Writing my way through the A-to-Z blogging challenge, I’ve tasked myself with creating a manifesto reflecting wonders, curiosities, and delights currently captivating me – all through the lens of unusual, obscure, or simply charming-to-me words.
J is for…
jessamy
- another term for jasmine
- the color yellow as in yellow jasmine
- “jessamy” gloves – kid gloves perfumed with jasmine
I love jessamy, not only for what it means, but the fact that it somehow represents a beautiful, ever-unfolding journey for me.
As a natural perfumer and an aromatherapist, it’s probably not surprising that I like jasmine. Its fragrance is sublime and amazing, and with over 200 plants in the jasmine family, there are a wealth of plants to discover and love.
Almost twenty years ago I discovered a book by author and artist Ann Lewis that I found crazily inspiring. It’s called Confederate Jasmine and the Fat Tuesday Tree: A Poetic Herbarium.
Leaving the American Deep South when she was a young child, as an adult she returned on a journey of discovery, moving through the landscape and chatting casually with locals. The book is organized around various plants and a particular encounter she had with someone there. As part of each short essay, she created a mixed media collage incorporating an image of the plant discussed.
The book sparked something in me, a kind of thing I’ve never quite understood. It made me want to write a book like that. A personal exploration of something important to me that invited me to create a body of work of accompanying assemblages. I didn’t follow that call directly, although perhaps I still will some day. But the Muse’s whisper has always been there, and I’ve come to think of it as a wafting of jessamy woven through all my creative work. It certainly inspired me to start creating botanical talismans; it encouraged me to work with plants in deeper, more meaningful ways, understanding that we can create life-long relationships. And it was the beginning of my trips down many rabbit holes in my exploration of jasmine itself.
Although I mentioned there are over 200 varieties of jasmine, Confederate Jasmine (also known as star jasmine) and Carolina jasmine (also known as Carolina jessamine) both belong to different plant families, and neither is a member of the genus Jasminum.
In my years-long, continuing exploration of jasmines (and faux jasmines), one of the most delightful discoveries I’ve made was the existence of perfumed gloves very much in vogue in the 16th and 17th centuries. “Jessamy gloves” were those scented with jasmine, and it was particularly popular to gift them both as New Year’s and Valentine’s gifts.
I confess I love hands and have collected quite a few over the years,. Yet I remember quite clearly the delight when I found the above pictured larger white porcelain one in a bin at the American Science and Surplus store, home of the strange and wonderful hidden among the simply strange and peculiar and who-would-want-that?! stuff.
Given that I’m clearly not a minimalist and my home is not exactly appropriately expansive given my penchant for collecting, things do tend to have to multi-task around here. Hence she’s holding several other treasures. First there is the awesome glove – gifted to me by a mailart friend in England who was encouraging my fashionista fantasies. Alas the glove lost her mate somewhere long before she came to me, but it hardly matters because her singularity is totally made up by her fabulousity. She’s sheer and embroidered with pink and green squares! Be still my heart. To be honest I think having two such beauties together in the same room would probably burn your eyeballs out so I’m glad there’s only one. And of course, there’s no point in being a natural perfumer if you don’t utilize the scents you create, so of course my singular glove indeed carries a bit of scent. So I can officially claim it is a jessamy glove.
Yet a hand can’t just live by glove alone. No – there must be jewelry!!! And in this particular case there is an exquisite poison ring adornment. Not that I keep poison in the storage area – I prefer tiny tiny treasures, often, need I say, perfumed floral treasure bits. However, referring to it as a tiny-tiny-treasure ring lacks the certain mystique poison ring conveys. I certainly think it adds a bit of mystique as well having the ring perched up at top of the finger like that. It in no way suggests that the finger is too big for the proper placement of the ring. Perish the thought.
Needless to say it’s always ideal, no matter what the circumstances, to keep one’s head. In this case it happens to be a delightfully rouge-cheeked head. Which is always at hand when needed.
I celebrate living in a world of jessamy. I deeply appreciate beautiful fragrance and its magical ability to take one to both expected and unexpected places.
Do certain scents speak to you? Love jessamy yellow? Wonder what it must have been like to live in times of perfumed gloves and poison rings? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Interesting choice for today… I will be painting my kitchen a yellow today!
Beth
https://bethlapinsatozblog.wordpress.com/
How fun Beth. I always enjoy choosing paint colors, but delight even more in enjoying the freshly painted room. Happy painting!
Hari OM
“Fabulosity”… love this word and think it describes the effect of your post today! I have to say, due to asthma, I avoid a great many fragrances – but in India, it was almost impossible to avoid the perfume of jasmine, it being one of the key flowers for puja (worship)… in small doses it’s adorable! YAM xx
I’m sorry to hear you have asthma – that can certainly be challenging, and I’m sure it’s not helped by the chemicals used in most mass-produced perfumes and such.
I, too, think jasmine is best enjoyed in small doses as it can be intoxicating and/or overwhelming otherwise. But the joy of a few flowers – oh my!
…natural perfumes also, Deborah – lavender is one of my ‘nemesis’ perfumes and I adore it – it’s fine as a flower, but the essence siezes my lungs. Have to take care which incense I use also.
I love aromatherapy, but must be very circumspect with it! Yxx
Quite right to be careful Yamini!
As an aromatherapist and natural perfumer, I think we’re truly at the point where ethically-harvested AND organic products are simply the way we have to go. There’s way to much GMO and pesticide contamination in our plant material, and I’m certain it not only aggravates conditions such as yours, but indeed helps create them.
I don’t think I’d have done well in the time of perfumed gloves and poison rings 🙂
The only jasmine I really know is jasmine green tea – which I love.
Tasha
https://tashasthinkings.blogspot.com/ – Movie Monsters
LOL – indeed Tasha, it’s not the life for everyone.
I love jasmine green tea as well, and sometimes like to drink it when I have jasmine rice. The rice isn’t actually scented with jasmine flowers as the tea is, but it is fragrant and together they are lovely.
Oh I love Jasmines, but I never knew a yellow one existed too. I learn something new and thanks to your posts I’m learning quite a few things every day.
Gratitude. xo
That’s one of the delightful things for me about the A-to-Z challenge – amidst all the fun lots of learning goes on. I always say I come out smarter in May than I started in April.
Hi Deborah – love this … my mother loved scented flowers and I was always taking something in to the hospitals – always fresh … and one of the nurses was from Kerala, India and mentioned Jasmine flowers were so precious to them … way back in 2009 I wrote a post about it – it’s short and one of my very early ones. So Jasmine … takes me back – cheers Hilary
Oh it’s such a delight to poke through your archives Hilary. I found your post – thank you! – but not before getting side-tracked through other of your fascinating rabbit holes. So much fun.
I must admit I’m not sure what Jasmine smells like, but I do love the color yellow and those gloves and hands are so cool. You are so right about being way smarter in May! Thanks for adding to my education 🙂
Janet, I bet you’ve smelled Jasmine – I’m certain it grows in your area.
Here’s to celebrating how smart we’re all becoming!
Deborah,
I can’t say I recognize a lot of fragrance by smell, so I can’t say that I know what jasmine is like. I’m pretty sure I have caught whiff of it somewhere but not being around it much my brain can’t recollect. Of course, that’s the way it is for most scents. I just don’t them by name. I think I do recall liking jasmine, though. There was a coffee shop in town many years ago called Jasmine. I remember it being good but that’s about it. It didn’t last long, though.I think the location wasn’t the best so it went under. 🙁 I usually don’t like scents on my hands. I avoid getting lotions that have fragrance because it’s too much for my nose. I do like perfume and will wear it on rare occasions. However, I don’t like an overkill, either. Some women knock my socks off with an overpowering scent when they walk past me. lol
I appreciated you taking time to visit me today and for sharing this fragrant post.
~Curious as a Cathy
A2Z iPad Art Sketches ‘Jars & Jelly’
I don’t like overpowering scent either Cathy. I want to be able to enjoy my own scent, and if someone else wants to they can lean in a bit.
Who doesn’t like flowers. And to make a confession, I always loved the name Jasmine. Love the smell of it. Beautiful.
There’s much to love about Jasmine, and clearly you do Priya. Thanks for stopping by today.
Hi Deborah I love Jasmine and I often feel that it would be lovely to dress as they did in the past with hat and gloves. We are so casual in dressing these days. I have sent you an email re a link party I co-host if you are interested. Have a great day!
I could get behind the wearing of hats for sure – I love them. My mother was a milliner so I think it’s in my blood.
I’ll keep my eye out for your email.
I love plants too! and try very hard not to kill them. We have a high chain link fence in the backyard of the oneacrewoods and it is covered with jasmine, like a hedge. It has a powerful fragrance and bleeds sticky, white juice when I trim it.
The book does sound inspiring. I’m going to think on that… Thanks for an interesting idea.
Oh Shirley your jasmine “wall” sounds fabulous!
‘Botanical talismans’ – I am entirely in awe of that concept and the book you’ve described. Poison rings are scary – not in themselves, but in the underlying reasons for their existence, yikes.
It’s true the idea behind poison rings is scary, but they’re great fun to carry a tiny treasure. Sometimes I put a tiny little herkimer diamond in the secret hiding place, and I feel immensely rich carrying a hidden diamond. 🙂
I had a few smiles reading this Deborah thank you! Jasmine is usually the first scent to sound the arrival of Spring here in South Africa. I just love it and will pluck a few stems of it for the house. Surprisingly some people don’t like it, or the smell of lilies. On occasion when I’ve had a meeting at my home, I’ve been asked to remove the offending beauts. Which makes me think of the beauty in the poison ring ..
Driving from the airport yesterday to Plettenberg Bay, the smell of fyn bos always reminds me of being ‘home’ in this part of the world. It is a scent I remember from my childhood days … And again, some people don’t like it. I guess for some, potions are poison?
Thank you for this jolly great post!
Although it makes sense that we all have different preferences and so might not like the same things, I find these inherent differences in all our senses quite curious. For example, I’m one of the people who really dislikes the taste of cilantro – it definitely tastes soapy to me. Recently I read that a study found a small DNA variation in a cluster of olfactory receptor genes that is strongly associated with the perception of a “soapy” taste in cilantro. Perhaps when we cracked all the DNA coding some of these mysteries will be clearer.
I had to look up fyn bos as I was unfamiliar with the term. You sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole Susan, and now the Cape Floral Kingdom is whispering to me to investigate more. Thank you!
“Be still my heart.” This ode you’ve created for this singular glove—love it.
All your posts are beautiful Deborah but today I’m finding it difficult to move to the next thing to read.
Is it the book you mention and its effect on you?
Is it the jasmine?
Or is it words like: “fabulousity” or phrases like :”Yet a hand can’t just live by glove alone.”?
I don’t know.
Have just come back from my evening walk which at this time of the year is always infused with jasmine because a few houses on our walking route have large jasmine bushes growing in their gardens.
I can’t have enough of jasmine–I have a few favourite ones from India: juhi, mogra and chameli.
K is for Katara
Thank you for your kind words Arti – they indeed make me smile.
And how fabulous to have such a scented walk to enjoy! I have oils from all three of the jasmines you’ve mentioned and I think they are fabulous too, each in their own right.
This post made me think of the girl living next door, who’s called Jasmine. A sweet child, who unfortunately has had to endure to much already. She reminds me, of myself in some ways.
My favorite sent is Magnolia, but I love also the smell of all kinds of blossoms and grass. I am allergic to grass and blossoms usually makes me sneeze a lot too, but it won’t stop me from enjoying them, hihi
May your young neighbor Jasmine grow to know herself as the beautiful being she is in perfect wholeness!
So many lovely scents to enjoy! Sorry you have allergies Patty – but maybe you consider your sneezes musical accompaniment to your sniffing. 🙂