Arbor Day and DSH Perfumes The Voice of Trees

Way back when I was in elementary school we used to celebrate Arbor Day each year. This was before there was literally a holiday for every day of the year, before Save the Earth became a movement, and before the world's forests were being mowed down for monetary gain. I can remember my third grade class tromping out to the front of our brand new school, the lawn barren of  sheltering trees. Our principal Mr. Baird (how funny that I can't remember what I did two days ago but remember this name clearly) took a spade and dug into the earth, symbolically creating a hole for the sapling that shivered in the breeze.

Today Arbor Day has gotten lost in the shuffle but the concept remains a good one: plant a tree for future generations to enjoy. There is renewed interest about the healing properties of communing with nature and the Japanese have coined a phrase to describe the experience: Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing. This is the recognition that immersion in natural environments such as forests provide healing and well being. I have this theory that if we provided every child in America, regardless of means, with camping or nature experiences while young it would cut down drastically in future violence. There is something mystical about walking silently through a forest and hearing the rustling and whispers from the surrounding trees.

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Dawn Spencer Hurwitz is in close proximity to many forests from her perch in the high mountains surrounding Boulder, Colorado. On the DSH Perfume website, Dawn writes that the inspiration for The Voice of Trees came from very early childhood memories while camping and hearing the trees "speaking".  "As far back as I can remember I have loved the scent of pine needles, the early days of Autumn with soft rains and fallen Maple leaves, balsams on the poplar trees, and the scent of dry amber stuck to the bark of conifers, warmed by the sun," Dawn says. "For me this fragrance is pure pleasure, the embodiment of "the talking trees".

To wear The Voice of Trees is to have a mini "forest bathing" experience. Recently Dawn has been experimenting with Japanese-centric perfumes, particularly in her Haiku series: Japanese Moonlight, and although this fragrance was launched in 2015 before the inception of this series, it has that contemplative homage that I find in her Japanese-inspired scents. The opening is conifers, that hit of scent as you near a forest trail. It includes the green dampness of a needle-padded carpet beneath the trees, the sharp scent of pine needles and beads of sap, and the bitterness and smokiness of pinon pine. I have always felt a spiritual connection when surrounded by God's gift of nature in all its beauty and majesty,  and resinous and incense notes in The Voice of Trees symbolically infer you are in nature's temple. Woody notes of maple leaf, poplar buds, and sycamore accord add to the forest air. What I find most beautiful are the resinous and amber notes. I can smell the sticky pine sap that has hardened to amber resin, the balsamic aspects of balsam fir, and a faint smokey incense that threads through the life of the scent.

Image from www.ThriftyFun.com

The Voice of Trees isn't at all a vibrant Christmas-type pine scent. Rather it is the solitary walk through the trees, introspective and restorative, bathed in the scent of the trees and open to their message. Wear it for it's natural beauty; enjoy it's meditative qualities.

The Voice of Trees comes in a variety of sizes and is also available as a cream on the DSHPerfumes.com website. It is 98.5% botanical.

Top photo from www.OutdoorFamiliesOnline.com. Perfume sample from my own collection.