May your dreams come true Why was I surprised not only finding Damask roses that grow wild on Crete, but also supremely cultivated on the East part of the island? And how did I find myself care-taking and distilling these roses a short year after I had started painting roses on paper in order to …
JOURNEY is a blend of passion reflecting a personal aromatic journey through the Mediterranean landscape of Crete island. As with any personal journeys, reading the lines might evoke evaporating memories and experiences from that of yours. My perfume had to be something that is composed by plants and fragrances that are abundant on the island enriching my reinvented life.
By sharing excerpts from her journal, plant alchemist Ildiko Berecz would like to offer some highlights of the past year of how life went on during the pandemic with almost a whole year of lockdown on the Mediterranean Island of Crete in Greece. It is highly emphasised that the journal is not a panacea for pandemic, neither complete nor unbiased, yet focuses on the bright side of a dark year with aromatic and medicinal plants.
There used to be a beautiful row of eucalyptus trees along the way between our village and the next. Not only felt heartbreaking to see more of them having been cut out during the past year, but now…
The magic of bay leaf is another profound opportunity for me to demonstrate how disconnected we human beings have become from the living and powerful Nature, and its capacity to communicate via fragrances.
Spica is the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo and one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. According to Wikipedia. To me, Spica is the brightest, strongest and without question my all time favourite type of lavender essential oil. This one specifically. Organically grown and “cultivated” as it was wild by Gill …
Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) is one of the hundreds treasures of Crete. In some countries they call it St John’s bread, locust bean or even monkey food (although that would probably be baobab). Well donkeys and goats like it too… My mom told me that in her childhood in Hungary it was a favourite sweet …
As the weather so the landscape is offering a bit of summer blending into automn on the last day of September. A few drops of rain, yet only the ones sitting on the leaves, and taken into dance by the wind. That’s why a Sunday walk at the foothills of the White Mountains of Crete is …
Going through my distillation diary, I couldn’t help noticing some concurrences… My first time distilling Cistus creticus in the summer of 2017 happened to be the 14th in the series of my distillations. The second time for the same plant, in just about a year, got to become number 28. I have always loved numbers. …
