Mind & Heart Expansion

Lisa Camasi, of the Botanical Perfume Yahoo Group, has challenged all of us on the list. She is encouraging us to consider options to the cultural mind set of consumption on the day after Thanksgiving. Here is a list of her ideas:

1. Instead of consuming, create. Make something. Make a perfume, balm, body butter, soap. Knit a scarf, design your holiday card, write a poem, make a holiday collage.

2. Instead of consuming, experience. Take a long walk. Volunteer at a local shelter. Learn a new dance step. Teach a child how to braid a horse's mane, or her own hair. Play flag football with your siblings/cousins/co-workers. Rake your elderly neighbor's yard. Play hide and seek with your cats. Sing to a baby. Hold someone's hand.

3. Instead of consuming on a grand scale, consider consuming a little more consciously and mindfully. Wherever possible, support small businesses, shop locally, buy hand made, Fair Trade, locally grown and locally produced. Encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Do you have more?

In honor of this terrific idea I will be posting a series of recipes to encourage you all to make a botanical item that day.
The first will be for a Bay Rum After shave, or as my friend Shelley says "Bay Yum". I first made this with one of my Aromatherapy teachers when she journeyed out to LA to do a Gift Making Workshop. Since then, this Ray Rum After shave has become a staple in the Gift Making workshops I now teach.

BAY RUM AFTER SHAVE from Jade Shutes of the IDA

Base ingredients:

Nice glass bottle 6oz
Bay leaves
Allspice
Cloves
Rum (preferably Bay Rum or Bacardi)
Purified water
7-10 drops essential oil of Bay laurel

Directions:

1) Fill 1/2 inch of the bottle with cloves and allspice herb - add Bay leaves - leave enough room so that herbs look nice and the rum can cover.
2) Fill 1/2 of the bottle with Rum, other 1/2 with purified water.
3) Add essential oil.
4) Shake.
5) Leave for one week, shaking periodically, to infuse.

Botanical Yahoo Group
East West School for Herbal and Aromatic Studies (formerly The IDA)

Images above ©Roxana Villa