My journey as The Untamed Alchemist began in the wild and wise places on and around my mormor’s farm in Denmark: that’s where the magic of aromatics, food, crafts, folklore, and nature first found me.
The farm is where I first experienced the Mother Earth chemistry behind sourdough bread and pickled beets. It was in her cellar I first pulled onions from a braid and from her coop I first fetched eggs for breakfast. The farm was homespun and hand-dyed yarn, handmade pottery, home cooked meals, and hygge. The farm was heirlooms and legacy, folklore and fairy tales. It was from that cobbled courtyard I’d pedal my bike to the fabled Elverhoej, the elf hill, to daydream about fairies, gnomes, witches, and elves. That farm had seasons and harvests and moods and times; it was alive, dynamic, changing, enchanted.
The farm was magical, sacred, soulful: it was the source of the passions and purpose behind The Untamed Alchemist™.
My ongoing love for things first discovered on the farm pushed me into new spaces and places.
As an au pair on another farm in Denmark, my connection and experience grew. I became truly intimate with proofing, baking, pickling, and canning. I cut my teeth in planning meals and gardens to nourish 20 people on the farm. I spent time in the barn, the kitchen, the sewing table, the laundry room, the fields, and the living quarters. Days were pots and pans and spoons and spatulas and trowels and bowls and buckets and baskets and needles and yarn. I experienced living, growing, and making things in their season year-round and I was hooked.
Ultimately, my desire to go back to school sent me back to the U.S. to pursue a degree in Mother Earth chemistry, folklore, mythology, women’s studies, archetypes, philosophy, religion, and ritual.
It was in school that I was first able to really percolate my passions by engaging with herbs, essential oils, liberation theology, magic, philosophy, and archetypes in one cauldron.
To pay the bills, I began selling spell and ritual kits, natural soaps, goddess perfumes, custom Tarot bags, and bespoke blends; I continued creating and fulfilling custom orders and recurring requests while growing my business and marketing career. All the while, I continued to brew, craft, grow, and blend. Ever curious, I actively expanded my learning in new areas that called to me.
In 2012, I put my attention to my primary passions–writing, creating, and teaching–full time.
I anchored my identity and my business in untamed alchemy, my name for the ongoing process of transformation that yields the individuated Self, as it directly celebrates how my relationships with aromatics, herbs, oils, food, nature, magic, and life continue to heal and reveal me.
Like all alchemy, untamed alchemy involves the transformation of seemingly common, base, or mundane materials into an uncommon, precious, and exceptional new thing that is altogether different… and much more than the sum of its original parts.
Untamed alchemy represents my active endeavor to challenge, learn, improve, heal, grow, serve, and celebrate; it represents the relationship with Self, my world, and the sacred magic both imminent and immanent in all of them.
The process of becoming through untamed alchemy is dynamic, wild, purposeful, sacred, and ongoing. At its core, it celebrates the extraordinary process of finding, losing, re-discovering, and reclaiming one’s Self.
My work as The Untamed Alchemist™ and through my business, Untamed Alchemy®, reflect my passions: aromatics, herbs, oils, food, nature, magic, symbology, mythology, archetypes, astrology, liberation theology, divination, crafting, blending, brewing, gardening, and creating.
As The Untamed Alchemist™, I share my recipes, discoveries, insights, madness, and magic as an inspired storyteller, enthusiastic foodie, reverent aromatic celebrant, irreverent dirt worshipper, biodynamic gardener, haphazard creatrix, energetic teacher, armchair botanist, and joyful soul.
In articles, presentations, online courses, podcasts, and hands-on workshops, I share the magic, inspiration, healing, humor, and humility that I experience in nature, art, science, and lore. I emphasize deepening engagement with life, especially through contemplative and intentional relationship and thoughtful, hands-on creation.
Through Untamed Alchemy®, I offer exceptional blends, products, tools, and kits celebrating aromatics, herbs, handmade crafts, and magic specializing in custom blends, bespoke spell kits, goddess kits, and seasonal subscription boxes for witches; products, kits, and sets are designed to facilitate purposeful engagement with aromatics, archetypes, and outcomes. In addition to serving individuals with finished and custom Untamed Alchemy® products, I also consult, formulate, and advise companies and corporate clients. (Note: I am only fulfilling recurring orders and subscription boxes for existing clients for the time being as the bulk of my time is focused on the work of completing the aromatherapy documentary Uncommon Scents.)
I invite you to engage, play, learn, discover, question, sit, simmer, grow, challenge, soar, shine, and join me in exploring and celebrating the symbology, lore, archetypes, signatures, and wild, divine magic of nature and her gifts.
I pray something here is good for you. I am in gratitude for your time and attention; it’s a privilege to share this journey with you.
BLESS & BLESSED BE!
Kristina, The Untamed Alchemist