This month's essence
Bottling August
Hello friends, and welcome. Step into the cool and calm of the still room, where I’ve been bottling this month’s essence, ready to release under today’s new moon.
If you read this post from July, you will know that I’ve taken to “bottling” each month, inspired by a beautiful summer writing prompt from Beth Kempton.
As well as being a lovely way to get some words flowing on to the page, this monthly writing ritual has become an important way to take some time out from the busyness of day-to-day life; encouraging me to be fully present in whatever time of year it is, to pay attention to what’s going on in the natural world, and to concentrate on using a different sense (other than my ears or my eyes). In short it encourages me to take notice.
Having begun this practice in May, several essences now sit on a figurative shelf in the still room. And something happens when I re-read each one. It’s something I’m sure you will be familiar with.
Do you find that certain scents bring particular memories flooding back?
If they do, you have experienced the Proust effect – a vivid memory conjured up by a specific aroma. Scent and memory are deeply linked, due to the fact that the brain areas that process smell are closely connected to those responsible for our memories.
So, in creating these essences, I’m slowly building a memory bank; a kind of diary. They don’t record big events or specific details. Instead, they help me to remember the general sense of what each month was like: its character.
Every time I return to one that I’ve written I’m metaphorically taking down a bottle down from the shelf, un-stoppering it, and inhaling the scent of what’s gone before: what was in bloom in the garden, what walks I took, what seasonal changes caught my attention.
I wonder if you have come up with an interesting or unusual way to record little moments of your year?
I’m still mulling over ways to work with the idea of creating essences with head and heart notes, as a way to capture some feelings, but for this month I’m sticking with my usual top, mid and base notes.
So, here are August’s scents, distilled (figuratively speaking) into a glass bottle, its label handwritten and smoothed on to the surface, and the bottle carefully place on the shelf with all the others.
Top notes: redolence of Turkish delight from a second flush of roses
Mid notes: an aromatic drift of sun-warmed fig leaves
Base notes: iodine tang of seaweed drying on the shore and savour of salt from the sea breeze
I wonder what memories of August you will be preserving this year. Do tell, I would love to know.
Notes:
This month’s essence ties in with Week 5 of Beth Kempton’s six-week long Summer of Substack Essay Festival. There’s still time to join in if you are interested. You can find the details here.
Grateful thanks once again to Beth Kempton for the bottling prompt.
The concept of building a memory bank of scents is fantastic!
Lovely Helen.