Some years ago I was celebrating my approximately 50th distillation with a beautiful co-distillation of some of the most precious fragrant medicinal plants. My alchemical journeys through artisan aromatic distillations were unique in a sense that they came with an inherently inseparable and apparently infinite source of inspiration, and teachings that aim to stretch beyond our holistic community to the scale of humanity. The task I was given is not less but to bring ancient knowledge into this lifetime, combine and refine methods and components, and connect people and plants in order to support liberation of the Soul at the conjunction of parallel realities. As transformative as can be, it is to capacitate a sacred togetherness when both plant matter and human essence are being spiritualized. If we look at botanical perfumes as medicine, which they were since antiquity, co-distilling aromatic plants is an age-old foundation for bringing the healing capacity of aromas into odorous waters and oils for the intentional use of beautifying and invigorating body, mind, soul and spirit.
The Complete Distiller
Contemporary teachings for the art of distillation empowered me with technical and scientific knowledge. Besides, I was gaining more of the art from direct plant connections and hands-on experiences from my field explorations that were also complementing my aromatherapy and herbal practices and curiosity. To complete the triangle of a solid base I researched treaties, compendiums and old medicine books of past generations. I wanted to understand the people and processes that came before us in order to carry on and transmit the heritage of master teachers throughout history. One of the extensions in my library was a classic piece from the eighteenth century, more precisely MDCCLVII as it appears. ‘The Complete Distiller’ by Ambrose Cooper is a reprint from the year 1757 and at first felt a difficult read. Once familiarising myself with the terminology of his age it all proved to be a truly engaging and enlivening study. According to some sources, the writing of Cooper was taken over from some French text, but regardless of his position, the context and his work is invaluable. He talks about Simple Waters and Compound Waters, meaning single plant distillations and co-distillations of various plants and materials. In his archaic language A. Cooper feels so much like an artisan distiller fellow of our times, with critical thinking, free spirit and true dedication to the plant world. As he writes: “Simple Waters are not so much used at present as they were formerly, and perhaps one of the reasons for their being neglected, is the bad methods used in distilling them.” Well, well, history seems to repeat itself… Nevertheless, we have tasks to do!
Creating Abundance
To introduce you to some of my co-distillations, let me set the scene for this very significant one that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. The anniversary process that took place at Full Moon right before closing the year 2020 symbolised the interconnectedness of the years that passed and the ones to come. It also came to promote co-creation, harmony and more understanding between plants, nature and people. A fresh look at making an offering to the Gods above and to people on this Earth with a divine nature. With gratitude in my heart, I envisioned referring to this co-distillation by the name of Abundance. Vibrant fragrant plants of the season were intentionally mixed together with just a few dried ones that were sitting in my apothecary and I had to let go. Something old and lots of fresh material. Dried branches of white-flowered Rosemary and special reserves of Cypress with their greens already turned darker when diving deep in the copper cauldron to give body and anchor a basket full of sweet Orange, joyful Mandarin and sparkling Bergamot. As the giant Bergamots supplied by a kindhearted neighbour in the village, each and every botanical ingredient had its own picking story enriching the history and the future blueprint of our composition. Even more so, all of them had their own story of growing, such as the freshly picked spicy Basil coming from my garden and the soothing Lavender grown around the house of a dear friend. While the bulky nature of citrus peel gave significant weight to the whole, the sweet floral notes of Jasmine, Roses, Mandarin flowers, and a hint of mind-altering Lemon leaves released their subtle characteristics and energetic imprints in a rather liminal yet significant manner. The 11 plants that entered into contract to be co-distilled are very individual parties, and together would constitute a unique new creation.
In perfume creation, you both lead and follow the process. In distillation, these positions are different, and once you have added all the materials, the intermittent adjustments are still in the hands of an experienced creator, but majorly the outcome will embody as is at the end. I find it highly exciting to ‘follow the process’ and be there to witness as the fragrant molecules release themselves. As I make my notes in my distiller’s diary I imagine myself as a commentator who provides a real-time broadcasting of the event trying to capture the untouchable. Heating up the pot – and we are speaking of a hydro-distillation – takes about half an hour when the temperature rises to 66 degrees Celsius and the unmistakable scent of our local Cretan Bergamot comes into position making its way into the air. Just a few minutes away and with a temperature at 70 °C, notes of Petitgrain arrive for which I am especially grateful and imminently express a short prayer to the Gods! Not much time for distractions though, joyous Mandarin turns up next, and before Orange takes over a hint of Basil comes across my olfactory sensors. It really is like a catwalk waiting for the next appearing beauty. Passing through the bottom of the 80’s there comes a sensation of flowers. The last individual breaths are from Rosemary and Lavender, and we are nearing the temperature of 90 °C at this instance. From then on, they work as an orchestra with a composition that has a strong and beautiful melody. At 92 °C they are ready to flow and condensation back to liquid starts with a somewhat cooling nature. Then we sit back and relax enjoying the zen nature of dropping water. Two hours pass and I find myself making a statement: ‘eau de cologne’. The distillate that is largely a big part hydrosol and a proportionally small part of essential oil smells like an artfully composed perfume. And truly, each and every drop of it in its own way and nature is already a botanical perfume from their birthright.
It is a privilege to create beautiful transformative preparations while connecting with them through all your senses. The palpable physical reality is such a luxury we human beings can experience. It’s a shame to replace that energy with all that fakes, synthetics and materialistic illusions of well-being out there that have nothing to do with the wisdom of Nature itself. I passionately teach people about the authentic qualities of aromatherapy, true genuine natural materials in several aspects of our lives, and the essence of transforming our life for the better. I offer it in so many ways, expanding and contracting dynamically, using my aromatic activities as a tool for both coaching, therapy and teaching where botanical expression attends our co-creative work as a language, facilitator and transformative agent.
Out of The Blue
After I had created something as magical as Abundance, another brave experiment came with a self-talk like that: ‘What else can you expect? Where else can you go further? Could this be more amazing?’ As a true heart-guided alchemist, at this time again I have been searching for some missing secret ingredients. Although seemingly in line with the chosen path, as in every journey, part of the process is that you have to be really patient sometimes. You have to know when to act, when to withdraw, when to go again… And be aware of how everything unfolds for you, going with the flow, and being partnered in creation. A bit like the interactions among the Sun, the Earth and the Moon as they co-create and influence us and everything around. And of course, I did not even mention the rest of the Universe… In fact, part of walking a holistic path which is part of (or perhaps is) the awakening process I believe is developing our ability to recognise and follow the manyfold cyclical nature within Life and Nature. In more everyday terms, it is a series of transformations.
Co-distilling 6 plants, ‘Out of The Blue’ came to life after New Moon in September, 09/09 for the records. It contains polarity, as the plant energies in there are quite special, to an extent that I was not able to put that into words. What do you do when there are no words??? Well, take it as an exercise to contemplate and answer this question for yourself. To tell you my way, I must start by saying that I somehow speak the language of the Soul, and often I use the language of Plants in their infinitely various ways. This time I was called to make a drawing in my attempt to try to tell the story. Upon completion, my fragrant sketch felt like a vision board to me so sacred that I did not even dare to show it to others. And until I came up with a name, in the following months this drawing represented the ‘working title’ of my composition. Until early next year when the dynamics of spring in the air arrived and when finally everybody on this Earth had been through a lot. Mind you, we are talking about 2021. We already had enough to experience constant changes with out-of-the-blue situations. It felt like a signalling for us little-great human beings that there had never been a better chance to double our efforts, to live our capacities more fully. To transform our lives more consciously, to put more focus on learning the laws of the Universe, and break through some of the man-made laws that no longer serve us.
‘Out of The Blue’ was not an easy birth. I had a lot ‘to throw in’ but finally decided to reduce the number of plants in this co-distillation. Amongst others, I skipped Cretan Dittany for three reasons. First of all, I was about to distill it as a single plant first before I had worked with it in context with others. Secondly, even if, but then I would have used only a tiny amount not to overpower the others with its strong phenolic fire. And lastly, I intuitively chose the plants as they chose me, and this co-creation was calling for others, namely Bergamot, Sage, Rosemary, Cistus, Helichrysum and Frangipani flowers. As with Abundance, Bergamot had a major proportion in here counting for about 60% of total plant weight. Technically speaking, the decent amount of essential oil that my distillation yielded is majorly due to the rich oil capacity of Bergamot. If you are curious about the proportions of the rest of my plant material, roughly Cistus creticus about 17%, Helichrysum italicum ssp. italicum 8%, Rosmarinus officinalis just a little over 6%, Salvia pomifera slightly under 6%, and the fragile Frangipani (Plumeria) is less than 2%. And the outcome? The warm, earthy and floral tones of Cistus, Helichrysum and Frangipani allied beautifully with the herbaceous elements. Bergamot and Sage got a layer of floral expression, and as a whole the freshness of the composition came with a rather creamy touch. I would say it offers some warmth with refreshing experiences for all the positive outcomes you can handle!
Rainbow Moon
Our strange-looking Bergamot on Crete proved to be such a fantastic material to work with. Again, in our next ceremonial perfumery co-distillation it played a major role with roughly the same proportion and leaving space for seven other lovely aromatics for the rest. This time the name was born on the day when collecting the plants. We were visiting various locations starting with the most perfect Mandarin leaves and divine Myrtle branches full of beautiful ripe blue berries. It took up the whole day to complete our mission as except for the Rose geraniums and Cistus growing on our land, each and every single plant came from different areas around the fields across villages on East Crete where we live. It was the day before Full Moon and towards completion of our harvest day, just when we were approaching the Cypress trees, a gentle light drizzling rain arrived. Amazed by the scenery as we looked through the trees, a most spectacular double rainbow appeared in the sky standing strong over the layered silhouettes of olive trees and jeweling the day of all living beings. We still had some road ahead of us to collect Juniper, again full of berries, and by the time we arrived at our final spot for a few branches of sweet bay leaves, we made it a blind date in the dark where nothing but the Moon was bright. A beautiful evening extends into late-night preparations and peeling the bergamots keeps me busy until everything gets ready and we leave the mighty eight for soaking them in the water for the night.
Prior to having distilled bergamot as a single plant two years before Rainbow Moon, I had not realized that as opposed to its extraordinary essential oil, its hydrosol was not typically known and available. This is mainly because the oil is most often extracted by cold-pressing the peel rather than distilling it. Both techniques have their own reasoning and parameters and besides chemical composition and scent characteristics of the essential oil, a lovely hydrosol comes as a co-product of the distillation. It is lovely, refreshingly green, yet slightly floral, and may have a layer of sweetness competing with the bitter notes.
Coming back to our current co-distillation, the composition orchestrated by the most magnificent forces of nature transformed into a delightful essence through the still. Some months later, diluted in perfumer’s alcohol, the Rainbow Moon with its many inner colours and slightly spicy, citrusy and refreshing notes became a new favourite in my collection of distilled perfume-base series.
Side notes to distilling perfume
As an intuitive I have a deep sense for recognising familiar occurrences, environments, people and even recalling and reconnecting them to specific information. As for familiar fragrances, meaning smell triggers and smell memory, it feels like my abilities are just slightly beyond average. What average means, you might ask? Am I judging myself?
As an aromatherapist and botanical perfumer, my nose is rather sophisticated to deal with hundreds of different aromatic raw materials, multiplied by some other hundreds of blending variations to say the least. As an artisan distiller of aromatic plants, years of practice allowed me sophistication in organoleptic evaluation extending and cross-referencing olfactory, visual and flavour characteristics as well as energetics. It also allowed witnessing the most subtle changes during the alchemical process of turning matter into ether. Yet, I still feel handicapped when it comes to that truly remarkable capacity of having a precise timeline scent-memory and the corresponding gift of verbal expression, a clear sentience for the perception of fragrance changes in the dimension of time.
Am I asking too much? Jennifer Peace Rhind – a biologist, aromatherapist and complementary healthcare educator – has some soothing guidance in one of her lovely books ‘Listening To Scent’ to position yourself where you are on your olfactory journeys.
Recording experiences is a must be it botany, herbalism, aromatherapy or perfumery, as is at least very useful in many other areas to document your progress. Depending on your circumstances, the focus of your work, the structure of organising your data, the filters and methods of recording, as well as the scope, depts, quantity and quality evaluations may vary greatly. At the end of the day, the scale of refining your subject may be defined by your capacity, put aside capabilities and affinities.
I was dedicating the past 10 years to document what I do while I was doing in the transformative settings of aromatic Crete, and it has been a sheer inspiration both ways, as the role of the doer and the observer were constantly separate yet being one. This made it possible to write and share these aromatic stories with you my dear reader with the purpose that you take inspiration from them whatever part is the missing piece in your current puzzle making. Reviving various techniques of the past are a duty of today’s healers and teachers of all kinds who are courageous enough to take the challenge of empowering oneself – and hence our communities – with the tradition and knowledge of plant alchemy to preserve, proceed and bravely bring to the level of our age and generations to come.
The article was originally written for and published in the Perfume Special issue 2023/10E of Aromatika Magazin, an online publication to support holistic living, the practice and professional education of aromatherapy, phytotherapy, naturopathy and related subjects. My special thanks and gratitude goes to Gergely Hollódi, editor-in-chief of this beautifully constructed aromatherapy periodical, and for his always encouraging support. Hope you would enjoy this post here. The original copy of the electronic magazine is available for download from the website of Aromatika Magazin.
PS: If you are on this journey of self-discovery, healing and empowerment and feel the call of the magical power of the plant world, you may want to check out what else I have for offer on my aromatic retreats page. With love, Ildiko
References:
Cooper, Ambrose (1757). The Complete Distiller. Nabu Public Domain Reprints. US.
Harman, Ann (2015) Harvest to Hydrosol. Distill Your Own Exquisite Hydrosols at Home. botANNicals.
Rhind, Jennifer Peace (2014). Listening to Scent. Singing Dragon. UK
