I sometimes feel that in all the grief and sorrow of these times, it might slowly be becoming impossible to connect back into older and wiser ways of being, I wonder if without knowing it, the possibilities of a bigger and deeper world might be slipping away from me, one short year at a time. I know that like many, but also in my own ways, the times are heavy, and I feel the weight of it pass, whilst sensing the unknowability of it all, or indeed, the lack of barakah in it. It had been two springs since I had spent a full distillation season in Fes with the flowers, and whilst I have been distilling other plants since, a part of me wondered if their secrets were slipping away from me too.
There is nothing quite like zahr (orange blossom) and ward (damask rose). Like many, I find their beauty and scent delightful and intoxicating, and I know I am not alone in feeling drawn to them in ways I can’t always articulate. They appear in the swiqat al-rcif heaving upon baskets, and I feel an urgency to be amongst them, with them, in impalpable ways. This time, I started with a simple zahr distillation from home, knowing that season was ending soon and not wanting to miss the chance to connect with this light and lovely flower. I was lucky, as the rain came again and the market filled again with her lovely buds, so alongside blessed friends and visitors with the women of Barakah’s Womb, we distilled with her once more, cradling the warm bottles of orangey sun-loved bud-water into her new life as water medicine.
My blessed sister-in-law had sent some ward down from the village to the city, and I sat for the first time in my mother-in-law’s kitchen distilling the roses for her. It was a languid afternoon spent in rapture to the commanding presence of the rose, whose energy is at complete odds with the easiness of zahr. There is nothing quite like a rose-distillation hangover, and I spent the evening collapsed in a heap on the sofa. Meanwhile, after the roses failed to appear on the day we needed them for the Barakah’s Womb workshop, suddenly they arrived in their glory and commanded yet another all-encompassing distillation. This time, we spent time in rose song and rose prayer, and through the blessed presence of women of heart and the guidance of our spiritual master, were given a prayer-path through the distillation. At some point, without ever intending it, I was called to preserve the rose clay that remained in the alembic for a practice I had read about years ago – of rosary making. Over a frantic few days on my return to (real-world) work, I threaded the dried-out rose beads into 4 rough rosaries for friends and family, still scented from that maddening and sweet afternoon around the boiling pots.
I am not quite sure what to call this time, other than a calling back and a calling forwards. A reminder that the blessings we seek are still amongst us if we are willing to seek them, and a call into a future where companionship, heart and magic can be present among us. It was heartening, heart-filling work and I haven’t yet “recovered” from it, knowing that perhaps there is nothing to recover from, only that ward keeps reminding me (now on threads between my fingers) that other worlds are still possible.
The Atlas Apothecary Sourcebook 