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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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Recent Posts

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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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

In spite of my best intentions to gradually share

In spite of my best intentions to gradually share some of the beauty, wisdom and discoveries of East Crete as I walk along this fairy-tale land, my aromatic dailies don't get to break through the bandwidth of life in the richness of summer. Here is to catch up and pamper you with a snapshot of colours at an altitude of around 1,150 m above sea level just a few weeks ago. 🌿🐝💝
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

Hello again from East Crete... where I have spent

Hello again from East Crete... where I have spent most of my time in the past few months. I did not manage to continue with my early summer aromatic reports in the past weeks as... I finally moved here!

As with great transition periods, there may not be a specific moment to call as the turning point, but as on film strips, the story unfolds quickly in front of your eyes while composed from millions of still images. In this movie of majestic landscapes of Crete, seasoned with incredible warm-hearted people, many of whom I have the honour to call friends, one incredibly long and rich chapter has now closed. Now, after two weeks of boxing, loading, driving, unloading, and unboxing - an exhausting process itself -, we are finally back in the fields where even the hardest work feels like a turbo-charge of energy.

Collecting wild carrot seeds (Daucus carota ssp. maxima) somehow correlates to the new beginning, as it was one of the plants that I have ever collected first when I came to the island. A perfect symbol for now, as with seeds to create something new, and as a plant that is so multifaceted with the many beautiful appearances the flowers of wild carrot exhibit over a period reaching a year. As an aromatic plant, it is a great companion to work with for transitions, for regeneration and nurturing, as well as to assist in calming, settling and rejuvenation.

The seeds of Wild carrot remind me of the nature of Velcro tape. It appears that the inventor of Velcro came up with this name combining the French words “velour” (velvet) and “crochet” (hook), such as “hooked velvet” which I find pretty appropriate to apply for this treasure mature plant as well as its gorgeous extractions. Certainly belongs to the royal family of aromatics, and besides the various other common names such as Queen Anne’s lace or bishop’s lace, I find bird’s nest is the one that adds more meaning to this wonderful life stage now.

If you were to do role-plays, who would you rather be now? A little bird learning to fly, a big bird taking care of the nest, or perhaps one of those in the process of building a new nest? 🌿
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #aromatic #holistic

As for the story of the flowers and the leaves...

Wow, I was surprised to see so many of you got to

Wow, I was surprised to see so many of you got to see and appreciate my comeback with some late highlights on the April harvests! Thank you 🙂 The other day I was talking to an old friend who also lives far away, and he was saying that if nothing else, I could just post one picture a day. The trouble is, I am a storyteller who is fascinated about processes and that requires a series of photos! Anyhow, I am working on finding a golden mean.

🍊 Now, a little more on harvesting and distilling the various gifts of the bitter orange tree (which is not identical with the sweet orange tree). For those of you who did not know, in aromatherapy we have this wonderful plant that is one of the most generous beings that offers different essential oils (as well as hydrolats) from various plant parts. Neroli is the name used when we distill the flowers, Petitgrain is when the leaves (and some tiny young green fruits) are distilled, and finally the zest of the ripen fruit (that can either be steam distilled or cold-pressed) would be labeled as Bitter Orange eo/hydrolat. Simply saying...

🍊 Classically, the order of the distillations would go as flowers first, then a few weeks later leaves from the trimmed trees become available for the distiller, as well as the mature fruits. Now, for me as an artisan distiller, I often go with certain intentions, at the same time, I run into beautiful opportunities, as well as situations to clean up. For instance, the bitter orange tree had many freshly fallen fruits which I wanted to distill separately, right after distilling the other plant parts. However, life got busy and I finally had to let them go. As for the story of the flowers and the leaves, it will have to be another day to tell you about some details of the distillation, but I did some experiments and they came out beautifully! 🙏💝
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#essentialreflections #crete #lifechanging #unknown #holistic #aromatherapy #artisandistillery #alchemist #lifetransformation #awakening #awareness #rose #love #intuition #followyourdreams #followyourheart #spiritualawakening #plants #nature

I know... Except for the rose fields, I hardly sha

I know... Except for the rose fields, I hardly shared anything in the past three months. I know many of you have been missing my aromatic journals and essential reflections, but you know, sometimes, you just do what you do and that's it. Oh boy, what an abundant period it has been! As my plant works and distillations have always served as a place of transformative journeys and personal development, it is also great to look back and confirm the feelings, what the Oracles have been transmitting through me at an earlier stage?

💝 As I wrote in March about the beautiful co-distillation of 6 plants I finally named 'Out of The Blue': 'I had previously created something magical called Abundance, and another brave experiment seemed in line with my path talking to me like that: What else can you expect? Where else can you go further? Could this be more amazing?' And this is the point where it all started! More amazingness arrived in my life! Something that I have been dreaming about for years, and although I deeply felt it must be coming my way, yet the WHEN and the HOW was seemingly under the control of the Department UNKNOWN. Yet, with perseverance, trust and constant humbleness, I have never stopped working. And working means on myself, as much as on the aromatic fields. Always holistically, authentically following my heart. And of course, it is not just sunshine (I will do a separate post on that...), meaning you have the lucky start... However, it is a choice. No matter what you believe, we ALWAYS have choices! (More on that later, too.).

💝 Long story short, two amazing guys appeared in my life to enrich my days, fulfill the prophecy, and for us all to keep walking the aromatic paths together! So if you wanna know what we did on the dirt road of explorations, connection and gratitude this early summer, here is my short version of the plants we were harvesting for distillation: Neroli and Petitgrain (Bitter orange), Wild Lavender, Helichrysum, Myrtle and Cretan Yarrow, Rose Geranium, and oooh, those magical Damask Roses from the fields of my love.

💝 With gratitude, some fragrant visuals from the Neroli harvest in mid April! 🌿🙏
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#essentialreflections

Did you know there is a design thinking tool calle

Did you know there is a design thinking tool called The Rose, Bud, and Thorn? This technique is designed to identify what's working (Rose), what's not (Thorn) and what can be improved (Bud). Although it is widely used by teams to evaluate current projects, I believe it is a wonderful metaphor to apply in anyone's life to help doing self-reflection, facilitate discussions with one another, or you go beyond and creatively apply what comes to mind... 🌹

Last night the world anniversary came up, and this morning I realized it is another special day today! So I am posting these 'La Vie En Rose' pictures in honour of the day that exactly 9 years ago I took two suitcases and arrived from Hungary to Crete to walk the Path of the Unknown! I cannot be more grateful for all the adventures that waited for me. 🌿

Apparently, completing number 9 on this Full Moon. As with the top of the iceberg, that corresponds to one of my favourite quotes from The Little Prince: "What is essential is invisible to the eye." - as in the last couple of months I have lived through the most essential changes in my life since the one 9 years ago. And while to me celebration is LIFE itself, and the way we fill it up with experiences, it is just as important to acknowledge the momentum of the rolling stones. 🐝

And here we go, with my beloved synchronicities: I am on the move again! On the Path of the Unknown where I have had the opportunity to share my passion and experiences with many in these past 9 years, the road now takes a new turn. Going from West to East, I continue walking this aromatic life on Crete side-by-side with my two loving partners extraordinaires! And I shall meet you there, where we live by: The Rose, The Bud, and The Thorn 🌹💝

PS: May you dare to follow your dreams, and walk the Path of the Unknown! Much love to all who needs encouragement on this day! Thank you for listening to me, and most importantly, to your Heart! 💗
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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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