26 August 2020

It was Alethia’s birthday today, so we went up to the house in the early afternoon to have some truly decadent chocolate pistachio cake Mary had made. Generally, SFH rests in the afternoon, so I wasn’t expecting to see him, though everyone was gathered in the living room when we got up there.

SFH was joking with Alethia about her having just died, and being immortal, and about some of her previous escapades, which he labelled as “Alethia’s Folly, or Al-F”. It made me smile at the sound of words and their meanings - another slant on the alif of the previous evening from the dog's back. It set me wondering about roots and routes again, and all the linked neurological, physical, chemical, psychological, sociological paths we tread in this short life we are given.

SFH had some other things to say, but I must admit that I can’t remember exactly what they were. Sometimes one must simply be overwhelmed and face it with honesty. In truth, every moment is entirely overwhelming, with the eternal occurrence and recurrence described by Ibn ‘Arabi: the ceaseless creation and destruction; birth and death; quantum particles popping into existence with energy borrowed from the future (the measurement of which affects the past), meeting and annihilating each other so as to reduce back into neutrality again.

Either way, after he had left and we had finished coffee and cake, Mary opened up a bit about essential oils. I also asked her about those flowers in the garden - they’re not geraniums, but azaleas. She told the story of how she became involved in essential oils, which was really through Elizabeth. She got into the story of Abu-l-Kasim al-Zahrawi and the empire of the three religions and various fascinating stories about Cordoba and Spain more generally, emphasising how many of al-Zahrawi’s preparations were used to dye skin and hair colour in an attempt by the lighter locals to appear more like their “Moor overlords”.

She also told a story of her interest in perfume more generally, talking about a specific interaction she had had with Edmond Roudnitska, walking through his garden talking about Lily of the Valley among other things. He recommended to her that the perfume she was working on - Zahra - be finished off with tuberose. She talked further about perfumery as - in some sense - equivalent to writing a symphony, with base, middle and high notes and how to craft it to the specific needs of the individual in front of you.

I asked her about the effect of different oils on our neurology, my interest having been stoked by Lyall Watson’s book Jacobson’s Organ. This organ has more to do with odourless pheromones and is connected directly to parts of the brain which the olfactory system is not, but Mary detailed some of the basics instead, which I was very grateful for anyway. In particular, she cited Lavender as a good example of the sort of subconscious effects smell can have: many men like it because it conjures up homeliness, care, safety and security for them, whereas many women do not, because the same associations for them signify imprisonment.

She also pointed out that rosemary is great for circulation in the brain; and peppermint and lemon for freshness (especially when doing repetitive tasks: they use peppermint on assembly lines in Japan, apparently). She then told a brief story about some of her work on oils for drug and alcohol abuse facilities, noting especially a mix she made of Vetiver (known as tranquillity oil in Sri Lanka), Frankincense (Loban, great for dealing with dispersion) and some kind of Sage (a euphoric, called “the marijuana of the essential oils world”) which seemed to be particularly effective.