PATCHOULI...smells like what?

   It often happens that while we're paying for our groceries the check-out person, usually young, exclaims that someone must have sprayed for bugs. The first few times the bug-spray thing happened we put our noses in the air trying to detect the smell of poison.  After many “smell of bug spray” incidents, we finally put it all together. It was the patchouli oil we were wearing that the cashier thought was bug spray.  Sad.

   An old friend once said that patchouli (pa CHEW lee) smelled like "ground-up old hippies".  Some say it smells like dirt.  Patchouli happens to be our favorite fragrance.  It is interesting to note that if an older person is at the cash register there will usually be a question about the good scent we're wearing.  The appeal of smells and the memories they invoke definitely vary from generation to generation but bug spray?

                           

   In the early 1800s colorful silks and shawls were shipped from the Orient to Europe and between every piece of fabric were layers of patchouli, Pogostemon cablin, a member of the mint family that would repel moths and overcome the musty smell that could occur from the long ocean trip. This scent became an indicator of authentic oriental goods but European merchants began to purchase the dried leaves and use them to scent their own products (early false advertisement).  Patchouli oil and incense became popular in the US in the 1970s with the counterculture movement, the hippie era, often used to cover the smell of marijuana. 

                    

          Patchouli’s woodsy, earthy fragrance is one of the most important perfumery plants.

   The oil is obtained by steam distillation after a controlled fermentation, producing thick, rich-brown oil. Ten years ago the price of one pound of patchouli essential oil from India was $50.00 in the US market.  Today the price is $160.00 for the same amount with prices varying widely depending on crop success as well as demand; it recently sky-rocketed to $200 a pound (that’s just 16 oz.!). 

                

 Patchouli is easy to grow and loves hot weather, afternoon shade, lots of water and light fertilizer.  This herb will not survive outside in cold weather but semi-woody cuttings root easily in fall or winter.

  

                     

   So if you want to have fun with young check-outers, or if you just really like the smell of dirt (we obviously do), tuck some patchouli leaves in your hair or dab a bit of the essential oil on your wrist.  Seriously, we think patchouli is grounding (there’s that dirt connection again) and natural…kinda’ like ground-up old hippies, and we’re not trying to cover up anything…anymore.          

Dirt Therapy

   Where have we been? Well, let’s see…lightning struck the Still room, no wait that was 2002…ahh, we went to Hawaii, no, that was a long time ago, er, aha! We moved? Not going to happen. The drought! That’s it, it didn’t rain and the pond dried up…no that was last summer. Would you believe the dog ate our notes? No dog. Guess it just comes down to the fact that we’ve been sick…down sick, both injured and sick. Now that’s the truth. We had the perfect storm this spring...all the baby plants were ready to get out of the greenhouse and one of us couldn’t walk and the other had a viral infection. Wish we’d just had a dog that ate our notes.

    Now for the good news! We’re back in the dirt and this is good, very good, probably even healing. John Wesley, trained as a cleric in the Church of England (mid 1700s), came to Georgia as a missionary to the Indians. He was greatly impressed with their good health and closely observed the use of “vegetable products” in the treatment of disease, returned to England and wrote a book entitled Primitive Physic Or An Easy Way to Treat Most Ordinary Diseases. The book was so popular in England that it was edited and reprinted 32 times and was in common use in the American Colonies as well.

                                    

Among the many diseases/cures named, Wesley addressed Consumption:

“Every morning cut up a little turf of fresh earth, and, lying down, breathe into the hole for a quarter of an hour.” Can you imagine lying face down on the ground for 15 full minutes while all your neighbors are calling 911? Times were different. But here’s the deal…Wesley was seeing the benefits of fresh dirt, maybe he’d even seen antibiotics at work before anyone knew about antibiotics.

    But back to here and now. In his book Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil devotes a chapter to the healing effects of dirt, “Hands and Nose in Dirt”. It seems that the “hygiene hypothesis”-living in environments that are too clean- could be responsible for the sharp increase in asthma, allergies and depression. Most of us (especially young people with developing immune systems) don’t have a daily relationship with dirt anymore, depriving our immune systems of routine exposure to “harmless microorganisms such as soil bacteria”. This is oversimplification for sure but if the immune system doesn’t have regular stimulation, it doesn’t “learn” when to react and just begins to react to anything and everything.

    So…we’re back in the dirt. Hope you are too even if it is dirt from potting plants for the windowsill and refusing to squeaky-clean scrub vegetables from your garden!

   By the way, John Wesley also addresses “Falling of the Fundament” but rest easy, we’re not planning to elaborate on this treatment but will just say it involves brickdust.