May feels like such a gentle, warm month —
perhaps because of Mother's Day,
I especially love May, when love and the scent of flowers are everywhere.
This month, I'd love to keep you company with Taiwan red cypress.
Red cypress isn't as showy as a floral scent. It has a quiet, steady woody fragrance, like a great tree standing still in the mountain forest, with a sweet finish. Its scent has many layers and feels especially comforting and reassuring.
Sometimes life is so busy — busy caring for others, busy working, busy answering the world —
that we forget to leave a little time for ourselves.
The scent of red cypress is like a reminder to ourselves:
it's fine to go a little slower, it's fine to rest.
Life is like red cypress: it has many layers, and slowly everything becomes sweeter and better.
May doesn't have to mean a grand trip. Making a cup of tea, diffusing a little red cypress, sitting by the window daydreaming for a few minutes, or a red cypress foot soak or massage — each is a way of caring for yourself.
Throughout May,
may we all live slowly and breathe well, with gentle red cypress.
