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The aim of meditation is to hone and sustain conscious awareness of ‘being’ in the present moment.  I am always a whispered distance from the veil of my future and the shadows of my past, shades flickering in muted colours in my memory.  Yet focusing attention on what is happening, what I sensually experience, what I […]

The air richly infused with the fragrant scent of lavender, I walked into the greeting garden, beyond which stretched several neat linear rows of small purple bushes extended to the tree-lined distant edge of the adjoining field. On one side of the field, in beautiful contrast, a stunning array of sunflowers stood proudly as if […]

The history of essential oils is inseparably entwined in the historical evolution of medicine, evidenced through references found in ancient medicinal texts, treatises, artwork, imagery and artefacts left by civilisations living over 5,000 years ago. Applied in the form of fumigants, incense, cleansers, antiseptics, antibiotics, bactericides and preservatives, as well as psychosomatic, hedonistic perfumes, not […]

Native to Australia, this evergreen tree produces spikey leaves with ‘bottle-brush’ white, red, or green flowers.  It’s bark is spongy and easily flakes.  The essential oil is extracted via steam distillation from fresh leaves and twigs, and has a mild, fruity-sweet camphoraceous menthol metallic scent, with greeny-woody dry out notes.  Cajeput belongs to the same […]

This strongly aromatic annual herb grows throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. It has delicate feathery leaves and daisy-like flowers. The flower heads are picked in full bloom in summer and steam distilled to extract a distinctive blue-green essential oil. Chamomile German possesses excellent skin healing qualities when added to vegetable oil, or non-perfumed cream […]

Native to Europe, northwest Asia, Africa and Morocco, and naturalized in North America and Australia, carrot seed is a biannual herbaceous plant with small finely divided and lacy flowers that develop in clusters of flat dense umbels.  The flat green seeds or fruits are dried then steam distilled to extract the essential oil.  The essential […]

Larger than Chamomile German, Chamomile Roman is a strongly aromatic perennial herb that produces large daisy-like flowers, which is found growing in dry fields and cultivated gardens throughout Europe and North America.   Chamomile Roman yields a straw-yellow to transparent essential oil from the flowering heads.  It  is an invaluable skin healing essential oil when added […]

Native to the Mediterranean region, North Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, and Britain, Cypress is an evergreen, statuesque, cone-shaped tree that produces small flowers bearing ovoid seed cones. The essential oil is extracted from the twigs and needles, sometimes cones, by steamed distillation.  It’s scent is fresh, coniferous gently camphoraceous with a sweet balsamic dry-out odour.  Cypress […]

Native to the Red Sea region, Somalia, Ethiopia, and China, this leafy, ‘tangled’ tree, with its papery peeling bark yields an essential oil from the dried resin that oozes through cracks and incisions within the bark. Frankincense resin has been used in ceremonies for thousands of years, and was offered as a precious gift to […]

Native to the Middle East and Western Asia, Galbanum is a large perennial herb with a smooth hollow stem, finely toothed ovate leaflets, and umbels of small white or yellow flowers. The whole plant contains a milky white juice that exudes from the base of the stem when the plant is cut down. This juice […]

Native to South Africa and widely cultivated in Russia, Egypt, Japan, and Central America and Europe, geranium is a perennial hairy scented shrub with pointed serrated edged leaves, and small pink flowers. There are hundreds of species of geranium, but only roseum or roseum asperum are used for essential oil extraction, which is steam distilled […]

One of the most versatile essential oils, lavender is native to the Mediterranean, and is cultivated in England and Northern Europe, Italy, and Australia. It is a woody evergreen shrub, with pale green narrow leaves and striking violet-blue flowers borne on blunt spikes. The whole plant is highly aromatic. Harvested toward the end of flowering, […]