Movie Monday: When Life Imitates Art

Do you ever get the feeling we are living a Sci-Fi film? Besides pondering such concepts as: am I living amidst a bunch of muggles or zombies, topics from alchemy creep into my mind, like am I really co-creating this reality and if so why? Is it to experience the shadow and fear on a  level that the current masses have not yet lived through? Is it the adjustment that needed to occur for balance as we continue to move out of the Kali Yuga cycle, is it a test to see if humans can move out of fear and create balance?

There is also a point of view referring to "timelines", frequency fields shared to me by a view intuitive folk that have visited the perfumery. It was explained to me that many individuals here on planet Earth are stuck in 3D timelines and are not experiencing what those in higher timelines are experiencing. Here is what has been shared with me:

"The lower timelines have dropped away but people are still living in them because they keep creating them everyday. Many of us feel very blissful as the energy waves come in and we completely feel out of place with anyone or anything in the old timelines. This is what is creating the bifurcation. The split in the road where you choose to go one way or choose to go the other. We met critical mass of 10% of the higher frequency folks about 2 years ago so we are able to use our magic for many different things now in our New Earth which we have created. Some will still move up into
the higher frequencies but the process is very slow for them and may take decades more.
Higher frequency folks should shift completely in August, that is our latest intel."

And then there is the really strange things that are worth considering, like an episode of the Dead Zone TV Show titled Plague, which aired on July 13, 2003 which mimics exactly what we have going on now! Pretty weird. Is life imitating art or vice versa?

Human imagination is a powerful tool, a doorway, operating from the right brain. Symbols and signs beckon us to view a different perspective, an alternative way of perceiving the world, beyond the pragmatic left brain….and the news media. Part of being human is the capacity to reflect, shift our attitude and deepen our wisdom. It’s a balance between remaining grounded, and deeply experiencing the tough stuff like grief and sorrow, deepening our compassion and empathy for others. If we plant ourselves to deeply in the bedrock of the left brain, rather than the creative right brain, our heart we miss the full the experience of being creative and fully enlightened human being.

Here is a list of some thought provoking films, add your favorites in the comments.

Solaris (1972) by Tarkovsky, any of his films are thought-provoking and reflective. Like many Eastern European and Russian artists, his work is steeped in symbolism, coming out of the terrain of the right brain with themes of: childhood, dreams, memory, metaphysics, etc.

Space Odyssey
Altered States
Matrix (1)
Contact
Fight Club
The Fountain
The Fall
The Truman Show
Donnie Darko
Minority Report
Twelve Monkeys
Vanilla Sky
Edge of Tomorrow
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Cloud Atlas
Orlando
Inception
The Great Year
Mr. Nobody, which is a tribute to Blind Chance, a 1987 film written and directed by famed Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowsk

and one of my absolute favorites: Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch

Artwork: ©GregSpalenka

The fabric of everything is beauty

This lockdown period, although excruciatingly painful, has been very beneficial in providing us with time to contemplate, even though some of us, like many of our awesome health care and other essential service providers continue to work.

While contemplating the oh so very wise words of the young, visionary medic Dr. Zach Bush I came to the realization of a few things:

• Beauty has pretty much always been at my core, specifically the kind of beauty that has to do with harmony, whether it was as a little girl organizing my grandmothers spools of colored thread or my grandfathers drawer of nicknacks and 35 mm film canisters.
• The reason creating beauty & harmony is so important to my makeup is because the act of putting things in order gives me a sense of peace, and yes is might have something to do with my Leo Sun, Taurus Rising, Pisces Moon, Libra in Venus, etc.
• Thus as a teen I pinned magazine images on a small bulletin board in my room, a few years later that shifted to pasting images from magazines into sketch books. I would even take those books along with me when I traveled so that I could sit quietly and gaze at what I wanted to manifest.
• Then I met Marilyn Neuhart, a Queen of beauty and harmony, who had huge pin boards in her cubicle at the design office with her husband John. From then on I abandoned the books and went back to the bulletin board idea, but used big pieces of homasote, a type of fiber board, so that the boards could be expansive, like Marilyn's.
• That was in the eighties when “Vision Boards” were becoming popular in the lexicon of the transformation and personal growth movement.
• The last piece of this puzzle was working with Jennifer Butler, who provided me with a color palette and themes that worked in harmony with my souls expression in the physical world.

The new realization, is that the act of creating beauty & harmony is healing, I bet that many of you reading this feel it too. The end product of creating the boards is of course the feeling of peace that comes from hanging out in your right brain, the realm of the feminine, but also that now you have something that acts as a pillar to support and nourish you.

Every morning I look forward to heading to the perfumery, my cocoon of beauty, it’s my happy place and am thrilled that it has become a happy place for many of you who have visited and will visit in the very near future.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a vision board. Start small, start online using Pinterest if necessary, but do it and watch what happens, here are my Pinterest boards.

The photo above is one of the pin boards here at the Santa Fe perfumery, in the top right corner is a magazine ad with Carmen Dell'Orefice, I included that image after Tom Ford asked me to be his “Carmen” as an extra on the set of Nocturnal Animals. Interacting with Tom was a highlight of my life which is evoked every time I see that photo and also has me aspire to age as elegantly as Carmen.

Here is a short video from the Art of Botanical perfume where I share the expansive pin board from the perfumery at the Agoura Hills perfumery.

Full Flower Moon Enfleurage

"Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind."

~ Seals & Crofts

The advent of the full flower moon early this morning in Taurus-Scorpio seems like an auspicious time to delve deep into some sensual flower magic, thus I have written this new post about an ancient process called Enfleurage. After all, dedicated acts of beauty are very Taurean and invite us to ground into our bodies and connect with the plant deities.

The French word Enfleurage translates as "in flowering", referring to a form of capturing scent (extraction) dating back to ancient Egypt, later re-introduced in the hillside town of Grasse, France.

I have created an entire lesson in the Art of Botanical Perfume devoted to this topic as it is one of my very favorite processes that I have been using for almost two decades now. The very laborious method of placing live botanicals on a layer of fat that has been coated onto glass is mastered by repetition and paying attention. Results achieved by one person will not always be the same for another, due to the "terrior" of where we and the plants reside.

TERMINOLOGY

Here is some of the terminology to keep in mind as we go through this process:

• Enfleurage: French word meaning "in flowering"
• Fat: The original fat was lard or tallow, these days coconut oil is most popular amongst those who prefer to avoid animal products and "other" fragrances in their final product.
• Chasis: Stackable wood frames with glass, used in France.
• Terrior: A French term referring to the environmental factors that influence the flavors and scent of a plant. The word is most often used in wine.
• Prima materia, our plant matter, the term comes out of Alchemy, referring to the first matter
• Charge: A term referencing each time you add more flowers, or plant matter to your base. With Enfleurage your base is a "fat", if we are making an infusion the base is an "oil", in the case of a tincture the base is a high proof alcohol.
• Pomade: the result of the enfleurage process, the scented fat.
• Extract/Extrait: The final result of the enfleurage product, also called an absolute.

LET'S BEGIN

To begin this long term processes, consider your "prima materia", the plant matter you are choosing to work with. If they are fresh flowers, make sure you have the ability to access enough flowers for a good length of time. Each flower is a bit different, a good rule of thumb is to repeat the charge at least eight times, the more the better.

In California when I had access to my ten potted jasmine plants I started the process in May which lasted until October. I was also creating tinctures and infusions at the same time since I had access to such a large quantity of flowers.

Here in Santa Fe, since I don't have a garden yet, for my gardenia enfleurage I use flowers that my mom sends from California. The 2019 gardenia enfleurage was charged about eight times.

Besides our fragrant flowers, the tools and raw materials necessary for enfleurage are easy to obtain and most likely in your possession. I use shallow glass Pyrex pans.

Choosing your fat?

Animal fat was the original ideal medium for capturing odor. For those of us working in a holistic paradigm a non-animal fat is preferred but more of a challenge to find. Experimentation will lead you to the perfect fat that works best for you. Unscented coconut oil is the most popular fat currently used and I do highly recommend it, however, it can be a challenge in warmer climates.

In the nineties when I first started experimenting with enfleurage I used an organic, virgin coconut oil, which did not work in Southern California where temperatures in Spring and Summer can easily reach 90 to 100. Thus I switched to using a mixture of beeswax and jojoba oil. Here in Santa Fe however, the coconut oil works well.

Instructions for Simple Home Enfleurage

• Step 1: Coat your glass, a lasagna glass pyrex dish works well, with an unscented fat, ideally in a solid state.
• Step 2: Gather your flowers in the early morning after the dew has dried but before the heat of the day
• Step 3: Gently place the flowers on the fat.
• Step 4: Cover the dish with a clothe to preserve the aromatic molecules.
• Step 5: Set the dish in a cool locations, ideally in the dark.
• Step 6: Remove the spent flowers and begin again.

The replacing of flowers will vary and is a bit like cooking, pay attention to the scent and decided if it would be better to replace a few times a day, every morning or after two to three days.

It's really important to look for mold and at the first sign carefully remove it from your fact and pay close attention to re-occurring signs. If mold becomes a constant challenge then its possible your batch may be ruined and require you to begin once more. Avoid mold by avoiding water, water is your enemy in the enfleurage process.

• Step 7: When the flowering period has ended, check to see how fragrant the result is. If it is weak then consider saving it until next year or layering a different flower over the top.

Last Spring I decided to do a Lilac enfleurage using flowers growing around Santa Fe. Some of the lilacs were foraged, while others were from gardens where I was granted access. Since the flowers of our local lilacs are so tiny, I found the process excruciatingly painful due to the amount of time it took to place each flower on the fat. I considered just adding the flowering stocks to the fact, without separating out each flower, but then I would also get the green scent of the stem and leaves woven into the scent.

By the end of the lilac enfleurage process I found the scent too weak and ended up using the fat bed for my 2019 gardenia enfleurage.

FILTRATION / EXTRACTION

• Step 8: Getting back the to process, once you are happy with the scent of your fat, whether it is from one flower or multiple,  scrape the pomade into a glass jar, see photo above. This pomade can now be used as your final product, whether is is a solid perfume or a component to something else.

In a traditional enfleurage, the next step is to pour a high proof alcohol over your fat and store the jar in a cool, dark place, shaking every few days or so for a period of a year or more.  Next step separate out the scented alcohol from the fat by filtration. This can be done with a traditional fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth, followed by a coffee filter.

• Step 9: Next, you have two options:

1. If you have a small distillation apparatus, you can distill "off" the alcohol.
2. If not the old school method is to pour the scented alcohol into a new jar, cover with a piece of cheesecloth and then slowly evaporate off the alcohol.

With both these processes the final result is a scented extract/extrait, also called an absolute.

EXPERIMENT

I've laid out a context for you to begin experimenting, the more you practive the more you will tune into the plant material and find your own way. Keep in mind there is no right or wrong, most important thing is the move forward, if you fail, learn and do it again.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, the old processes of perfume making, like enfleurage, are labor intensive and not for everyone. After working with this process for so many years I continue to be surprised and enchanted. The act of harnessing the ephemeral, what we can call the soul of a flower, into a solid form is truly magical!

"Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!..."

~ Rabindranath Tagore

All photo and text ©RoxanaVilla