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Showing results for tags 'Lunacy'.
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When I was a child in the 1970s, I lived in a newly built neighborhood in Los Angeles that bordered land still undeveloped. The city thinned out behind my house and gave way to open hills. Wild horses thundered past, roadrunners darted through the chaparral and tumbleweeds, and at night, the coyotes sang. Some of my earliest memories are of lying awake and listening to their voices rise and fall in the distance, a wild and communal music that became a comfort to me. At pivotal moments in my life — initiatory moments — I would encounter coyotes crossing my path. These sightings were never casual. They appeared briefly and decisively, always coinciding with periods when something in my life was shifting or about to transform. Coyotes are among the animals closest to my heart, not simply for their presence in my early life but for what they represent. They are creatures of the in-between, thriving at the margins, adapting where others cannot. (Or will not?) Across cultures and throughout history, the coyote has been revered as a sacred being: Trickster and Creator, a deity of dance, song, storytelling, and celebration. Coyote is the bringer of change and chaos and a figure who embodies duality itself, at once helpful and harmful, wise and reckless. In myth, Coyote carries the wisdom of foolishness, acts as a benign prankster who has the singular power to defy and reverse fate, and becomes the unlikely bearer of gifts to humankind. Through disruption and mischief, Coyote teaches that survival depends on adaptability and that transformation often arrives disguised as disorder. Coyotes inhabit liminal space, and to embrace them is to embrace uncertainty as a companion. A spirit of defiance, resistance, and persistence, they should be venerated as an icon of our times. A scent for the coyotes of my childhood, sun-bright, resilient, and quietly feral: amber fur, white sage, chaparral, smoked palo santo, California sagebrush, clever sparks of white pepper, and sweet tonka bean. (Featured photo: the author with her first coydog, Chico. No, we didn’t know he was a coyote mix when we adopted him. A neighbor’s standard poodle magically gave birth to a litter of electric-amber puppies and I fell in love. Chico was beautiful to me: lava-orange fur that was shaggy like his coyote sire, but curled sweetly at the ends like his mother’s. He was strange, ridiculous, and delightfully clownish. I loved him so very, very much. In true Southern California form, Chico was not my only coyote mix. Arthur, my second coydog, was a shepherd/coyote, and I miss him equally. RIP, my wild boys. I love you forever.)
- 3 replies
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- February 2026
- Lunacy
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You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. – Maya Angelou Under a terrible moon, tides still answer the pull. Roots still find water. Breath still moves from body to body, unseen and unstoppable. To keep breathing together is to refuse erasure and deny despair. Authoritarianism thrives on isolation and fascism feeds on hopelessness. We are living through a terrible moon, indeed, but we are not alone. You are not alone. Every breath you take is an act of defiance. Every hand you reach for refutes the lie that you stand by yourself. We will get through this together. A protective, communal scent to call one another closer and stand united against the darkness. A scent to remind us that even now, especially now, we rise. Smoldering beeswax illuminated by honeyed amber, an embrace of skin musk, body-warmed wool, cacao-dusted sandalwood, and cardamom milk.
- 4 replies
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- 2026
- January 2026
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A sinister harvest, a bowl of freshly picked berries left as an offering beneath unsettling lime-tinged moonbeams, their juice staining pale hands red: crushed wild strawberries, night-blooming datura, goblin’s gold moss, dried berry incense, sticky honey, and a slow bleed of blackcurrant sap over cold white musk.
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- March 2026 Lunacy
- Lunacy
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Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. – Rudyard Kipling A scent for strength through solidarity against the encroaching horrors of authoritarianism. Silvered fir, life-giving soil and immovable stone, black sage, rue, hellebore accord, winter moss, cypress, fossilized amber resin, and vetiver. May the thundering chorus of our voices — entwined, rising, unbreakable — scatter the darkness.
- 5 replies
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- 2025
- December 2025
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Black velvet, ancient climbing roses, champaca magnolia, and deep, resonant strings of amber. Mayday Art: She Comes With Footsteps Light What potent blood hath modest May. – Ralph Waldo Emerson Artist - Edward Okun
- 6 replies
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- Paintings of the Month
- 2024
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A glass of midnight stout, thick with black chocolate and roasted barley, its foam kissed with bitter espresso. A pale disc of buttered shortbread rests against the rim, crumbling into the inky depths. A strange eclipse of comfort and shadow: warm, crumbly biscuit and golden butter swallowed by a swirl of dark malt, molasses, and cocoa.
- 8 replies
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- A Little Lunacy
- September 2025 Lunacy
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We’re all desperate for something light and uplifting here at BPAL, so this year’s Beev is a zingy key lime cheesecake with a whisper of lime sugar.
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- December 2025
- November/December 2025 Double Lunacy
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A cluster of anemone against a backdrop of peonies, white silk musk, hyacinth, Madagascar vanilla, March tulips, and white rose.
- 5 replies
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- Paintings of the Month 2023
- OML Its Finally March
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A pale halo of white tea and mugwort leaf, shimmering Tunesian neroli, and heady white champaca petals.
- 8 replies
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- December 2021
- lunacy
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Five ambers fading in descending radiance. Dreaming as the Summers Die Thy home is all around, Sweet summer child of light and air, Like God’s own presence, felt, ne’er found, A Spirit everywhere! – James Staunton Babcock Artist - Caspar David Friedrich 'Woman Before the Setting Sun'
- 9 replies
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- Paintings of the Month
- 2024
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A scent for the Shadow Between the Hedgerows: hay absolute, red benzoin, clove bud, brown sandalwood, balsam, hops, cardamom, German chamomile, and cacao ambrette.
- 4 replies
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- A Little Lunacy
- Lunacy
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the butterfly having disappeared my spirit came back to me — Wafū, trans. R. H. Blyth Wings unfolding in darkness, an echo of silence, the softest flutter, and then gone. Shadow-dappled tuberose and black orchid, buffeted by crumpled violet leaves and ink-dipped tea roses. A glint of obsidian musk slinks beneath, woven with scorched vanilla resin, dusty myrrh, and the faintest touch of crushed blackberry skin.
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The first moon of a new year bidding farewell to the sorrows of the last: a wan whisper of orris, a sigh of white musk.
- 8 replies
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- january 2022
- 2022
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BPAL’s first Hungry Ghost Moon in 2006 was a celebration of the moment when the Gates of Hell burst open and ghosts pour forth from the Nine Darknesses into the sunlit world. Inspired by Drew Rausch’s artwork, 2025’s incarnation is a bit different: a spectral slice of pizza, dribbling with a cool, herbal ectoplasm. Blobs of white musk, white tomato, a memory of sourdough crusts, white peppercorn, and rivulets of beeswax candles dribbled on cardboard pizza boxes. May we all find the sustenance we need, in this life and in the next.
- 6 replies
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- A Little Lunacy
- July 2025 Lunacy
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An attraction and sensuality blend that is delightfully camouflaged as a perfume. Autumn romance personified, infused with the comfort of fall leaves and apple pulp, cacao, 7-year aged patchouli, vanilla absolute, benzoin, cubeb berries, and rose absolute.
- 11 replies
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- September 2022
- 2022
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The mists that slept on the river’s brim. Went up like the wings of the cherubim. The water-lilies so cold and fair Were tangled with tresses of bright brown hair. The osiers bent with a quiet grace over a form with a still, white face. The river flow’d with a desolate moan, And dead leaves fell on the cold grey stone. – Sarah T. Bolton A mist-shrouded river, laden with sorrow: water lilies, wild plum, carrot seed, jasmine petals, and yellow bergamot pouring over moss-covered stones.
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Black-brown fur rubbed against ochre bark, shaking off the last snows of winter. A tangle of maple branches and the crunch of dry leaves. Claws dipped in raw honey, clutching honeycomb, dripping with the juice of wild berries.
- 8 replies
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- lunacy
- April 2023
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It struck me—every Day— The Lightning was as new As if the Cloud that instant slit And let the Fire through— It burned Me—in the Night— It Blistered to My Dream— It sickened fresh upon my sight— With every Morn that came— I though that Storm—was brief— The Maddest—quickest by— But Nature lost the Date of This— And left it in the Sky— – Emily Dickinson It burned me—in the Night— It Blistered to My Dream— A scent born from sleepless nights and storms that carve themselves indelibly into memory, when lightning is no longer sky-bound, but lives in the beat of your heart and the whisper of your breath. Opium-laced benzoin and sweet myrrh veiled in black amber, violet incense and bruised plum, streaked with star jasmine, white frankincense, and ozone-crackled white musk.
- 4 replies
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- August 2025 Lunacy
- Lunacy
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Misty lilac, lavender bud, white tuberose, white plum, pink labdanum, and hypnotic tendrils of springtime incense.
- 3 replies
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- OML Its Finally March
- lunacy
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No additional description provided.
- 1 reply
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- Lunacy
- A Little Lunacy
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Come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same. — Bram Stoker, Dracula Words to live by as we plunge headlong into 2025. Our first Lunacy scent of the year is a honking good time, in spite of it all: goosefeather-white sandalwood and orris butter splashed by sour cherry cordial, red plum juice, caramelized tobacco absolute, black champaca brocade, and a touch of red chili pepper.
- 5 replies
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- January 2025 Lunacy
- A Little Lunacy
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Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out. -Taigu Ryokan Ten days-worth of rice, a bundle of twigs, and a soothing cup of white tea.
- 6 replies
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- May 2025 Lunacy
- A Little Lunacy
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…The second time is set Whose crumbs the crows inspect And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn Men eat of it and die – Emily Dickinson An ironic caw: dry hay absolute, syrupy candied fig, a lash of scathing pink pepper, and the dark gleam of bittersweet blackcurrant.
- 3 replies
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- June 2025 Lunacy
- Lunacy
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A fable in scent: bone-white sandalwood aged with beeswax and balsam, crushed grass and juniper berries, ambrette seed, and lupine musk.