Human Flower Project
To Sleep Like a King, Lavenderly
How do you sense Hospitality?
In the morning, chez Ben, Bourbon County, KY
Photo: Julie Ardery
We have now slept like royalty. This did not require wearing a jewel-encrusted stocking cap, praying with a bishop or dreaming of lances. It was a matter of spending the night at the house of cousin Ben. Despite a major health debacle, which prevents him from walking, he still rolls out the red carpet. A guest feels like a queen.
Here was our bedroom. How many flowers to you detect? Delphiniums, daisies, yes. But did you miss the duvet? Its shade of blue is a hint. Ben had stuffed this bedcover with lavender from his garden. When we lay down, the scent at first was powerfully stimulating, as in GOOD HOLY YIKES! After a few deep breaths, though, we were off to LavenderLand.
This herb, which maintained some civility during many plumbing-poor centuries, has come back strong. There are loads of companies big, and mainly small, selling lavender soap, sachets, pillows, eye-compresses, teas, all to soothe you. One claims that lavender can “induce sleep, ease stress and relieve depression. It is also used as a tea, to make compresses for dressing wounds and to apply to the forehead to relieve congestion on sinuses, headaches, hangovers, tiredness, tension and exhaustion.” Just about everything but bend over for the morning newspaper and pay the veterinarian.
We’ve learned that Charles VI of France was especially fond of lavender. He’s said to have “calmed his nerves by sitting upon lavender filled cushions.” Lavendula spica also kept the moths from eating all the palace tapestries. England’s Queen Elizabeth the First preferred her lavender in jelly on the table.
On an earlier visit to Ben’s farm, between Paris and Cynthiana, Kentucky, we sampled some lavender honey. Not to be unduly impressed with his own experiments, Ben remarked that it tasted “like cough syrup.”
And truly, all that night beneath the lavender duvet, we didn’t cough once. Thank you for your hospitality, Ben.
Comments
Julie, I absolutely love this idea! Sleeping under lavender...wow. This sounds like the perfect way to get an incredibly restful night’s sleep.
Tell uncle Ben my wife and I will be there for the holidays! 
Thanks Julie for the best blog in the world!
November 1, 2006
I use lavender water as my cologne--after the woman at Crabtree and Evelyn assured me that “the women love it.” I see there might be something to it.
When I was in Ireland in 2000, I had lavender ice cream. It’s a great pastel purple color and tastes great after you get over the association with soap. I like it so much my wife Anne had the local ice cream store make up a gallon for my birthday--most independent places will do that for you as long as you get a minimum quantity.
And of course there’s the color of lavender. Fields of lavender always look great.
So I endorse its use wherever.
NICK
After buying cookies at Greenbergs on the upper east side to acknowledge Alexandra’s tennis season, I headed to Kee for a few chocolate truffles for Kathy. A tiny hole in the wall just south off Spring on Thompson, I bought four truffles: almond, cognac, black sesame, and lavender. Lavender was tiny with a flower face. Kathy said it would make us sleep well. Don’t know yet, but it was a good truffle.
We eagerly await the “morning after” lavender truffle report!
JB has an intriguing blog: Eyes Not Sold
http://www.eyesnotsold.blogspot.com/
Check it out for a mix of high finance analysis, recipes, and rock and roll.
Thanks for stopping by, JB…
It seems that cousin Ben knows how to receive guests, or he knows his guests very well. Nothing compares with a good sleep in a bed like that and in the company of such royal flowers. Yes, I am a Lavender fan myself; its smell takes me up in Heavens. It is very good that it is again considered as it should be.