Shodo is an art that is steeped in history and tradition. Shodo originated from China and was later adopted in Japan. After some time, the art evolved and the styles and techniques became uniquely Japanese. The beauty of Shodo is found in the lines and composition of the characters written. Emotion and energy can be seen in the rhythm of the artist.

Go-Kyo (Colin) writes:

“Being born in Australia, but with Malaysian-Chinese roots, I’ve never had the “brain” to learn  Chinese as my second language. However, I’ve always been curious about Chinese characters. My first experience of writing was during a Chinese class (yeah, I studied it for a year during Uni). I remember having a great time, but left feeling unaccomplished. Little did I know opportunity would come around later (5 years later that is).

It started out with a thought of taking a break and teaching English in Japan for a year. That’s how I met my lovely wife Kazue. Through her passion (or calling) for Shodo I met Oya Sensei who inspired us that Shodo is more than just black lines on paper.

I have to thank Kazue and Oya Sensei for where I am today. Embracing Shodo has changed my life and made me a better person. Oya Sensei is a true sensei, in a sense of being a role model. Through her compassionate nature, she helped us improve our Shodo skills.”

Colin gave his first public performance at Metta Scents, under the watchful eye of Oya Sensei, who is visiting Australia from Japan. After Colin’s performance, all the guests tried their hand at writing the character for ‘happiness’. Tessa, the resident Metta Scents cat, made sure she had a good vantage point and found some very comfortable shodo paper to sit on.

We are very happy to announce that Kazue and Colin will be teaching shodo at Metta Scents every Sunday morning from 10.30am to 11.30am. You can email Kazue for more information – kazuelim23@gmail.com

We recommend Baieido’s Green Tea or Mint incense for a quick fragrant fix for your musty home. Both of these incense types have a charcoal base, meaning they have very low smoke, and are excellent odour absorbers. The scents are subtle and inoffensive, and all natural, of course!  Available from our Greville Street store, or online.

“Like the Hindu goddess herself our Lakshmi incense sticks are made with the object of uplifting mankind. They exude beauty, grace and charm and are by far the most feminine of our range. Subtle hints of ylang-ylang come through a delicate and perfectly balanced halmaddi base – completely delicious!”

I have been burning this one out today – it is indeed delicious!  Soft and feminine, subtly floral over that amazing halmaddi base. Like all the Dhuni sticks, these are powerful – I find I only need to burn 1/2 to 1/3 of a stick at a time to fill an average sized room.

There are 10 sticks in each packet, which cost $20 including GST. We have only a few packets available at the moment – we’re looking forward to a full shipment in another month or so. We will be listing Lakshmi in our online store then. If you can’t wait, and need to buy a pack of Lakshmi now, email or phone (see contact page) asap!

From the 7^th September until the end of the month, we will be folding many, many paper cranes.

Our aim is to fold 1000 origami cranes and raise $1000 for charity. Join us – we’ll show you how to fold a paper crane in exchange for a gold coin donation. If you don’t want to fold your own crane, we’ll give you one – for a gold coin, of course!

We will be donating the proceeds from Crane Fest to Prahran Mission, Horn of Africa Famine Relief, and Japanese Tsunami Recovery.

An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane is considered a mystical or holy creature, and is said to live for a thousand years. In Japan, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person’s wish come true.

Our crane makers will be offered a Japanese incense sample pack to take home. There will be other festive happenings in store, including some birthday celebrations later in the month!

Please join us from the 7th September until the 30th September at Metta Scents, 111 Greville Street Prahran and fold a crane for a worthy cause.

Think of the difference between cheap cask wine and the best bottle of wine you’ve ever had – that’ll give you an idea of the difference between regular, factory-produced incense and these exquisite hand made incense sticks. Made with love in a labour intensive process that includes hand harvesting, hand rolling, and drying in the sun … they are 100% natural and made from the highest quality ingredients.

Beautifully presented in a hand made envelope that contains 8 – 10 sticks. Nag Champa ingredients include: Champa (frangipani), sandalwood, and halmaddi.

Mmmm…

One of our favourites from the collection is ‘Offerings’. It is made from West Australian sandalwood, frankincense, rosewood, cedarwood, lemon, birch tar, patchouli, nag champa, myrrh, cinnamon bark, tangerine and fir needle, jasmine absolute, vanilla CO2. And floating in the bottle are organic rose, vanilla bean and clove.

We also love the ‘Awaken’ balm which gives us a bit of a pick-up when we stumble into the land of three-thirty-itis!

How we do business:

Mindfully. That means we pay attention to the effects of our actions on people, animals and this planet. We treat all living things with respect and are continually learning so we can use the most ethical and sustainable processes and products.


We thought you might like to know some of the details! Here are some of the actions we have taken in establishing Metta Scents:


1. Chose recycled materials for shopfittings. We have a 200 year old Chinese Buddhist altar from Kazari (I really like that it is now in a mindful space full of incense.) The rest is Freefold Furniture – 97% post-consumer waste cardboard furniture.


2. Used Porter’s Paints on the walls and part of the floor – Porter’s are an Australian company that produce no VOC and low VOC paints.


3. Selected a floor covering made from a renewable resource – seagrass matting with 100% recycled cotton underfelt from Floorspace in Camberwell. (Not the old seagrass squares that were around in the ’80s – this is beautiful!)


4. Chose Cruelty Free Super as our default superannuation fund – no investments that exploit people, animals or the planet.


5. Signed up for 100% green power - it is nice to see the statement on our bills, “Your greenhouse gas emissions for this account were ZERO”.


6. Acquire incense and other products from companies who use sustainably harvested plant species, use no synthetics or artificial fragrances in their products, and who treat their workers well.


7. Printing is done by Print Together using recycled paper, vegetable inks and a clean, green collective printing process.


There are more, but these are the first seven that came to mind. If you want to take a mindful approach to your business (or your  life), and lessen the negative impact it has on people, animals and the planet, there certainly are options out there – sometimes it just takes a little extra searching and thought to make a better choice. Is it worth the effort? Yes!

We’re pretty lucky on Greville Street because there’s a stack of creative stuff happening to keep us inspired all the time.

We look directly into the windows of Magnation from our shop. And it’s always pleasing to see so many people walking in and out of there, browsing and reading excellent things.

Then there’s ArtBoy Gallery down the road, towards the train station. It’s filled with bright and colourful modern art and showcases a bunch of local Melbourne artists – which is nice to know.

We’ve also made friends with Charles and Samantha at 100th Gallery on Porter Street. They’re very friendly, and have just recently fulfilled their dream of starting their own gallery to showcase emerging artists.

And for another different Prahran art experience, there’s Signed and Numbered a gallery that sells affordable art by printing works on paper. Each print is ‘signed and numbered’ by the artist and displayed in the store in a similar way to how vinyl records are displayed in music stores – in crates that you can flick through which makes it a nice relaxing personal experience.

We’re pretty lucky to have so many excellent things so close to us. We’ve got very good neighbours! Come and check out our neighbourhood, but don’t forget to say hi when you’re on your way to an artistic experience or four!

1. First of all, what is your favourite incense of all time, and why?

I’m a dog. So my sense of smell is pretty good. Personally, I think I smell better than the incense does. It’s my athletic Greyhound musk, and it’s such a soothing smell that it helps people sleep – well, it helps ME sleep. Kim and the other humans keep telling people that the green tea with charcoal incense is great for dog lovers. They said it’s because the charcoal and green tea are really great for absorbing odours and neutralising smells around the house. They’re trying to absorb my dog smell? Is ‘absorb’ the same as ‘capture’? They must love my dog smell so much if they’re trying to capture it. I wonder where they’re storing it? It’d be worth a lot of money, I reckon…

2. What do you love most about Prahran?

I really like the way that so many people come past the shop just to see me. They pretend to be interested in incense, but I know what’s really happening. I like the pats and scratches behind my ears that I get in Prahran. Oh, and I like my new nap spot in Prahran. Mmm, nap. How long is this interview going to take? I have a nap scheduled in 5 minutes…

3. Best place to eat in Prahran?

The Metta Scents kitchen is paws-down the best place to eat in all of Metta Scents! Sometimes I have a snack in the back yard of the loungeroom, but the kitchen is definitely where it’s at. Well, it’s definitely where the fridge is at!

4. Favourite place to travel?

I do so enjoy my morning commute from my night time bed, to my day lounge nap spot where I can keep an eye on the store. Or did you mean travel outside of the shop? Hm, sometimes I like travelling around the Grattan Gardens. As long as there’s nothing scary, like trees, or small dogs, or unruly grass, there.

5. Your favourite Metta Scents story so far?

I’m sorry I’m running late for my nap appointment, I’m going to have to wrap it up here. Well, I’m going to need to wrap myself up. In a blanket. ZzzzzZZZZzzzz…

So, what’s in the sample packs? You’ll get three types of Japanese incense to try:

First there’s the Nokiba or ‘Moss Garden’ incense. It’s the green stick in your sample pack. Nokiba is one of our most popular incense varieties. It contains sandalwood, benzoin, patchouli and spices and burns with a soft, sweet smell.

Next there’s the dark grey stick. This one is green tea! It’s made with a charcoal base, and real green tea, not an oil of green tea. The charcoal base means that it gives off virtually no smoke and it’s good at absorbing household odours, which makes it perfect for burning during winter while it’s too cold to be opening up windows to let house smells out.

And then there’s the ‘Morning Zen’ from Shoyeido stick. It’s a long stick of incense – temple sized – so we’ve included a smaller piece in the sample pack.  Japanese incense sticks don’t have a bamboo core so you can break off manageable sized pieces as you want them. The piece in the sample pack should give you around 20-30 minutes of burn time, but will scent your space for around 3-4 hours.

Because Japanese incense sticks don’t have bamboo cores they need a different type of holder, which you get with the sample pack. All you need to do is make sure that you always burn your incense on a heat proof surface!

We hope you visit us in Prahran soon so we can give you one of these packs!

mettascents sample packs on Vimeo.