Ritual in creating odour. Aroma? What do you yourself name it. Smell? Perfume? Says a lot about how you yourself perceive your common delivery in presenting forms of ‘fragrance’ that exists in your life. Aftershave, perfume, incense, a quick squirt from an aerosol, a wipe down of the worktops with aromatic Zoflora or an electric plug in diffuser.
Smell. Odour. Aroma. Scent. Fragrance. Redolence.
Creating Ambience by Synergy. What is in a word? Or a collection of words?
Joss sticks or Incense? Resins or Frankincense? Frankincense or Olibanum? Dettol or Zoflora. Coal Tar block of soap or Italian Cedarwood and Tobacco soap bar.
Burn a candle at Christmas. Burn the Christmas candle.
Smoke cleanse and purify the whole household atmosphere or simple Smudging?
Small considerations to future write about. Surrounding stories in the presence of presentation or introduction of an aroma into your life. Asking of yourself, ‘Why this particular smell and choice of how it is produced’. Whether sitting in your front room, out in the open air or an occasion to be considered for enhancing with a particular odour.
The act of producing any type of aroma to fill your immediate environment can be the simplicity of lighting a scented candle, lighting up an incense stick or cone, melting scented wax into a dish above a tea light, putting reeds into essential oils and base oil for diffusion, plug in electric aroma diffuser, ultrasonic aroma humidifier, aerosol or pump action sprays from a can, etc. Or the adding to clothes washing liquid with fragrant conditioner. Planting lavender, chamomile or a white jasmine in the garden. Obsessed with creating and releasing odour into our inhabited spaces.
The simple fact is that aroma is an essential involvement in well being for many. As a nurse on a busy ward you are met with a variety of smells. Some more welcome than others. You cannot be selective and introduce masking smells to cover the most basic of odour of what exists after use of bed pans. Or the smell from terrible wounds. Lavender or sandalwood masking base elimination in a bowel movement can challenge your love for lavender or sandalwood ever again. But charcoal inherent in wound dressings to absorb malodorous smells can avoid such conundrums. Association creates aversion or attraction. Or disassociation.
Setting up these photographs, it gives myself the basis to consider aromatic distribution. How it involves itself in daily routines. I visited my sister yesterday who asked Alexa to play her ‘Waze’ music. Her way of gently introducing ambient surrounding sound into the room to calm. She told me that added, usually, to this ritual was the lighting of a Nag Champa incense stick. It is simple ceremony. Whether assisting the process of undertaking the chores of housework. Sitting looking at an object in meditative state. Or create an improved atmosphere and set a more pleasing and alluring welcome for an expected visitor arriving in the next five minutes.
Having numerous ways of creating odour within certain spaces is basically a considered ideal. This photograph will be future torn apart into specific considerations. And more besides in the presentation and the releasing of odours. Considerations of aromatic production exist whether you are within the house, the VeeDub Bus (camper van), sitting outside at a fire pit, sitting mindfully at an altar, etc. Or whether to simply open your windows fully and allow the natural sweet smell of nearby jasmine, lavender or lilac into your home. Can we live a holistic lifestyle without being surrounded by smells? Do we need to satisfy all the senses of sound, sight, smell, touch to enhance well being? Or can we simply separate in isolation and close our eyes for ten minutes and listen to a piece of music, enjoy a scented candle or touch a recently acquired beach pebble as a worry stone. Or open our eyes to look at a wonderful piece of art or a scenic view from sitting on a hillside to sweep your gaze over a stunning river/lake presence or valley?
Reading research into such matters when a nurse was fascinating. Chronic Conditions Management by use of Complementary Realistic Alternatives for Therapeutic Intervention (CRAFTI). It was a self mantra for 3 years of study and essay writings. ‘CRAFTI use for CCM’. A major part of this study was holistic principles of introducing odour in promotion of well being. I should like, very much, to consider these various ways in the photographs of producing each aroma in small considered ways. And what attaches itself in the presence of each. Simple choices and what develops. Small scenarios.
I do not want to consider the intricacies of mixing to create synergy and subsequent balance. It gets complicated. And endless in it’s possibilities. A simple incense stick lit on an altar. A single resin, petal, wood and leaf or a mix heated above a tea light candle. A single essential oil to heal the body or calm the senses in base cream to skin and carried on the skin throughout the day. Or oil dripped into water and diffused into the atmosphere. A lit scented candle Mindfully considered. A social improvement in the nighttime lighting of an aromatic apple log scented fire pit. A copper pot filled with aromatic water to pour into a small copper heated bowl. A charcoal briquette lit to accept an over sprinkling of powdered resin or spice ground down in a cast iron Pestle and Mortar. Diffused oils in a humidifier sitting in the vestibule hallway that is the first introduction to a visitor.
And importantly. Got to keep your mind active and consider any theme to write about.
Please tap on individual photographs to enlarge.
Gray Summers 