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How do you feel about your body? Is it a source of pleasure and pride? A burden to be borne? A matter of indifference? Does it feel like a ‘good runner' which always seems to do what you ask of it? Or is your body something on which you don’t think you can depend? I find that most men and women in the Western world feel uneasy about their bodies. The cultural models which our culture has inherited from the ancient Greeks separates ‘body’—our physical presence—from ‘soul', the so-called ‘real' person, creating a schizoid attitude towards ourselves. Often we treat the body as an object. Then we alternate between narcissistically indulging it and continually neglecting it. Sometimes, we seem to dissociate from it altogether. QUANTUM RADIANCE NOW The body is the medium through which we experience reality. This is a truth most people forget. Your sense of aliveness and vitality, peace and relaxation, joy, sexuality, power—even intellectual enjoyment—are all experienced through your physical body. The more vital it is, the more intense are your sensibilities, and the richer your experience of being alive. The right treatments carried out on the surface of the body using simple substances such as water, oils, clays—even doing dry skin brushing—profoundly influence your state of wellbeing, both mentally and physically. Some techniques improve lymphatic drainage, clearing away wastes stored in the system. Others pep you up when you're tired, or relax you when you're stressed. They contribute to an experience of quantum wellbeing. The body is a finely-tuned instrument. It becomes more sensitive and stronger as you use it. The radiant body feels comfortably in tune with the earth on which it stands, yet free to move, to dance, to feel, and to experience joy and pain fully. This is what being fully alive is all about, no matter what your age. Ideally, the body should always have been this way. A child born naturally, without trauma or drugs, who enters a safe and welcoming world and has a good bond with its mother already has such a body. It moves fluidly, experiences emotions and physical sensations deeply. This makes it fully expressive both in shape and movements of the innate essence of the unique being. Sadly, for most of us, our natural aliveness and bodily freedom have become distorted or truncated. Traumas which we experience tighten muscles, damping down our sensory input. Some people find themselves oppressed and overwhelmed by living in a world which is anything but life-nurturing. This is a not-uncommon feeling for children and young adults. All of these experiences which are felt through the body leave their ‘scars' since they are held in the tissues. Then, instead of maintaining the sensitivity and responsiveness which is our birthright, the body gradually becomes ‘deadened’. This deadness can express itself in many ways—from rigidity or strange postural attitudes and gaits to flaccidity, muscles which seem lifeless and lackluster skin, even low self-esteem, depression, and a sense of impossibility about one’s life. BODY MAGIC The most remarkable gift of the human body is its natural plasticity. It is more than capable of transforming itself. Unlike a machine, your body is continually in flux. It changes its shape and ways of functioning from day to day and moment to moment. It can collect poisons in the tissues which decrease vitality and promote illness, and it can easily be encouraged to eliminate these poisons, becoming more alive, strong and beautiful. This in turn improves your whole way of experiencing life. You can work with a twisted, strained body, or one without a great capacity for feeling physical pleasure. Gradually, over a period of months, you can help it reclaim its ‘aliveness' and its natural good looks. There are a number of simple but powerful techniques for bringing this about. Regular exercise is one. So is the Alexander Technique. Yoga too can be useful—if it is practised well. And there are other professional disciplines which can help, like the bio-energetic therapies, touch for health, and Rolfing or structural integration. There are also many wonderfully effective practices which you can do for yourself day-to-day to help reawaken vitality, improving the way you look and feel. They can alter the way you move, as well as the way you feel about yourself and your life. For, when your body feels more alive, more responsive and stronger, so do you. DO IT YOURSELF The healing of our culturally inherited mind-body split is a slow but totally necessary process, in order to achieve the kind of integration which makes quantum wellness possible. Many of the techniques useful for bringing it about—such as the clay and sea-plant treatments, massage, water therapy, breathing exercises—can be a lot of fun and leave you feeling great when you use them, as well as the long lasting benefits each promises. Also, making time in your life to practice them can be an excellent method of de-stressing, allowing you to get away from any leaning towards becoming an `automaton'—a tendency we all have to some degree— and become more conscious of who in essence you really are, and where you are going. This is an important part of a quantum way of life. TAKE THE PLUNGE A simple thing like water, which you come in contact with every day, is ideal for beginning transformation and heightening vitality. Applications of hot and cold water used to be a standard therapy for aches and pains and for revitalizing. We know this thanks to the pioneering work of Father Sebastian Kneipp, the Bavarian parish priest who strengthened his own less-than-hearty health with the healing powers of water, and then went on to develop a whole system of treatment using it to dissolve toxic wastes while strengthening the entire organism. Many of Kneipp's techniques—which I wrote at length about a few weeks ago—are great for bringing you more vitality and a growing experience of aliveness. He insisted that the easiest way of ‘hardening and bracing the system' is to walk barefoot—on wet grass or stones, on freshly fallen snow, or in cold water up to your knees. This may sound strange to someone who has never tried it, but it can be enormously invigorating—even on winter mornings. I do it at some time every day, come rain or shine. I learned of its power from doctor friends who use it to increase a patient's resistance to illness with excellent results. The secret is to spend only a few minutes (from 3-5) walking barefoot in this way, making sure that you keep shoes and socks dry, so you can put them on immediately afterwards. If they too are allowed to get damp you miss out on the stimulating effect of the contact with the cold dampness. This can deplete your body of energy instead of revitalizing and strengthening it. This, by the way, is the secret for using any cold water applications on the body. You must be warm to begin with and you must keep warm and dry afterwards. Contact with cold water under these circumstances first causes constriction of the blood vessels, momentarily driving the blood inwards. Then, the moment it is stopped, the blood rushes to the surface of the skin, warming it. BRUSH FOR BLISS The same principles apply to hot and cold showers or cold sitz baths. One of the best possible ways of waking up each morning and getting yourself going for the day ahead is to brush your dry skin down well with a dry hemp glove or a natural vegetable bristle bath brush. Then step into a warm shower. As soon as the warmth of the water has suffused your body so you are warm and comfortable, switch from `warm' to `cold'. Remain under cold water for only half a minute (no more), making sure that your body all over gets covered with the cold spray. Emerge from the shower, dry yourself briskly and dress warmly. It is important that the bathroom is always warm and that you begin very slowly with only, say, 10 seconds of cold water at first, gradually increasing it to half a minute as you become used to it. I think you will be surprised at how quickly this adaptation takes place. It will make your body feel alive and tingling, increase your stamina and, according to the European doctors who still use it regularly with their patients, heighten your resistance to colds and flu. SITZ BATHS FOR SLEEP Here’s a variation on the cold water theme that will surprise you. A cold sitz bath is one of the best ways of relaxing quickly and preparing your body and mind for sleep. It is another technique the effectiveness of which you won't believe until you have tried it several times yourself. It is a great blessing for people who suffer from insomnia because their minds race and they can't turn off mental energy when they go to bed. Here's how: Fill a bath with 3"-4" of cold water from the tap. Make sure the bathroom is warm and that you have done all of the things you need to do before retiring. Wrap the top half of your body in a sweater or dressing gown which you can tuck up so that when you sit in the water it won't get wet but it will keep the upper part of your body warm. Now immerse your hips and bottom in the tub for 30 seconds. You can do this either by letting your legs hang over the side of the tub or by sitting in the bath and allowing your heels to go into the water to steady your body. Get out, dry yourself well, then climb into bed. The technique draws the body energy away from the head and brings a marvellous sense of peace and relaxation. Next week we’ll look at more simple do-it-yourself techniques for quantum radiance, such as the health-enbhancing magnesium chloride flakes and gifts from the sea. See you then...

Herbert Benson, who wrote The Relaxation Response and Maximum Mind, discovered that measurable physical benefits accrue from practicing any form of meditation which depends on the silent repetition of a mantra - a word-sound. This can be done by repeating any word over and over while the eyes are closed and the body is in a quiet state. Meditation using a mantra has a long tradition. Some mantras are said to be sacred words that have particular sound vibrations which transmit particular powers. Each tradition has its own mantras such as Guru Om, Om mani padme hum, La ilaha illa 'lla or, in the Catholic religion, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Whether their magic aspects are true or not, the technique works beautifully to replace the habitual chatter that runs through one's mind, worries about things past and things yet to come. Benson suggests you find a word that is pleasing to you. It could be anything, say, `flower', `peace', or `love'. He likes the word `one' as it is simple and has the connotation of unity about it. Here's how. Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for fifteen to twenty minutes and a comfortable chair that supports your back. Sit down and close your eyes. Give yourself a moment to settle in and you are ready to begin. Simply sit there, feet on the floor and eyes closed, quietly repeating your word over and over to yourself: `one...one...one...' Whenever your mind wanders or you are disturbed by a sound or thought, simply turn your mind gently back to repeating the word again. That is all there is to it. After fifteen to twenty minutes, stop repeating the mantra and get ready to open your eyes. Open your eyes, stretch, and go about your everyday activities. This is a particularly useful technique once you have practiced it a few times because you can do it in so many different places, such as in a waiting room or on a commuter train or bus.

When it comes to food for this kind of total health, there is one basic principle to remember - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Know this and you can stop worrying about all of the contradictory advice that is continually being thrown at us from the media about what you and your child should and shouldn't eat. The best foods are whole foods - fresh natural foods - such as fruits and vegetables (preferably organically grown), pulses, whole grains, eggs, a few dairy products. Whole foods have not had every nutrient refined or processed out of them, neither do they come swimming in syrup or emulsified in junk fats. They arrive on your child's plate and enter his body just as Nature intended them, radiant with their own natural colors and textures and brimming with a complexity of structural information essential to maintaining a healthy body and balanced mind. Just what is this structural information? It is something you will find mentioned in few books on nutrition. Yet in an understanding of it lies not only your ability to establish real health for yourself and your children, but an ability skillfully to support your child's seedpower - his individual nature - so that it unfolds beautifully as he grows. The term structural information was coined by an eminent Russian scientist - winner of the much coveted Lenin Prize For Science - Izrail Brekhman. He used it to describe the infinitely complex synergistic, energetic and chemical order in living plants and animals on which human beings must feed if they are to maintain high-level health. Living systems are unique in the universe. Unlike non-living things - from rocks to rubber hoses - they do not continually degrade and disintegrate as described by one of the most important laws of physics - the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Your own body and the body of your child defies this law. It avoids decaying into an inert state because it is able to assimilate energy from outside. Put simply, the better quality the energy it takes in, the more alive it will be. The very high order of the sun's own electromagnetic energy is converted by plants through photosynthesis into material form, then stored in complex ways. This high order of structural information is embodied in the healthy plant as it comes out of the ground - a fruit or vegetable, pulse or grain. It is the embodiment of its wholeness - implicit in the plant's structure. The plant (or the animal which has fed on the plant) brings to the person who eats it a high degree of structural information - living energetic order - which makes him able to resist degeneration, simply because its wholeness has not been degraded by processing, fractionation or chemical distortion. Nobel Laureate, physicist Erwin Schrodinger, put it another way. He says that for a person to stay really healthy he needs to drink order from his environment. This is exactly what your baby or child fed on wholesome natural food does. The more order he drinks, the more support you are giving him for balanced high-level health and growth - in every way. drinking order For it is not only nutrients in a food which can be measured chemically - vitamins, minerals, protein etc - that are important for health. It is also the complexity of the way these, and other, as yet unidentified factors - positive and negative magnetic fields and subtle energies for instance - are present and combined in a particular food that matter. Processing foods not only destroys vitamins and minerals (which cannot be adequately added afterwards despite what food manufacturers would have us believe) it disrupts its structural information, impeding or destroying a food's ability to carry life energy into the body and brain of the child who eats it. Feeding your child on such foods year after year - convenience cereals, white bread and pasta, refined sugar, phony snacks and drinks full of chemical flavorings, colorings and preservatives - steadily degrades the natural order of his own body and mind, creating a poor seedbed for his growth and inner development. It also lowers his immunity, making him susceptible to illness, and contributes to the kind of mental and emotional imbalance which is becoming endemic amongst kids in our society who are being raised on junk foods. At the core of hyperactivity and many emotional problems you see in children lies this inability of the ready-made frozen foods, drinks, chips cooked in junk fats and poor quality school dinners to offer a child order - the structural information needed for sustained physical and emotional balance. Chemical additives, food colorings and flavorings, hydrogenated `junk' fats - they are all products of a multi-billion pound food industry whose main purpose is not to serve your health, but to fill its own coffers at your expense. They are a poor excuse for good food. As an experiment, a biochemist at the University of Georgia bought one of the new munchy-crunchy children's cereals. He emulsified both the box and the cereal, then fed one white rat the box and another the cereal. The rat that ate the box thrived. The other did not. So poor is the quality of our common convenience foods that the packaging can sometimes be nutritionally superior to the food it contains. Foods grown on healthy soils (preferably organic) and eaten as close as possible to their natural state offer your child the highest quality of structural information. There are two major concerns which parents voice about feeding their children. The first is the question of cost, and the second is the question of time. Contrary to popular belief, feeding a family on good natural food - fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grain cereals and breads, pulses and so forth (whether or not you choose to eat meat and fish) - is far cheaper than relying on the poor quality, prepackaged convenience foods a lot of mothers use these days. A pound of good boiling potatoes is fifty times less expensive than the same quantity of potatoes made into crisps. Growing your own sprouted seeds and grains is very cheap. It can be done in a couple of old jam jars in your kitchen, and kids love helping, since these little plants grow so quickly. Sprout a seed, and within three or four days you will have increased its vitamin C content as much as 600 percent. Like home grown organic vegetables, these little powerhouses for health are not only delicious, they are some of the healthiest foods you can feed any child. As far as time is concerned, I have never found that it takes a lot more time to prepare meals from scratch using natural foods than it does to dish out their poor relations - convenience foods. A hearty homemade soup based on brown rice and vegetables, with pulses or a bit of meat or fish, is one of the best whole meals you can eat, and it is only a question of putting the ingredients into a pot and letting the stove get on with it. Besides, kids love to cook. Involve your children in food preparation from the time they are very small. They love it. I have always used the opportunity of us being together in the kitchen to explain to them about the goodness and bounty of foods and about why I don't let them eat sweets and mass market drinks and junk foods, and to help them become aware of the way in which television and magazines are continually trying to sell kids and parents foods which are not really going to do good for them. I believe it is important that, right from the beginning, children are made to understand the ways in which our highly commercial society tends to exploit human beings and that such exploitation needs to be resisted if they are to live out the truth of who they are. You will be surprised at how savvy even very young children can come to be about such things.

Shamanism is an ancient and universal method, using simple tools and techniques, for connecting with the universe—both seen and unseen worlds—and moving beyond the limitations of rational thought into realms of sheer awareness. It helps us forge powerful relationships with the world around us—both seen and unseen. It helps us rediscover our links with our ancestral energies, power animals and helping spirits, all of which can enable us progressively and efficiently to come into alignment with our own soul energy, our destiny and our place within the order of the universe. Shamanism is useful for healing, for creativity, for visioning and for nurturing all life. HEALTH AND SHAMANISM At its essence, health is nothing less than a process of unfolding which enables a human being progressively to become more and more who he or she truly is, and to express the unique divine spark of their soul more fully in day-to-day life. I have seen this happening again and again, as participants in my Journey to Freedom workshops apply the skills they learn to their everyday lives. I continue to marvel at the exponential growth that takes place for them. When core shamanic techniques—which are tens of thousands, more probably hundreds of thousands years old—are applied to self development and the expansion of consciousness, this invariably results in improved health, joy and discovering one’s life purpose. The way in which this happens is not through a steady process of change, but through a series of quantum leaps which resemble the metamorphoses of caterpillars into butterflies—or the mythological phoenix, whose body is consumed by a fire of his own making, out of which a new being emerges in full beauty and glory. QUANTUM LEAPS In physics, the word quantum has very specific properties; it means a bundle of energy. Quantum leap is the term used to describe the movement of an electron from the orbit of one atom to another in a very special way: It moves from one place to another not by a linear process, as we expect change to take place, but by a discontinuous jump. In other words, it leaves one place and arrives at the next without passing through the space in between. By doing this, a quantum leap transcends the rules of time and space, as well as negating some of the linear laws of Newtonian physics—which for so long, scientists believed to be inescapable restrictions of reality—in the process. CREATIVE ENERGIES The kind of quantum leaps in growth and total health I witness among those who learn core shamanic techniques, and then apply them directly to the unfolding of their soul’s purpose (like the quantum leaps recorded sometimes in the lives of great mystics, artists and scientists), are similar in nature. The transformations they experience in their lives are discontinuous—progressive ‘rebirths’, which cannot be described either by the laws of mechanistic science or classic psychological theories. They are changes that take place from within in an individual way—changes which do not depend on following any external set of values, or on following any religious or philosophical set of beliefs. These are changes of the soul. TRANSFIGURE YOUR LIFE Although the changes which take place in a person’s life from working with these tools are unique to them, I have noticed that they all have certain things in common. First is their discontinuous quantum leap nature. Second is the fact that the major shifts I witness are not simple changes, for simple change implies the ability to change back again to one’s previous state. They are true transfigurations, which can only be described as passages out of a more limited way of operating in and experiencing reality, into another ‘reality’ in which health, creativity, joy, and their capacity to give and receive love have made a quantum leap. This kind of change, rather like leaving the womb to be born, is a leap to a higher order of being. SHAMANISM AND ME My work with shamanism developed as a result of my immersion—for many years—in intensive shamanic training, while I was teaching courses in core shamanism in Britain and Ireland as Guest Faculty on the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. By then, I had spent some thirty years studying meditation traditions and methods, and experimenting with other techniques for self-development. My Journey to Freedom workshops grew out of my conviction that shamanism, properly taught and directed towards the expansion of human health and creativity, was the most efficient method I had ever found. Practicing shamanism demands two things: First, a clear focus of intention—knowing exactly what you are wanting Spirit to bring help with—and second, deep compassion for all life. This makes it unique as a spiritual practice. The shaman is a spiritual activist, and shamanism is very down to earth. Its gifts are immediately applicable to day-to-day life. It is neither a religion nor a philosophy. WHAT LIES AHEAD The shamanic process has been described by various cultures using different names. The name is not important. What is important is this: Each of us appears to have encoded within our genes the ability to access personal power for healing, wisdom, divination and creativity. Following a series of severe accidents to my lower body, which took place over several years, I had to set aside my Journey to Freedom workshops. I could not travel—for quite a period, I could not even walk more than a few feet, and then only with a lot of pain. At last my lower body is almost completely healed, so I will be able to begin teaching again before long.

I smile when the word “retreat” comes up and people get all “starry eyed” and “new age” about the idea. In my experience, a retreat—an enormously valuable event in one’s life which needs periodically to be repeated—has little to do with sitting beneath jasmine scented trees, communing peacefully with God. I have done many retreats of different lengths and kinds, including one in a Tibetan monastery, in which I spent some six weeks learning more about fleas than I would ever want to know. I believe each retreat is meant to be an experience of profound inner transformation, carried out with both feet planted firmly on the ground. PLUMBING THE DEPTHS Like any experience of real change, it asks that we plumb the depths of our being to come closer to what is real, as well as to access creativity, power, and energy we may never have touched before. In many ways, the process is like that of detoxifying your body by shifting from a low-carbohydrate diet to a way of eating that brings clarity to the mind and strength to the body. Retreats often bring to the surface a lot of the toxic “junk” from emotional damage and wrong thinking that all of us carry on a psychological and mental level, so it can be cleared. This is not always a comfortable process. DISCOVERING YOUR POTENTIALS Like the proverbial iceberg, most of us live with the lion’s share of our potential for freedom, joy, creativity, and power submerged beneath a sea of unknowing. We go about our day-to-day duties and pleasures, conscious only of what comes to us through our five senses. How does it taste and feel? What does it sound like? What do we see in front of our eyes? And most of the time—because of the stress that we live under in our urban lives —we are not even fully aware of our senses. Meanwhile, beneath the vast ocean of consciousness that constitutes what it is to be fully human, our greater selves hibernate, waiting to be awakened. It is this awakening that a retreat can help bring about. For like exceptional events in our lives which break through comfort zones—when we fall in love perhaps, or when we’re faced with an event of life-shattering proportions like a critical illness or the death of a close friend—a retreat in silence and solitude can cause submerged areas of our being to erupt in magic, in surges of passion, in vitality, in anxiety, in stunning beauty. EXPANDED AWARENESS For a time, the mundane quality of everyday life is replaced with a sense of expanded being. We not only feel more alive; we wake up to find that familiar things—the tree that stands outside the bedroom window, the cat that greets us when we come home each day, the simple shell we picked up and slipped into our pocket while walking on the beach—has taken on a luminosity we cannot explain. On retreat sometimes, without warning, while listening to music or walking down a street, we can be hit with a feeling that the world is far greater than we ever imagined it to be, or a sense that all we see around us somehow is us. We are all part of the same stuff. While the experience lasts, everything seems right in the world. Then, as our retreat ends, like the sun at the point of setting, it can all fade beneath the mundane horizon—leaving only the faintest wisp of colour to remind us that we once stood in glory, felt the rays of the sun upon our bodies, and knew that sense of being at one with the universe which gives every struggle meaning. A retreat, whether or not it is simply 2 hours set aside a week for you to do something that you absolutely love doing so that you are following your passion; whether you go into a monastery or a retreat centre for a long weekend; or into the wilderness on a vision quest, helps connect us with what is real, and remind us of who we really are. In the silence, when we are removed from the day-to-day structures of our lives which both support us and imprison us, we can begin to plunge the depths of our being and make a better connection with our inner visions, longings, passions, and creative power. DETOX FOR THE SOUL One of the most important gifts of a retreat is to help make us aware that the life we are living may not be entirely our own, or that it is not as authentic as we would like it to be, or that we are not getting as much out of our lives as we feel we should be. Such discoveries are never easy. Yet they often herald exciting changes for the better and help clear away much of the toxic “junk” we have been carrying. The process of reclaiming power and rebalancing energy, by walking away for a time from the ordinary structures of your life, is very much like the process of detoxifying the body. When you stop putting convenience foods into your body and begin eating in a way that supports life-long health, something remarkable happens. Not only do our physical distortions rise to the surface; you might experience fatigue, perhaps a headache as a result of giving up coffee, a deep cleansing of the body. In many ways a retreat acts as a detox for the soul. On a spiritual level, the distortions that we have picked up in our lives also tend to rise to the surface to be cleared away. We may find ourselves temporarily riddled with depression or a sense of meaninglessness, fear, the feeling that the life we are living in no way satisfies our inner need. WRITE IT DOWN On any retreat, it is essential to keep a journal of what you are thinking and how you are feeling, both physically and spiritually. We often forget that mind and body are one, not two separate entities. Nothing brings this truth more to consciousness than the process of retreating from our day-to-day life. For when you let go of the structures of your life for a time, the ideas, feelings, memories, and concerns that have been floating beneath the surface rise up into awareness. This is where it is important not to identify with them, but rather to just remark that they are there, record them, and learn to look at them objectively knowing that the fact they have risen to the surface means that they are probably ready to be got rid of, often leaving us lighter and freer than ever before. LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE Simultaneously, probably because the psyche is so rich and complex and when you are on retreat you hear the whispers of your soul better than any other time, we tend to get tiny messages from the soul. We often get a sense of things that we want to do or be, learn, or try. Some of these things may be insignificant, while others seem to be very large indeed. Record these “whispers” in a journal, right alongside any negative or confusing feelings which surface. At the end of a retreat, you can then go back to these whispers which you have recorded. Make a decision to act upon one or two of the things you want, whether they be apparently insignificant things such as I want to change the way my hair is cut, or large issues such as I want to go back to university and learn new skills. DISCOVER YOUR PASSIONS A retreat can help us come in touch with passions of the soul. Passion, I believe, holds the key to everything, and more than anything else, the stressful demanding lives that we live, where we are living mostly by other people’s rules (being the good employee, the good mother, the good wife etc.) tend to make us deaf to the whispers of our soul. A retreat can awaken again our ability to hear these passions. A NEW LIFE BEGINS The real trick to making retreats work for you comes after the retreat is over. It’s at that point, when you look back into your journal and find out what it is, and are reminded of the things that you most want. These are not just things that you think might be possible, but what you really want in your life. Decide to bring into being only one or two of the things that you want most to do. This is how we ground our spiritual insights in our day-to-day lives and then gradually, bit by bit, day by day, we not only find that the “distortions” we have carried so long have lessened, loosening their hold on us. With each action we take, following one or two or more of what one hears from within, it becomes easier and easier to connect with our soul’s whispers and therefore easier and easier to live an infinitely rewarding, authentic life. And, as often as not, all this can begin with a simple intention to retreat.

The more I get to know flowers—living with them, healing with them, photographing them, practicing and teaching flower meditation with them—the more I sense the deep compassion and affinity they have for human beings. This affinity is carried in the energetic architecture of their form. Woven into it also is a great desire to help human kind. SOUL BEAUTY Flowers love to give of their beauty. They love to share their soul energies with our own. And the healing they bring us takes place in a highly personal way. Imagine being at a concert of expertly played classical music. Although we all hear the same music, each of us in the audience will be affected in a different way. Some will be deeply moved, others uplifted, still others calmed and quieted—depending on our individual response, and on whatever need the music fulfils for us. If the same symphony is played by another orchestra with a different conductor, the same collection of people will experience further shades of meaning. So can it be with flower essences created by different makers. There are now more than three thousand flower essences made worldwide. You need only a handful to benefit from their gifts. The most famous of all is Rescue Remedy. Not a single essence, but a mixture of five flower essences, it was created by Dr Edward Bach. Hundreds of thousands of bottles of it are sold each year. Many who use it regularly are not aware of how it is made from flowers, and have little idea how it works. They only experience its benefits. Bach’s Rescue Remedy is one of the most useful things you can give to anyone who has suffered a shock—from a skinned knee to the death of a family member. It helps restore mental, physical and emotional balance in the face of any trauma. Taking any flower essence is a gentle, yet profound, experience. Before deciding on which essence or essences are right for you at a particular moment in your life, take time to become aware both of what is going on inside you as well as whatever physical symptoms you may be experiencing. A practitioner trained in flower medicine can be a great help here—especially if you are wrestling with deep depression or chronic physical illness. He or she will take into account your history, your work, your relationships, your strengths and weaknesses, and your future goals. If you are choosing an essence for yourself, think about all of these things. Look at photographs of flowers, or better still, seek out the flowers themselves in a garden or the woods. Get to know a little of the character and the healing properties of each flower and notice any that seem relevant to you, or which attract you. WHERE ARE YOU Then take a gentle, compassionate look at what is going on with you now. There are two ways to do this. You can begin by looking through a flower essence materia medica to find out what conditions different flower essences are designed to alleviate. You may discover that some essences leap out at you as you recognize descriptions of behavioral or emotional patterns that fit. Write all this down. Then work from the list you have when making your choices. When you get to know the flower essences you are drawn to, explore each flower essence company’s lists. This is easy to do by looking them up on the internet. You really don’t need to know a lot of different essences to find the help you need. For many different essences can often help the same conditions. The other method for ‘self diagnosis’ takes a bit longer, but works even better. For a week, observe your reactions to what is going on around you day after day. Make a note of any emotional reactions that repeat in your life again and again—if you feel anxious, nervous, angry, tense, or upset, for instance. Write all this down in a notebook. Also record what seems to trigger these feelings. See if there are one or more emotional patterns or tendencies that appear more often than others. Record any keywords or phrases that come to mind. For instance, “I am often irritable. This makes me impatient. Sometimes my body gets tense, and I feel anxious. I suppose people think I’m intolerant.” You might talk to your partner or to a close friend about what you have observed and recorded. See if they agree. Ask if they have other observations about you that might be helpful. Then, armed with your description of your emotional states and traits, go through the descriptions in a flower essence material medica and match your key words and phrases with theirs. Make a list of all the essences that you think might apply to you. TRUST YOUR INSTINCT Narrow your list down to no more than 3 to 6 essences— those which best match the way you feel, or want to feel. Using your intuition, see if you can identify one or two essences which you think, more than any of the others, seem to ‘fit’ with your needs. If you have a healthfood store or pharmacy nearby that sells flower essences, it can useful to handle the bottles of essences themselves. Hold each one you think might be helpful in your hand for a moment or two, close your eyes, and see how you feel. Always trust your instincts to discover which ones most call to you. Flower essence therapy is the safest form of natural treatment in the world. It is impossible to over-dose on it. Should you happen to choose the wrong remedy, your body’s energy will simply not resonate with it and you will get no effect from it. LESS IS MORE Sometimes the best way to use flower essences is to work with one remedy at a time. But if you feel you want to use more than one, then choose a ‘theme’—remedies that deal with a single emotional state: A combination of peppermint and nasturtium, for instance, helps clear mental fatigue. Crab apple and buttercup can help build self-esteem. You can mix them together. If two quite different emotional ‘traits’ emerge from your self-examination—for example, anger and a need to release more creativity, you can deal with both issues at the same time, if you wish. In this case, take one essence or a mixture of essences for the one condition in the morning, and those for the other in the evening. With any flower essence the adage ‘less is more’ applies. Although you cannot overdose on a remedy, you are more likely to see benefits from taking smaller amounts than larger ones. Also remember that there is tremendous power even in the ritual of taking a flower essence. As you take it, focus your mind gently on the positive healing you seek. Be sure to allow plenty of time for an essence to do its work. Give it at least a month before you consider replacing it with another. You will sense its effects and know if you should continue to use it. HOW TO USE FLOWER ESSENCES Flower essences that you buy come in glass bottles containing stock concentrates. The stock concentrate or ‘stock’ has been made from the mother essence, which in turn has been made from the vibration water plus a little alcohol to preserve it. It can be a lot of fun and very rewarding to make your own flower essences. Here’s how it works. The sun impregnates water into which a flower is introduced, creating vibrational water. ½ vibrational water + ½ brandy makes the mother essence (sometimes also called mother tincture.) 7 drops of mother essence in a bottle of 20% alcohol and 60-80% pure water creates a stock concentrate of the flower. (This is what you buy in stores and make your own dosage bottles from.) 2-4 drops of one or more stock concentrates is added to a 30ml bottle filled ¾ of the way up with pure water and then topped up with brandy to make your dosage bottle. Put four drops under your tongue at intervals throughout the day or add them to a small glass of water and sip it. Carry your dosage bottle around with you. Take your essence from it four times a day. Making your own decanted bottle also enables you to use more than one essence at a time. You simply add 4 to 6 drops of each mother tincture to the dosage bottle when preparing it, thereby creating a special mixture just for you. You can also mix your stock concentrate directly into a bottle of spring or distilled water and drink this mixture throughout the day. I like to do this when using the Bach Flower Remedy Crab Apple, which is helpful for detoxifying the body. I take a liter or a liter and a half bottle of pure water, add 6 drops of stock concentrate to it and mix it up, then put it on my desk while I am working, and sip it throughout the day. (Be sure to label each blend you create.) Flower essences work best when taken regularly—say four times a day—as much as possible at around the same times (but don’t get neurotic about this if you can’t.) Whenever you can, take them as you would a homeopathic remedy, in a ‘clean mouth’—at least 20 minutes before eating, or at least a couple of hours after. Take a moment or two each time you take an essence to remember its healing qualities and to give thanks to the flowers from which it comes. This makes you more receptive to what is given. GREAT USES OF ESSENCE DROPPER BOTTLE: Fill a 30ml dropper bottle with ¾ spring water and ¼ brandy. Add 4 drops of flower essence from a stock concentrate bottle. Shake or tap the bottle against your hand several times vigorously before taking to potentize it. Place 4-6 drops of your mixture directly under your tongue. Alternatively, place these drops into a glass of spring water and drink. STOCK DIRECT: Put 4 drops of the concentrated stock essence directly under your tongue. ESSENCE WATER: Place 6 drops of one or more essences from their stock bottles directly into a large container of mineral water or distilled water and drink throughout the day. Swirl the bottle round clockwise before using each time to potentize the water. ESSENCE BATH: Add 25 drops of stock concentrate of essence directly into a warm (not hot) bath. Swish it all around for a minute or so and then soak for at least twenty minutes, topping up the bath with warm water if you start to feel chilly and topping up with cold water if you get too warm. Use this time to expand your consciousness through meditation. It’s a great way to prepare for a blissful night’s sleep. ESSENCE MASSAGE: Add 10 to 12 drops of stock flower essence to your massage oil or face or body creams and then use them as you normally would, directing your intention towards bringing healing and wholeness. You can mix an essence this way with aromatherapy treatments, combining both the vibrational aspects of a flower with the physiological benefits of an essential oil. ESSENCE MISTERS: To a clean 100ml spray bottle of pure water, add 20 drops of stock concentrate flower essence. Shake well before spraying. Spray your face, your body, the air around you while opening your awareness to the flower healing that is being offered. However you choose to use the flower essences, remember that your intention and the compassion that you have for yourself or for another while using them play an important part in receiving their vibrational healing power. Let each time you use an essence be a moment of pleasurable receptivity, where you open yourself to the grace of flower blessings and give thanks for the generosity of spirit they bring to enhance your life.

Your kitchen—big or small—should be treated like an artist’s atelier. It needs to be a place where you can lose yourself in creative play. The kitchen has always been the center of a home. In the past it was the place of fire, of inspiration, warmth and imagination. I remember as a child sitting in front of an old Stanley stove gazing into the flames—filled with delightful visions—while my grandmother canned pears, peaches and green beans for winter. My own kitchen, out of which my High Raw food style developed, is more like a sculptor’s studio than a food preparation station. It is a place where Aaron and I can get together with friends, workmates and family to laugh and talk about serious and trivial stuff while we prepare meals together. GREAT FUN Your kitchen should have the atmosphere of freedom in it. Hang quirky things from the ceiling if that inspires you. Put a potted plant where you wouldn’t expect one. Paint cupboard doors in wild colors. Your kitchen should reflect things that delight and amuse you. Ten years ago I bought a gigantic soup ladle, which has hung above my gas hob ever since. It is so big that it would be ideal for a Salvation Army soup kitchen. But it makes me laugh. I like its beautiful shape and am continually amused by the absurdity of its size. With a well-organized, well equipped kitchen, high raw meals are a pleasure to prepare. But there is nothing more annoying than setting out to make a meal in someone else’s kitchen and spending ages looking for a brush to scrub vegetables only to find that the one you used was the floor brush! Let’s look at some of the tools which are most useful for a raw food gourmet. MANDOLIN MAGIC The one piece of equipment I would never be without is a mandolin. I prefer the simple plastic ones that sell for a fifth of the price of the expensive stainless steel variety. They have a v-shaped blade into which plastic inserts fit, each of which has different size knives so you can julienne, make chip-size chunks, slice thin or thick. Unlike the conventional grater, which mashes vegetables and fruits when you use it, a mandolin slices them clean and sharp. Be sure to use the hand-protecting device that comes with either model. If you don’t, and I know from experience, what you will end up with is shredded fingers—yours—instead of shredded cabbage. POWER TOOLS Although it is nice to return to nature wherever possible, you have to draw the line somewhere. Using electric equipment takes the tediousness out of chopping vegetables, gives you a greater choice of textures, allows you to make splendid desserts, nut loaves, sauces, soups and whips, and cuts down enormously on preparation time. I find a few simple machines give full rein to my imagination. These are the raw chef’s equivalent of the oven or the microwave. For those who like an “all manual” kitchen I suggest alternatives, but they really are second best. Apart from a mandolin, the three machines I consider useful are a food processor, a juicer and a blender—in that order. You can get by without a blender because a food processor does many of the same things, but it is useful nonetheless. You can buy appliances which combine the functions of all three, but keeping them separate lets you work on several recipes at the same time and encourages helpers. Choose good strong machines that will stand up to heavy use. If you have a large family, it can be worth investing in catering or industrial models which are sturdier and can cope with larger quantities. SMOOTH PROCESSING A good food processor is a blessing to the raw food chef. There are so many remarkable attachments to choose from—a blade, several coarse to fine graters, various slicers and shredders. The blade attachment is excellent for grinding nuts and seeds, wheat and other sprouts, homogenizing vegetables for soups and loaves, and making dressings, dips and desserts such as ice cream. You can do most of these things with a blender, but if your ingredients are gooey they tend to stick around the blade and you spend ages scraping with very little to show for it. The blade in a food processor is removable and easy to scrape, so you lose very little. The grater, slicer and shredder attachments are terrific for making salads. With their help, you can prepare a splendid Whole Meal Salad for four people and have it on the table in ten minutes. Do experiment with all these attachments because, believe it or not, vegetables actually taste different depending on how they are cut up. YOUR JUICE EXTRACTOR The most important considerations when buying a juicer are power, capacity and ease of cleaning. The fewer fiddly parts to wash up, the better. Some have a removable strip of plastic gauze in the pulp basket which is helpful in cleaning. There are basically three types of juicer: the hydraulic press type, the rotating blade type, and the centrifugal type. Some hydraulic presses are hand-operated and therefore less convenient than the electric kind, but some doctors who prescribe raw juices prefer them on the grounds that they reduce the amount of oxidation that takes place when juices are exposed to air. I have all three myself. Centrifugal juicers are best to start with and come in two types: either they are separators, which operate without needing to be constantly cleaned out, or they are batch operators, which have to be cleaned out after every 2lb (roughly a kilo) of material has been juiced. That gives the separator kind the edge when it comes to convenience; they expel leftover pulp rather than fill up with it. But they tend not to extract juice as efficiently as the batch operator kind. If you decide on a batch juicer, look for a large capacity model which does not require emptying too often. It can be infuriating working with a machine that insists on being cleaned out after juicing only two glasses when you are juicing for six people. One other thing to check before buying a juicer is the size of the hole through which you feed your vegetables and fruits. Some are really too small and it can be a real drag to have to cut carrots and beetroots lengthwise. A POWER BLENDER There is not much to choose between blenders except their power. You will need one of at least 400 watts (anything less will be unable to cope). My favorite has attachments for grating, chopping, kneading etc. which are very useful. Glass models are preferable to plastic, as plastic tends to stain and look tatty very quickly. Look for one that has a removable blade (the base unscrews) for ease of cleaning. I own three and they are all Vita Mix because they go on and on, and will do just about everything with ease. OTHER GADGETS Two other devices I find useful are an electric citrus fruit juicer and a lettuce spin-drier. The citrus juicer has a central rotating cone onto which you press your halved grapefruits, oranges and lemons. Very quick and easy. There is nothing to stop you juicing citrus fruits in a centrifuge juicer, but you need to peel them first. The lettuce spin-drier is a great invention. There are several types, but my favorite is a basket which fits into a container with holes in the bottom and has a lid with a spinning cord. You put the whole contraption in the sink, put your lettuce or greens into the basket, put the lid on, run water slowly through the hole in the lid and pull the spinning cord. This spins the basket and expels the water, in theory cleaning and drying the greens. In practice they need to be rinsed before you put them in the basket, but by spinning you get beautifully crisp non-watery leaves very quickly. BACK TO BASICS A few other gadgets can be helpful if you cannot afford or have basic objections to electrical equipment. But you will be more limited in the number of textures and recipes you can prepare. A sturdy grater—the box type with a fine, medium and coarse face, and a face for grating nutmeg and ginger. Hand coffee grinder—for rendering down nuts, seeds and spices. Meat mincer—the sort you screw to the table, with coarse and fine cutters; good for grinding grains, seeds, nuts and sprouts. A strong stainless steel sieve—for rubbing soft fruits through or extracting the juice from finely grated vegetables. Hand hydraulic juicer A stainless steel “mouli” rotary grinder—with coarse and fine grater inserts; quite effective for juicing finely grated fruit or vegetables. Pestle and mortar—for grinding herbs, spices, flowers, etc. A lemon squeezer Wire salad basket—the sort you swing maniacally round your head in the garden. RAZOR SHARP Of primary importance to raw food preparation are good knives and a good chopping board. At least two knives are essential, a large one for tackling spinach leaves, onions, carrot sticks and so on, and a smaller one for more delicate jobs. The best knives are made from carbon steel. Some enthusiasts disapprove of carbon steel because, unlike stainless steel, it encourages oxidation of cut surfaces, but I prefer them, for although stainless steel knives look nice they do not keep their edges as well and a sharp edge is important for creating beautiful salads. If none of your knives will cut a tomato without squashing it, then they need sharpening! A good sharpener is worth investing in. CHOPPING BLOCK Good chopping boards are hard to find. Either they lose their pretty patterns with repeated chopping, or they warp when they get wet, or they are not large enough to slice an orange on without most of the juice running over the edge. Find a decent sized wooden chopping board if you can, with runnels around the edge. Look in a professional chef’s shop for the biggest you can find. Here is my solution to the problem. When I had a new kitchen installed I kept some big leftover pieces of Formica covered board. You can prepare a salad—or leave the chopped vegetables—on one end, and the peelings on the other. If it’s big enough, it can fit over the sink so you can drop the peelings into a waste bowl underneath. EARTHY VESSELS All told, the high-raw chef uses very few utensils—there are no enormous pots and pans to go in and out of the oven or to wash up. Choose dishes and platters made of inert or natural substances—glass, earthenware and wood rather than plastic and metal. Avoid all things made of aluminum. Aluminum is highly active. When it comes into contact with the acids in some raw foods, such as tomatoes, it can be bleached out and end up in the food producing heavy metal poisoning over time. Here are some of the other things you find in my own kitchen. A special “vegetables only” scrubbing brush A large colander, with feet so that it can stand in the sink to drain Bread pans (preferably glass) for making vegetable loaves Flat boards or trays for making sweet treats Ice cube trays A garlic chopper—achieves much better and quicker results than a pestle and mortar or a garlic press Scissors for cutting up fresh herbs such as chives, parsley, mint and so on Salad bowls of different shapes and sizes Soup plates, fairly wide and deep, for individual “dish salads” Salad platters—you can create attractive banquet-like effects by serving crudités arranged on a large platter, perhaps one with several compartments for dips Several pairs of salad servers A large pitcher for drinks, and a strainer PRESERVING LIFE It is important to store living foods carefully so they stay alive. I keep my seeds, pulses and grains in sealed polythene bags or airtight glass jars. Empty sweet jars make useful storage containers, as do the plastic tubs. But glass is always best. Always cover salads as soon as you have prepared them, even if it is only for ten minutes while you prepare the rest of the meal, to protect from wilting.

All artificial sweeteners increase your insulin resistance, impair your memory and disrupt your neurological functioning. Do not use them! It is hard to believe the extent to which they have taken over the world. The artificial sweetener market worldwide is measured in many billions, and keeps growing. Here is a breakdown: aspartame is responsible for 27.9% of the market, sucralose, claims another 27.9%, while cyclamate holds a 13.1% share, acesulfame-K gets 5.2% and neotame 1.4%. I continue to be flummoxed by it all. How can billions of people be persuaded into putting this kind of junk into their bodies, adding these products to their coffee and their foods, as well as swallowing sodas and other drinks that are riddled with them? If you value your body, your mind and your health, please STOP USING THEM! THE STUDIES One study, carried out over 14 years, showed that eating and drinking sugar-sweetened and artificially-sweetened drinks makes you prone to a higher risk of type II diabetes. Another, lasting over seven years, found that drinking artificially-sweetened drinks is associated with an almost 50% greater change in BMI. Researchers reported that a likely reason for this is that artificial sweeteners increase food intake, as well as a greater desire for sweetness, so you eat more food. Obese subjects given the artificial sweetener sucralose showed increased insulin levels and insulin resistance. In both human and animal studies, the artificial sweeteners sucralose, saccharine, and aspartame also exerted a substantial negative effect on gut bacteria which increases glucose intolerance. In relation to aspartame, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public interest (CSPI) Michael F Jacobson states, "Aspartame has been found to cause cancer—leukaemia, lymphoma and other tumors—in laboratory animals. It shouldn't be in the food supply.” PROTECT YOUR BRAIN Dana Small, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, has been doing excellent work examining the effects that artificial sweeteners exert on behavior and brain in humans and animals. She discovered that appetite comes from the hippocampus as well as the hypothalamus. When mice were fed on the artificial sweetener acesulfame-K, they developed impaired memory as a result of neurological dysfunctions in the hippocampus. A learned association takes place between the flavor of a food you eat and the ability of a food to alter your blood glucose. Your body is smart. You cannot feed it on rubbish like artificial sweeteners. When you do, it hunts for real food to satisfy its needs. By now, we have a huge volume of evidence showing that artificial sweeteners foster weight gain. PLEASE HEAR THIS Artificial sweeteners of any kind can be much worse for you than sugar. There is a lot of evidence to back this up. Even natural sweeteners such as honey and agave, which most people look upon as “healthy choices”, are not great. Agave is highly processed, even when it says “organic” on the label. It has a higher fructose content than any other commercial sweetener. In truth, it is little more than an over-hyped, laboratory generated, highly-condensed fruit syrup without nutritional value. In small quantities and in its raw form, honey has much to offer, provided it is real, pure, raw honey. But most honey these days is of very poor quality and adulterated. Even real raw honey, which is almost impossible to come by, consists of 53% fructose—which you don’t want to take in very much of. What about the sugar alcohols? These are easy to spot as their names end in “ol” like xylitol, malitol, glycerol, lacitiol, mannitol, sorbitol, glucitol. They are less sweet than sugar, but they are by no means calorie-free. You see, these sugar alcohols are not absorbed completely in your body. Eating them can create diarrhoea as well as abdominal gas. Some of them used regularly can even spike blood sugar as much as a baked potato or dinner roll can. Xylitol is probably the best if you are going to use any of them, but it must be used only in small quantities and not regularly. And you must read labels carefully. Personally, I choose to leave all of them alone. SAFE ALTERNATIVES Stevia is far and away the best natural sweetener in the world. But make sure you buy a good quality whole plant stevia (see my recommendations below.) Stay away from Truvia, Purevia and one or two other so-called stevia products which have extracted the sweetest component of the stevia plant—Rebaudioside A—out of the plant, grossly distorting the integrity of the plant as a whole. It’s the synergistic effect of all the natural ingredients in the plant that produce its overall health-giving qualities, which include "built-in protection" against potentially damaging effects. Working with people on our Cura programs, I find that artificial sweeteners disagree with many. Stay away from them. For my money, the two best stevias, which you can purchase from iHerb.com as well as from Amazon.co.uk, are these: Natural Wisdom Sweet Leaf Liquid Stevia Natural Wisdom Sweet Leaf Liquid Stevia, which comes in a dropper bottle with all natural flavors and is convenient and easy to use. Add it to coffee, milk, sparkling water, protein shakes, plain yogurt or anything else you can imagine. It comes in many delicious flavors but English Toffee is the best by far. Take a look at it here: Order Natural Wisdom Sweet Leaf Liquid Stevia from iherb Spoonable Stevia by Stevita Spoonable Stevia by Stevita, which uses only stevia extract with at least 95% pure glycosides (extremely sweet tasting ingredients of the Stevia herb leaves), and a little erythritol—a crystal granulated naturally produced filler found in fruits, vegetables and grains. This brand of stevia is best for baking and sprinkling on yogurt and anything else you are making. Take a look at it here: Order Spoonable Stevia by Stevita from iherb I use stevia a lot and love it. You will too. It should be your number one choice for your own wellbeing and that of your family. Go for it and leave the junk behind.

It’s time that I come clean about one of my most powerful addictions: fragrance. Here’s something that may surprise you: Most women choose perfume not as an expression of their personality, but as a quality they aspire to. A sexually assured, high powered businesswoman, for instance, will most often choose a delicate floral. Her shy and introverted sister is most likely to opt for a sultry oriental. As for me, I dislike most commercial fragrances. Not only are they overpriced, many of the most expensive and highly advertised perfumes smell revolting. Why? Because they have become more and more polluted by artificial chemicals which create allergic reactions in many. After all, phoney chemicals are cheap, while the real thing is costly. A discerning nose can easily sense the difference. This is the main reason why I make my own fragrances. It’s easy, and I’ll tell you how I do this. But first, come with me on a mini-journey into the sensuous, irresistible world of real fragrance that, long ago, literally changed my life. Who knows? It could even change yours... GLORIOUS GRASSE At the foot of the Mediterranean Alps, amidst the wild herbs and brilliant citrus of Southern France, lies Europe's hoard of sensuous delight and healing power: Grasse, perfume capitol of the world since the fifteenth century. But that was already long after holy orders of monks had settled in what they called a 'blessed herb garden', where cloves, tuberose, jasmine and lavender spread over the earth in wild abundance, and grew in the harmony of perfect ecological balance. They acted upon that balance with great skill and cunning, introducing rare plants from Persia, India and the Iberian Peninsula—plants to heal the plague and banish evil, plants to soothe and quiet a troubled mind, plants to perfume leather and to heighten the charisma of courtiers and bishops. In alchemists' chambers and cloistered cells, stoves glowed and retorts bubbled with one end in mind: To extract the 'soul' of each plant and flower, of every root and leaf and bark. These men knew that the life-force is something after which every creature lusts. If only they could capture it, they reasoned, if only they could distil it and then drink its essence through their skin and senses, perhaps they could heighten their own experience of abundance, pleasure and wellbeing. That was more than five hundred years ago. Now the advent of high-technology has altered the means. We no longer use words like 'alchemy' or 'soul', yet the goal is the same: To extract the fine, light, almost ethereal essence of the living plant: The essential oil—one of the great miracles of nature. SOUL OF A FLOWER These substances taken from roots, leaves and flowers in the prime of life once formed the core of the world's great perfumes. So precious and rare are these essences that it takes some 8 million blossoms of jasmine to produce a single kilogram of the essential oil, or five tons of rose petals to yield a similar quantity of the famed rose absolute. The essential oil of tuberose is so expensive that every drop is worth its weight in gold. Along with small quantities of animal substances such as civet, ambergris and musk and the new synthetic aromatics, such essential oils are the be-all and end-all of real fragrance—balms to soften skin, perfumed soaps, flowery powders, bathing oils, perfumes, spicy dishes and aromatic drinks. LAMAS AND PROSTITUTES Throughout history, essential oils have been prized for their mind-bending qualities. Tibetan lamas mixed extraordinary combinations of complex hydrocarbons taken from herbs and flowers to produce incense, to heighten concentration and center the mind. Knowing every secret of sensuality, temple prostitutes used them to create heady aphrodisiacs—fragrances carefully contrived to make themselves irresistible to their worshippers. In Persia, astrologers advised their clients on the use of balms made from opopanax and origanum, to give protection when malevolent planets made transits. But perhaps most important of all, these subtle aromatics, which are the life-blood of a plant, formed the basis of potent medicines for healing all the way from East India to the west coast of America. Plant-based essences extracted from flowers, fruits, woods, herbs, spices and resins have extraordinary complexity, both chemically and in subtle energies for healing which they carry. In some mysterious way, they capture the sun's photo-electromagnetic energy and, through the actions of enzymes, transform it into biochemical power. NATURE’S GLORIOUS GIFTS A natural essential oil is absolutely impossible to reproduce artificially. For it is something which, in its wholeness and its power to act on the human mind and body, can only be created by life itself. Herein lies the wonderful paradox of all potent nature-created substances. On the one hand, they have quite remarkable abilities to affect our bodies, minds and feelings. On the other, they are so fine and light and delicate that power can be virtually destroyed unless they are cultivated, harvested, extracted, stored and used in a manner which shows absolute respect for nature and her needs. But herein lies the rub: The essence of any plant is locked within it. In the case of flowers such as rose, jasmine and tuberose, it is found in the blossoms. It can also be taken from stems and leaves such as patchouli, geranium and mint, from fruits, (strawberry, orange and lemon) from roots, (angelica, orris, and vetiver) from woods, (rose, cedar and sandalwood) as well as from needles and twigs such as cypress and pine, herbs and grasses such as hay, sage and basil, resins and balsams such as myrrh and galbanum, and barks such as cinnamon. A few plants, such as the bitter orange tree, are "multiple producers". It yields neroli from its blossoms, petitgrain oil from its leaves, and bitter orange oil from the peel of its fruit. But the most costly and rarefied essential oils come from flowers whose fragility and fine fragrances have made them infinitely desirable. And the method for cultivating them, picking them and extracting them is as great an art as it is a science. A ROSE IS A ROSE Take rose, for instance. The Centifolia rose is cultivated in the vicinity of Grasse. It also grows in Morocco and Egypt. But the most famous rose in the world is the Damascene rose of Bulgaria, which grows in great abundance at the foot of the Balkan Mountains. It bears blossoms for a mere thirty days a year—blossoms which can only be gathered by hand individually, as they have been for centuries. This process begins at dawn each morning and is a race against time. For as the sun grows high in the sky, the flowers yield their essential oils to the surrounding atmosphere—so much so that, by midday, they are only half as potent as they were at sunrise. Whole families enter the fields to pick flowers, each person carrying a great bag over his stomach. A skilled worker can harvest as much as fifty kilos in a day. It is a considerable gathering, yet it will yield only a few drops of the essence. Flowers thus picked must be quickly removed from the sun and processed within twenty-four hours. The Damascene rose is then subjected to a process of distillation where blossoms are spread in abundance on a grill and great quantities of steam directed through them. The intense heat calls forth these fragrant materials, which have a very high boiling point. In the case of the Centifolia rose of Grasse, a process of extraction is used instead to yield not the oil itself, but what is called the rose absolute. Each species of flower is unique, and despite the high-technology of modern perfumery, there will never be a single method of drawing forth the 'soul' of every plant. SEDUCTIVE JASMINE A Jasmine harvest takes place even earlier—while the dew is still on the tiny white flowers, which appear on bushes each night and are removed at dawn by hundreds of pickers of all ages, each carrying a sturdy market basket, into which is poured the blossoms. Harvest in Grasse lasts from the beginning of August to the end of October. There each morning, as you walk in a field of 200 or more of these prolific bushes, you can find yourself inebriated with fragrance. Essence of jasmine, like many of the most prized essential oils, has a relaxing effect on the human body and a narcotic effect on the human mind. By midday, hundreds of baskets of blossoms have been taken to the processing house where they are weighed and wages are paid in cash on the spot. The blossoms are piled high on strainer grills in the extraction container. Then a solvent such as petroleum is passed through them. After the solvent has become replete with the scent, it will be distilled to yield what is known as jasmine concrete. A further process of extraction in alcohol will yield the jasmine absolute. It takes ten tons of the flowers to create 2 1/2 kilos of the concrete, which is transformed into a mere 1 kilo of the prized absolute. Tuberose, the lovely night-hyacinth—a relative of the lily—is perhaps the rarest of all the white flowers, the most costly to extract, and certainly the most demanding of care if one is to draw forth its essence. It is personally my favorite scent. It is grown in Italy and Morocco, as well as in the south of France. There the blossoms are hand-picked and swaddled in damp cloths, and then processed immediately by enfleurage, an ancient method using lard, which is painstaking, slow and laborious. Fat is spread on both sides of a piece of glass and blossoms pressed into it. After 48 hours, the blossoms are removed and new ones replace them, until eventually the fat is thoroughly saturated with essence. A further process of extraction using alcohol then produces the tuberose pomade oil. Because of the time and expense involved in using enfleurage, it has largely been replaced by more efficient and less costly extraction using liquid solvents. Yet tuberose is still one of the most expensive absolutes in the world—a treasure used only in minute quantities. LET’S PROTECT LIFE With the development of high-technology methods of analysis, the current growth in fascination with the healing properties of essential oils, and the burgeoning passion of the Western world for 'natural' products, essential oils could have a bright future. That is provided our awareness of their ecology and our intention to preserve it develops equally well. But it is a big issue. For, ultimately, the preservation of these precious etheric substances is dependent upon our caring for the wellbeing not only of the land around Grasse and other places from which they come, but on our caring for the wellbeing of the whole planet. That, and only that, will ensure the continued existence of this 'blessed herb garden' at the foot of the French Alps—a garden which has brought pleasure and healing for centuries. Don’t rule out using good quality, pure essential oils to fragrance your hair and body. Most are relatively inexpensive. They are a delight to play with, and they can be combined to create your own unique signature scent. You’ll need to dilute them, since some can burn the skin if applied neat. I use 25ml each of pure alcohol (vodka will do) and apricot oil, with 12 to 15 drops of essential oils. Store your scent in a beautiful perfume bottle. Wear it on your body, spray it in the room you work in or play in, put it on your linens and pillows before sleep. Indulge in the magic of real fragrance and sleep like a child again.