There is a smell... I have spent my whole life searching for that smell, and I have never found it again. It is the smell of my grandmother's hands. The hands that raised me and caressed me, treated my wounds, and made the best food for me.
When the raspberries ripened, she would go out into the garden early in the morning, before the sun began to burn, while it was still cool. She would gather the raspberries into a clay bowl, place it on the porch, and wait for me to wake up. God, that smell was unreal. And her hands smelled unreal too. The smell of overripe raspberries mixed with something green—basil most of the time, mint, sometimes lavender. Clean skin, plants, flowers, fruit. That was the exact smell.
This is the beginning. My oldest memories carry that smell... the smell of her hands... I have to begin here because everything I will write has its origins there. It comes from her world. The woman I am today was raised by those hands, in the simplicity of a Romanian village. Today, people would call her a green witch. In her village? Nobody knew that term. She was simply the woman who made herbal salves, herbal oils, and teas when things went wrong. If someone cut themselves with a scythe, she made a salve from calendula and yarrow. A burn? Calendula and St. John's wort. She kept the plants she had carefully gathered and dried in the shade in little cloth bags she sewed herself from white fabric, in the summer kitchen. Away from strong light or sun. She prepared everything calmly, quietly. She never seemed to be in a hurry. Everything was prepared in unglazed fired-clay pots. She stirred only with a wooden spoon.
She talked to the plants. She whispered something... Today I know that her whispers were what we now call setting an intention, programming.
The people in the village simply came to her when they didn't know what to do. Mothers with children who had a rash, wives whose husbands had cut themselves on something sharp, women from the city who had inherited houses in the village from their parents but didn't know how to work the land or arrange the beds in their gardens. Even injured animals ended up in her hands. With all of them, people and animals alike, she had a patience that is hard to imagine and a gentleness I have never felt anywhere else. She was simply the person you went to when you didn't know what to do or how to do it.
In that world, life flowed simply. You took care of the land and everything that was alive; they gave you their fruits, and people took care of one another. The porch of the house was full of geraniums, in every color. She simply loved them with her whole being. On July evenings, the entire yard smelled of green things, sprinkled with rainwater.
On my father's side, I had a great-grandmother who carried the magic of the Romani people with her. Something old, strange, but just as connected to nature, to real life, to the rhythm of the seasons, to the phases of the moon. That is a story for another time.
Somewhere among the women in my family, without knowing how or when, I built the window through which I look at the world, at life, even today. Many of you may be thinking how lucky I was. Yes, I was lucky. But these things also brought me an enormous responsibility. Living up to that inheritance has been difficult because I live in this modern world where everything can be solved by pressing a button. I like the modern world. It gives me comfort. But I don't like that, too often, we separate the soul from the body and the mind.
I inherited a relationship with plants, with everything alive, with things that ask for nothing but attention. Nothing else.
I have been asked whether I ever felt strange in that world. Why would I have felt strange? My grandmother was the most respected person in the community, and to me, she was the whole world.
By now, you probably understand what this space will be about. And I will also tell you what it will not be. It will not be about trends. It will not be about the latest big thing. You won't find rituals here that promise to fix your life in five minutes or by the end of the week. I am tired of rituals and people who follow trends or promise you the impossible for all sorts of reasons. I am tired of corporate-style spirituality.
If you have read this far, you are probably tired of these things too. I am not selling you a solution. I am not a guru on a stage. I am a forty-eight-year-old woman who learned from the women in her life that there is no hurry, that things are built quietly, calmly, and that you cannot separate human existence from nature.
Allow me to be your companion on the road. A little further ahead in some places, perhaps far behind in others.
What lives and breathes inside me is authentic. Plants I grow. Stones I have carried with me for years. Old traditions from two lines of women who never separated the sacred from everyday life.
I can show you how to live more slowly, how to be gentler with yourself, how to bring into the light what is already there. Here, you have a place where you can come with everything you are, without having to cut pieces away from yourself just to fit in.
Because this is the deepest lesson I received from them, without them ever saying it, without ever explaining it: You are allowed to be whole. You don't have to choose a side. You can keep your icons, your candles, your tarot cards, your rune sets, your astrology books, your difficult questions, all under the same roof. In my home, it has always been this way.
I don't want to end before sharing with you something that my grandmother Maie used to make.
I told you that she prepared her salves in clay pots. I no longer have her clay pots. What I kept is the tradition of the wooden spoon for stirring, and the whispers of intention. It is the same spirit. Where she used pork fat—because that was what she had at hand in the village among the hills—I use coconut oil, the cleanest version I can find. I have changed the mixture a little too. Along with calendula, I like to add a little chamomile.
If you want to try it, keep everything extremely simple.
Take a small handful of a plant you like. Calendula is a good choice if this is your first time and you know for sure that you are not allergic to plants. Warm about three or four tablespoons of coconut oil, only until it has melted completely. Don't let it get too hot. Turn off the heat, add the calendula, and stir everything slowly, gently, with a wooden spoon. While you stir, whisper an intention. Whatever you want... Leave the mixture at room temperature, cover it, and forget about it for an entire afternoon or overnight, as if you were making a cold-brewed tea. That's all. At the end, warm it again if it has solidified, then strain it into a sterilized container with a lid. This way, you have a simple, clean remedy for dry hands, tired skin, and small scratches.
And remember—it isn't the cream or the oil that is essential. What is essential is your attention. Your intention. Choose a plant and give it your time, slowly, with your bare hands, without rushing. The way Maie did. The way all the women in my line did.
Everything begins here. Not with power. With attention.
I am glad you are here. Take all the time you need to settle in and feel at home.
There is no hurry.
There never was.