Throughout history, women have quietly shaped the world of healing – through touch, ritual, knowledge of the natural world, and a deep intuitive connection to the body. While some were revered and recorded, many more worked in kitchens, gardens, and quiet rooms, offering care that was as spiritual as it was physical.
Long before medicine became clinical, women were healers: midwives, herbalists, mystics, nurses, and carers of their communities. They worked with the resources they had – plants, prayer, energy, breath, and scent. They created rituals of comfort. And they listened.
This post is a small tribute to just a few of those women – and to the timeless, natural tools they used. It’s also a nod to the way we continue that tradition today – even in the simple act of lighting a candle.
A medieval abbess and mystic, Hildegard was a composer (you really should listen to some of her work its mind blowing!) herbalist, visionary, and healer. She believed in the healing power of nature and created written works on plants, the elements, and the connection between body and spirit.
Most of us know her as the founder of modern nursing, but Nightingale also believed deeply in environmental healing. She championed the importance of clean air, sunlight, quiet, and calm surroundings – centuries before “wellness” was a concept. Her work reminds us that healing happens not just in pills and procedures, but in the spaces we create around ourselves.
A Mazatec curandera (healer) from Mexico, Maria Sabina worked with sacred mushrooms and ritual song to facilitate deep emotional and spiritual healing. Her approach to medicine was intimate, intuitive, and rooted in nature’s sacred language. She reminds us that healing is not just physical – it’s a return to wholeness.
Though not a healer in the traditional sense, Carson’s work protected one of our greatest sources of healing: the Earth. Her book Silent Spring sparked the modern environmental movement, calling for respect and stewardship of the natural world – one that gives us food, medicine, and life itself.
These women – and so many unnamed others – worked with nature, not against it. They understood that healing comes in many forms: rest, scent, silence, nourishment, care. And though times have changed, that wisdom is still with us.
In my own way, I’ve tried to carry a little of that forward – creating pure essential oil candles, diffusers, and wax melts that honour the therapeutic power of scent. Each piece is hand-poured into fine bone china vessels – minimal, timeless, and designed to bring calm without clutter.
These products are a nod to the rituals women have always known:
You don’t need to be a mystic or a nurse to be a healer. If you care, soothe, restore, or hold space – for yourself or for others – you are part of this legacy. Lighting a candle, making a tea, creating a quiet moment… these are modern rituals with ancient roots.
So next time you light one of my candles, know that it’s more than just scent or style. It’s a small return to the wisdom that women have always known:
That healing lives in the little things.
And so does beauty.
