Valentine’s Day celebrates our ability to love.
This year, plan a romantic fireside picnic at home–whether or not you have a fireplace. Creating a symbolic hearth for your celebration is easy. Define the area using a low table, a shallow drawer placed upside down, a stone slab, a piece of flat wood or a simple scarf. Arrange candles, flowers, photos, poems, notes, crystals, shells, feathers—whatever feels right—with intention. Spread a blanket on the floor, add comfy pillows, light the candles and enjoy your night.
Big Dipper Waxworks
Pure Beeswax Tea Lights
Box of 16, $20; case of 48, $46;
bigdipperwaxworks.com
Hand poured into polycarbonate cups for maximum glow and safety, these tea lights give sweet, honey fragrance for five hours. 10 percent of profits help prevent bee colony collapse disorder.
Eat Your Aphrodisiacs
Some foods just have it in them.
Oysters Aside from their suggestive appearance, oysters deliver a whopping load of zinc, which feeds your sex organs.
Onions and Garlic Both have long histories as love enhancers. In monasteries around the world, people who are abstaining from sex stay away from these two.
Capers Courts of antiquity prized these berries as key ingredients in love potions. Cleopatra is said to have served capers to help win the hearts of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
Hot Chiles These contain capsaicin, which produces opiates in the brain and enhances circulation in the body’s fine vessels.
Olives Legend has it that the essential fatty acids in green olives make men more virile and black ones increase libido in women.
This is not the night for diets. Whip up a batch of puttanesca, or “sauce of the whores,” with onions, garlic and hot chiles
— all natural aphrodisiacs.
Schisandra Cocktail
This cocktail may be virgin, but you won’t be after drinking it. Schisandra is a superberry, an adaptogen and an aphrodisiac. Simply mix organic schisandra concentrate, sparkling water and agave to taste. Shake.
Dr. Chang Naturals ChiBerry
Unsweetened Tonic
16 ounces, $24.97; organicchiberry.com
This organic, pure concentrate is sustainably cultivated in the United States.
Wholesome Sweetener
Organic Blue Agave
23.5 ounces, $6.99; wholesomesweeteners.com
This easy-to-mix sweetener is perfect for cocktails. Available at amazon.com.
The Medicine Hunter’s Maca Mojo Smoothie
Maca, a sacred superfood from the Peruvian Andes, is also an aphrodisiac. Down this healthy, libido-boosting smoothie made with maca on Valentine’s Day morning—or every morning for a week if you really want to rock. (For more information, visit medicinehunter.com/maca.)
1 cup almond milk
1 ripe banana
2 dates
Dash of pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon organic maca powder
1 tablespoon organic cocoa powder
Blend ingredients until smooth. Drink. Enjoy the consequences.
Navitas Naturals Organic
Maca Powder
16 ounces bag, $24.99;
navitasnaturals.com
Organic Fair Trade
Unsweetened Cocoa
10 ounces, $10;
lakechamplainchocolates.com
Wine & Thou
Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Blanc
de Noirs Les Ursules 2009
$94.99; shop.appellationnyc.com
This sparkling wine has hints of fresh bread, citrus zest and subtle raspberry notes.
Bonterra Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
$32.99; americasbestorganics.com
An affordable premium wine made with organic grapes, with hints of pepper, cedar and vanilla spice.
Crocker & Starr Cabernet Sauvignon
Stone Place 2007
$95; wine.com
A bold red from organic Napa Valley grapes with exotic notes of cocoa, and rose petals.
Chocolate Choices
Cocoa is known as the “food of the gods.” It reproduces some of the same brain chemistry that occurs when we fall in love. It is a superfood, a sacred plant and an aphrodisiac.
Chocolove Organic 73 Percent Dark Chocolate Bar
3.2 ounces, $3.79; chocolove.com
Downright naughty, this bar melts in your mouth—and has love poems inside on its wrapping.
Theo Organic 70 Percent Dark Chocolate
3 ounces, $4; theochocolate.com
This Fair Trade-certified dark chocolate is deep, smooth and seductive.
Sweet Riot Pure 70 Percent Dark Chocolate
3.5 ounces, $3.99; sweetriot.com
These organic and Fair Trade-certified bars have artful packaging.
Green & Blacks Dark 70 Percent Chocolate
3.5-ounce bar, $3.99; greenandblacks.com
Exquisitely delicious, intensely flavorful Fair Trade-certified dark chocolate.
A Bubble Bath For Two
Portico Organic Towels
$16.99; porticohome.com
Wrap your lover and yourself in a lush, plush organic cotton towel. Available at bedbathandbeyond.com.
EO French Lavender Bubble Bath
12 fluid ounces, $11.99; eoproducts.com
Super abundant, aromatic bubbles with organic extracts soften and soothe skin.
Pangea Organics Pyrenees Lavender with
Cardamom Bar Soap
3.75-ounce bar, $8; pangeaorganics.com
This certified organic skin-smoothing soap has two aphrodisiac scents: lavender, the “herb of love,” and invigorating cardamom.
• Clear away bathroom clutter. Toilet brushes spoil the mood.
• Clean the room top to bottom and the tub so it sparkles.
• Pay attention to air quality, temperature and lighting.
• Fill a pretty basket with essentials for a luxurious bath.
• Set pillar candles around the room.
• Toss rose petals and essential oils into the water.
• Mood music makes all the difference.
Rub It In
Pamper your lover with a sensational massage. Pour premium body oil into cupped hands and rub hands together to warm up the oil before you start massaging.
Soapwalla Luxurious Moisturizing
Body Oil
4 ounces, $25; etsy.com/shop/soapwallakitchen
This ginger-, citrus- and lemongrass-scented oil made with mowrah butter feels like liquid velvet.
Eminence Mimosa
Champagne
Massage Oil
8.2 ounces, $29;
eminenceorganics.com
Impart decadent hydration and relaxation with biodynamic jojoba, grapeseed and mimosa orange oils.
Weleda Pomegranate
Regenerating Body Oil
3.4 ounces, $28; weleda.com
This rich, sensual biodynamic oil is made from pomegranate, Aphrodite’s fruit.
Visit organicspamagazine.com/vday-home for more information and direct links to online purchasing.
ZOE HELENE, is developing Cosmic Sister (cosmicsister. com), a multi-generational network of trailblazing women. She works and travels with her husband, ethnobotanist Chris Kilham.