So what's actually in there vol. II, winter bundle edition

photo by Natahlie Kemna featuring Kakalina Kakao x Love.Bound

Dear friends and fellow travellers,

We hope you're all enjoying our winter bundle. It's made with the heartfelt intent to help you get through these few remaining cold months with peace and steadfastness. Allow us to tell you about our journey in creating this bundle and how we selected the ingredients whose essence may bless your space even as you read this.

As you may have read, our plant-given mission is to help you create a deep connection with our plants' souls that is not only pure in terms of ingredients, but also in terms of conscience, ecological impact, recognition of traditions, etc. We are delighted to say that we have found our soulmates (soul-couple?) in the kindhearted Anne and Ricardo of restorative farm Bodemzicht. We'll tell you all about these amazing people and this magical place in the near future. What matters for now is that we have been blessed with a supplier of herbs that we could only dream of. They can provide us with plants that have been cared for deeply, were grown with joy and who bring back life to our own local ecosystem.

The future is bright and spring is coming!

Sounds great, right? It does! But growing plants with love in a no-dig ecosystem takes time.

And you guys cleared our stock of bundles only 30 days after we opened. So we had the choice to either close the shop and not send out any plant-helpers to you for a whole long winter, or to try and shop mainstream for our winter bundle *shudder* So what did we do? We swallowed our pride and tried to make the best of it in order to continue our mission.

We began our search with looking for delicious green pine, a perfect start when making a bundle for celebrating winter. The pines we know have been with us for a long time, as we grew up around the forest on the hills of Berg en Dal. So we knew where to find them, walking the routes we have walked many times in our youth. We were careful not to take too much and only from large trees. The scent of the pine resin on our hands when we picked their prickly plumes was intense, promising a strong fragrance when we would finally get to burn them. We concluded this modest harvest by thanking each tree in a moment of prayer whilst burning the last of our own summer bundles. This pine's scent is now here for you: relaxing, perfect for times of restorarion and reflection.

We are happy and grateful to share this part of our childhood with you in this way.

For our sage, we chose Californain white sage from a respectful harvester who pledges not to harvest from Native American crops and with respect for the plant. Sounds cool, right? Well, not really. Honestly, we don't ever want to import sage again, especially not from America. Don't get us wrong, it's an amazing plant. It's soothing, more etherial than the thick and layered smoke of the green sage that grows locally.

Also, it's the plant that Sjir had his first deep conversation with.* But this plant is sacred to the Native American people who we deeply respect as our teachers and inspiration. Moreover, the line of trust between us and the self-proclaimed ethical harvester is very long and thin: we really can't ever check whether plant and culture is respected during the harvest. And the more we learn about this plant and it's cultural meaning, the more we feel we have something to set right. We're getting in touch with Native American representatives to see how to move forward in this matter - we want to do whatever is neccessary to amend for this mistake and make sure you can enjoy sage with a clear conscience. Leave that to us. That being said, white sage is just an amazing ingredient. And for now, this plant is here for you.

So enjoy it's smoke and soul with all your heart, let us savor her presence. And if after enjoying our winter bundle you would ever like to meet her again, please visit her in America where she grows naturally.

For our roses, we visited local sustainable florist Potsierlijk and chose the big, colourful roses whose petals you now see in our bundle. When they arrived to us we immediately realised the contrast between our hand-picked summer roses and these professional beauties from a large-scale rose farm: we saw hundreds of perfectly grown roses, with hardly an imperfection to be seen. Their sublte scent fits right into the winter feels with the organge and pine, and they look especially gorgeous. We're very glad to add these

sustainable beauties to your bundle. Yes, they're amazing. Yet you know 'sustainable' is not up to par in our book - we're going restorative as soon as possible.

As for the lavender, it is plain lavender. Aromatic, slender and colourful - yet not organic nor grown especially sustainably. The same goes for the gypsum (the cute white fuzzies you see in our winter bundle) you find alongside it. It looks, feels and smells like winter, peace and comfort. And we'd have loved to be able to get them from sustainable and organic sources, but we didn't find any. It is what it is. Lastly, we dried juicy Spanish oranges from our organic supermarket and added them to our bundle. When burnt, it gives off a sweet and spicy fragrance. Often combined with cloves and cinnamon in European winter beverages such as German Gluhwein or spanish sangria, you can almost taste these spices in the orange smoke. Mmmm...

So there you have it, the story of our winter bundle. Some parts we are proud of, some we wish we could have done better. In all things, we believe it is best to be honest and not make things look better than they are.

They say winter is a time of turning inward, calmly preparing for a new cycle of blossoming, fruiting and harvesting. It's about staying grounded and trusting that better tides will come when the time is right. We feel the same about our winter bundle: these were hard times for us, but we know that our time of blossoming will come soon. And for all the ways this bundle could have been improved, it is created with our heartfelt intention to help you align with winter and heed nature's call for restoration.