A Rabbi, a Priest, and a Blonde Walk into a Bar...

All apologies for being as boring as I am being/have been, but the meaty writing is taking place elsewhere. I hope to integrate it and this blog in time (more on that later) but for now, more on perfume.

--Look, it's riveting for the two of you for whom it's riveting. The other two of you can go practice your Uzbek.

In the meantime: I have a friend who's absolutely in love with Catherine of Siena.

The first coup de foudre took place while she was, unsurprisingly, in Siena. Not being Catholic and not knowing a Dominican from a Double Englishman's at the time, she returned home and went back to work, enjoying the occasional nostalgic Brunello and trying to make sense out of the whole thing while feeling a distinct urge to learn how to make rosaries out of rose petals. (Or something: I totally made that last bit up.)


Go ahead a year. The friend sells her piano so she can go to Siena again, not needing to get to a why or even a how there, but at least a What, God help her, as to the nature of what she is experiencing. She prays, meditates, cries, meets some religious, buys some books, is yet more moved, and the whole time the piano is more than worth it.

Then it's almost time for her to leave, so she asks the bookstore guy, who remembers her from last time, whom she sort of knows halfway enough to feel one-quarter comfortable, if there are any 'Dominicans' near where she lives, which is near Seattle, in Washington, United States. And then Vincenzo, or Bartolomeo, or God help us all, Domenico, tells her that, well, he knows he sends some books to this parish in Seattle, and maybe that could help?


Fast forward to now-ish, and she's in a Dominican parish, still breathing in Catherine with every breath, and still not hungering for the piano now long gone. So for her I made a Catherine of Siena scent. It has a bunch more ingredients than this, but this is the part she will like:

Orris (=Iris rhizome) + Lily of the Valley (= yields no oils naturally, so a synthesized version of the compounds producing the natural scent; see headspace technology): Lily symbol of Catherine and of purity in general, as with other saints; Lilies and Iris considered same thing until 19th C.; now what still grows along the River Lys and was once called Fleur de Lis is actually 'Iris' in our lexicon (and I had to use orris as a fixative, since I'm desperative for fixatives in this, since florals scare me). So, lily + lily. More semantics, etymologies, and fights can be found here, if you're that picky.

Frankincense, Oud, Sandalwood, Benzoin, Patchouli: Very ecclesiastical, obviously; traditional ingredients for incense in many faith traditions for millennia. (Okay, also elements i know how to work with.) Anyway, in this tradition it means: ergo Jesus, and the Church. Very meaningful if one can argue that a scent can possess a narrative, as patently I believe it can, but also a great pragmatic blessing in that I can impart some resonance and richesse, so that the whole thing doesn't sound like Elvira de Hidalgo on a helium rebreather and last for all of a shrill twenty seconds.

Cedar: the Cedars of Lebanon; therefore the Song of Solomon; Divine Love; Deus Caritas Est; Catherine's Holy Bridegroom.

Rose Absolute and Rose Geranium (which has three of the same constituents as rose: linalool, geraniol, and citronellol, but with greater depth, complexity, and tenacity): Kind of obvious, but: Catherine's crown of roses; the Blessed Virgin; the Rosary (the Marion devotion as well as the sacramental - which Dominican friars and nuns wear as part of the habit, and which is likewise important to the Dominican Third Order and laity) and, being a partly kinaesthetic mode of prayer, evokes Dominic's Nine Ways of Prayer. At least to me.

And, lastly, Lotus: Death of the Old Self, Regeneration, New Life -- and Continuity. The lotus simultaneously represents the transitory and the eternal, two realms we as humans are challenged to mediate every day. What dies away will be replaced by something brighter, stronger, deeper. It is born out of mud, , like the first man, , and strives ever upward. As we do.

It sounds super easy. Hit and run, like having 'bezique' staring at you in your Scrabble tray on opening. But I added a bunch of stuff besides this, to try and have it not read as 'rose and religion.' It would be sad if she loved the story and hated the scent!

Update 6/22: I added coriander. The opening had become as vigourous as a tulip stalk in late June. I thought about more citrus (there's hardly any), but the coriander seems a better bet, if it can link up with the frank and patch and cajeput in the prelude. We'll see. But middle and end are quite nice.

Update 6.23: Feeling tempted to add saffron for some reason. But I think logically I should give it a spike with more coriander and boost the cedar. Give me a couple weeks. I know I will...