanical) Picture Paints a Thousand Words

Posted on April 6, 2016 by suzannerbanks

Hello aromatic enthusiasts! I hope you’re doing well after the equinox, settling in to a new season. I am lamenting the loss of summer, but it’s still quite warm here so I have been lucky enough to still see the frangipani blooming, the rosemary flowering, and smell the sweet pungent murraya. Here are a few pics from my past week ……

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

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and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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Frangipani in the neighbourhood

A lavender loving bee at my friend’s house

Hyams Beach south of Sydney still holds the Guinness Book of Records whitest sand in the world!

Flowering rosemary in dappled sunlight at Hyams beach

Huskisson, NSW

Murraya in the rain in Sydney

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could smell these beautiful, natural scents! I’m sure in the future we will be able to insert the fragrant data into our communications, and that will be very cool when it happens.

Remember to treat yourself first, then everyone will benefit.

Check out my YouTube channel too, thanks.

Ode to Lavender

Posted on March 16, 2016 by suzannerbanks

I can’t help myself when I see lavender – I MUST take a pic! I MUST behold it’s beauty and power! I MUST stand in its presence, if only for a few seconds. There is something wonderful, almost magical about this flower named by the Romans after the word ‘lavare“, meaning “to wash”. This beautiful herb has a long history with humans – cleansing, fortifying and healing us.

All hail lavender!

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

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and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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Caught on camera somewhere in Sydney

Forgiveness is the smell that lavender gives out when you tread on it

Mark Twain

it always seems to me as if the lavender was a little woman in a green dress, with a lavender bonnet and a white kerchief. She’s one of those strong, sweet, wholesome people, who always rest you, and her sweetness lingers long after she goes away.

Myrtle Reed

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, ‘Some day you may lose them all;’–
He replied, — ‘Fish fiddle de-dee!’
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink,
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said, ‘The World in general knows
There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!’

Edward Lear

Lavender at my local market

The Legend of Four Thieves Vinegar

One version goes that in the 1630’s, when the plague was raging in France, the town of Toulouse was beset with looters. Four looters were apprehended, but rather than punish them, the judge offered them a deal. Amazed at their continued health after wandering though homes and businesses abandoned by their terrified (or dead) owners, the judge offered to let the thieves go if they gave him the secret of their resistance to the plague.

What was their famous secret? It was a vinegar made from thyme, rosemary, sage, and lavender. This infusion was termed thieves vinegar. Although garlic was added to the mixture later, this basic infusion became famous and was used for hundreds of years across Europe, both internally and externally, to provide protection from the dreaded plague.

http://theherbgardener.blogspot.com.au

To make a perfume, take some rose water and wash your hands in it, then take a lavender flower and rub it with your palms, and you will achieve the desired effect

Leonardo da Vinci

lovely lavender

But you, you foolish girl, you have gone home to a leaky castle across the sea to lie awake in linen smelling of lavender, and hear the nightingale, and long for me.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

“London life was very full and exciting […] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray.”

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lavender’s blue, dilly, dilly, lavender’s green

When I am king, dilly, dilly, You shall be queen

Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

‘Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so

Old English folk song and poem

Lavender in Sydney

Lavender is the little black dress of the wardrobe

Suzanne R Banks

Do you love lavender?

Remember to treat yourself first, then everyone will benefit.

Check out my YouTube channel too, thanks.

A Week In Pics – From Lavender to Street Art

Posted on March 2, 2016 by suzannerbanks

Hello natural beauties, I missed a post last week (which rarely happens), as the days merged into a flow of hot busi-ness, warm nights and a party. I started the week off with some pictures of local flowers and street art, shopping for spices, worked with my friend who has a gluten free catering business and finished with a party. No time for beach going. I managed to make some oil blends, body washes and mists too…

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

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and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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I just cant help taking a pic when I see the wonderful herb, lavender

Shopping for spices at Paddy’s Market, Sydney

Juniper berries at the spice market

local street art

Gluten free Mediterranean slice from Kitchen Green

body washes ready to be labelled

Went to a fun party

Ordered more of my wonderful book

My week in pics.

How is this week shaping up for you? I hope you’re using some essential oils!

Remember to treat yourself first, then everyone will benefit.

Check out my YouTube channel too, thanks.

The Crown Chakra Opens with Lavender

Posted on September 16, 2015 by suzannerbanks

Visible light enriches our world by its lovely colours, and helps heal us with different vibrations. The crown chakra, or Samsrara, depicted by the thousand-petalled lotus, is where we receive information from the universe and open to divine consciousness. The rich violet colour associated with the crown chakra resonates at the highest vibration to make this exchange of information possible.

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Please check out my new book REVELATION! – Reveal Your Destiny with Essential Oils

Barnes & Noble Booktopia AU Amazon UK

and many other stores worldwide as an ebook and paperback

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What better plant to open our crown chakra than lavender? Scroll through this post to open your crown chakra to the wisdom of the universe.

Lavandula stoechas, my own pic thanks yes it is wonderful

“I judge that the flowers of lavender quilted in a cap and worne are good for all diseases of the head
that come from a cold cause and that they comfort the braine very well.”

William Turner 1551

Lavender at my local market

“And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
shall be, ere-while, in arid bundles bound
to lurk amidst the labours of her loom,and crown her kerchiefs with mickle rare perfume.”

William Shenstone The School Mistress 1742

Lavender is a must have for any scent lover!

“lavender, sweet lavender;
come and buy my lavender,
hide it in your trousseau, lady fair.
Let its lovely fragrance flow
Over your from head to toe,
lightening on your eyes, your cheek, your hair.”

Cumberland Clark Flower Song Book 1929

lovely lavender

And of course not only is colour of lavender beautiful, the scent will transform you, but you already know this.

“with immediacy and intensity, smell activates the memory, allowing our minds to travel freely in time.”

Tom Robbins Jitterbug Perfume 1984

Fabulous diagram on the frequency of visible light – pic via http://images.tutorcircle.com

The speed of violet, faster than red at the other spectrum, allows our minds to become slightly faster so we can perhaps catch a quick glimpse of the universe in action.

Go ahead, gaze deeply into a lavender flower today, and you may just heal the world.

In Case of Indecision – Use Lavender

Posted on March 31, 2014 by suzannerbanks

Fields of lavender never cease to amaze me!

There are many subtleties in in Aromatherapy and while quite a few essential oils share similar properties, it’s the little nuances that separate them. Scent, of course, is one of them and then there’s the complex arrangement of molecules that we never really see or feel but that represent information that we absorb. We then translate that information into meaningful data that our brain and body can use on a physical level. Then there is all the energetic and metaphysical changes we can experience when using essential oils.

Lavender is unassuming yet powerful – pic via fanpop.com

I love lavender and would use it in any circumstance. Really, how can you go wrong with a drop of lavender? According to it’s properties it probably isn’t good for someone with low blood pressure – but if someone fainted in front of me due to low blood pressure, and all I had was a bottle of lavender I would not hesitate to wave the open bottle under their nose. It would not do any harm. It may help greatly!

Lavender cupcakes! -pic via jessienextdoor.com

I have written about lavender before (see my article Lavender is the “Little Black Dress” of the Oil Wardrobe) and in the next few weeks I intend to go into more detail about the different kinds of lavender oil you can buy, but today I feel like I need the colour as much as the scent so this is my pictorial ode to the most magnificent of healing plants, lavender.