Murmur of Wings: The Scent-ual Life

I was so excited when Athena graciously agreed to let me interview her about her magical life. Athena's products are so beautifully crafted.

Opening a package from Sage Goddess is like opening up an ancient book of secrets- full of magic and wonder and the most tantalizing scents! Athena's products will invoke your inner goddess!

Since today is the Blue Moon I am honored to share with you the magic of Sage Goddess. Enjoy!

The Scent-ual life with Athena Perrakis of Sage Goddess

1. How did you get started creating and concocting your delicious offerings?

I love this question – I actually had to stop and think about when I began because I’ve been creating magical items for a long time. When I was 18 and living in Los Angeles I took a variety of metaphysical courses in aromatherapy, soap making, Wicca, and even a course called “sacred connections” where we studied ancient correspondences. I also interned at night helping a spiritual friend launch her own business in a beautiful store in Redondo Beach, CA near where I was living at the time. I made bath salts and soaps for her and packaged her items with ribbons and flowers. She gave me total freedom to experiment and engaged my creativity. I learned the bulk of what I do today in those courses and through those experiences.

2. You are a descendant of healers and gypsies? How do you honor your heritage?

Yes, I’m very lucky – I have strong healing roots. On my paternal side, I’m the great-granddaughter of the chief medicine woman of Crete, a Greek island south of the mainland where all of my father’s family comes from. My great-grandmother had apprentices who came to live near and work with/learn from her. People sailed seas to see her. It’s humbling to be in her line. On my maternal side I have equally magical things happening; my mother descends from Massasoit, the sachem of the Wampanoag tribe in the northeastern United States. All the women in her line have had strong psychic abilities, including among other things the ability to do automatic writing and remote viewing. So you could say that what I do is most definitely in my blood! I honor my heritage through keeping of Old Ways that resonate with both my Mediterranean and Native American lineage. This requires deep meditation, disciplined practice, familial story-sharing, and the ability to listen exquisitely and exclusively to my own voice. More than 90% of my products were born in dreamstate, where the specific recipes, ingredients, and poetry for the candle labels have been given to me verbatim.

3. What does soul work mean to you?
Soul work to me means honoring your roots and seeking your soul’s purpose in this particular lifetime. It’s the process of finding out who you are and differentiating your authentic self from the versions of you that others have imposed on or expected from you over time. And it’s never done. When you start thinking you’re close to finished, like “yeah I’ve got this soul work thing figured out!” the Universe comes along to remind you that yeah, you don’t. When you’re done, you’ll transition to the next realm. That’s how you’ll know!

4. What is your favorite offering in your shop?

Ha! Each time I create something new and bring an idea to life it becomes my favorite thing. I’d have to say that the recent oils I’ve created in what has become the Magica line (there’s a Magica Rosa, Magica Luna, and coming in October a Magica Nocta or Night Magic). Each one is complex and contains rare oils that I sourced from all over the planet, including some very remote locations. I spared no expense in creating them because I was called to make something exotic and completely different from anything I had ever seen or smelled or worn before. My other favorite thing is my Dea perfume, which is my personal scent. I’ve worn that oil for 25 years. People who know me well can attest that Dea is “me”. It’s fun to share my personal scent with my customer base.

5. What crystal is your favorite and why?

An impossible question but I’ll try to answer. I should tell you that I love the rare and exotic, but I also love my “workhorse” stones like black tourmaline and red jasper – they never fail me. They are look old trusted advisors who I turn to when I need wise counsel. My favorite of all time is labradorite. It’s the stone of the dark moon and it completely intoxicates me. I have a gorgeous pendant that I bought decades ago. I feel like Queen of Everything when I wear that pendant! I often give labradorite as gifts and prescribe it as medicine to those who need a self-esteem boost, men and women alike.

6. When did you discover you had a calling to create magical tools for sacred practice?

I have known since I was a small child that I was different from other people. The calling to make magic began in middle school and was affirmed in later teenage years. I’m 39 now and sometimes find it jarring to say that I have more than two decades of experience as a magical practitioner, but I do. My first creation was the perfume oil now known as Dea that has been my signature scent since high school. I have always been a spiritual and creative trend-setter. I am good at sourcing and building ideas, things, and products that others who are “my kind” will also love and appreciate. I have my finger on the kindred pulse.

7. How would you encourage women to honor the goddess within?

The goddess within us often resides in the parts of ourselves society rejects or which have gotten us “in trouble” so we repress them. The goddess is an amalgam of your best self and your base instincts, your light and your shadow.

To do goddess work (and it really is work) you have to first be willing to the soul archaeology necessary to dig up the bones and fossils of your spirit. Where I come in is in helping to put all the piece back together and polish them to a bright shining finish.

8. You travel as a part of your "day job", how do you create sacred space away from home?

I always travel with white sage because I spend so much time in hotel rooms, and you have to clear that stuck energy out! I also travel with a few gems and my perfume oil. I bring my meditation playlist in iTunes as well as my crystal signing bowl soundtrack. I carve out 15” a night to reconnect to the divine. Interestingly, I almost always travel at the full moon. I’m still trying to figure out the meaning behind that coincidence!

9. You are lost in a foreign city. What do you do?

If it’s domestic, I search “metaphysical” in Yelp and cab my way to the nearest crystal/gem/pagan store I can find. If it’s international, I find my way to one of those shops or I seek the nearest garden space and get barefoot on grass. I actually do get lost from time to time - rarely on accident. Not all who wander …

10. Sage Goddess just launched a beautiful website. What does the future hold for your business?

Incredible courses and live rituals that I hope will be attended by people on all continents and from all walks of life. New lines of products. An apprenticeship opportunity. And The Book. I’ve been carrying around The Book in my mind and heart for a decade and it’s itching to be set free. I’d like to say this is all in my one-year plan but I’m trying not to impose a linear time structure on the process and just be with what unfolds.