Halloween is on the horizon and darkness is gradually bookmarking the days here in London. It's the time of the year that calls us like a siren into the gloom. From here, we will bemoan the cold and rain, sink into sadness and blame ourselves for not having the willpower that comes so easily with the sun. Oh, the familiar slipstream of winter despondency.
I was struck, therefore, to hear Daisy Edgar-Jones say recently, in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, that she would choose London over LA, because the relentless sunshine in LA almost gaslights her mood. It made me wonder: do we actually need the darkness? Can we benefit from the cold, hard retreat? And might there be something rather beautiful in learning not merely to tolerate these things, but to appreciate them?
A tree grows in two directions: its roots respond to gravity, reaching down into the earth, while its shoots reach upwards towards the light; gravitropism and phototropism. It is an extraordinary balance: to grow tall, it must first grow deep. Its roots push through dense, dark soil, navigating resistance, expanding and strengthening a structure that will one day support everything above ground. All this growth takes place out of sight. Not only does it eventually allow for the budding and fruit, but it also becomes the communication system for the overall health of the tree.
Unlike the trees, we have the added complication of human consciousness and emotion. And these can be unreliable narrators. We are very quick to gather guilt around exhaustion, shame around sadness, anger around perceived failure or despondency and this internal criticism creates a much less efficient "root communication system"...which then has a direct negative impact on our budding/fruiting part.
So let's spin the familiar slipstream into something altogether sunnier: buy a lovely raincoat or work from bed with a steaming cup of tea. Look upon the dark, often unseen, times that took extraordinary strength to just make it through the day with nothing but tenderness and pride. Gather up the guilt and shame and bury them in that dark earth to nourish the mushrooms, feed the worms and become part of the rich sediment from which something new might grow; fortify our roots (rather than weaken them) and improve our internal and external comms.
And finally, look hard in the dark with curiosity (see 'Roots' below). Capture the glimmers and glean the gems. Consider how far our roots might have travelled beneath the surface, even when we felt we were going nowhere at all.
Olivia x
BTS
I’m so pleased to be joining Sean Pritchard at the Atmosfloric Emporium for The Art of Scent: A Sensory Journey with Vanderohe, on Monday 16 November at 2pm.
Over an hour and a half, we’ll explore the emotions and memories evoked by plant oils, before blending a personal scent to bottle and take home. I love the idea of beginning with an instinct, a remembered place or a feeling, and following it through scent.
Each guest will also leave with our Nourishing Face Serum. Tickets are £100, all materials are provided, and no experience is needed. Places are limited, and I can’t wait to journey through scent with you.
Book your place
Roots
Not my usual note from the garden, but as I'm on the theme of roots, and because there is nothing noteworthy to report from my sad patch of garden, I will dedicate this section to Amar Kanwar's exhibition at London's Serpentine North Gallery, where I recently watched fragments of extraordinary beauty emerge from the complete darkness.
In The Peacock's Graveyard, a poetic visual essay unfolds across seven screens. Flowers glisten on water, light dances across delicate petals and images appear and disappear like fleeting memories. Elsewhere, birds perch along a wire, and backlit sheets of text offer quiet meditations on darkness, memory and the human condition.
One of the exhibition's works, Such a Morning, follows a professor who retreats into an abandoned railway carriage, deliberately blocking out the light to explore forty-nine different kinds of darkness. What an interesting proposition: that we might deliberately retreat into darkness to discover something from it, rather than simply seeking a way out of it.
Kanwar's films explore difficult histories of violence, displacement and loss, yet there is an extraordinary tenderness in his attention to the natural world. I found something deeply moving about the way those small moments of beauty revealed themselves against the black. How much more precious the glimmer of light seems, the trembling of a flower, when everything surrounding it is dark.
Amar Kanwar, Serpentine North Gallery, London. Until 31 January 2027. Free admission.
Body
The cold turns nails dry and brittle so quickly. I'm using my Vanderohe Hand, Nail & Hair Serum before bed to help strengthen and support healthy nail growth.
The scent of this serum is very personal to me. I formulated it based on a landscape that once offered me warmth, salty air and the feeling of being able to breathe a little more freely. Every time I open the bottle, I'm taken back to quiet evenings walking by the sea, running my hands along the rosemary bushes and smelling its sweet scent on my skin and in the air.
Long Haul
I’m returning to infrared, using a sauna session at least once a day. I’m also bringing my red light helmet back into the routine, hoping to support hair growth through winter, alongside a red light eye mask for those early school-run mornings when my face feels several hours behind the rest of me.
Mind
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet has left me struggling to start another book. It took me several attempts to get into My Brilliant Friend, but I'm so glad I persisted. What an expansive, layered and beautiful representation of the coming of age of Lena and Lila. Their friendship, the neighbourhood, the shifting loyalties and the pull between staying and escaping have continued to occupy my mind. Their naivety, mistakes, resilience and bravery. The plight of women in that time. We watch the girls change, contradict themselves, return to old patterns and discover new ones. I was left with the message that true love lies within one's own creativity and, amazingly, that same message echoed back to me through a brilliant friend of my own last week.
