doomsday_disco

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

Sugared pear and wild violets with orris butter, coconut milk, white musk, and vanilla silk. “How romantic you are, Carmilla,” I said. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance.” She kissed me silently. “I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart going on.” “I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.” How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”

I haven’t had much sleep lately, so this is the best I could do for a name. This scent is part of an unreleased comedy/horror animation project, based on an illustrated character concept of a dapper skeleton. White sandalwood, white pepper, orris root, angelica, and chalk.

The ultimate personification of the Lovers, the crowned White Queen and Red King appear as personifications of solar and lunar forces, opposing currents poised before their great meeting. Here the King extends his branch and the Queen hers, and in the symbolic imagery the sun and moon stand beside them in the watery vessel where their union will be enacted, reflecting the ancient alchemical principle that the opposites must enter the prima materia if transformation is to occur. In the illuminated plates of the Rosarium Philosophorum, the crowned King and Queen stand facing one another beneath a descending dove, sovereign and sovereign, fixed and volatile, their bodies poised at the threshold of sacred union. He burns with solar tincture, sulfurous and red, the embodied heat of will and form; she gleams with lunar pallor, mercurial and receptive, the shining mirror that receives and transforms. Their meeting is courtship through coniunctio, the deliberate joining of opposites beneath divine blessing. They are the Lovers stripped to archetype, the sun and the moon brought into perfect equilibrium. The King must surrender his isolated dominion, the Queen her cool separateness, and in their embrace the sealed vessel becomes a womb of transmutation. Above them, the spirit descends; below them, the bath and tomb await. What appears as union is also dissolution, for each must die to solitary sovereignty in order to be reborn as unified essence. Alchemically, their conjunction generates the Stone, the filius philosophorum, the radiant third that arises when polarity is neither denied nor allowed to dominate. From red and white emerges the tincture that perfects, the hermaphroditic child crowned in both suns and moons, embodying the reconciliation of sulfur and mercury within a single body of light. The Lovers here transcend flesh and narrative, becoming emblem and equation, the purest symbolic revelation of the card’s mystery: that true union is the marriage of contraries under spirit, and that from such sacred joining comes incorruptible gold. Crimson musk and white amber twined with solar frankincense and lunar myrrh, warm saffron steeped in cool iris root, gold-threaded honey darkened by silvered benzoin, a marriage of fire and pearl beneath a rain of distant stars.

The Lovers suspended beneath hostile stars; innocent, youthful love caught in profound celestial tension. Two households, both alike in dignity, are bound by ancient grievance, and beneath their banners walk two young hearts caught in the inexorable turning of the spheres. “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life whose misadventured piteous overthrows,” and the heavens themselves draw down to witness and grieve the dazzling catastrophe of first love. Their passion is as swift as lightning, tender as dawn, perilous as prophecy. They move as mirrored flame, twin spirits divided by inherited hatred, Gemini energy refracted through vendetta and family saga. In one another they glimpse completion, a reflection unmarred by the violence of the world beyond the balcony that hems them in. The polarity that surrounds them only sharpens their longing. Night and day, Montague and Capulet, poison and potion, oath and silence: each intrinsic, fated duality entwines them closer together. The “black-brow’d night” shelters their whispered promises and heart-rending declarations of love, wrapping them in a darkness that protects and consecrates, while the “garish sun” exposes, divides, and drives them back into the machinery of blood feud and overweening pride. In this reversal, shadow is mercy and daylight is threat, and their passion flourishes in secrecy as though it were a nocturnal bloom opening only when the world’s vigilance sleeps. Night gathers them into momentary wholeness, but the harsh light of dawn demands polarity. Their struggle is not only against their families but against time itself, against the relentless return of morning that tears them from the refuge of darkness and thrusts them toward consequence. Their love is not permitted to grow and thrive, and instead it burns brief, bright, and absolute with the shattering, pure conflagration of a supernova. In the long, shadowed sleep of death they accomplish what life denied them, and the warring houses, confronted by the cost of enmity, lay down their arms. Love as transmutation, sorrow as reconciliation, and what was divided is brought, through tragedy, into uneasy harmony. This is the Lovers as one soul divided, as the soul split and reunited through fate and consequence, union under celestial tension, and devotion that outlives breath and fundamentally alters the world that sought to forbid it. Crushed red rose and night-blooming jasmine unfurl over Verona stone warmed by summer dusk, sugared violets and bitter orange peel steeped in pale cypress smoke, with a single thread of myrrh rising like a whispered vow in the dark.

In Tristan und Isolde, the music itself mirrors a yearning that cannot find solace within the confines of flesh, a longing that cannot be satisfied within the constraints of mortal love. “O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe,” they implore, calling down the night as sanctuary and sacrament, and in the final transfiguration, “In des Welt-Atems wehendem All,” they yield themselves to the vast eternity of the cosmos. The Liebestod unfolds as love’s consummation through annihilation. They lift the cup and the world alters its course, not by whim but by the immutable heartbeat of destiny dancing through their veins like quicksilver, dissolving the boundaries of crown and oath, eroding the rigid architecture of law until only longing remains. The potion works as mercurial catalyst, sacred and profane entwined so completely that no mortal decree can separate them, and their love is swept into an inexorable tide that pulls them beyond honor, beyond fealty, beyond the sunlit world. Here the Lovers are fate-struck, their devotion defying and shattering the visible order while revealing a deeper one beneath it, for in their undoing lies transformation, and in their surrender the eternal marriage of longing and oblivion. Then, being with the Queen for the last time, he held her in his arms and said: “Friend, I must fly, for they are wondering. I must fly, and perhaps shall never see you more. My death is near, and far from you my death will come of desire.” “Oh friend,” she said, “fold your arms round me close and strain me so that our hearts may break and our souls go free at last. Take me to that happy place of which you told me long ago. The fields whence none return, but where great singers sing their songs for ever. Take me now.” “I will take you to the Happy Palace of the living, Queen! The time is near. We have drunk all joy and sorrow. The time is near. When it is finished, if I call you, will you come, my friend?” “Friend,” said she, “call me and you know that I shall come.” “Friend,” said he, “God send you His reward.” As he went out the spies would have held him; but he laughed aloud, and flourished his club, and cried: “Peace, gentlemen, I go and will not stay. My lady sends me to prepare that shining house I vowed her, of crystal, and of rose shot through with morning.” And as they cursed and drave him, the fool went leaping on his way. – The Romance of Tristan & Iseult Drawn from the best French Sources and Retold by J. Bédier Rendered into English by Hilaire Belloc Dark wine spilled on oak, pine boughs and love philtres, rose petals and sea-salt, storm-wind over cold stone battlements, myrrh smoke braided with heart-pulses of red musk awash in tears, tinkling fairy bells and the bitter sweetness of forbidden fruit steeped in a silver chalice.

You also, Hyacinthus, would have been set in the sky! if Phoebus had been given time which the cruel fates denied for you. But in a way you are immortal too. Though you have died. Always when warm spring drives winter out, and Aries succeeds to Pisces, you rise and blossom on the green turf. And the love my father had for you was deeper than he felt for others. Delphi center of the world, had no presiding guardian, while the God frequented the Eurotas and the land of Sparta, never fortified with walls. His zither and his bow no longer fill his eager mind and now without a thought of dignity, he carried nets and held the dogs in leash, and did not hesitate to go with Hyacinthus on the rough, steep mountain ridges; and by all of such associations, his love was increased. Now Titan was about midway, betwixt the coming and the banished night, and stood at equal distance from those two extremes. Then, when the youth and Phoebus were well stripped, and gleaming with rich olive oil, they tried a friendly contest with the discus. First Phoebus, well-poised, sent it awhirl through air, and cleft the clouds beyond with its broad weight; from which at length it fell down to the earth, a certain evidence of strength and skill. Heedless of danger Hyacinthus rushed for eager glory of the game, resolved to get the discus. But it bounded back from off the hard earth, and struck full against your face, O Hyacinthus! Deadly pale the God’s face went — as pallid as the boy’s. With care he lifted the sad huddled form. The kind god tries to warm you back to life, and next endeavors to attend your wound, and stay your parting soul with healing herbs. His skill is no advantage, for the wound is past all art of cure. As if someone, when in a garden, breaks off violets, poppies, or lilies hung from golden stems, then drooping they must hang their withered heads, and gaze down towards the earth beneath them; so, the dying boy’s face droops, and his bent neck, a burden to itself, falls back upon his shoulder: “You are fallen in your prime defrauded of your youth, O Hyacinthus!” Moaned Apollo. “I can see in your sad wound my own guilt, and you are my cause of grief and self-reproach. My own hand gave you death unmerited — I only can be charged with your destruction. — What have I done wrong? Can it be called a fault to play with you? Should loving you be called a fault? And oh, that I might now give up my life for you! Or die with you! But since our destinies prevent us you shall always be with me, and you shall dwell upon my care-filled lips. The lyre struck by my hand, and my true songs will always celebrate you. A new flower you shall arise, with markings on your petals, close imitation of my constant moans: and there shall come another to be linked with this new flower, a valiant hero shall be known by the same marks upon its petals.” And while Phoebus, Apollo, sang these words with his truth-telling lips, behold the blood of Hyacinthus, which had poured out on the ground beside him and there stained the grass, was changed from blood; and in its place a flower, more beautiful than Tyrian dye, sprang up. It almost seemed a lily, were it not that one was purple and the other white. But Phoebus was not satisfied with this. For it was he who worked the miracle of his sad words inscribed on flower leaves. These letters AI, AI, are inscribed on them. And Sparta certainly is proud to honor Hyacinthus as her son; and his loved fame endures; and every year they celebrate his solemn festival. – Ovid Beloved of Apollo, the Spartan prince Hyacinthus was cherished above all companions. They raced beneath the open sky, hunted together, and Apollo trained his beloved in the art of prophecy, the lyre, and the discus. Some say Zephyrus, the West Wind, grew jealous and bent the arc of the throw one day and the shining disc, meant as sport, struck Hyacinthus down. Though he used all his skill in the art of healing, the god could not save Hyacinthus’ life. … when he beheld thy agony Phoebus was dumb. He sought every remedy, he had recourse to cunning arts, he anointed all the wound, anointed it with ambrosia and with nectar; but all remedies are powerless to heal the wounds of Fate… – Bion Apollo gathered Hyacinthus in his arms as the light dimmed from mortal eyes and wished to join his lover in the realm of death, but it was not to be. Where the blood touched earth, Apollo pressed his grief into the soil and from that wound sprang the hyacinth, petals veined with lament, marked with the cry of immortal love and immortal mourning. The flower became a living testament, renewed each spring, a sign that love does not vanish. The Lovers revealed in their most tender truth: that though love and devotion cannot provide a shield from the slings and arrows of the Fates, memory makes love eternal. It is love that refuses oblivion. Blood into blossom, rubedo unfolding in vegetal fire. Beauty bound to mortality, and through that binding made eternal. Golden laurel and sun-warmed skin, cypress shadow and noontide amber, crushed violets, lilies, and poppy, gilded myrrh, date palm, and hyacinth petals.

A mountain rises between the Lovers, separating yet connecting, suggesting that union, transcendence, and spiritual ascent require hard work, perseverance, and the surmounting of obstacles. The mountain is the path to integration, a symbol repeated across depictions of the Lovers. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Stone and well-tread mosses warmed by golden resins, wind howling across crag and cliff, and white-capped with sunlit frankincense.

Above the Lovers hovers the archangel Raphael, God Heals, their arms outstretched in affirmation and sanctification. Their benediction is aloft on the winds of Mercury: blessings of communication, intellect, conscious choice, and discernment. The red of their wings burns with passion purified. Blessed by divine provenance and guidance, the Lovers join. White frankincense warmed with molten red amber, violet petals carried on an airy current, and pale plumes of incense lifting towards the heavens.

Behind the woman stands the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, heavy with the fruits of wisdom and temptation. A serpent winds through its limbs, whispering, You shall not surely die; for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes shall be opened. Knowledge, like desire, is double-edged: it can awaken, but can also destroy. But without the serpent’s gift, we cannot achieve self-determination, autonomy, or free will, and without those, love and life itself are meaningless. Black fig dipped in spiced pomegranate syrup.

The Tree of Life bearing twelve flaming fruits, emblematic of the twelve signs of the zodiac. In the flames burn consciousness, passion, and the material, sensual pleasure bound into human existence. In these fiery branches, the Lovers are challenged with questions of moral discernment, conscience, and consequence, and in the shadow cast by these flames, the soul is challenged before union can be achieved. Twelve fiery fruits ablaze with saffron and clove-spiced labdanum held aloft in arching acacia branches.

Peonies and poppies are two of my favorite May flowers, and all the more so now that we’ve moved to Philadelphia, where you see them in countless gardens. Continuing with the theme of serpents making their way through urban landscapes, I’ve created something for myself that I want to share – a Snake Oil-infused bouquet of poppies, peonies, melancholy heartsease, and the last bruised winter hellebores dusted with sandalwood and bound with a vanilla-white silk ribbon.

Pink jelly with a golden flash.

Metallic ruby red jelly.

Metallic crimson jelly.

Opaque plum purple crelly.

Cranberry jelly with shifting black flakes.

Pink jelly with pink & holo glitter.

Pink metallic shift jelly with iridescent rainbow flakes.

German A sugared stain of plum jam and blackcurrant unfolding through rosewater almond cream, warmed by spice and sensuous resins.

Tagalog Nasa’yo ang puso ko! Strawberry-swirled halo-halo with a dollop of black cherry cream and mango puree.

White Honey, Strawberries, and Vanilla Cream.

Red Honey, Sweet Labdanum, and Dusk Rose.

Orange Blossom Honey and Silver Musk.

Honey, Tonka Bean, and Toasted Vanilla.