The Star

Cutting The Cord

I’ve been dreading writing this particular blog post. 

When I was in the coven that turned into a cult, I promised all of the members that I would make a scent that encapsulated each one of them. I wanted something that really spoke to each of them. The Star was my first fragrance for one of the members, and it was made for the one whom I wholeheartedly loved the most—the Baker. 

Initially, the Star was called the Baker because of that. I’ve been doing a ton of podcast appearances lately, some of which are already up. You can find them in the About Us section. I talk about how everyone in the group made something: one made candles, one made jewelry, and one was a baker.

The Baker was my favorite member of the group. I could easily have seen her becoming my best friend and us doing basically everything together. She was the easiest to make a fragrance for. I asked her what fragrance she was wearing currently. She didn’t wear anything except occasionally lavender or patchouli oil. I made sure both of those were in there. She was also just this calming presence, so chamomile. Because she was a baker, I put chocolate in there, just intuitively. She laughed when I told her because she said she eats chocolate whenever she is stressed out, so it fit the vibe. I also added cannabis because of her love for the material and her desire to make food items infused with cannabis extracts. 

To talk a little bit more about the Baker, I will say that after I left the cult and realized it was a cult, I went to this New Age center in Sedona, Arizona. I had done a great deal of work, both spiritually and therapeutically, and everything was saying the same thing: do a cord-cutting. So I paid someone to lead me through this visualization that was trippy as fuck (but not as trippy as the session I did this last time I went to Arizona, which will be for another blog post). We went through everyone in the group one by one, starting with the leader. When we got to the Baker for last. I struggled. 

“I don’t want to cut my cord with her.”

“Melissa, that’s not how this works. You have to do it with everyone. And you keeping the cord with her is only going to be challenging for both of you.”

I had made it through the whole session. I talked about being in the cult, everything that had happened, and everything that I was still struggling with, without crying. I had even entirely given in to the whole woo-woo of past-life regression to find out when I met the other members of the group (my most recent past life was in Italy, which, ironically, explains a lot). I could not do this. 

“You care about her, right? Just let her be and let her go.”

“Ok,” I replied. 

And then I shed my first tear.