Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Dark is Rising


When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

~ Susan Cooper,  from The Dark is Rising


Here we are, once again, at the cross roads moving into the dark half of the year. In my little universe here at the edge of the Santa Monica Mountians it doesn't quite feel like the dark half yet. The weather has been particularly strange and erratic, as if she needs some some Clary Sage to bring her hormones back into balance or something.

The title and quote above are from one of my very favorite series of books by Susan Cooper. In the Celtic, Wiccan and Pagan traditions we just celebrated All Hallows Eve and Samhain. In ancient times the people saw correlations between things much more so than we do now in modern society. The changing of the landscape from warm to cool and as nature begins her winter sleep indicated a time for sentient beings to go within as well. A time to tend the inner flame within. Samhain is one of the many festivals of light during the season that calls forth our inner light as nature goes into her winter sleep. The first to start of the season was Michelmas in September.

Many of the dark and viscous essences we use for botanical perfume are base notes. These are essences that have a fixating quality, similar to "earth" element. Theses essences facilitate in holding things down, as if they have a gravitational pull in their tenacity.

For this time of the year I suggest blends that match the energetics of the season. Pairing earthy basenotes with those of fire, like the spices is a particularly nice combination.

“No matter how dark the night, 
somehow the sun rises once again and all shadows are chased away”
~ David Matthew Click


Image above by Greg Spalenka

3 comments:

windchild said...

I looked in my dashboard and saw that quote from Dark is Rising, and I dropped everything else I was doing to read your post! Lol, I love this series that much. I used to have every poem in there memorized perfectly, and I still have that particular one memorized.

There was a movie based off the series a year or so ago, but if you haven't seen it don't. The movie was completely off. Wow, I'm rambling. Sorry. ^_^;

Illuminated Perfume said...

Hey Leathra,
So great to meet up with another fan of the series! I created a perfume called GreenWitch based on one of the books, it will be formerly released this Spring.
My daughter has every poem in the book memorized. At one point she was studied Welsh as well.
The film adaptation was dreadful from what I could tell from the previews. So sad to see that happen to such a fantastic series.
Thanks so much for the message.

Carapace said...

Oh man, I loved that series! It read like an old folktale, things happening because That's The Way They Happen and all. Hated the ending, though. Waaah, it was over!;D
Roxana, I think I need your perfume.:)