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The Fascinating Story of Henna Tattoos

by admin | Jun 26, 2021 | Henna Tattoos, Uncategorized

Henna tattoos are all the rage these days, but many people do not realize that Indian Henna has a long and storied history – tracing back many centuries. The Henna plant itself dates all the way back to ancient Egypt, when it was presented as a gift to Queen Mumtaz of India.

The ruling Mughals soon became familiar with Indian Henna, noting its use as both a beauty product and a decorative product for the skin. Henna was especially prized for wedding ceremonies, where it was used to decorate the bride and make her even more beautiful for her new husband.

In fact, the use of Indian Henna for tattoos dates back at least 5,000 years, when it was used by the ancient Egyptians to decorate their hands and nails, and even their fingers and toes. The Pharaohs were said to be especially fond of Henna, even having their bodies stained with the product before they were mummified and entombed for the trip to the next world.

Henna has long been revered as a symbol of good luck, and it is often applied to the skin right before important events. Perhaps that is why Indian Henna was so popular for wedding ceremonies. The tradition of applying Henna to the skin for good luck has been documented in many parts of the world, including not only India and Egypt but Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Turkey as well.

The World of Henna Tattoos

Tattoos have played a major role in cultures around the world, from the Middle East and Africa to Asia and the Americas. For many thousands of years men and women have used tattoos not only as decoration but as an integral part of tribal rites and rituals. Tattoos were used to distinguish individuals, show rank and welcome young people into adulthood. While modern tattoo art is mostly about good looks and individual expression, ancient Indian Henna tattoo art was mainly about culture and tradition.

Indian Henna was often used along with other popular dyes like indigo to create a temporary decoration for the skin. The result was body art that was both great looking and long-lasting. Indian Henna in particular was revered for its ability to give the skin a deep and lustrous hue that was highly prized in cultures around the world.

Tattoo artists use the leaves of the Henna plant, which grows throughout India and much of South Asia, to create their masterpieces. The leaves of the plant are dried and used to create colorfast dyes in a range of shades. These dyes range in hue from the palest brown to the darkest russet reds – and everything in between. The leaves of the Indian Henna plant can be used to dye not only skin but hair and fingernails as well. Henna dye is also commonly used on clothing to create distinctive patterns and shades. In the world of traditional and alternative medicine, Indian Henna has often been used as a treatment for sunburn as well.

The art of Henna dying and Henna tattoo has been practiced for literally thousands of years, primarily in India and Egypt, but also in other parts of the world. As people traveled from India and the Middle East, the art of Henna tattooing began to spread. People from other parts of the world were immediately taken with the beautiful designs tattooed on the skin and the clothing of those travelers, and they looked for a way to recreate that look for themselves.

The interest in Indian Henna continues to this day, and there has been quite an increase in the number of Henna tattoo providers over the past couple of years. In fact, many people prefer the look of a quality Indian Henna tattoo to the traditional version. Henna tattoos have been around for at least the last 5,000 years, and chances are they will remain popular well into the future.

Mother Nature’s Magic

by admin | Feb 28, 2020 | Asheville, Lifestyle, Self-Discovery, Uncategorized, Women

By JeanAnn Taylor

This past January I ran into that brick wall known as, The Flu. It was a hard hit that put me in bed for over a week. When The Flu hits, you have no decisions to make; it makes them for you. The only thing to do is to wait until The Flu says, “You can get up now.”

While lying in bed day after day, I had time to think about what I want 2020 to look like. Of course I’ll keep dancing.

Of course I’ll continue to sew, crochet, paint, and write; but what needs to change to make my life fuller, happier, healthier? The answer I came up with is to spend more time outside. Like most people I know, my life in work and play demands indoor time. Yet being in nature—surrounded by growing, buzzing, tweeting, blooming, and other enchanting mysteries—has so many benefits good for our body and soul; outdoor time is worth making a priority.

In the 1990s, the Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku began. As many Japanese traditions follow common sense, simplicity, intention, and authenticity, this practice, which translates into “forest bathing” is another way to live with these virtuous ideals. Forest bathing doesn’t require water, bubble bath, or a soaking tub. It simply requires that you spend time in nature where your mind can meander with no predestined intention. The only requirement is that you slow down and notice. As you wander through the woods or park, be mindful of the scent of blooming honeysuckle. Pay attention to how the wind feels as it blows across your skin. Touch a tree and observe how rough or smooth the bark feels on your hand. Look up and watch as birds fly above you. Listen as leaves crunch under your boots, as a waterfall cascades into the river, and as a songbird alerts her family of your presence. Be awed while watching butterflies puddle at the river bank, as bees flit from flower to flower, and as water bugs dive into the lake. Walk barefoot to absorb electrons from the earth, and dip your toes into the icy water of a mountain stream.

An important component of forest bathing is in the action of walking. Walking is considered to be the single most important thing we can do to improve our health. Along with reducing stress, managing our weight, and warding off many diseases, walking inspires creative thinking by delivering more blood flow to the brain. Without the distractions of cell phones, emails, and to-do lists, your mind is free to unconsciously process ideas and predicaments. Answers to questions and dilemmas that seem impossibly overwhelming often appear as if by magic. Combine walking with nature-focus and epiphanies can happen.

Spending time outdoors can also help us sleep better at night. The natural rhythms of light and dark can be distorted by our modern lifestyle of constant, artificial lighting. Going outside to watch the sunrise or sunset, or to gaze at the stars, can help to reset our internal clock. Awareness of weather also keeps our days and months from blending into each other. When we spend our lives in a controlled climate, every day feels the same and we mindlessly miss the experience of the seasons. This can lead to a loss of perspective.

This spring, take a walk in the woods to look for tiny wildflowers popping up to say, “Hello.” Breathe in the fresh, cool air, and feel inspired at a waterfall. What you’ll find as you lose yourself in nature is—yourself. Go outside, follow your nose, and accept the healing gift of outdoor wonder.

Please send your thoughts and ideas to me at [email protected]

The Persistence of . . . Uh . . . I Forget

by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 28, 2020 | Asheville, Body Language, Feldenkrais Method, Uncategorized

By Lavinia Plonka

Salvador Dali’s unforgettable image of watches dripping off branches has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. Time can melt, but never disappear, like the memory of an event. Except of course, it’s not true. Memory itself melts, distorts and recreates itself with a logic that defies science.

My husband Ron has no memory at all when it comes to social plans. I rack my brain trying to understand what trauma he had in his childhood that would make him incapable of remembering that we have tickets for the theater, that we’ve had the tickets for six weeks, that he loves this play and was the one who said he wanted to go. I’ll hear him on the phone, planning to get together with someone for the night we have the tickets. I try to get his attention. He hates when I try to talk to him while he’s on the phone. Never mind that he tries to talk to me while I’m on the phone, that’s another rant.
He’ll say to his friend, “Hold on a second Jeff. My wife is jumping up and down with something that can’t wait.”

“You can’t meet Jeff tomorrow, we have tickets for the theater.”
“What theater?”

“Um, Hamlet? Remember?”

“Yeah, I know the play.”

“No! They’re doing Hamlet downtown, we have tickets for tomorrow!”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you!? You picked up the tickets!”

“I did? I did! But that was weeks ago.”

“Right. But we haven’t gone to the show yet, didn’t you notice?”

“Of course I know we haven’t.” There is an uncertain pause. “Damn, I’ve seen so many productions of Hamlet. I wouldn’t know if I went or not. You have to write these dates on the calendar.”

I mutely point to the calendar, which is right in front of him, where I have written, HAMLET.

He uncovers the phone. “Uh, yeah, Jeff, we can’t do it tomorrow. It seems we have theater tickets . . . ”

I used to pride myself on my impeccable memory. My family called me “ST”, for Steel Trap. Why look something up when you could just call Lavinia for obscure song lyrics or a forgotten recipe? Until recently, it seemed to me that women in general are better able to hold details like whose turn it is to do the dishes, or when was the last time you took a toilet bowl brush in your hand, with greater precision than the male mind. Ron’s memory seemed sharpest when reminiscing about his youthful exploits. We can go to a party where he will have a delightful conversation with someone we’ve met several times, and then later that evening, when recalling the conversation, he can’t remember the person’s name. Yet the other day, an envelope appeared in our mailbox with an unfamiliar name. Ron came home and I called out to him, “You got a letter from someone I never heard of. From Ohio. Some guy named Robert Morris.”

“Ah,” says Ron, without even a pause. “My lifeguarding buddy at Cheesequake State Park back in ’62.” Then he spends a half hour trying to remember where he put his reading glasses, which are hanging around his neck.

Then it happened to me. I ignored some of the first moments I was caught. Not showing up for a lunch date because I forgot to look at my book. Forgetting my brother-in-law’s birthday. And then the shortest short term memory loss event in history: I misplaced my red clippers while I was using them. I had them. I put them down, got some Hollytone to sprinkle around the azaleas. I went back to pick them up. They were gone. I searched the area. Under the bushes. In the wheelbarrow. I went into the house in case I had gone in for something, (had I gone in for something? I couldn’t remember). I even looked in my car in case, in a moment of complete sleep I thought the clippers needed a ride. I decided to blame aliens. They had abducted my clippers. They were collecting earth items for an art show in space. Some day, they would dump all the stuff they had stolen on someone’s house in Iowa. I just knew it.

The other night, Ron and I went to a concert. In all the excitement of actually arriving early enough to have a glass of wine in the lobby (an essay on downsizing life’s thrills is forthcoming), Ron forgot his shoulder bag on the floor. Once seated in the theater, he suddenly realized what he had done and bolted out to retrieve it. While he was gone, the women in the row behind us began to talk.

“I have totally lost my short term memory.”

“I know, isn’t it awful?”

“One of the worst things is when you see an old movie and suddenly you realize, ‘wait, I’ve seen this before!”

“Sometimes I see the whole movie and don’t remember any of it from before!”

“You know what’s really bad. It’s when you actually rent a movie, bring it home, and then realize that you’ve seen it before. Has that ever happened to you?

Long pause, then, “I don’t know.”

We recently had a beautiful new patio built of concrete interlocking bricks. We were so proud, like parents of a new child, standing arm in arm, admiring our new patio. The next morning, the patio was riddled with tiny volcanoes as armies of ants tunneled their way through the joints to create their little condos in the brick foundation we had so thoughtfully provided for them. Ron became obsessed, starting with hot water, proceeding to boric acid, and then Windex. I came home one day to find him with a hypodermic syringe, on his hands and knees, injecting something into the seams of the bricks.

“What are you injecting?”

Silence. He looks up. “Someone told me they hate pee.”

“You’re injecting pee into the holes? How did you get the pee into the syringe? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

When the pee didn’t work (plus, I really didn’t enjoy the odor, although the ants liked it fine), someone suggested grits. “OK, I’ll pick up the grits after work,” I grunted.

When I got home, Ron asked for the grits. I had forgotten to pick up the grits. “Hallelujah!” he cried. “I’m not the only one who forgets!”

The next day, he called me from the market. “Yellow grits? Instant grits? Quick grits? Grits with cheddar and bacon? Cheese flavored grits?” We settled on yellow.

“Oh, by the way, while you’re there,” I say, “Could you pick up some Epsom salts?”

“Sure.”

That night, I ask for the Epsom salts. He looks up at me blankly. Smiles. “I forgot.”

“How could you forget, I talked to you in the store!”

He shrugs. “That’s how it happens. You just forget.”

Body language expert, Lavinia Plonka has taught The Feldenkrais Method for over 25 years.

For more information, visit her at laviniaplonka.com