Culture: 411 posts

Uncle Vladimir, diadia Volodya, passed away in his sleep in his home in Israel. He was in his 80s. He fell ill with polio when he was a child during WWII. The first doctor he ever saw, a German surgeon in another occupied village, told my grandmother that her son was as good as dead. “Just leave him here.” My grandmother was exhausted after a long journey and her own illness and at first she did. She put her child on a bench and started walking away. Volodya remembers seeing her leave. He didn’t cry. He didn’t call out to his mother. He just held his breath. My grandmother had already lost one son to a fatal disease. Her sister was shot in front of her by the Nazi troops. She remembered feeling nothing but numbness and complete depletion. She walked and walked and then she turned around and ran back to the bench. She picked up her son and returned to the village.

Volodya didn’t die. He survived polio with almost all of his muscles atrophied and his spine twisted. He spent his childhood and teenage years in a wheelchair. Then a friend gave him a bootleg copy of a yoga manual and my uncle studied it until the book fell apart and he stood up on his own. He never learned to walk straight and he never regained control of his right arm, but he enrolled into the university, learned engineering on his own and built his own sound-recording devices. He married and fathered a daughter, my cousin Marina, who eventually moved him to Israel.

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Day 22 in Ukraine.

Sunlight’s soft ballet
through lace of old curtains—
glimpses of empty streets.

—

Dusk descends quietly
Sirens wail through the stillness,
Stars fade from the sky.

—

Awoken at night
Flashes tear through the darkness,
Dawn feels far away.

Another day arrives. Why is time flying so fast? A week ago, I had a dream about waking up in the middle of an explosion (it was only a drone shot down in the fields nearby). In my dream, my house was in ruins, my dress was torn and I didn’t know where to go. I ran inside a large building and up a staircase. At the top of it stood a man holding my passport. “I found you,” he said. “Let’s go to Japan and open a porcelain studio.” (I had no idea that this was my subliminal desire, but fine, I’ll take it.)

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I returned to Ukraine after a long absence. After a flight, several trains and a sleepless night in a small town in Poland, I watched the familiar countryside roll past the window and felt like I was in a dream. I imagined this scene countless times. I dreamed about it only to wake up with tears. Now I was looking at orchards laden with fruit and freshly harvested wheat fields and I tried to remember every detail, every leaf, every blade of grass.

Many people asked me why I wanted to return now. I explained that I could afford to take some time off from work this fall, that I could buy a ticket, etc. These were all practical reasons, but they didn’t capture the essence of what propelled me to return. The place where we’re born shapes us deeply. For someone like me who lived most of her life abroad in many different countries, the idea of home can be difficult to define. Today I know that my home is the place that draws me back despite all of the practical considerations. Returning to Ukraine during war, living through the daily reality of rocket attacks, air raid sirens and near constant blackouts, I feel at peace.

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Due to a last-minute change, I have a space available in our Scent Training Masterclass on August 24, Saturday, 6pm-7:30pm CET (12pm-1:30pm EST).
Location: Zoom
Class duration: 1.5 hours
55€ SOLD OUT

I enjoy recreating historical fragrances. Even when modern materials are used, the combinations turn out to be so unusual and memorable that finding more sources for antique formulas becomes a quest. My incense journey began while I was conducting research for the ISIPCA course I’m teaching this fall, focusing on the cultural and historical significance of fragrance. As I delved into the subject, my interest in the ancient practices of China, particularly the art of incense, grew stronger. I was already familiar with Japanese incense from my university studies and travels and I knew that the tradition came to Japan from China during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and evolved into its own form. Learning about the original incense recipes and the scent philosophy in China thrilled me as it reminded me once again how deep and complex are the interactions between scent and culture, fragrance and art, perfume and society.

Incense was considered one of three “refined arts” in ancient China, along with tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Some of the earliest mentions of incense combinations date to the 3rd century BCE. As still remains the case, agarwood, the petrified wood of the aquilaria species, was the prized fragrance material, admired in its own right. Ancient texts mention frankincense and clove as ingredients to add facets to agarwood and lend it a different character, depending on the incense blender’s mood and artistic choices. Chinese women even mixed incense into makeup powders to paint their eyebrows black.
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‘This is a tree of life.’ Pani Olga’s fingers traced the embroidery on a rushnyk depicting a fantastical plant. From its branches sprouted opulent blossoms. ‘It means that the embroiderer dreamed of a long life and a big family.’

‘This is Beregynya, a safe keeper.’ Pani Olga drew my attention to a figure, ample of hip and bosom, holding branches laden with grapes and flowers. ‘It was embroidered by someone to protect a loved one from harm.’ The image had none of the Orthodox sobriety and harkened back to the old animistic religion of the Slavs, who worshipped the spirits of plants, animals, birds and rocks.

From The Rooster House

A simple piece of cloth can hold a wealth of meaning. Rushnyk (plural: rushnyky) is a traditional Ukrainian ritual cloth, intricately adorned with symbolic patterns and motifs. Although at its most basic, a rushnyk is a hand towel, the word evokes much more to a Ukrainian. These cloths hold significant cultural and spiritual value in Ukrainian heritage, representing a blend of art, tradition, and identity. During much of Ukraine’s history, when expressing thoughts freely had dangerous consequences, a rushnyk served as a repository of encoded messages. It could be a declaration of love, celebration of freedom or of a yearning for escape.

Reading these secret messages in the embroideries on rushnyky became my obsession during my trips to Ukraine. I had a wonderful teacher and a partner on this quest, a lady I met at our local church in Poltava. Pani Olga plays an important role in my book The Rooster House, especially because of her knowledge about rushnyky and traditional arts. Thread by thread I unraveled the family mystery and became an avid lover of rushnyky embroideries.

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