Breathing with Water: From Mitosaya in Chiba to London’s Clerkenwell Design Week
Earlier this month, we joined the annual gathering at Mitosaya, set in a former medical herb garden and home to a botanical distillery. Not only was the weather pristine that day but the space was idyllic, lending itself for a weekend getaway themed ‘Fragrance Garden’. The garden around Mitosaya is more like a park and invites you for walks around the property to enjoy the wide range of plants.
Botanical Offerings and the Power of Scent
We were honored to share our botanically-infused offerings— hydrosols, essential oils, and ritual tools, like palo santo and frankincense —with a community eager to reconnect with nature through scent and stillness.
It was wonderful to witness how people upon smelling our essential oils like rose geranium and copaiba came to pause and allow themselves to drift off for a moment to go on a journey within. The plants spoke and people listened to what came up for them. Scent has the amazing ability to offer an immediate intimate encounter with oneself and nature.
There’s something profoundly healing about gathering in nature and giving people space to let go and reconnect with themselves and nature.
Clerkenwell Design Week
Shifting gears to the buzzing streets of London, where Clerkenwell Design Week is happening right now. This year’s design competition, “Shaping Water,” was organised by Dezeen in collaboration with Villeroy & Boch and Ideal Standard, and celebrates the essence of water for Clerkenwell Design Week.
Designers were asked to explore both the functional and aesthetic qualities of water, highlighting its dynamic nature and its transformative impact on wellbeing.
The theme of this centre piece feels very timely and relevant to our work with botanical waters (hydrosols) as it brings design, nature and wellness together.
Whilst the winning project of this competition is Harmonic Tides by Arthur Mamou-Mani, an immersive installation, inspired by the natural flow of water - a space for healing, reflection, and calm; our attention was drawn to the shortlisted installation proposal “Legacy Mist” by Vincent Yee Foo Lai, co-founder of Temporary Office. A tribute to Dr. John Frost, the 19th-century physician and botanist who founded St. John’s Hospital and the Medico-Botanical Society—located at the very site of the installation. As visitors pass through a cloud of botanically-infused vapour, they encounter not only the scented wisdom of global traditions but also an invitation to pause, breathe and feel – a contemporary act of public care.
Kosmic Alchemy's Philosophy
At Kosmic Alchemy, we deeply relate to this. We believe that scent is not just an aesthetic but intentional choice - a path to energetic, transformational healing. Scent has the power of altering the atmosphere of a space and the people within it in an instant. It gives access to the invisible, a desire, a feeling held that needs release or attention. Scent holds the power to re-tune us and the entire field around us.
Future installations of this kind in a time where so much is virtual, overstimulated and distracted, are a great antidote and allow for us to return to the body, the breath, and the sacred, which is deeply needed right now.
It is reaffirming our values are also reflected in current trends in design and architecture. This natural evolution of the public realm moving more towards wellness and spirituality is something we feel is a necessity for our wellbeing and happiness.
As we prepare for future gatherings both in Japan and hopefully also abroad, we are inspired by the convergence we see in London: a homage to water that brings us back in touch with nature.
From the green and luscious hills of Japan to the cobblestone streets of London, a global shift is happening. People are reconnecting, spaces are reminding. And breath is becoming a ritual again.
We’re here for it.
Natalie
Kosmic Alchemy
