The headspace could be better right now
I have a stack of NPA student perfume submissions sitting on my desk, and I don't want to deal with them at the moment. I pulled a muscle in my lower back (thanks, old age), and I can't get comfortable, especially in my office chair, and I just feel generally annoyed. I won't evaluate their work well if I'm already annoyed. Plus, I feel really stupid today. I've been researching materials for incense and diving down some serious rabbit holes trying to transcribe pages written in Iranian or another language I don't understand into English, only to realize I'm an idiot. I feel like I'm dog paddling in bottomless water when all I want to do is to write a book about how a perfumer approaches incense making. Right now it feels like someone dumped a 3000-piece jigsaw puzzle on the table in front of me and said, "Do it," and I hate jigsaw puzzles.
Does the book really have to have information about obscure and rare materials I have yet to experience? Does it have to have a 30-page chapter on the history of incense for every ancient culture that ever existed? Am I looking back or forward? Or maybe a little back, and mostly forward? How does this serve a book about creativity NOW, but also adding in all of the dangers of overharvesting any plant currently used in incense, not to mention the possibility (more like probability) of ancient cultures having done the same and wondering how many aromatic plants that have gone extinct because of THEIR work, and how wars and invasions through millennia erased so much information and crops (like the missing violets after WWI), and . . . geez. The headspace could be better right now.
hi :)
ReplyDeletebeen meaning to respond to these new posts for a minute now... lol its been a hectic few weeks.
Anyway, nice to see you back on here, always a joy to read your little updates and takes on things :)
but also no bother if your energy wants to be elsewhere. I have lots of firm belief in your self-determination, etc.
I totally get your vibe about feeling overwhelmed... the Exec Funcs have been a bit hairy and erratic lately for me too, but mercury is out of retrograde now, so things should be a bit easier. (said with equal parts irony and earnest, lol <3)
Writing is hard! And a whole book, no less. Its a very impressive undertaking, but have no doubt that you will pull it off in some form, on whatever timeframe you are able.
... Regarding the research rabbitholes and whether past or future is more relevant, I would say... yes? Both, and? but also, very firmly, i dont think you need to put yourself in undue stress trying to cover the entirety of a very vast phenomenon all at once. You have a gift for discernment and instigation of community involvement, applied in a way that teaches other people how to discern and instigate. ... I think this can be a very solid and worthwhile seminal work on the subject that will be expanded upon by yourself and the other people operating in the same tradition.
... and yeah, i think past and future are both equally interesting and relevant for incense (and in general), and both give a sense of context for the role of practitioners/ curators in a tradition. like, what's the point, and what can be done to minimize damage to the world and still have a good time being connected to these superrad, very-ancient-but-also-modern materials/ methods/ vibes? not that you don't know this, I'm just saying i think you're right and can trust your instincts, basically.
And really, even just any amount of compendium you wanna put together for discussing the materials themselves is gonna be uber rad. I would be 1000% stoked to read your book even if it was only ~~technical information and no higher analysis/ philosophy (which basically permeates everything you do anyway so if people don't know then they aren't paying attention).
:) :) anyway that's that about that.
I love to hear about you working and hanging out with EOA Cher :) ! <3
y'all are two of my very most admired people. Both with so much to offer. Super stoked that you can enable each other and have fun :). Her coffee is literally the very best, and her floral waxes are something i will never get over and will probably hoard in some amount for as long as i live... The Indian centifolia rose wax is absolutely, hugely, life-affirmingly beautiful. The Egyptian orange blossom is a quintessence of soapy, gorgeous, old-fashioned floral love. Her hydrosols carry such a vibe... nourishing, soulful. Very exciting.
Anyway, you both make me feel very affirmed and inspired about wanting to be a producer of aromatics (and food and medicine and fiber and soil) so thank you very much for that. Everything good takes a long time but hopefully it will not be too many more seasons until i have a harvest of roses and violets and orris roots to write home about (and as a a catalyst for cultural-ecological regeneration). :)
more to say but maybe i will just actually email you again lol
Thanks for doing your thing,
:) <3
Dav
This is so helpful. Thank you. As for Cher, we really are great friends. We always have a fantastic time together, and it isn't always focused around aromatics. But I think our super powers lie in our mutual love and passion for aromatics. Again, this is so helpful. I think I have a solid outline to work from now.
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