holistic harmony
photograph by aiste saulyte
What is holistic harmony? And how can all women benefit from this gentle, intuitive, seasonal & cyclical wisdom?
This year marks 40 turns around the sun for me. It’s difficult to step back enough to make sense of the twists & turns of my life… I remember my plan to study medicine at university, and how, at the very last moment, I did a complete U-turn, following my heart, which wanted for nothing other than to be immersed in novels, poetry & literary criticism for the next few years. I read English Literature at Durham (my accompanying science A-levels forgotten almost the moment I arrived on campus)… seven hours from home, alone, on my own two feet, and head over heels in love with the first boy I met (almost) – Mr R, my soul mate, to this day. My parents were not pleased!
Upon graduation, I joined the Soho Theatre’s graduate scheme – working in the new writing development department, and hoped to pursue my dream of theatre direction, which I had wholeheartedly immersed myself in during my three years at Durham. A week later, and I was standing in for a friend at Vogue magazine – she’d caught a terrible gastric bug and begged me to show up and answer phones and help out on the beauty desk. I was an incongruous vision at Vogue… never cool enough, never well-connected enough… but the then Beauty Directors, Kathy Phillips & Anna-Marie Solowij, were very kind, generous & supportive, and recognised in me, the beginnings of a snappy way with words, and a dedication to understanding what went into a product – and why it worked (or did not). They also saw that I was less enamoured of the synthetic silicone-filled creams and far more interested in botanicals, floral waters, natural oils & healing balms. They put me to work – researching products for the Vogue Beauty Awards, and I had to advocate for my choices with the science to back it up. It was a good, if steep, learning curve, and one that introduced me to the highs and lows of the INCI list (the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) – i.e. the ingredients list on the back of each & every product.
I learned that not all ingredients are created equal either. Vitamin E it may be, but one may brim with all the goodness of a vital, raw, organic extract, and the other a poor quality, lifeless gelatinous nothingness. I also learned to stop labelling one thing a ‘chemical’ and another a ‘natural’. Chemicals are simply substances made up of matter – and any substance at all is ‘chemical’. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon – are chemical elements, naturally occurring, but still, technically, ‘chemicals’. It’s more helpful, if you are in the business of seeking out natural choices, to talk about synthetic and non-synthetic… chemicals may be naturally occurring or manmade. I am far less interested in the manmade varieties.
This early foray into journalism – unwitting as it was in terms of choice – piqued my curiosity. I loved learning about essential oils, aromatherapy, massage, skin health, product formulation… I loved interviewing the dermatologists, chemists & biologists who worked on these products; even more so, I loved meeting the organic growers, makers, botanists, natural ‘chemists’ and holistic therapists – getting slowly closer to where my heart was leading me.
I spent 10 years freelancing as a health & beauty writer for most of the women’s magazines, and several broadsheets, in the UK and a couple in New York. I was then offered the Beauty & Health Director role at Psychologies magazine. ‘Beauty’ at Psychologies was never skin-deep. We worked on a holistic beauty manifesto, with lines such as ‘how we feel is more important than how we look’. Though they are, in my mind, one & the same, I still hold true to this. Beauty is an essence, an energy, a vibration – it is rooted in acceptance, nourishment, kindness. It could not be further removed from the overly injected, primped, plucked, painted & airbrushed ‘pin-ups’ we are often bombarded with. Beauty is real, colourful skin; a sincere smile; complete unconditional acceptance of our selves. It comes to us when we stop trying, stop fiddling, stop fighting who and what we are. When we sit down in the midst of the earth, flowers, trees, and breathe out all the BS, and inhale the untainted morning air; turn our skin to the sunshine; when we embody our woman-ness in every part of the skin we’re in.
Alongside my role at Psychologies, I took time away to study holistic therapy, and Ayurveda. I have practised as an holistic facial therapist since 2012, qualifying shortly after my youngest baby girl was born. There is a freedom in the treatment room that I do not feel anywhere else in my life – utterly enveloped in the moment, ‘seeing’ with my hands & my senses, working gently & intuitively – touch, flow, steam, oil – pouring back into the skin & body what it craves & needs. It’s my soul work, and the older I get, the more time I wish to dedicate to it. Like water, it is running in to and filling up the spaces I create, and so, I am letting it be.
In my work in the treatment room, and one-to-one with women during consultations, all threads knit together to form a clear tapestry of one’s life. The breakfast we eat, the words we share with a loved one (in love or anger), the time we spend in nature, the point we are at within our menstrual cycle, ongoing latent pain or trauma, the stuff we hold on to but are ready to release, the way we lay our own hands on our own skin, the depth & vividness of the dreams we have, the odour & frequency of our secretions, the vivacity of hue in the blood we bleed… all of these things are parts of a beautiful, magical, intricate puzzle that make up the parts of one harmonious whole. Except, harmony may need a little restoration first. In this way, with detailed questions, dialogue, discussion and gentle unearthing & clearing of the terrain, we get to a clear picture of what is happening beneath the skin you’re in. Your skin is a wonderful road map on this journey, but it is only just the beginning.
By looking to how we ebb & flow, shift & shrink, respond or recoil, we learn what our bodies need, what they crave, what they desire. And by pouring the antidotes onto & into them – be it more time in water, gentle classical music, a candle-lit morning, or a passage from a soul-alighting book, we feed our cells, our selves, our lives – and all those who are connected with us.
This is the essence of Holistic Harmony, and the foundation of my holistic skincare consultations. Work that guides women back to their rhythms and rites of passage; their needs & nourishment; their cycles & seasons. Essential work, the work of women, the work of the ancestors.
