Photo by Sarah Christiansen

The Adventures of a Renaissance Woman

"She loves you, ya ya ya, she loves you, ya ya ya...she loves you ya ya ya ya.........." The Beatles

As a modern Renaissance woman, I spent part of my very early years traveling through Europe and the Middle East.  After landing in Dublin and spending a few weeks there traveling with my childhood friend, staying in a gracious hostel getting to know our fellow travelers who were adventurous men and women from around the world, we took the ferry boat from Dun Laoghaire, Ireland over the Irish Sea to Holyhead, Wales.  After a quick stop at Gloustershire, England to visit our friend Jeanne Theodore (now Jeanne O'Malley of Melbourne, Australia)  we landed in London where we took a flat in the Kensington area of London in 1968, when the Beatles were England's biggest import.  I would often go to the SoHo area where I would buy the outrageous men's clothes that were popular and send them back to my brothers here in the states.   The streets were full of mini skirted girls with long English legs and eyelashes painted on, big clunky shoes, and a lot of what later came to be called "attitude".  The pirate radio stations were broadcasting Beatles music illegally from offshore stations, and everywhere there was an air of England's own Renaissance.  

The next leg of the adventure continued when my friend and I got jobs in Copenhagen, where I worked as an 'au pair' and managed the art gallery (Gallery Allen) during the day for the beautiful art gallery owner Jytte Allen (who now owns the Portobello Antique Shop in Vancouver, Canada, which has been chosen several times as Vancouver's finest 18th century/Art Deco) and my friend worked for the District Attorney of Copenhagen.  Jytte was also, at that time, the manager of Copenhagen's Palace Hotel.  During the day, after I fed the children and took them to school, I was in charge of her art gallery, which received an occasional visitor during the day.  Jytte had paintings from artists all over the world and I loved the paintings.  We lived over a smoke shop on Store Koningskade, in an apartment that had been remodeled since in earlier years it housed the king's mistress and the Danes are very open minded about that sort of thing.  The apartment had a beautiful courtyard which was quiet and tucked away in the middle of the busy city.  We lived a block from the King's winter palace and just a short walk from the Little Mermaid.  I could walk to the Danish ballet theater, where I was privileged to see the famous ballet superstar, Rudolph Nureyev, dance.  Also that year I saw the famous Swedish ballet master, Erik Bruhn, dance Carmen, which was the hottest ballet I have ever seen.  After the ballet my friends and I would go to the Magazin du Nord, where there was an outdoor cafe with hot lights and we would sip the hot spiced wine they served and watch our breath and huddle under our winter coats while we watched the lovely women dressed in evening gowns and fur coats who were also coming with their escorts from the ballet.  It was a beautiful winter scene, near the canals, with everyone talking animatedly about the ballet under the canopy of hot lights that kept us warm.

During that year Jytte generously invited me to her parties where artists, and writers, actors, and film directors, and fascinating people from all walks of life shared their philosophy of life with me and it was an incredible education and great fun.  Jytte had the most incredible charisma and threw great parties.  During that year I met famous writers, journalists, movie directors, African hunters, movie stars, political figures, and artists from all over the world.  I still count Jytte as one of my friends and I talk to her occasionally at her home in Vancouver, where she has an antique shop, Portobello Antiques.  

Also while in Copenhagen, I attended Danish language classes at the University of Copenhagen and met people from behind what was then called the Iron Curtain, the communist block countries.  Many of these people had escaped to freedom risking their lives and leaving families behind.  I became more aware of the kind of risks much of the rest of the world lives with daily.

During a short trip to Israel I stayed in Rehovot, a town near Tel Aviv, with a family involved in work at the Weisman Institute.    I got up early and took the bus to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv often during my stay.  It was the year after the Six Day War and the spirit in the country was very high.  But there were bars on the bus, and a group of tourists who took the same tour I did, to the Golan Heights, two weeks later were shelled, and several  killed.  It woke me up to the constant danger that much of the rest of the world lives with on a daily basis.

My wander lust then took me to Manhattan, where I lived with artists at Pratt Art School and I experienced the art scene.  George McNeal, Willem De Kooning, were the big names in the art world and teaching at Pratt, and a beautiful young woman, Eva Hesse, was just making her splash on the New York art scene.  I lived there for several months and studied film at the New School for Social Research before I returned to Michigan to be near my family and to finish attending Michigan State University.

It is here through a series of what I can only call "fated circumstances" where my journey into astrology and natural perfumery begins.  

The uses of astrology and the uses of pure essential oils in natural perfume blending and holistic healing is an area of fascinating study of the evolution of  civilization, and so a requisite study for anyone interested in a true understanding themselves and their world.  For anyone who wants a depth of knowledge about the world we live in, these are among the most important subjects to learn.  Psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who valued the ancient arts and the uses of intuition and had an astrologer he consulted regularly to cast charts for his patients, said "Astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity".

To me it holds all the mysteries and all the symbols of the ages of our civilization.  I am amazed when people who know nothing of it, or discount it.  It is a great key to understanding many things.   When I teach it, I teach it as a means of self development, including a way to develop your own intuition.  My own interest did not come until later in life, until I had seen and experienced much of the world.  

email Lynne at lynnecrandall@caravansrai.com