Arabella meets with Wiji Lacsamana for a little chat about love of life, women friendships, astrology and how wine brings together people and brings forth memories in a pretty little package tied together with sensory evocations. Read on to find out more about our dear friend Wiji! 

Arabella: Part of what we enjoy about drinking wine is being reminded of familiar scents that give us access to memories, as someone who makes perfumes we’d like to ask, If there’s only one scent in the world that’s left for you to smell what would it be?

Wiji: It's the subtle scents I cannot live without, very quiet reminders from the earth that the daylight is shifting, the winds are blowing a different direction, the seeds have been planted. This is a very difficult question! I love the quiet early morning air scent when you are about to go on a road trip--when you turn off the aircon in the car, put the windows down and feel the breeze on your face. It's a combination of things and always different depending on where you are, sometimes the smell of the ocean, or smoke of burning leaves, or the smell of tires on a dusty road. But I also love when summer is about to bloom: I always try to smell the very very subtle, almost elusive scent of mango flowers.

Arabella: We’ve known about your ever-evolving practices from your illustrations, tattoos, and reiki healing, and now you’ve started offering astrology readings (please correct me if my term is wrong).  Knowing that you’re very intentional about each craft, what made you decide to delve into astrology? Or should we ask what made you fall in love with astrology?

Wiji: When I was a kid I thought I wanted to be an astronaut or an astronomer, only to find out that these careers involved a lot of math and science. I guess what I was thinking of when I was a kid was I just wanted to marvel at the planets and the stars and the moon and connect with them somehow, even if I didn't quite understand just how connected everything is at that time. I feel like I was always bound to astrology, I just had to step into the right time and place for it, the same way I did with my other practices. But perhaps my fascination for astrology really deepened during the lockdowns that happened in 2020, when I found space and time to read up on books lent to me and bought in used bookstores (some of them actually fell on me while perusing selections. I've observed that most spiritually-inclined books land on me like that, literally falling on me.) Some of these books include a book on Kabbalistic astrology lent to me, a basic guide to understanding my birth chart that fell on me and cost 50 pesos at Booksale. I was, like the majority of the people in the world during the outbreak of the pandemic, going through so much internally as well. I was trying to understand myself more, I was trying to understand the timing of it all and astrology really helped me clarify a lot of the patterns I've been using in my life.

Arabella: What’s your favorite thing about astrology? 

Wiji: My favorite thing about astrology is that it gives us more compassion for others and more importantly,to ourselves. When we understand the patterns that have been existing in our lives, we can identify why we react a certain way, why we choose to be the way we are--and when we see it clearly, we can hopefully make peace, in our little ways, with our past. It also empowers me to step powerfully into who I truly am. Astrology helps me embrace the most authentic me. I also love that because astrology shows us the patterns, we can choose to step into who we want to be or decline parts of us that no longer serve us well.

Arabella: We’re curious, name a woman you think we should get to know and why!

Wiji: Another very hard question but because I am still marvelling and bathing in her words, after all this time: Maria Popova. Not only for her wisdom and her words, but because she brings to us marvelous stories about women who have transcended boundaries set by their time and spaces. Figuring, Maria Popova's book is one of my favorites of all time and I want all my friends to read this book, the women especially. The book narrates (and very beautifully so) the lives of so many remarkable women from different eras--the struggles most have had to deal with, but more remarkably, scoffed at. 

Arabella: What do you love most about being a woman in this world in this time-space?

Wiji: I love that I come from a generation that is witnessing a bigger shift towards celebrating the divine feminine. The previous eras have been so unkind to female energies and those who identify with this energy. I feel like now we have gathered so much momentum and understanding as to how powerful the feminine is. We are stepping into our power and celebrating who we are now more than ever before.

Arabella: We shared sips of Kindeli’s Primavera, we thought there was no one else more fitting to share this bottle with, you kind of remind us of the fox on the wine label! What’s your first impression of the wine? How do you feel about it?

Wiji: Thank you for sharing Primavera with me! I enjoyed it very much so as you can probably tell from the photographs and I love the illustration so much! It feels like a summer wine, if there is such a thing. Wine you drink on summer afternoons with friends, talking about beach plans and books read, records played. Light and happy. 

Arabella: What do you love about Natural wine?

Wiji: I love the taste! Look I am no wine expert, but everytime I drink natural wine, regardless of what kind or brand it is, I've always really loved the flavor. They always taste the way they are described! I also love that I don't get headaches from drinking natural wines hehe! I don't know if this happens (or doesn't happen) for everyone, but I find that I do not get hangovers or headaches when I just drink natural wines.

Arabella: What’s your favorite wine-stained memory?

Wiji: Wine nights with my female friends are always such a great time. There is one in particular, too many years ago, but it was at night and all my favorite women were there and we just sat on the stairway of the entrance to the restaurant, just talking about life, always encouraging each other to pick the paths that will nurture the best versions of ourselves. Female friendships are so underrated for the amount of love and joy that we derive from them. 

Thanks for reading and a happy International Women's Month to all you beautiful, strong ladies out there. Cheers!