Week 7- Natural Building

                                                        

                                                                                                    Week 7 - Endings and Beginnings

        At the beginning of this week my level of excitement was very high because we went to one of Sophie’s friends, Jo, for the first time and the plan was to help her in building a wall out of natural materials and creating homemade balms made of oils that we had infused with different foraged herbs.  I was particularly excited to gain this knowledge as I really like creating anything and everything with the help of my two wonderful hands. 
Although our cat, Moon, that I really grew to love and that we had rescued from the street 2 weeks prior had been diagnosed with a pretty bad virus and had at that point been hospitalised for a couple of days, I felt like I needed to keep things positive and use my energy to create, rather than worry of what might come.
As we got there I started observing all the work Jo had already done there. All the walls that she built looked incredibly unique and I could feel how much love and hard work had been put into them. Exploring the garden felt very inspiring because everything was green and its time of explosive growth and I felt like I was as well.

        After having spoken to Jo a little bit, she pointed out a wall onto witch she sculpted this peculiar shape that kind of looked like the tail of a cat. Knowing that I went to art school, she suggested that I sculpt the body of the cat to match what was already there.  At first I was imagining something a little different, like a pattern of leaves flowing down the wall, but I still kept my mind open to incoming ideas and nothing was settled.

A few hours into working in the garden we received the news that Moon had passed away. Even though this was expected, I had hoped that he makes it, so that his battle with the virus and all suffering he’s been through wouldn’t be for nothing. 

We went and picked him up and buried him under a tree together with beautiful flower arrangements that we made. I found it hard to move on from the sadness that day because even though I knew he had been released from the pain and unfairness that sometimes comes with life, I wished I could have spared him some suffering. 

        

        Something that helped me a lot emotionally that day was the fact that we had very gentle activities. After coming back from the funeral, we started melting the beeswax to start the first batch of balms. This particular one was for bruise treatment and prevention which felt oddly fitting for how I was feeling.  So we mixed the melted beeswax with olive oil that had been left to infuse for a few weeks together with the leaves of Comfrey and Elder. After letting it cool for a few minutes, we put in a few drops of Lavender and Rosemary Essential Oil and poured it in little jars to solidify. 

        The second batch we created is intended to help with any sort of itchiness caused by insect bites. I called it “Ditch the Itch”. Using the same main steps, just different infused and essential oils like Yarrow & Chamomile infused olive oil and Lavender, Rosemary & Geranium essential oil. I can say that this is my favourite balm and I’ve been taking it with me everywhere.  My energy felt a little too calm and delicate to start building (considering everything) so I spent the rest of the afternoon painting the labels.

But with Moon passing it only felt right that I take Jo up on the proposal to sculpt the cat on the wall and so that’s what I spent some time doing in the afternoon.  

        Later in the week we had one activity that I particularly liked which was making a plant profile. What we did was pick a plant that we found interesting  and the assignment was to research as much information about that plant as possible in order to eventually create a polyculture system starting from that first choice of plant. We came up with things like what type of soil the plants want, the preferred PH, what temperatures they can grow in and many other things. 

        My chosen plant was Mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris). It is a herb with multiple beneficial characteristic for human health and it grows on waysides and hedges. It attracts wildlife and can tolerate basically any type of soil PH. Turning a blind side on the fact that it is invasive, generations upon generations of people have been using it for digestive system problems, the calming of nerves, treating intestinal worms as well as in the curing of streptococci viruses. 

Someone once told me that in the time of the Roman Empire, people used to collect it and burn it on fires before battles. It was believed that the dreams that the plant would generate were premonitions that provided valuable informations regarding the battles. As generations continued to evolve, nowadays many people call this effect “lucid dreaming”.

        Another great discovery for me during this week was the name of the trees of which I was frantically collecting cones from. I found that there are multiple species of Cypress trees and the each of them creates shapes that I’m personally inspired by. I tend to create jewellery from various things I find in trees or collect from plants. 

                                                        All in all, it was a complex week with both heartbreaking and heartwarming happenings. 

                                                                                                        Much love to anybody reading this,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Ruxandra.