So long, farewell....

On Sunday from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm we are having a little Farewell gathering at the perfumery. We are moving! The next manifestation of Roxana Illuminated Perfume, in a physical form, will be revealed in the near future.

If you’d like to stop by to do some shopping at some point other than this Sunday, please let me know when it would be convenient and I will schedule a 15 minute slot just for you before Wednesday, May 3rd.

I am selling a few pieces of furniture and decor, like the white unit in the photo above. Greg will have his prints and I am bringing my original artwork as well as prints. The intention is to make our load lighter as we transition to the next phase. We are also in the process of fixing up our 1950's ranch style house to put in the market.

A big adventure is on the horizon, it feels a bit like the "Mortificatio" stage of the Alchemical process which is necessary to create something new.

This stage is also referred to as Fermentation and/or Putrefaction. I see it as when a large fallen tree in the forest turns into rich soil so that new trees and life may be birthed.

I leave you with this....

There's a sad sort of clanging

From the clock in the hall

And the bells in the steeple, too

And up in the nursery

An absurd little bird

Is popping out to say coo-coo

coo-coo Regretfully they tell us

coo-coo But firmly they compel us

coo-coo To say goodbye

To you

So long, farewell

Auf wiedersehen, goodnight

I hate to go and leave this pretty sight

So long, farewell

auf Wiedersehen, adieu

Adieu, adieu

To you and you and you

Aroma, Alchemy and Medicine of the Soul in Words and Images

Last Thursday (I can hardly believe its been a week already!) Cathy Skipper and Florian Birkmayer arrived in Los Angeles from Albuquerque for the transformative Alchemy and Medicine of the Soul classes and experiences beginning with the Panel on Alchemy in Cypress Park.

Originally we had set up the discussion to take place at a friends home in Woodland Hills, but as the RSVP's continued to mount I began searching for a new location. Out of the blue, we had a very generous offer via e-mail from Meike Kopp informing me that we could use her gorgeous space as a venue. Although we lost many attendees from the San Fernando Valley stretching up to Ojai, we gained the same amount back and also had a glorious, large open space which we took advantage to film the event. As soon as the footage has been edited I will share it here at the journal.

The next day the Hydrosol Distillation began at 3pm up on the warm, sunny plateau of Topanga. It was an absolutely gorgeous day which started off with taking Cathy and Florian over to visit the perfumery, lunch at Blue Table, a stop at the house to cut the white sage and then hauling all the gear up the mountain and setting up.

Auspiciously the flowering Salvia apiana, white sage, from my garden had already been pollinated by the honey bees. This was confirmed by Cathy as she used her magnifier to examine the botany of a flower. So, besides her wand, a little medicine bag with crystal offerings for plants and her journal Cathy also has her magnifier at the ready!

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

Saturday and Sunday was the two day workshop, what I consider the main course of the aromatic venue. Each morning everyone arrived and squeezed into the teaching space of the perfumery where Florian lectured about Jung, our collective imagination and shared his point of view on the Alchemical processes as a tool to recognize and move through emotional challenges. Cathy interjected regularly adding her strong intuitive approach and her own personal stories of transformation.

On Sunday we finished traversing all the alchemical processes with some work on our shadow, culminating in creating a blend and a group photo.

Monday evening was the dessert, featuring an encounter of the aromatic kind with sipping gorgeous and very diverse hydrosols. As we inhaled and sipped the high vibrational plant waters we each tuned into the message shared with each of us through the elixir.

The five days were a magical mystery ride with Cathy and Florian as the chauffeurs in partnership with the botanical intelligence from the plant kingdom. Personally, I was able to re-visit work in a very similar vein as an initiate in a Celtic Shaman group. The facilitator, Kaitryne, also had a Jungian psychology background which she had woven with Celtic & Native American shamanistic concepts. Thus there was quite a bit of overlap as well as concepts I had introduced with The Tree Of Life presentation at Bastyr.

Next stop for Cathy and Florian is teaching the two day workshop in Seattle followed by returning to New Mexico to finish up their online course.

Venus Rising

As I was hunting for more imagery for the visuals of the Alchemy Panel this Thursday evening, I stumbled across a blog post about Venus going direct. If you are a reader of this journal, then you know that I prefer to live my life in the Art Spirit and am open to auspicious signs that are mystical in nature. Well, here's an interesting story....

I've been working with a "wound" that presented itself on my ankle last July. At first it looked like a bruise, shaped like an eye. I went to see several alternative health professionals and no one knew what it was, although they each contributed a theory. None of the theories rang true for me, even from the most intuitive of the healers. As I continued to look for answers, including from aromatherapists, the bruise became larger until both Greg and I became very concerned. I was told to "go to an allopathic" doctor which was definitely not something I was ready to do, knowing quite well what a maze of horrors that route can be, especially with my challenged immune system.

I finally came across a local naturopath by way of a biodynamic gardener who had her training at Bastyr. He looked at it and was also a bit perplexed but seemed to really like the challenge. He had me suspend ALL salves and started me on an ozone, light blood therapy and a few other modalities. The wound has stopped expanding and is beginning to heal.

Last week as I was receiving an ozone treatment the doctor massaged the spot and referred to one of my early questions about an "emotion" being trapped in the ankle. He said there might a few things that were locked together and suggested I ask the question this weekend while doing the hot cold therapy he had instructed. Thus, as I sat timing my foot in the hot and cold submersion baths I asked the wound for a revelation. What percolated up in my consciousness were phrases relating to standing...such as "standing in ones power, or truth", "strong foot hold" and all of these. As I continued to meditate on the ankle, the phrases and life events, I was also working with another personal challenge about what I knew to be true. Self worth, forgiveness and standing up for myself, specifically with males and patriarchal systems, became really crystal clear.

Then...I came across this blog post mentioned in the first sentence and everything seemed to come into even more focus, especially as I continue to prep for the Alchemy events and move. The blog post refers to Venus, the archetype of the feminine moving forward on April 15 in Pisces. I happen to have a Pisces moon as well as in a few other placements within my astrological chart and my husband Greg is a Pisces. This is the paragraph that really got me...

"You should have a greater understanding of what something's worth. Of what you're worth. Venus' station is very close to Chiron in Pisces, so this understanding will involve compassionate acceptance of a wound. Moving forward means forgiving yourself or forgiving someone else. Accepting (Pisces) that it/you/they are not perfect. And, you're going to stop reopening the wound. This is crucial. Forgiveness does not mean allowing the hurtful situation to continue. Remember - you're moving forward."

Yes indeed, I am literally moving forward. Notice that in the painting below Hope is stepping forward with her right foot.

The painting is by Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919)  titled "Hope in a Prison of Despair", it is allegorical depicting Hope gracefully entering a dungeon with a light. Meanwhile Despair is bowed down in grief with a broken chain near her, as if she has been released from her torment. Hope is painted in warm colors with an splendid aura while Despair is portrayed in cool tones adding more symbolic references to the scene.

Personal Myth

We all have a personal myth, a story we have constructed, that makes it easier or harder to move through events here in this rather strange and sometimes challenging incarnation. This is one of the aspects we will be exploring at the Alchemy & Medicine of the Soul workshop coming up this month.

Florian, one of our instructors, has sent me this article from the NY Times which weaves nicely with the work we will be doing.

Photograph is by Lewis Carroll of Alice Pleasance Liddell, who inspired the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Honey comb, perfume and related ramblings

The color of honey comb can vary greatly depending on how much its been used by the honey bees. When the our little alchemist, along with her sisters, begin to build comb, it is almost pure white, as you can see from this piece which was only a few days old when we moved our first hive from the compost bin to a box.

Most often, at least when I have saved feral hives, the is an overabundance of dark brown, almost black comb. Early on in our bee saving missions were advised to keep this dark comb so that the bees have something already in place to start using immediately. However, over the years we have noticed that new and established colonies don't like old comb. I'm not sure why this is. I would guess that one hive might not like the "scent" of another tribes comb as being part of the challenge. Perhaps over time the comb has less vitality or nutrients, or an energetic blueprint which they no longer are interested in. These are all guesses.

Another challenge to the old, dark strange comb is that when melted down and used for perfume and other bee products it becomes a sticky black mess with relatively no usable beeswax, its also extreme fire hazard. I am still searching for creative ways to use this old comb.

Speaking of creativity, I can always tell when an individual is inspired by one of my elder creations, not only because my intuitive antennae starts twitching but also by e-mails I start getting. For example, a few months ago I was being bombarded with e-mail asking for To Bee. I thought perhaps it was that the fragrance had been recently featured on a blog, but after research throughout the web universe I found nothing. When I asked the people contacting me how they had heard about the perfume they either did not answer, or mention that they read about it online but would not share the link. Thus my Virgo aspects kicked in and I started wondering about those cats who copy because they aren't very tapped into their creativity. Sure enough, I was right. When this transpires I take a deep breath, pity the individual and move on to the notebook I have where I download my ideas onto paper on a daily basis from the Universe, instead of checking out what others are doing and secretly ordering samples to be copied...or attempting to copy.

As artist lifer, whose livelihood is based on my very unique self expression. It sucks when others recreate or re-use something I worked hard on with no respect for the original content, copyright, or trademark. It takes time, energy, blood, sweat, laughter and tears to produce this mini empire including original content as imagery, written texts, packaging, the actual products, etc. It's heart breaking when other grab images, words and ideas with absolutely no respect...even worse are the ones who are unconscious of what they are doing. Sure, we are all one big collective, and in that big consciousness soup ideas are available to everyone, but that's not what I'm referring to.

Meanwhile To Bee in her other formats will be back shortly. The fragrance was created in 2011 to bring attention to the challenges that this little insect is having due to GMO's, insecticides and an overall lack of consciousness from humans on the planet. Here's the link to a post here at the journal with the To Bee lookbook and a few comments I pulled from the Fragrantica site:

"A real, raw honey smell combined with some sort of spicy, animalistic notes. Not a edible honey, but closer to smelling an actual hive. LOVE. It has the low longevity and silage of natural perfumes, unfortunately, but it seems to perform relatively similar to other real botanical scents I own."

~ LauraB613, August 24, 2013

"I was expecting more honey notes, but I pick up a lot of woodsy, spicy ones too. 

The smell reminds me of the Sonoran desert after it rains. Rich + full bodied. 

This is a complex, well-balanced + grounding creation."  

~  priyalugus, January 13, 2016

"To Bee is olifactory joy. You think just honey and beeswax? No, this is more complex and spicy...a raw natural scent that makes you want to sniff, sniff, sniff.....to figure out all the ingredients. 

If you love edgy, raw nature scents, you'll love To Bee." 

~ Bab, October 8, 2012

Images and written context is not yours to steel, ask first. Opening photograph is by Rebecca Fishman during a photo shoot at our woodland cottage. Other photos and all content is ©Roxana Villa

Study, Learn, Evolve, Repeat

This Sunday, April 9th, I will be teaching what appears to be the very last Art of Botanical Perfume live class at the "current" perfumery. It won't be the last live class I teach, but my lease in the Whizin Market Hall is up on May 5th, thus it will likely be the last live class I do in this exact location...at least as of this sacred moment.

The online Art of Botanical Perfume course is available 24/7 and more live and online classes are on their way. What this also means, if you haven't put the pieces together yet, is that the perfumery as we know it in this incarnation will cease to exist. I won't say more at this point since things are in a fluid state, however, if you've been meaning to take a class or visit the space, tick tock.