By Jennifer Langille with Elizabeth Spence
Jennifer writes:
It was a fresh July evening, and I was on my kneeling pad, weeding the vegetable garden. FAT (finger-and-thumb) weeding has always been my preferred method. Direct hands-on. Personal involvement.
The birds were singing their summer tune and I was blissfully lost in my task.
The automatic watering had just finished, leaving the soil cool, moist and fresh.
Finished with the parsnips, I moved on to the carrot bed. I playfully stuck my head deep into a row of fresh green fronds, and
– WHOOSH –
there was a sudden, palpable rush.
I was blissfully and euphorically bathing in the sweet scent of the moist soil.
Petrichor! Petrichor! Petrichor!
In the dim, green shadows of the secret under-canopy-world of my garden, I felt an intense wash of serotonin, a neuron-squeeze of endorphins, and a surge of oxytocin.
Transported into a secret world.
And this is why I garden.
This is why I endure sweat, dirt, bug bites, sore muscles, cuts and scrapes. Or rather – this is why I love all of these things.
That moment, amongst my carrot fronds, I found the true peace, wellness and healing that the earth generates in us while we toil away in our gardens.
So What is Petrichor?
While Jennifer is coming down to earth again, Elizabeth continues:
Petrichor is the earthy smell produced when rain falls, particularly after a dry period.
The word petrichor comes from the Greek petros, stone, and ichor, the supernatural fluid that flows in the veins of the mythological gods. The mental image is of stones in the soil releasing this magic essence when it rains.
Ichor in Greek mythology has a fascinating story. It is basically the blood of the gods, golden, full of ambrose and nectar, and responsible for their immortality.
It has some other rather nasty meanings as well which we won’t go in to here.
Ichor kills us humans! We can’t take it.
Prometheus was a Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods to give to mortals. As punishment, he was bound to a rock and had his permanently regenerating liver pecked out by an eagle every day. The ichor from his wounds fell to earth and a magic herb would appear on the spot.
This is probably the sense in which the word is understood in the context of our modern petrichor.
The UK Met Office tells us:
“The phrase [petrichor] was coined by two researchers at the Australian CSIRO science agency in a 1964 article for the journal Nature.
“In their research, rocks that had been exposed to warm, dry conditions were steam distilled to reveal a yellow-coloured oil that had become trapped in the rocks and soil, a substance they discovered was responsible for the smell.
“The source of this oil is a combination of
- oils secreted by plants during dry weather (which signals to halt root growth and seed germination), and
- chemicals released by soil-dwelling bacteria.
“Many people believe they can smell when it is going to rain, and there is some evidence to support this.”
“When a higher humidity is experienced as a precursor to rain, the pores of rocks and soil become trapped with moisture forcing some of the oils to be released into the air.
“But the strongest smell is released when rainfall arrives.
“Raindrops landing on dusty or clay soils trap tiny air bubbles on the surface which then shoot upward – as in a glass of Champagne – and burst out of the drop throwing aerosols of scent into the air where they are then distributed by wind.
“Release of the scent is most prominent when light/moderate rain falls on sandy or clay soils.
“During heavy rain, the speed of the drops represses the creation of bubbles stopping the release of aerosols.”
The word “petrichor,” and the idea of petrichor is becoming very popular these days. If you google Amazon or ebay, you will find many, many products with the name. Some are:
Petrichor in photography:
Petrichor in music:
Petrichor Social is a restaurant in Vancouver
The Roman poet Lucretius wrote:
“The drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.” We could add that it’s the gentle drops of rain on the soil, not the violent ones that make us feel wonderful as well.
From Jennifer’s euphoric garden experience to an eatery in Western Canada and much in between – all are connected by the idea of:
