Freyja’s Kiss

You have to do what She says.

During the pandemic, I was pursuing a Ph.D. in Performance Psychology, as I aimed to conduct research on movement in therapy for individuals with communication challenges. But outside of that, I had just moved from Brooklyn to Connecticut, literally a week before everything shut down. Not only did I not get a chance to meet any of my neighbors, but I was also extremely far from my support network. As most people did during the pandemic, I went online.

I took so many classes. Some I had to pay for, some I didn't. I was really into anything spiritual: meditation, philosophy, astrology, pretty much damn near everything woo. I remember taking classes on aspects of spirituality that were previously unknown to me.

One of them was a meditation class. Based on Transcendental Meditation (TM), but it wasn't directly related, the class avoided all of the TM cult flags that I had also developed a hyperfixation on during the pandemic. I have been, and continue to be, obscenely bad at meditation. I accepted a fact about myself a while ago. I am not a sit-down, close my eyes kind of a meditator. I am not built that way. I meditate with movement. I don't run, but that would be a good example of how I function. Even as I write this, I am functioning like an ADHD kid who had unchecked access to Pixi Stix. However, being open to the experience (predominantly out of extreme boredom) allowed me actually to meditate in a traditional sense.

In the second class, I got deep (the first class was like herding sheep, but then things took an upswing). I remember feeling a feminine presence and seeing a symbol. It was a warm, golden amber energy. After the class was over, I Googled the shit out of trying to find the symbol. I'm pretty sure I just wrote "goddess spiral symbol" and looked at the images that popped up until I found something that was close. The same goddess kept coming up on Google.

Freyja.

It connected to the presence that I had experienced in the meditation. It wasn't loving per se, more of a "because I love you, I'm going to kick your ass so you actually do what's good for you." I immediately became obsessed with Her and started making weekly offerings to Her.

So when I decided to make a fragrance company, She was the first goddess to reach out like that, so I knew that She would be my first fragrance. I let Her have free rein over a scent. I put a bunch of fragrance ingredients on my desk and said, "Alright, let me know what you would like."

The scent that came out of that was Freyja's Kiss. The amber in it does not surprise me, but almost everything else in the scent did. Red berries and neroli seem, to me, more connected to Her brother, Freyr. They are siblings, and both are initially Vanir. The combination of everything in Freyja's Kiss did result in something uniquely Freyja- loving and kind, sultry and alluring, confident and strong.

I hope She loves it.