doomsday_disco

What is this choc’ed-of mystery of birth But being mounted bareback on the earth? We can just see the infant up astride, His small fist berried in the musky hide. Ruby chocolate, red leather, red musk, red berries, red mosses, balsam, and passion flower cordial.

Hush is a scent to cool the nerves and help inspire serenity in dark times: lemon myrtle, ylang ylang, tangerine, sandalwood, and lavender.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall. Bittersweet pink grapefruit, golden peach, lime rind, and amber.

Classic 90’s goth glamour: oman frankincense, champaca orchid, black narcissus, opoponax, honeyed black amber, wild plum, tuberose, 13-year aged patchouli root, blood musk, and smoky bourbon vanilla husk.

Blackened lavender thickened with Cretian labdanum, orris absolute, tonka bean, and Lapsang Souchong. Eugène Carrière

Gurjum balsam, olibanum, blush sandalwood, linden blossom, mallow, mauve labdanum, tonka absolute, woodsy musk, purple dates, and dusty dragon’s blood resin. Antoine-Louis Barye

Copoiba balsam and sour rhubarb churning with fir needle, blackcurrant bud, red grapefruit, red ginger, pepperwood, and olibanum. Edvard Munch

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands. It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger. When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,— Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value. And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour. To such men you should say, “Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net; For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.” And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,—buy of their gifts also. For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul. And before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands. For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied. The master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied: black fig, pomegranate, golden apple, dates, apricots, and frankincense smoke. The sales from February, March, and May’s scents from the Prophet series (On Giving, On Eating & Drinking, On Work, On Joy & Sorrow, On Buying and Selling, and On Crime and Punishment) benefit the ACLU because we are in desperate need of civil rights protections right now. The Take Action area of their website presents handy opportunities for speaking out against current and ongoing injustices, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.

A glimmer of hope: white musk glittering with meyer lemon, mimosa, freesia, cashmere wood, and iris petals. Wilhelm Kotarbinski

Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Molten steel, grease, balsam, oiled leather, gunpowder, and blood. Fritz Gareis

This isn’t an asparagus-scented perfume, though it occurs to me that I should make one someday. I found out recently that May is National Asparagus Month, so here you go. This scent is vaguely inspired by asparagus, but mostly inspired by the flicker of surprise that I felt when I found out there was a month dedicated to asparagus. A pointy green vegetal scent, sparkling with lime-squeezed bemusement. Adriaen Coorte

White Tea and Red Ginger.

Violet and Vanilla Chiffon.

Green grapefruit, a shudder of grass blades, peppery geranium, green tea, orris stems, rice sprouts, and white ginger. Nishiyama Hoen

Vanilla cream engulfed in dark, lush mosses, balsamic woods, and deep green incense tar. Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach

You sure did! Here’s your participation award: a bright, sweet lemon candy lightly dusted with sugar to soothe the sting of rejection.

Tobacco Absolute and Cherry Chypre.

Red vegetal musk, tangerine rind, King mandarin, fossilized amber, and neroli.

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness ‘save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.” But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. Work is love made visible, so let’s all chip in and do the work. White sandalwood, fig, bourbon vanilla, and angelica.

Looks like someone’s been nibbling a bit too much grass! A sun-faded, plasticky shell of rice milk and marshmallow illuminated from within by 420 watts of weed-wafted glowing green amber.

Night-Blooming Jasmine and Wisteria Incense.

Lilac cream, pressed violets, pink elemi, olive blossom, and crystalline musk. Max Švabinský

A twinkling rosy rosé garnished with a curly sliver of clove-studded orange peel.

Vanillekipferl plunked in a pile of pine needles.

About two miles from the village of Canton, Me., is a cosey, old-fashioned farm-house which is located directly opposite a graveyard, with no other house in sight. From the window of this little house nothing can be seen except the graveyard with its gleaming stones, and the hills and mountains round about. The family that has been occupying the house moved out not long ago, declaring that they could not stand it any longer, that they were wellnight distracted by the demonstrations. When they told their story a former resident, who now lives in Hartford, announced that he had known for years that the place was haunted. He had not told any one for fear of the ridicule of his neighbors. The demonstrations were not only in the house, but in the barn and around the premises. Regularly every night at 12 o’clock a team of horses rushes from the direction of the village, rumbles over the little bridge at a slashing gait, and then disappears. It never reaches the house. Instead, ghostly voices address the members of the family who have the temerity to live there, the voices coming from all parts of the house, but never so clearly that they can be located. On one memorable night a member of the family went to the barn just at dusk without a lantern. A figure stood at the corner of the building, and he ran to learn what the straggler wanted about the place. The figure silently and mysteriously melted into the shadows and was gone. The Buffalo News, April 20, 1904 A spectral cacophony of shimmering, translucent dun sandalwood, grey amber, and wraith-chilled chestnut galloping through the mist-cloaked shadows of time, a clattering of clove and black pepper, and a crack of phantom leather.