Buzz Off – The Tribe has Spoken!

Posted on November 30, 2012 by suzannerbanks

It looks serene but….

It looks serene but it’s a jungle out there! It’s like being in the TV show “Survivor” 24/7!

I live less than 10 minutes from the city of Sydney, but I may as well be living in the swamp. In fact I feel a bit like Tammy Tyree who lived in the Mississippi swamps. Just call me Tammy. I am a bit cut-off from civilisation as I can’t talk on my mobile phone inside the house – so it’s freeze out the back in winter when making a call or fend off the mosies in summer! A few years ago a neighbour told me my suburb was actually reclaimed swamp/wetlands and that there is a huge water table underneath us. Sydney actually has lots of underground water which would explain all the insect, especially mosquitoes and cockroaches. My other neighbour has frogs but I’ve unsuccessfully tried for years to get tadpoles. I gave up with my pond but I’m serenaded all summer with the croaking from next door.

So anyway……. for years my friends have baulked at sitting outside in the beautiful garden because the mosquitoes are vicious. They are so big a friend once said “the mosie that followed me down the hall needs its own bedroom”. I have always made my own insect repellent in a mist bottle, but it has never been enough. Last year I got a few torches to burn citronella oil and that really helped. It’s the flame and smoke that keeps those little biters at bay. Add the topical application of some essential oils and a little bit of peace can be found in my backyard.

torch with a flame keeps those biters at bay

I now have a mosquito net over my bed because they are so bad at night it’s like a form of torture.

aaahhhhh peace at last

I have given up on the mist and gone for pure essential oils. After much trial and error I have found the best oils to keep away the insects are (in any combination):

Lemongrass

Citronella

Basil

Peppermint

Lavender

Clove

Thyme

and any oil that has a pungent aroma. No sweet pretty oils can be used, it will only attract them! Lavish these oils all over you especially around the ankles, neck and ears and anywhere where your flesh is exposed!

Of course having a gin and tonic will help as the quinine is supposed to be a malaria preventative, in case you get bitten by a mosie with the virus. Ok, well it’s probably not strong enough in the tonic we now drink, but my when my father was in the British Army, serving in Africa, they were given salt and quinine tablets. Salt for replenishing minerals and quinine against malaria. Interesting eh?

Essential oils, a G & T, a mosquito net and a Survivor-like torch is my recipe for getting through summer in Sydney. When I quench the flame at the end of the evening I silently say “the tribe has spoken”, and retire inside.

Oils for Meditation

Posted on November 29, 2012 by suzannerbanks

aaahhh meditation!

Meditation is a wonderful thing, and doesn’t really need any added help. It’s about being, not doing. It’s about connecting and detaching. So do we need essential oils to help our meditation practice? Probably not, but sometimes it adds anchoring to the ritual and helps some relax into the process. When you vapourise oils in a classic “oil burner” with a candle, the flame acts as an agent of transformation.

I love this oil burner from pagethirtythree.com

My choices for meditation oils are:

Lavender – I use lavender for everything! It is as warming as it is cooling, It is calming and nurturing, It is centering and grounding, and brings together your energy. It is a well-known oil for relaxation due to its high ‘linalool” content. A few deep breaths of lavender at the start of your meditation will help you zone in to yourself quite quickly. My motto is “If in doubt, use lavender”.

Frankincense – oh ye olde magic of frankincense! It starts out as a resin from the tree and is then steam distilled to make the oil. It is the oil of breathing deeply and has its roots in spiritual and religious practices. By breathing deeply and expanding your lungs, more oxygen can flow into your body. The combination of increased oxygen and the natural feeling of relaxation when you take a deep breath, adds up to a very peaceful vibration. It is in this state we can connect with our higher selves, and essentially “God”. It is almost used in churches as a scent to induce a type of hypnotic trance.
For a quite peaceful meditation use frankincense oil.

Rose – the ‘queen’ of oils, it is an oil of self nurturing and self-love. Rose can be used for everything from heat exhaustion to cuts and wounds. The scent is divine and when you are in the presence of pure rose oil you wont be able to escape is enveloping nature. I think of rose crystal quartz when I use this oil too, the love crystal. Shakti Gawain talks about “pink bubbles of love” in her revolutionary book from 1978 “Creative Visualization”. Pink, oil of rose, and rose quartz go hand in hand – I often surround myself with the energy of rose quartz, and rose oil, when I feel I need a bit of help and kindness. Use rose oil in your meditation to give yourself a feeling of security, softness and love so you can open to the messages of the universe.

unpolished rose quartz borrowed from angelreikihealing.com

So many oils can be used for the practice of meditation just be guided by your intuition and your personal fragrance preferences. You don’t even need to vapourise the oils you could just put a drop on your upper lip (patch test for sensitivity first).

Some more relaxing oils for meditation are:

orange, bergamot, petitgrain, lemon balm, neroli,

Some expansive oils:

pine, cypress, fir, tea tree, basil

The most important thing is to set some time aside to meditate – and that can be so hard in our busy daily lives! The oil is the icing on the cake.

Meditate, and the whole world will benefit.

10 Great Reasons to use Essential Oils

Posted on November 28, 2012 by suzannerbanks

There’s a 10 in there somewhere

1. They are from a natural source and have a distinctive scent

Essential oils come from a natural source and you can detect a deepness in their scent that can never be replicated.

2. Essential Oils can set a Mood

When you use essential oil in your home or space, their chemical structures positively effect your emotions and those who enter you’re scented zone. This doesn’t happen with GLADE or other chemical, synthetic fragrances.

3. Oils can support your life journey

Your spirit will be uplifted when you use essential oils to conjure change in your life. This is not about the emotions, it’s about acknowledging your soul with heavenly scents from nature.

4. Essential oils are great for First Aid

Essential oils are great for first aid. Lavender is #1 and Tea Tree is #2. When in doubt use lavender as it has anti-inflammatory and cell regenerating properties. Tea Tree is more

sneakily borrowed from jigzone.com

anti-bacterial.

5. Use them in your cleaning/cleansing regime

Add essential oils to your cleaning products to leave your home beautifully, naturally scented while removing bacteria and inviting new beginnings.

6. Use oils for a great sleep

Induce and enhance sleep with chamomile, lavender, lemon balm and even orange. The best way to do this is to vapourise the oils in the bedroom. This is great for calming kids down in the evening.

7. They can nurture your skin

Add a drop or two to your moisturiser to stimulate cell growth and leave a wonderful, natural calm energy.

8. Essential oil will make you the envy of your friends

Everyone will notice when you wear essential oils as a perfume or body oil. They have far reaching effects, they are quite magical and a little goes a long way.

9. Essential oils have a medicinal history

When you use an essential oil you are connecting to the history of the plant through the ages. Most oils and the plants they come from, are the original medicines. Using these plants as medicines, early man was connected to Earth as a life giver.

sneakily borrowed from scientificillustration.tumblr.com

10. Essential oils can help you create

Essential oils will help you tap into your creative force by working through your brain and affecting how you see the world. They use their subtle power to weave your subconscious mind into your everyday life. The results can be amazing!

Dont Read This

Posted on November 12, 2012 by suzannerbanks

sneakily borrowed from clkr.com

Don’t read this if you want to know how I see the world, and how we can all help ourselves and each other move to the next level.

Can you feel it? There’s a buzz in the air. Sometimes its positive and sometimes its negative, but undoubtedly, there’s a level of tangible electricity.

Everyone I talk to has a different opinion on the state of the world, but there is one common thread and that is that there is something changing. You’re right. There are a lot of things changing, and they have been for many years but now we are seeing the visible signs. The easiest accessible sign is the internet and the way it has changed our lives. We can connect with someone on the opposite side of the world without having to know them. We can do this through breakthroughs in technology and the fact that this technology is available to more and more people on Earth. We can topple governments and create change at a grassroots level like never before. It is quite amazing. I know I’m giving away my age here but I remember talking on the phone to friends as a kid and saying how amazing it would be, to be able to see the person you were talking too on a screen. It was futuristic and very sci-fi. The future is here and if you think time is going fast now, it will only appear to be going faster as we expand in the space-time continuum.

Essential oils represent a link to our past, but a beacon for the future in the way that they are very simple healers. Healers of our collective psyche and healers of our individual worlds.

Don’t keep reading if you don’t want to know my secret to the evolution of human consciousness.

There is so much sickness, war and horror on Earth, you would think by now we could all leave that behind. It’s really archaic and very un-evolved. Financial institutions have started their rocky downfall – it is one great sign that we are dissolving the old structures to rebuild a way of life that is inclusive, loving and positive. Exclusivity isn’t enduring. Love and inclusion are.

Don’t keep reading this if you don’t want to discover my simplistic (and naive) formula for our rise to the next level.

It’s time to reach out to your fellow earth dwellers, on a one-to-one basis, exchange information and love. We don’t need to be controlled by hierarchies of terror. Just love. And that’s what you are doing now if you are reading this, writing your own blog, interacting on Twitter or Facebook, or going out into your community in the flesh.

I said to a friend the other day “In a few years, maybe lifetimes, the economies of the world will be filled with individuals, exchanging information and products, on a basic level, one-to-one. The individual needs will be met by the other individuals on Earth. The world as we know it now, will cease to exist, and we will have jumped to the next level.”

If everyone just had a drop of lavender oil each day, it might come faster.