Business

Ritual, Scent & Healing

October 5, 2017 |

Perfume is the smell of creation, a sign dramatically delivered to our senses of the Earth’s regenerative powers – a message of hope and a message of pleasure. – Claude LeFever in Tom Robbins’s “Jitterbug Perfume”

Kate Becker, therapeutic perfumer, at her downtown boutique Ritual by Kate’s Magik. Photo by Julius Schlosburg

Kate Becker, therapeutic perfumer, at her downtown boutique Ritual by Kate’s Magik.
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

The aromatic bodywork offered at Ritual by Kate’s Magik, 215 N. Court Ave., is a luxuriant, transportive, deeply relaxing and meditative experience. It starts with a consultation, a conversation over cool water or warm tea to discuss what ails you physically, emotionally and spiritually. The client is an active participant in this process; it is important to mentally set your intention for receiving and gaining healing work from the therapist.

“How do you want to feel when you leave today?” asks Nicole Mendoza, a Reiki practitioner at Ritual. I tell her about the migraine that split my head open 48 hours earlier and left my body and mind feeling railroaded. I hope this treatment puts me back together enough so I can get some writing projects done, including this article. As with the full-body massages offered, the Reiki bodywork sessions are rooted in the healing powers of laying-on-hands energy, essential oils, and aromatherapy. The therapist selects several oils, which are blended on-site by Kate’s Magik proprietor, therapeutic perfumer, and Reiki Master Teacher Kate Becker. The oil selections are carefully presented to the client’s nostrils, one by one, inhale deeply and let your brain’s olfactory cortex decide.

On this day, my olfactory cortex choses scent number two – which turns out to be Kate’s Magik Creativity & Performance anointing oil. I laugh, as an image of Toucan Sam flashes in my Gen X head – “Follow your nose! It always knows!” It seems to be true. At a previous therapeutic massage treatment, when I was searching for support in creating a healthier lifestyle, I was drawn to the scent of the Isis & Rebirth oil that is meant to, as the Kate’s Magik literature states, “release the old and support new beginnings.” I was sold – hook, line and sinker – on the oils, the treatments, on the power of aromatherapy, and sought to learn scientifically why.

In the 2009 National Geographic book “Brain: The Complete Mind,” the sense of smell is described as a “direct sense” that circumvents the route our other senses take to the brain. “Smell, the most ancient of senses, takes a more direct path. Taste, touch, hearing, and a portion of vision send their electrochemical signals to the brain via the brain stem, which then relays them to the thalamus and on up to the cerebral cortex. Sensation of smell goes straight into the amygdala and olfactory cortex, both parts of the limbic system, without stopping at the thalamus along the way.”1

Most humans are deeply touched by scent, and this is because smell is hardwired “to the brain’s emotional centers,” according to the aforementioned Nat Geo book. It goes on to explain that, when you smell something, “the sensation rushes, practically unfiltered, into the frontal lobes. As the amygdala directly influences the sympathetic branch of the nervous system as well as the nurturing bonds of family, smells can trigger a rise in heartbeat and blood pressure or bring on a feeling of calm and well-being. The latter forms the basis of aromatherapy.”

***

In 2002, Becker alighted in Tucson. She had traveled the world, was born in San Francisco, grew up both in Bern (her mother is Swiss) and New York City (her father a New Yorker), lived in Central America for a time, then settled back in New York City for 10 years. It was in New York where Becker studied with renowned jazz vocalist Nanette Natal, facilitated music connections, worked in various modalities of the healing arts, and was employed at an herb store.

When asked what led her to aromatherapy, Becker shares how the NYC herb store started her on the path of connecting to intention-based work, but it was her mother that informed her background and relationship to essential oils.

“My mother used a lot of essential oils on me when I was little to calm me, but also for earaches – like lavender, chamomile and eucalyptus – some of the regular, medicinal ones were just common in households in Switzerland. I’ve always really resonated with scent. From a young age on, scent was very powerful for me.

“Later on, when I got into aromatherapy and when I started creating my own blends and body oils, I would think about re-creating that feeling that I have with my mom; the way my mom smelled after she came out of the shower. She would put on this oil and it was citrus-y and floral and so warming and joy-inducing.”

When Becker moved to Tucson, she spent the first six months studying essential oils, their therapeutic and medicinal qualities, the folklore behind them and, “how powerful they are when you apply them on your body – they go into your bloodstream, they travel up to four hours within you and help calm you down or wake you up, balance a mood or enhance your sensuality and how it makes you feel when you apply it and smell it, it’s so powerful. And I didn’t at all have the intention of creating a company. I just thought I would create those to sell to my clients when I opened shop as a life coach and maybe locally. But they got feet, the doors just started opening.”

From talking to Kate, it was clear that it was more than doors magically opening, she was prying them asunder with true grit and self-admitted naïve persistence. Becker received an audience with Whole Foods in 2005, and locked in distribution to the chain’s Southern California, Northern California, and New York regions, and eventually six more regions across the country. These days, Whole Foods’ stores comprise about twenty percent of her distribution locales while most her products are in over 200 independent stores nationwide, “which is what I wanted, they are more customer oriented.”

***

For each of the Kate’s Magik anointing oils, aura mists, lotions, teas, diffuser oils, and sacred perfumes, there is a detailed description that explains their intended applications. If you seek more confidence, there is an anointing oil for that, there are anointing oils to help a person with clarity and focus, learning to let go, releasing negativity, among many other qualities we may hope to incorporate into our lives or find freedom from. The point and purpose is to mindfully use these products while working on your stuff.

Becker’s background includes working as a counselor and life coach, which informs her product line. “Everything always starts with my experiences,” she explains. “What has been most challenging for me? Where have I needed the most support or help or guidance? And then work with myself – what are the different tools that work for me? And then I go out from there.”

Kate’s Magik products include oils, teas, lotions, aura mists, and perfumes. Photo by Julius Schlosburg

Kate’s Magik products include oils, teas, lotions, aura mists, and perfumes.
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

***

I am face down on the massage table, breathing deeply, slowly, releasing tension, looking forward to today’s Letting Go Ritual Massage. Vanessa Guss lightly knocks on the door, entering after my muffled grunt of consent. She smudges the room with sage, clears the air with the Heart & Spirit Aura Mist, gently places a heating pad on my shoulders, and sits down at my feet with hot towels. Oh, how we forget how much we beat up our feet! Hot towels, oil, and kneading is so simple, yet so completely transcendent. I’m melting into the massage table, feeling its thick comfy pad underneath high count cotton sheets. Details get hazy when one is semi-conscious, but throughout the massage, Guss is using the Isis & Rebirth and Letting Go oils, working every inch of my body with trained hands and Reiki mindfulness.

Her touch loosens and sooths my muscles, the music lulls me into a different world and the space feels as safe and nurturing as the womb. It’s a spiritual experience rooted in Earthy sensations and scents, which I later learned was likely due to the fact that all of the oil blends are 100 percent natural, no synthetics. My thirsty skin drinks up the moisture. It truly feels like a rebirth.

Reiki may be considered a pseudoscience by a number of scholars and academics, but what they can’t discount is the power of touch – which is the first sense that develops before all others.1 There may not be a reproducible qualitative energy in the lab, but when you are laying on the massage table and feel the heat from the therapist’s hands, your body tells you something else. What mine told me was that I was blessed to receive work by a goddess masseuse.

***

Before Big Pharma, humans relied on plants to cure what ailed them. It’s an ancient science, and some might titter about “new age,” but really, it’s old school. Going back, quite literally, to our roots of utilizing the healing power of plants.

Kate describes the uses of different ingredients, how flower oils can aid in forgiveness and compassion while cedarwood is grounding. “And it does that physically and emotionally for you, so that’s the magic,” she imparts. “It’s magical, what these plants can do for us because everything is here. We came with everything on this planet. And they’re our family, the flowers, the trees, the bark, the root, the seeds, they’re all part of us. We all have a purpose to serve each other and they want to help us.”

***

Becker’s background in the healing arts motivated her to reach people through her oils as a way for her clients to take something home with them, as a reminder of what they are working on. “It becomes your helper, your assistant, your reminder, your supporter. Let’s say you apply Break Patterns & Addictions and you’re asking for assistance, for support around this challenge and every time you smell it, it will remind you of that support.”

What Becker didn’t realize 15 years ago when she started studying essential oils was her knack for blending. Working with oils isn’t easy. They have their own personalities, and some – as Kate said – are hard to wrangle. Tom Robbins wrote a whole book on the challenge of finding a proper base note to a jasmine, citrus combination.

“I learned about all the different oils, and how they blend with each other and what their purposes are – medicinally, therapeutically – but once I sat down to blend them, and the anointing oils were the first line I created – they just kind of happened through me. To this day, now that I do the Bastet Perfume Society, which is a monthly perfume club and I’m having the ability to work with the really exotic high priced and rare oils, it still happens. I’ll make a blend and I can’t believe that I had that much to do with it. I think it’s just something that’s inside me, like musicians who already have the music in them, that’s what it is for me.”

On Saturday, Oct. 28, Becker and crew celebrate the boutique’s two-year anniversary at their Downtown location, 215 N. Court Ave., from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. The free event is dedicated to the Autumn Season, Samhain, and Dia de los Muertos. It will include an alter honoring those past, mini ritual treatments by Vanessa and Nicole, healthy treats and refreshments as well as a sale. Visit KatesMagik.com for product information and RitualTucson.com for information on the boutique. Call 520-422-2642 with inquiries.

  1. Sweeney, Michael S. Brain: The Complete Mind. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2009. Print.

October 2017 Digital Edition

October 4, 2017 |

Read the October 2017 issue of Zocalo Magazine

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December 3, 2015 |

Holiday Gift Guide and a look back at 2015. Read the digital edition here.

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Tucson’s Inaugural 10 West Festival

October 16, 2015 |

10_west An Innovative Way to Drive Economic Development

This month, Tucson creators and entrepreneurs come together for the first ever “10West Festival,” a new and innovative approach to fostering a creative and technological environment in Tucson, with the goal of attracting and retaining talent in Southern Arizona.

To learn more about the festival, Zócalo reached out to Greg Teesdale, Executive Director of 10West. In addition to 10West, Greg delivers curriculum to Startup Tucson accelerator and incubator programs as well as provides senior executive leadership to Startup Tucson.  He is a member of the Desert Angels and also the Chief Financial Officer of Tempronics, a local growth stage technology company and a Desert Angels portfolio company.

Z: Please tell us about 10West and what you hope to accomplish during this inaugural event.

GT: Central to our mission at Startup Tucson is driving economic development in southern Arizona by fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem, creating an environment where technologist and innovators can develop their ideas into real businesses and hold events, like 10West, that reflect these goals.

We describe 10West as the 20-40 year old demographic, the streetcar line geographic and the October 18-24 chronologic. This is the foundation year for an event that will ultimately be identified with Tucson and Southern Arizona on an international level.

The biggest challenge in this inaugural year has been gaining widespread recognition and endorsement of the event. The most important measure of success this year will be in attendance and we’re shooting a combined 5,000 – 10,000 people across all the events. Thinking long-term the true test will be how well we attract and retain talent in Southern Arizona.

Z: Can you describe the three organizational tracks the festival is focused on, why they were identified as such, and their importance to our region?

GT: 10West has been shaped to address the long-term goal of attracting and retaining talent in southern Arizona. When one believes that Southern Arizona is the place to achieve their desired life-work balance they will build careers and chase their entrepreneurial dreams here. The 10West technology track features workshops, panels and talks on cutting edge topics like 3D printing, virtual reality and the internet of things while the entrepreneurship track has sessions on building a company, access to capital and the many skills essential to every entrepreneurs’ toolbox. The 10West creative track addresses the live part of live-work with network mixers, music and entertainment as well as programming on the business of entertainment. Combined, these events are intended to attract the demographic that will be deciding their future.

Z: How is Tucson or Southern Arizona different from other regions in terms of our innovative and creative environment? What sets us apart?

GT: Southern Arizona has a number of features – a great university with a technology transfer agenda, a vibrant arts district, formation capital and, of course, the weather – that are important factors in attracting and retaining businesses and talent. The business community has to continue to get better at leveraging these features.  The one thing that is unique to southern Arizona is the proximity to Mexico.  There are great cross-border things happening and I’m seeing a noticeable up-tick in those activities.  You’ll hear this theme echoed in the words and initiatives being promoted by Ricardo Pineda at the Mexican Consulate, Sandra Watson at the Arizona Commerce Authority and Denny Minano at Sun Corridor.  It is no coincidence that these organizations are active supporters of 10West.

Greg Teesdale, 10West

Greg Teesdale, 10West

Z: What is it going to take to jumpstart a Tucson economic boon, centered around technology, innovation, and creativity?

GT: A common saying in the national startup scene is that you have to take a twenty-year view and every day we start a new twenty years.  While there’s great appeal to the idea of a magic bullet that will “jump start” economic development, success or more likely defined by a long list of small wins.  We’re seeing those kind of small wins every day.  And it takes the cooperation and participation of the collective stakeholders to keep these wins coming.

Z: How did 10West come about? What was the inspiration behind the creation of this festival?

GT: There are two key events in 10West that are the foundation of 10West.  IdeaFunding was founded 19 years ago by Larry Hecker, a local attorney and active member of the business community.  The Desert Angels, the local angel investor group, is the 3rd most active angel group in the US and the host of the Southwest Regional Angel Capital Conference.  The organizing groups around these events felt there was an opportunity to leverage these events into something bigger and broader.

Last February we kicked this thing off at the Startup Tucson offices.  We didn’t have a name, a mission, a logo or a website.  The themes (technology, entrepreneurship, creative class) and definitions (demographics, geographic, chronologic) were all decided early on and we went from there.

Z: What are some of the highlights of the event?

GT: If we’ve done this right the highlight of the event will be different for everybody.  It’s important to us that 10West be viewed in its entirety and not defined by any individual series of events.  Even the events that get the best attendance may not be the most important in the long run. Having said that, the 19th year of IdeaFunding has to stand out.  Larry Hecker’s vision continues to inspire.  The technology and entrepreneur workshops and panels are at the heart of the mission.  The Connected Communities Forum on Monday represents the confluence of technology and public infrastructure and will give us insights into how the Tucson of the future will look and feel.

Z: How is 10West being funded?

GT: 10West is being funded by a variety of financial sponsors from the community including the Arizona Commerce Authority, Research Corporation for Science Advancement, New York Life, the Desert Angels and many others.  In addition we are receiving in-kind sponsorships from our partner organizations such as Hotel Congress, Rialto Theatre, Tucson Museum of Art, Connect Coworking and many others.  Finally we have a number of media sponsors including this magazine, Clear Channel Outdoors, Arizona Daily Star, AZ Bilingual and many others.

Z: What are your plans for subsequent festivals?

GT: During 2015 we have answered the question “What is 10West?”  We intend to build on name recognition and the goodwill of all of those involved to grow and broaden our reach.  Over time we expect to grow regionally, nationally and internationally. We’ve engaged the Hispanic community and expect those connections to draw attendance from Sonora and points south.  There are other legacy October events that may be brought under the 10West umbrella provided they fit the mission of the festival.  10West 2016 is scheduled for October 16-22.

Z: Anything else you would like to add?

GT: There is a lot of support for 10West but, more importantly, there’s even more support for the things that 10West represents.

10West takes place in Downtown Tucson, October 18-24th. For information, including a complete schedule of events, please visit www.10west.co