doomsday_disco

A handful of dates and black figs plopped into a frosted glass frothing with cranberry champagne.

Every leaf tells a story.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet. Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive: And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted: Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard. It is enough that you enter the temple invisible. I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips. And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains. But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence, “Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.” A scent for wordless communion, an immersion with the divine: silver frankincense and white myrrh, blue lotus absolute and white sandalwood.

Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing, But it is not space encompassed. Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song. And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing. Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone; Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure? And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember; And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it. But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands. But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?” Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. Be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees: candied rose petals, red honey, sweet berries, and luxuriant red musk.

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. Ecstatic unbecoming: earth-warmed patchouli, sweet myrrh, terebinth, galbanum, gurjum balsam, and black amber.

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.” And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.” The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.” At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.” In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.” And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.” All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. You are life and you are the veil; a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted: saffron-threaded sandalwood, white ambrette, wild narcissus, smoky yellow tobacco flower, and gilded vanilla.

An oil for new beginnings in the new year. Use to clear out residual emotional, spiritual, and social debris, break cycles of repeating narratives, old drama, lingering resentments, and stale grudges, and purify spaces, tools, and the self in preparation for a fresh start. Sweep your literal and metaphorical thresholds clean and step forward unencumbered. Contains: frankincense, rue, three mints, angelica, cascara sagrada, yarrow, bay, lemon verbena, lime, and salt.

Hearthglow, a cousin to BPAL’s Heartglow, is an anointing oil for keeping the home safe, welcoming, and quietly joyful. It is an oil of gentle warmth, built to protect the household and its inhabitants, comfort and honor house spirits and guardians of place, encourage peace and understanding, and create an atmosphere of love, emotional safety, and mutual care. Suitable for use in ritual work and to anoint doorframes, hearths, windowsills, and keys. Contains: fossilized amber resin, frankincense, dragon’s blood resin, orris root, red sandalwood, lavender, patchouli, clove, allspice, burdock, sweet orange, honey absolute, sweet grains, and marjoram.

“What a bewitching girl…” A facade of innocence shattered by a demonic chortle of black honey bubbling up from an abyss of burgundy pitch.

A schoolboy’s sickly grin molded from warm beeswax, lips clamped around several rusty nails.

Bringing you the colors of spring! Tawny golden musk and cherry-blossom lipstick smeared over blood-slicked fangs.

Lady of the Black Cat skull: sweet innocence with a dark mystery, wrapped in black leather and lace, guided by dreams and succumbing to nightmares. Sugared amber, orchid petals, and vanilla chiffon spiced with smoked cardamom.

In the shadows of a neon hive-city, insectoid forms glide between thick curtains of bright green vines and crackling circuit boards. Blooming under sheets of acid rain and electric moons, this scent opens with the dark crackle of leather: slick, sunless, and alive with static. A surge of petrichor follows, like rainfall striking alien soil, soaking into a garden grown from strange seeds and synthetic spores. Peculiar blooms unfurl, humming with iridescent electricity. Moss clings to chrome roots, cybernetic orchids burst from humid soil.

Fir needle, white chiffon, honey dust, moss velvet, white musk, and baby’s breath. Franz Skarbina

Streams of frozen amber, snow-dusted frankincense, birch bark, Peru balsam, and rivulets of smoldering beeswax. Gustav Lange

A sensual, luxuriant scent that stays close to the skin: Australian sandalwood, tonka bean, benzoin, Siberian iris, bourbon vanilla, cardamom-infused amber, and mimosa petals. Egon Schiele

Chestnut musk, hay, cacao absolute, tobacco, pu’er tea, sweet vetiver, and coffee bean. Theodore Gericault

Liberty, luminous and unafraid, bright with conviction, guided by idealism and steadied by resolve. A scent that is clear, exalted, and alive with purpose: olive leaf, pale amber, joyous neroli, polished brass, feathery vanilla chiffon, and spicy carnation. Edward Savage

A scent of endurance, of refusal to yield, of journeys undertaken without certainty of return. Dry leaves torn loose from their branches, wind-scorched grasses, weathered bark, soil turned dark by heavy raindrops, and distant woodsmoke. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

The Wissahickon is one of my favorite places in the world, and whenever we can, Ted and I lose ourselves in its winding paths. This painting calls to mind one of our favorite trails in autumn, when the leaves have begun to surrender to the earth and sunlight filters through ember, rust, and gold. The air is rich with the breath of living things, the green pulse of growth softened and deepened by the bitter sweetness of decay. Olga Wisinger-Florian

Creaking wooden beams illuminated by hearthfire, beeswax melting on evergreen boughs, polished wood floors draped in vibrant wool rugs, linseed oil, red currant tarts, a hint of clove and orange peel, and sweet brandy apple cider. Mary Fairchild Low

Crimson musk, sacramental wine, iron oxide, saffron threads, stained linen, and frankincense. Oskar Kokoschka

The perfect accompaniment for our Halloween fragrances. A lovely autumnal layering scent.

In the vein (GET IT?) of Boo, Suck It, and Spooky, this is a gushing font of sweet bloody black cherry cream and crushed dried blackberries.

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playground and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. Radiant emptiness: a breezy citrus-touched aldehyde with a hint of sunny amber and dusty heliotrope, and the metallic tang of sun-warmed iron bars.