Our Story
Our family has long had a deep connection to preserving and taking care of the environment around us. We have all felt strongly about working with nature and in our own ways doing our best to take care of it and be the guardians of the earth, we all came here to be.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Our story begins at our family farm in Whangateau, my grandmother Elizabeth has owned this property for well over 40 years. My mother Karen grew up here and it is where I was born. It is where my soul feels most at home.
Over the years my grandmother and my uncle have worked together to make our farm what it is today. It was once wide open spaces, but today there are an abundance of trees and plants as far as the eye can see.
So, this is a personal interpretation of the weaving together of three women’s stories, our acquired skills, and our shared love for the Earth.
FIRST GENERATION
My grandmother has worked with plants from medicinal to culinary since she was young. Her knowledge is woven into some of the recipes she has used for many years. With her wealth of knowledge and skills on environmental issues she has often been a voice for the Earth.
For many years, she had a little shop here on our farm selling produce, plants, homemade jams, teas, she even made toys out of sheep skin and sold her own hand drawings of flowers and nature.
As you can tell, creativity runs in our family and my grandmother has always been a great source of inspiration to me.
Years ago, my grandmother wrote her own herbal book on a type writer with hand draw pictures. I am in the process of re-writing it into a digital version so we can print hard copies to share with you!
SECOND GENERATION
My mother has worked with aromatherapy and medicinal plants since I can remember as a child. Nature was our pharmacy. Mum made a lot of her own medicine including tinctures, balms and poultices and teas. She also went on to sell plants and herbs in the little shop here.
In the 90s, she ventured into aromatherapy where she started selling the same blends we make now for 3 Sacred Generations. Her essence and years of knowledge are intertwined in the aromatherapy range we now offer, and she also hand grows and harvests the majority of the plants and herbs in our tea range.
Her incredible love for the plant kingdom has evolved over the years and I have often seen her as my medicine plant woman. She has a special touch when it comes to looking after plants and growing them, and has spent endless hours tending to her garden as her mother does.
THIRD GENERATION
After a decade abroad, I returned home to New Zealand, it was then I was able to truly appreciate that our family had all these beautiful pieces of wisdom and skills they had worked on over the years.
As I observed my family and their wisdom, I understood that if I did not continue this on in some way, it would disappear when they depart this world. I felt a strong calling to honour and uphold their traditions as we did with many of our ancestors before us. I knew it was my responsibility to bring all these together in a way that incorporates all of our unique skills.
It seems I was destined to to be a lover of nature, it's in my blood. You'll often find me tending to the gardens or sitting in nature meditating or just soaking in the sounds and the beauty of her. Like my mother and grandmother before me, I love to design and create things with my hands, whether its writing or designing something made from nature including food.
My other passion is music. There's something magic about how music touches your soul that I just adore. For me, not a day goes by without listening to music. Along my journey I have found a love for utilising sound for healing. There is something deeply profound in working with music to heal.
For me, 3 Sacred generations is another form of my creative expression. With each item I use ceremonial and sacred practices to honour and respect all life forms that have gone into creating these products. I feel this is something many other cultures incorporated into the items they also created. I aim to weave our stories together like many traditional cultures did in their own ways.
I must mention my uncle’s skills are also woven into this, as he is the wood turner in our family. All of the wood items we sell are from the trees grown on our family farm. Ideally, I would love to have the three generations of male energy woven in one day, but that's a work in progress.
I HAVE HAD FOR YEARS AN INTEREST IN MAKING MY OWN PRODUCTS, AND STARTED WITH A GENERAL HOUSE CLEANER. THAT EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS INTO THEN MAKING MY OWN LAUNDRY LIQUID, DEODORANT AND NATURALLY LEAD ME TO START MAKING MY OWN BEAUTY PRODUCTS.
UNCOVERING THE BEAUTY WITHIN
I noticed that even in myself I was in a way sold this idea of what beauty was and we often in our world focus on the external. Leaving out the most important one, our internal beauty.
In time I came to understand we have to believe it in ourselves, no amount of external validation can make us feel beautiful inside. Nor any amount of makeup or changing our hair colour, nails or even having surgical procedures will make us truly feel it within us.
It took many years but I slowly stopped using any makeup or doing my hair and nails. I wanted to experiment with re-discovering the beauty inside myself and not needing external beauty to deflect from what I might feel about me. Within this process I also looked at how much junk is in so many products we use on our skin and bodies. To say the least, I was shocked.
So many ingredients I did not even know what they were. I knew our skin is our largest organ so I considered that this cannot be that healthy having all of these things going into our bodies through our skin. There is so much money poured into the beauty industry (the external side mainly) and so much plastic, cruelty of animals and exploitation of humans along the way.
I wanted to create something that was an example of how beauty should not cost the Earth around us. It is time for a shift in what we purchase and what impact it has on the Earth including us! It's okay of course to take care of our bodies but it should not be at a price to the world around us. If we can cultivate beauty within us, it will follow us wherever we go. I like the idea of simple, yet effective and as natural as possible.
IN TIME IT MADE SENSE TO ME TO MAKE MY OWN FACE AND BODY OILS, MASKS AND BEAUTY PRODUCTS THAT CONTAIN NO MORE THE 5-7 NATURAL INGREDIENTS WITH MANY THAT CAN BE FOUND IN COMMON HOUSEHOLDS TODAY.
I also realised that no matter what I did I still have some impact on the Earth even with producing these products. One of the skills I have worked with over the years is to change the energy within and in turn change the energy of the world we experience. These products are ceremonially cleansed in my own unique way and asked for permission even if they had not done so from the origin of the ingredients. For me this is an important aspect as everything in essence is energy.
There was also something else I noticed about our products globally, was that I had no idea who made it and where it comes from. There for me was a disconnect. I couldn’t name a person or hands that this product had originated. Often a product might say made in, “Spain”, but we don’t know by who? If there are 20 ingredients in one product, where do they all come from? Or at least who makes them?
I wanted to create a brand where you know where the product you purchase comes from, and you know that it is made by people not machines. I say we would be hard pressed to look around our room right now and say where each product or item has come from. We may hazard a guess but there is no deeper connection than the country it may have been made.
There is something about handmade, from a person to another being. There is something sacred just in that. The energy transfer of it cannot be replaced by machines. In the creation of this brand I made a decision that no matter how much this brand expands, it will always and only be made by people for the people. From Mother Earth through our hearts and to the hands of the people.
RECONNECTING BACK TO MOTHER EARTH, OUR ANCESTORS AND OUR HEARTS
I have used all of these oil blends for many years as have others and absolutely love everyone. As much as it may sound bias, I have bought other products from all over the world but nothing beats my mother’s blends. I wanted to share these divine blends with others if they so choose to use them. Most days I lather myself often after a shower in a delicious body oil. I love it, it is like a ritual. I trust others will love them too!
My love for the Earth is what inspired me to co-create this business and to let these products be the vehicle of that love and sacred connection to something along the way some of us have forgotten. I wanted to breathe life back into my ancestor’s creative expressions once more. With a vision that for generations to come this will continue to support our family in whatever their needs may be and our greater family, the world around us.
Expanding on this vision is to re-inspire people to come back to the Earth. To take care of her and feel that connection that is always there, just patiently waiting. Once we feel it there is no turning back, it must be felt. No words can create that.
TO PUT IT SIMPLY, THESE PRODUCTS ARE A FORM OF EXPRESSION FOR OUR LOVE FOR NATURE.
That is why everything has been carefully thought about in the creating of this brand and everything except a few products are handmade by us.
From the oils, teas, wooden bowls, wooden scoops, beeswax, honey and more. Nature gifts us half of the gift and we must create something from it.
So, we present to you well-loved recipes from OUR HEARTS TO YOUR HANDS.
Academic credentials:
Degree in Environmental studies
Diploma in herbal studies
Certificate in aromatherapy
Massage therapist
Yoga & sound facilitator