I was born green- but no one told me J
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It wasn’t easy to be green, where I was born- you had to either be born that way, or want it very badly.
I was the bit of both.
I wasn’t raised on a farm, in a bucolic setting, on the Great Plains, in the mountains, by the ocean, in a meadow, in the cradle of civilization-
Or any other lovely location; I was born in Yonkers, near the Bronx.
The New York Central rattled behind our place, next to the Hudson River sewage treatment plant.
andrew.cmu.edu
I was blessed / cursed to be born, however-
Into an era where green ceased being a mere color-
And grew into a geopolitical emblem instead, crackling with controversy and ethical might.
That came later.
Small children are not political at first…
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Tomato plants love soot, and the New York Central provided all the soot they needed.
Nothing to equal a freshly crushed tomato leaf in your slender fist [ask Jean-Claude Ellena !].
Or nosing around the occasional marigold [ah, tagettes ! astringent beauties !] in the yard; the mint plants which overran those poor daggly roses my mother loved so.
novaflor.com
I artlessly gravitated to whatever occurred in nature, because it sustained me.
For that, I thank my late mother heartily; it was one of her greatest gifts to me.
Rabindranath Tagore, the brilliant Bengali poet, knew well of these natural charms.
connect.in.com
He celebrated them in his Song Offerings, Gitanjali:
“When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands
I know why there is honey in the cup of the flowers
and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice
– when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.”
care4kidsworldwide.org
I was a stubborn learner, being stung over and over again in the Botanical Gardens-
Because I staunchly needed to know first-hand how every iris in an acre of them, differently-hued-
SMELLED.
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You would have thought I would search for bumblebees first….not a chance.
Everything must be inhaled, all of existence, then AND now.
Imagine my rebellious delight, when I sent myself to Europe, and traveled through Provence in my late teens, alone.
Wild herbs bruised underfoot, lavande des Alpes, mimosa, roses, full-bodied jasmine de Grasse, tuberose:,a paradise of olfactive discovery.
I haunted all the parfumeries and factories – large and small, burying my face in heaps of dried patchouli and vetiver grass.
culturaemovimientobolivia.org
It was a truly organic progression, then, to natural perfumery and my lifetime obsession with all the beauty naturals bring to the olfactory palette.
While I have accumulated perfume for over 45 years, those fragrances with an abundance of fine quality natural essences-
Or outright 100% botanical scents-
Are those which satisfy me most, and speak to my very soul.
psychologytoday.com
–Ida Meister, Natural Perfume Editor and Senior Editor
Uncorked! Is a blogging event sponsored by the Natural Perfumers Guild celebrating voices telling us all their inner stories of how they came to love natural aromatics *or* why they love natural perfumery.
For more of these vignettes check out the participating blogs below: