Blissful Mornings - The Fragrance of the Women

A memory returned—fragrant, not just with flowers, but with fire, broth, and earth.

Sonia had been a young girl then. The island was still, holding its breath as a strange flu

swept through the village. It touched mostly the children—fevers burning in little bodies,

their eyes dull, their spirits dimmed. The floral gatherings the island women would later

become known for had not always existed. Their way of communing had blossomed from

triumph, not tradition.

Her grandfather, Hesu , stood steady during that time. It was he who quietly believed that

the illness had arrived on the wind—borne by mosquitoes from a foreign boat. But it was

Maria—a woman of soft presence and sharp knowing—who remembered what to do.

She broke open a coconut, dried the husk under the sun, and burned it—smoke rising like a

ribbon of prayer. The scent filled the air like an ancestral lullaby.

Together, they anointed doorways, window panes, puddles—every inch of soil touched by still water—with the

husk’s sacred smoke. A blessing of protection carried on flame and wind.

Then came another remembering. One of Salud’s farm shoppers suggested a tincture:

ginger, oregano, cloves, and calamansi. The women pressed and infused the oils into a

warming tonic, gently poured into the mouths of the fevered. And they cooked—together.

Soups were stirred with moringa leaves, mung beans, chiles, and taro.

A coconut drink was chilled and shared. It wasn’t just nourishment—it was nature’s embrace.

In no time, the children began to return to life, like blossoms after a storm.

From that day forward, the women gathered every three moons—not just to prevent illness,

but to celebrate their covenant with nature. They adorned themselves with jasmine and

Ylang Ylang not as decoration, but as devotion. They honored the earth. Honored each other.

And passed this sacred way of healing through generations.

Now, in the hush of the canoe, as Ylang Ylang drifts toward Sonia on the breeze, she

remembers: The healing was never a miracle.

It was a remembering.

-Bliss Chains Authors