EMILIE VENTUJOL, the designer behind the elegant Danish children’s wear, Pierrot la Lune, speaks with Kirsten Rickert about her clothing brand, meditation and travelling to India. Excerpts of this interview are transcribed here.
Q: Hello Emilie, could you please tell me a little about Pierrot la
Lune, your children’s clothing.
EV: I have always had a dream to create timeless, sophisticated yet playful children’s clothes. Simple, wearable fabrics, with a dreamy magic like old movies from the 50s and 60s. So Pierrot la Lune started as a way to realise that dream. The clothes are made with pure GOTS organic cotton and 100% soft Fairtrade Alpaca wool from Bolivia. My family background has contributed to my sense of design also. My grandparents were very creative: my grandfather was the furniture architect, Børge Mogensen, and my grandmother inspired me with drawing and sewing.
Q: Can you tell me about your spiritual beliefs?
EV: I grew up in a family where spirituality was always discussed more than politics. For me spirituality is actually not something I believe in, it is something I feel and know exists in me, around me and in others. It is about being aware of an inner Being – the real me. I just read it so clearly the other day: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” That pretty much covers how I live and think. I know I incarnated to change and to evolve spiritually, and this is something I take more seriously than anything else in my life.
I know I incarnated to change
and to evolve spiritually,
and this is something I take more
seriously than anything else in my life.
Q: Meditation is a big part of this, so do you do a certain type of meditation?
EV: I practise Heartfulness meditation, which comes from the Sahaj Marg system of Raja Yoga. This is yoga where we use the mind as our main tool to be in tune with our heart. I sit with eyes closed and focus on ‘Light in the heart’. It is super simple and super powerful at the same time. In the evening I practise something called ‘cleaning’ which is a more active process, where I focus on removing old impressions from the energy body. Sahaj Marg practice is based on a philosophy of the human being having a soul, a body and also a subtle body (energy body), and it is this energy body we work with and refine during meditation. So it is really all about vibrations, like when an instrument is in tune or not. The idea is for our subtle body to be in tune with the vibration of our soul.
Q: How long do you meditate for on an average day?
EV: I meditate around an hour in the morning, preferably before waking up my children. So it is the first thing I do after brushing my teeth and washing my face. Then I practise my evening cleaning for half an hour before dinner or after putting the children to bed.
When people ask me how I find the time
for meditation I always answer:
“I don’t have the time not to do it.”
Q: How does this help your life? Were there things you did prior to a life with meditation that you do not do now? Was meditation a cure?
EV: It’s difficult for me to answer because I grew up in a family where almost everyone meditates daily, so it’s a bit like eating and sleeping for me. It’s just a part of life, a necessary part. I can compare periods where I practise less with periods where I practise regularly. The time spent on meditation pays back manifoldly in terms of fewer emotions like fear, anger and sadness. It gives me more energy than sleep does, so I invest very consciously in meditation in order to gain time. As a mother of two kids, running my own company, I can’t allow myself to waste time. When people ask me how I find the time for meditation I always answer: “I don’t have the time not to do it.”
Q: You have just been away on a spiritual retreat, so can you tell me
about that?
EV: Yes I just returned from India, where I also do my production of children’s clothes; I try to combine work with a retreat in an ashram there. First I went to Tiruppur, in south India, where we were 40,000 people from around the world gathered for a three-day seminar. We meditated together three times daily, listened to talks and ate simple food together. It was a very intense experience to meditate with so many people. It creates a fantastic atmosphere and a very light vibration in the inner system and around you. After this seminar I went to an ashram in Hyderabad, and here it was more like a real retreat, as there were very few people gathered. It may have been some of the best days ever in my life. It is difficult to put words to something like this. It is like the inner system gets washed and cared for, and after two days you feel literally transformed in your inner Being. I wish all humans would try this at least once in their life. So much love and purity can be found in a place where people come for spiritual transformation. I believe atmosphere is being created by thoughts, so a place where people come for meditation is somehow lighter in vibration as people think less here. It has to be felt. It’s a bit like a clear spring day after a rainy day, clear and transparent.
Q: I believe while in meditation you can have insights, and feel strong connections to other souls. It can expose truths that someone or something feels right for you. Can you expand on this idea from your personal experience?
EV: Yes, for sure! I believe all humans are brothers and sisters and I pray every evening at nine o’clock for this thought to develop in all people. The concept is that it creates an ‘egregore’ if everybody does it at nine o’clock in their various time zones. That prayer is then going on all the twenty-four hours. For me this is the most conscious social work I can do. I strongly believe it will change the world very fast if more people do this. Thoughts are our most potent and powerful tool to change the world.
Back to the question, yes, I have insights in meditation. The more I think less about a certain issue, the faster I take a decision. The intuition knows everything, and when I let go of my ideas, the answer always comes to me in meditation. A good example is the brand name of my children’s clothes. It came in meditation and afterwards I found out it was the name my husband was called as a child: a very simple little story but with a profound truth hidden in it. It showed me that my company comes from the right place in my heart, and it was already there before I knew about it.
I sincerely see meditation as the best social
service we can offer the planet. With all the
knowledge and science on the power of thought,
this should be common sense in 2015.
Q: Do you feel that meditation adds to a peaceful collective conscious?
EV: Absolutely. Some people think meditation is selfish in a world with hunger and war, but I sincerely see meditation as the best social service we can offer the planet. With all the knowledge and science on the power of thought, this should be common sense in 2015. I believe it should be taught in schools, it should be practised in all churches, mosques and synagogues. It should be practised on Wall Street as well as in ashrams, in hospitals as well as banks. It’s for everybody, no matter what religion or nation we belong to. A day will come where this is manifested in reality. Let it please be in my children’s lifetime!
Q: Do you find meditation helps your creativity?
EV: No doubt. I have to create a lot being a designer and running a company. The more I can clean my subtle body, the less I feel disturbed by fears. The less fear the more freethinking. It’s easy and simple. A free mind is essential as an entrepreneur.
Also, I am a very passionate person when it comes to design and aesthetics. This passion needs to be directed always towards something that I believe I can sell. This is something meditation is regulating; I become realistic and able to separate the essential from the less essential ideas.
Sometimes I observe that meditation has the other effect, where I lose interest completely in my work, in the design and the colours. It used to scare me but I have learnt to understand that it is more like the system is being set back to status quo once in a while. It’s fantastic, especially working in fashion where we are always searching for the latest trend and the upcoming colours and so on. I love to wipe it all out of my mind and start from scratch. It gives me the opportunity to maintain authentic and genuine creativity.
Q: Do you reach a point of internal quiet through meditation, or do you find your mind is on a journey of self-discovery?
EV: I do reach points of internal peace in meditation, but somehow these points change all the time. One of my spiritual teachers once wrote a book with the title Towards Infinity. It pretty much answers this question. Always swimming towards the point inside where eternal peace is still swimming…
Q: Thank you Emilie.
The original interview can be found at
//www.kirstenrickert.com/2015/09/21/meditation-interview-with-pierrot-la-lune/
Reprinted with permission
Interview by KIRSTEN RICKERT
Photography by RASMUS MOGENSEN
