Some years
back everything in my world seemed specifically designed to make me
crazy. A five year relationship died a dismal and pathetic death. I
lost a job I really loved. My Mother died very unexpectedly - a shock
of incredible intensity. My two closest girlfriends moved to other coasts.
Various other minor blows which might have been tolerable during another
period, but at the time were more than I could bear. I was much of the
opinion that I'd born enough in life - unresolved childhood issues,
a splotchy history of loosing jobs and men at the worst possible time,
a devastating fire, friends lost to AIDs and cancer - well, we all have
our stories. But I was having a difficult time finding reasons to get
out of bed in the morning.
A sunny but bitterly cold Sunday found me wandering Bearskin Neck -
the shops were mostly closed. But in one an aromatherapy workshop was
going on. I knew nothing about that but the shop was warm and the workshop
was free. “Close your eyes,” the aromatherapist told me,
“smell this and tell me your reaction.” She handed me a
glass vial to sniff - suddenly the room was filled with sunshine and
the lazy silence of August afternoons.
“Bees,”
I said, “it smells like bees.” She laughed. “Good
association,” she said. “That's honeysuckle.”
And so
it went - sniff - react. At the end of the session, like an ancient
alchemist, she blended shimmering drops of oils from amber vials onto
a card. “This is your fragrance,” she told me. What a fragrance!
I breathed it in and sighed - there in its intoxicating richness was
summer nights counting stars by a mountain lake, hiding in the lilac
bushes behind my grandmother's house, my father's woodshop, and the
transcendent, incense-infused mystery of my Catholic girlhood. I bought
a bottle and every night rubbed it on my wrists and throat. I fell asleep
dreaming of better days.
Healing
happens slowly. But healing happens. I am an artist and visual beauty
has always soothed my soul. As I let time and beauty and the wonderous
fragrance work their magic new needs grew in me. A need for beautiful
music - Ralph Vaughn Williams or the wind blowing through the trees
behind my house. A need for the caress of my favorite velour sweater
or a silky lotion. A need for the taste of sweet sunshine trapped in
a plump persimmon or the comfort of marjoram, sage, and rosemary in
steaming soup. I found myself checking out huge art books from the library,
brewing a pot of spiced plum tea, and loosing track of time and troubles.
My senses became my healers and my subtle companions in a new appreciation
of life. Of MY life.
Years have passed and life just keeps on happening. Imagine that. People
age and die. Friends come and go. Children grow up and get opinions
of their own. The one you have showered with your affection isn't as
thrilled about that as he should be. Aches and pains show up. Money
doesn't. But my world grows larger and richer and more luscious. Another
- better - job came. As did another - better - love. As I nurture and
cultivate my senses and all the gifts they bring to me my days widen
and deepen and provide me with endless delight.
Our senses are our interface with life. Through them we receive information
about the earth and its inhabitants. By expanding our definition of
sensuousness and cultivating it as an art we increase our participation
in life. We enter into a new understanding of what is real and what
has value. Instead of wallowing in acerbity we grow to revel in beauty.
Technology has its blessings but the human in us longs for authenticity.
We are in danger of losing that. We have come to confuse information-gathering
with intelligence, sarcasm with wit, amusement with pleasure, and what
is legal with what is ethical. Our souls know better. They long for
what is genuine - not engineered environments and manufactured entertainments.
Reclaiming our sensuousness calls us in to balance. We discover greenhouses
full of flowers to wander on a bitter winter day. Tantalizing spices
wait for us to create a perfect risotto or curry. There are art galleries
to be perused, elegant wines to be sipped by moonlight, flickering candles,
fragrant baths, woodland paths, wolves howling at night, caressing breezes,
bird calls and crickets and blackberries and Brahms German Requiem.
When I was a little girl my Uncle Tommy taught me a trick. I was sad
about something - a ladybug escaped from a jelly jar or a fight with
a horrid brother. This is what you do: lay on your back in a pool of
sunlight next to the currant bush. Pick one bright, translucent ball
of brilliant red juice, hot from the light of the sun. Place it on your
tongue and let it roll around to savor its heat and smoothness. Then
you press it to the roof of your mouth and POP! Your whole mouth is
flooded with the sweet-sour fruitiness of a July morning. And everything
seems better. I forgot that for awhile but it is coming back to me now.
