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Transformative journeys on Crete island

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About the author

Ildiko Berecz is an intuitive mentor, coach and holistic therapist who is passionate about sharing her inspiring personal stories from behind the mountains of Crete island, while being on the road, searching and experiencing, capturing, collecting, distilling, making herbal preparations, blending botanical perfume and more. She offers her insights of authentic approach and humble practices for better understanding and appreciation of nature, herbal remedies and awareness of trustworthy natural applications in our self-development and everyday life practices. More about Ildiko’s extensive life-changing work at ildikoberecz.com

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Yarrow – A Journey Home
Extractions and Distractions – A Survival Guide For Aromatic Living in Lockdown – Part 2
Extractions and Distractions – A Survival Guide For Aromatic Living in Lockdown – Part 1
Melissa  – Life is beautiful, isn’t it?
Stand By Me With Your Aromas

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Photography & text ©️ Ildiko Berecz of Essential Reflections, unless stated otherwise. Please do not use the pictures without prior written permission. If you wish to republish any of my reflections, get in touch, and/or link back respectfully to the original post. Content on this website is based on personal experience and provided for informational or educational purposes only, and is not intended as a substitute for advice from a physician or healthcare professional.

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This is not a time travel, but a fresh picture fro

This is not a time travel, but a fresh picture from last week when the camera's focus was not great. However it feels to me as a nice memory! This is also a shoutout to the lovely and talented @fern_middleton who came to spend a week together again, after her first aromatic retreat with me on Crete in 2019.

This year we were harvesting many aromatics, some of which such as juniper made it to the still, and other like eucalyptus finally didn't, as we got busy with other things. We enjoyed plants and beaches, and our paths were woven into more wonderful visits. I am on my way to processing all our visuals to share later.

Now off again to Mother Nature! Hope you do the same!!! Have a fantastic Sunday everyone!
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #juniper #berry #plantmedicine #plants #herbal #fieldtrips #mentorship

The past few months have found me settling into a

The past few months have found me settling into a new environment, and while my life path in its many stages has always been a vibrant and constant track of changes with new places and people, I guess I naturally developed an ability/attitude to adjust and go with things, even more, to welcome the new and unexpected with great joy. As I had learnt at some point during my years back in Hungary with major focus on my own personal development journey, this ability got positively identified as going with the FLOW (look up the book with this title published in 1990 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).

With every move, there is a dance of two threads - our inner quality (connecting to source) and our outer quality (connecting with others) - that are twirling together. While fiery summer was here to build bridges between an aspiring spring and the rebirthing colours of autumn, intensity of life with plants, interactions with humans never ceased to continue. As magical as our own creation, it's a constant work to stay in balance. And just like the rhythm of our own heartbeat, balance has to be maintained in a system of constant dynamics.

Autumn is one of the opportunities to recalibrate our life and I contemplate on this while looking back at the richness of the past six months, if not further. And I finally felt the urge to come back, sharing the fruits of the seasons that have passed by, and the processes that involved making some of the beautiful herbal medicine. Here are the highlights of a 4-month process (and still on) connecting with this amazing HEART plant: Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna. We started collecting flowers and leaves in May, and now is the time for their magnificently red berries to fade into the magic of our plant alchemy!

Heart-full wishes to everyone to a continued brave life journey, staying true to yourselves and offering the most authentic version of you to the world, gently in your power!
Yours truly: Ildiko 🌿💝
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #hawthorn #crataegus #berry #plantmedicine #plants #herbal

I can't really say it's been a long-time dream to

I can't really say it's been a long-time dream to make my own shampoo. Of course it's been on my apothecary bucket list, but since I've been using the most amazing herbal shampoo for the past many years in Crete (carefully hand-made at the distillery of Wild Herbs of Crete), I could save the time for lots of other exciting plant magic. 🌿

However, I found myself running out of the time-proven liquid from the mountains, and because of the move to East Crete, and simply just many changes of everyday life... one day lately it just had to happen. My partner Yiannis had a recipe from a Greek herbalist and we finally went into organic shampoo-making to happen! 🐝

It's been quite a process, and although I used to attend making shampoo in the past, but this time it was more up close and personal! And there were stages when I questioned the recipe, I questioned the ingredients, I questioned the ratio, etc.... but as always, having patience and letting your curios self witness as alchemy unfolds, the frothiness slowly cleared up and we ended up with quite an amazing shampoo! 💧

What sort of botanical magic is in there? It is made with a combination of olive oil, castor oil and coconut oil, also contains bay laurel, nettles and rosemary hydrolat from my own distillations, as well as high quality true essential oils of rosemary, peppermint, bay laurel and sweet marjoram. 🌿

Deliciously rich and my hair loves to be pampered with it after days of regularly soaking myself in seawater! 😜
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #botanical #shampoo #naturalcosmetics #herbal

These Jasmine flowers - which are as perfect as wh

These Jasmine flowers - which are as perfect as white as if you wanted a benchmark paper to start building up your colour palette. 🌿

The peculiarity of these beauties to me personally is that I was present at their birth. That is to say that I made the cuttings myself from an old Cretan bush in the previous village where I lived. Then as one must do, I waited quietly to see how she would like the circumstances I put her in. The first planter, then different locations in a garden that gave me great challenges to experience, learn and grow. Whereas let nature grow, and let myself grow with them. There were times of struggle, and then in the most unexpected moment everything turned upside down and she started to come alive and bring her leaves, transmuting colours from light to deep green. 🌿

And then again sometime later, she went into withdrawal to the point that I thought that's it. However, I was as persistent as she did. We did not give up, but just allowed the time and space to continue the journey. 💗

Well, unlike some plants and similar to many others, Jasmine needs time initially to really settle. In her case was more than two years from conception. And just before she started blossoming in the past weeks, she went through another major change: she got uprooted from my old garden, travelled 200 km with me to the East of the island, then was gently put into a land which is ruled by some hundreds of Damask Roses. 🌹

I am so emotional about my Jasmine (Jasminum officinale), and proud of us to come along all this way! Many happy togetherness in circles of silence, growth from passion, and blossoming in joy!
💝
PS: I dedicate this picture to plant and scent enthusiast, perfume creator and amazing botanical illustrator @fern_middleton who came to my aromatic retreat in Crete three years ago, and we are now preparing our hearts in celebration to her return this year again! 💝
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#essentialreflections #crete #jasmine #perfume #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

Last week I celebrated my 50th birthday and steppi

Last week I celebrated my 50th birthday and stepping through this truly significant door felt probably one of the lightest ever. It's fun to play with big numbers, and to use it to celebrate for what I have now lived half of a century. Who knows, how my celebration had taken place should I have lived in the land of Crete during the Minoan age? What roles did I have taken on in the various stages of my journey then?

They say we chose the parents that we want to have as our gatekeepers at the welcoming reception on this party called life. A few knows what an important journey it is as we go through the birthing canal, and how that influences our life path. Actually, in this puzzle of life map, everything has a significance, and it is based on our experiences and our choices, what measurements and how we apply to unfold the hidden pieces of the puzzle, learn what the whole picture looks like, and even (re-)colour it. As in board games, we select the figurines we want to act within the journey ahead, and as time goes, positions and roles are changing. However, it is not pure sheer of luck! We are allowed to create our own experiences, in other words, we are allowed to create our own realities.

What if we are here to explore the endless realities that co-exist in this Universe? Since modern life became a race in so many ways, and people try to go for quick-fixes at the pit-stops, speed itself turned into a drug giving illusionary sense of an altered reality and a mirage displaying gates of freedom.

My wish has been the same for the past many years: it is that more and more of us in this world put their own personal development into the basket when shopping out for the most important things in this life. While not everyone is deeply into a mystical journey, the road is open, unique and very individual. And all add up and create the collective.

Now and then.
I am grateful for everything.
Thank you for being on board with me in these times! Perhaps we knew each other in other lifetimes? 💗
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuit

As promised... more amazing wild thyme (Thymus cap

As promised... more amazing wild thyme (Thymus capitatus) images from this year!

Please scroll over to the additional captures where you will see the flower heads in transit growing from buds to blossoms. I find them gorgeous, and hope you will enjoy looking at them too!

🌿🐝💗
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

A still from last week's Thyme distillation. Just

A still from last week's Thyme distillation. Just in time as the plants growing in the wild are now finishing their season and drying out quickly here all over the island. 🌿

In my Aromatic adventures on the Island of Crete series, which are some sort of botanical essays of plant journeys through personal development, I started the Thyme chapter in 2018 with these words: "Would not be true to say that wisdom from thyme came across breast milk from my mother and her ancestors, however, it has claimed its significant presence in the past 10 years of my life, almost overcompensating the rareness in the preceding years." 💚

That article was published in @aromatika_magazin, and the whole visual essay titled 'Take Your Thyme, Be Strong & Courageous' is available on my blog to read: https://essentialreflections.com/take-your-thyme-be-strong-courageous/

I might come back again with more amazing recent wild thyme (Thymus capitatus) images. Meanwhile, you may encourage me to do so by sending lots of plant 🌿 love 💚 in the comments below.
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

First aid field guide to wasp sting from first han

First aid field guide to wasp sting from first hand experience! 🐝

It was slowly getting dark as I was pruning our Damask roses last night. I completed a nice section on the upper parts of the long and winding rows, and just for my records I counted them - I did about 45 bushes. Each one comes with several main stems and further branches, right? And although I was ready to call it a day, I went on to start row four, you can always do a little more, right? Well, NO!!! 💚

A lesson I have to remind myself over time and time again - in the endless flow of a passionate life, appreciating what has been done, and acknowledging the rest will have to be another day. So simple. And so rewarding when it is followed.

So I knew that... but I went on doing some more. And imminently, I felt the pain and the heat developing on my finger. I am a child of nature, not panicking, and usually being clear-minded in emergency situations. I walked to my beloved Spike Lavender and went on rubbing the wasp bites - one on my finger and another on my arm - meticulously, while asking my partner Yiannis to bring me a piece of Aloe from the other side of the field. He immediately cut a piece for me, and I created a lovely extravagant ring for myself to wear the gel as a cooling anti-inflammatory poultice. As a result, swelling had no chance to continue to develop, redness went down, and pain ceased in a matter of minutes. I kept my lovely ring for the next half an hour on the way home, to make sure the efficacy of my treatment stays. Lavender and aloe are amazing, and so is nature to provide these medicines abundantly, if we care!

Special thanks for the wasps drawing my attention to being found and charged in 'productivity guilt'! 😜

Wishing you a relaxing weekend! 😇
With love from abundant Crete ☀️
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

Ohh what a summer! I just had my 70th anniversary

Ohh what a summer! I just had my 70th anniversary while in fact, I will only turn 50 very soon! How come? I feel younger than my numbers suggest (or as our society trains us to live an average life with corresponding expectancy age features projected onto it), and it feels like my life experiences are closer to 70. 🌹

Call me a witch or an alchemist, in assistance of transforming plants and human lives on this Earthly mission. 70 stands for the number of my own artisan distillations I have humbly performed over the years and that means I already stepped into year 7 strictly speaking. ⚗

While this summer brought a huge transformation into my life, and while this precious life is now differently structured in many perspectives, at the heart of daily matters plant alchemy remains more essential than ever. 🐝

The past two weeks in July artisan distillations continued with Wild Clary, Rose Geranium (this batch from plants growing along with Damask Roses), all sorts of Lavender, the rare exclusive of Helichrysum italicum ssp. microphyllum, and Sweet Fennel collected from alongside a dry riverbed! 🌿

Sending my wishes out to you all for an elevated lovely mood for a great August! Let's rock and roar like a Lion as we step into the astrological importance of the royal sign! 🦁
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

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