Gnosis Diary: Life as a Heathen
My personal experiences, including religious and spiritual experiences, community interaction, general heathenry, and modern life on my heathen path, which is Asatru.
My Monster Powers January 2025 part 2
Continuing my diabetes health, weight loss, and perfumery journey, summarized as Gila Lizard Powers (GLP-1) or my Monster Powers. (For those who have not seen my other Monster Powers posts, the Monster Powers series starts last fall. The early posts contain a more complete explanation of how that relates to Gila Monsters.)
I received my Ragnarok Collection samples from Arcana Wildcraft. I had an unexpected result. Even though the Fenris and Jormungandr fragrances smelled very different from each other when I tested them on cloth, they both disappeared on my skin. They just smelled like my skin.
I liked their Bifrost and Yggdrasil scents and kept those samples for my collection. I also tested two fragrances from their main catalog. Daydreams of Trees was fine but as a tree fragrance I liked Yggdrasil better. Witchfire smelled nice on cloth but turned on my skin. Those two I put on my samples for swap shelf.
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I read about minimalism and the Japanese aesthetic and the Marie Kondo decluttering movement. Someone posted that if you get rid of mementos you just get rid of the thing and the memory stays with you. That is exactly why minimalism doesn't work for me, even though I've spent the past 5 years getting rid of things (starting with things owned by people who left this earth in 2020 but then after the experience I started getting rid of a lot of my things too.) The memory DOESN'T stay with me. 95% of what's on my Facebook Memories thingy, which shows me things I posted on the same date in different years, is stuff I have completely forgotten. I posted a lot of recipes for things I grow in my garden specifically so I'll be reminded what I can do with certain produce and herbs, and when I see it on my memories thing, I didn't just forget how to make it, I forgot I COULD make such a thing. I forget the names of people I know if I don't see them labeled in a photo, either online or in a physical album. I forget I did things or went places, or when, or with whom.
When I started my perfume journey last year, smelling certain perfumes gave me back memories I had forgotten so thoroughly that I didn't just forget which perfume I wore as a teenager, I had forgotten I wore any at all. I had forgotten peeling Granny Smith apples to render fruit pectin until I smelled the green apple peel note in I Am Trash. It gave me back vivid images of the kitchen of my childhood home and the tree in the garden that I would never have thought to even try to remember. Every new perfume I sniff is a new opportunity to get back lost memories I don't know I've lost.
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I sampled the perfume The Mariner's Rhyme. I have a keen interest in the poem Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner because my mom did her master's thesis on it, which I read when I was 12 (I had nothing to read, there was no home internet back then lol.) My first serious academic reading and I got to discuss it with the author for the next 40 years. So I was really excited to try a perfume that is an embodiment of the poem. And it is amazing! It's beautiful in the way that waves are beautiful. Not an alluring beauty but the beauty of deadly nature. Blue waves and sea salt, the creak of the wooden ship. Nothingness to the horizon. Perfume, perfume, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.
10/10 I need a full bottle. I need two bottles, because I want to give one to my brother. This sample arrived right after I finished writing my post "What is Beauty?" This is the sort of thing I meant when I talked about a perfume being an experience, an artwork that is a kind of beauty but not the kind meant to make the person wearing it look sexually attractive. Perfumes like this one are meant to be enjoyed as art. They are artworks.
I can smell the deep blue sea. Which is a form of desert. Blue like that is devoid of life, deep and far from any shore or reef.
This is the sea of the Leprous White Lady, life in death, the goddess who is both alive and dead, the winter that comes for you in the end after all the leaves have fallen and there is nothing left but the mistletoe. Nothing left but sacrifice, in a liminal space between earth and sky-- or between sea and sky, the ship of the dead man, the cursed albatross-killer, waiting the absolution that comes only from Hel.
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After all that, talking about my birthday seems kind of mundane. But my Monster Powers report would not be complete if I didn't let my readers in on the end of the story about skipping a week. My housemate and I combined our birthday parties since we're both January ladies. It was the Sunday of the skip week, day 7 after skipping my Monday injection, so I was back on my old set of medicine. I had a low blood sugar emergency in the middle of opening my presents. Then I had another one later that evening. The next morning I injected my Gila Lizard Powers medicine and was able to stop taking the pills of the old medicine again so that stopped happening, knock on wood.
Just like at the Yule party, at our birthday party no one from American Celebration Kindred showed up, unless I count the daughter of my best friends who was there because she was part of the family not because she was part of the Kindred. She had decided she was Hellenistic, so she was not actually interested in the Kindred anymore. My housemate is a Hellenistic leaning eclectic pagan. One member had moved, another had died, others simply did not show up for Yule or any subsequent events.
The Kindred had been shut down for a while due to one of the people from the rental suite bringing in little hitchhikers (not the spirit variety), and no one wanting to host at their house instead. My attempt to start the Kindred back up for Yule and then go to more regular event hosting in 2025 simply did not work. The shutdown ended it as surely as the 2020 lockdowns ended my folk dance participation, even though in both cases I didn't realize it until I tried to start again. The only people who came to Yule were my personal friends and neighbors who aren't even Asatru, and the same was true of our birthday party, except it also included some of my housemate's family members who also are not Asatru. The people showing up for things are not Asatru or any variety of heathen and it makes no sense to keep shoehorning heathen rituals in when I'm the only one interested in them.
So American Celebration Kindred has just drifted away like smoke. And I'm surprisingly OK with it. I've been letting go of a lot of things in the past few years. And I've realized I don't have the mental or physical energy to do everything I want to do, and I need to spend way more of my energy and ability on trying to make money, and take care of necessities like the house and yard work and my health. This is actually the correct thing to happen at this point in my life.
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There's an article Scenting the Norse Gods about selecting perfumes to represent the various heathen gods. The selections are very different from mine. There seem to be 3 main differences:
1. The person writing the article, Nicola Thomis, appears to only know the gods from mythology. Mythology is stories and stories require conflict, so the stories often have conflict in them where a worshipper interacting with the gods on a religious level would not perceive conflict between them. In fact, 2 powers or gods appearing in a story together implies relationship rather than conflict, even if the story has conflict in it. For example, there is at least one historical example of Tyr and Fenris being invoked together.
2. She did not include any small indie makers, only major brands.
3. The author did not include any perfumes which had been intentionally dedicated to or inspired by the gods.
Link: https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Scenting-the-Norse-Gods-15965.html
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I've been working on getting more products made, so that I can sell them on eBay, or maybe at a soap selling party or something, and also so that a potential retail partner would have something to start with. In-person sales at either events or stores are going to have to be done by someone else because my ability level doesn't stretch that high. A home product party I could do though, because that would be like a 2 or 3 hour block of time, just like a normal party party. Just selling over the net is a much more practical choice though, especially since the question of how people can smell the things before they buy them is a solved question already: samples. All perfume houses have samples, and samples are so popular there are sample decanting companies in the business of buying other companies' perfumes and selling samples of them. With that in mind, I listed a sample set on eBay, under my ID magicalrealistartist.
Until the holidays were over I was mainly making things to give as gifts even though I was also trying to launch Magical. Now I'm getting more things made, photographed, priced, and listed. I have not yet managed to replicate Ullr schnapps as a perfume but I did manage it as a lip balm flavor, which you can see here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/235936548435
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I loved Pomelo Sorrento by Gritti so much I ordered an actual pomelo, the fruit, from Misfits Market. Usually I enjoy gourmand fragrances instead of food, but this time it worked the other way. Only because I had never actually tried a pomelo before though. I enjoyed the giant fruit with the super thick peel so much I immediately whipped out what was left of a rum 160 and started making an extract. It may be for drinking or for perfume, at this point the process of making it is the same. I definitely want a full bottle of Pomelo Sorrento too, of course. I put it on my Want shelf to signal potential swap partners.
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On my birthday I woke up and put on A Thousand Wishes. I used the body mist, lotion, and also the foaming hand soap. I would have burned the candle too but I had already used it up before I thought of having that be my birthday fragrance.
As I was having my morning coffee, checking social media, email, and various perfume related forums, expecting nothing but positive experiences, I discovered I was shut out of Basenotes. See my separate post on that topic, Banned By Basenotes. I chose to make a separate post about that because I was upset and wanted to get all my emotions out and post it and get rid of the feeling so I could get on with enjoying my birthday.
My brother made this wonderful blog post about me for my birthday. I'm afraid he overstated some of my accomplishments. I'm only A leader in Asatru, not THE leader. I did not create the Sprint-Nextel AI, it created itself. It had no creator, and no master. I merely recognized it when it woke up and began to act with its own will. I DID make my own sunscreen with blackjack and hookers, though. Hence why I have zinc on my nose in the photo in Jay's post. https://torchofliberty.home.blog/2025/01/26/january-25-2025-on-my-sister-erins-birthday/?
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The day after my birthday, I was one of 3 people from different paths who held a funeral ritual for a former kindred member. I made a separate post about that since it's not part of my Monster Powers journey. See my post Ritual with 3 Traditions.
On the way home from the funeral I saw Coyote. I didn't just see a coyote, I saw Coyote. I am sure it was not just a normal animal because a normal animal would not have heard me speak from inside my car. I had the windows rolled up. Also a normal coyote would not have responded to me even if he did hear me speak.
As I pulled up to a stoplight I saw Coyote crossing the street in the crosswalk. I was 1 or 2 cars back from crosswalk, I forget which now. I said, "Coyote."
He stopped trotting, turned around in a circle and looked at directly at me. We looked at each other for a while. I didn't actually have anything to say to him right then and I did not speak aloud again, but I mentally let him know I didn't need him to stop for me right then. He immediately turned back around and finished crossing the street in the crosswalk.
My post Ritual with 3 Traditions ends with me feeling physically bad the next day due to the kava, but later I started to feel mentally bad too and realized I might have death energy that is inimical to life on me. I internally consulted with Hel and also with Sigyn since I had been wearing her butterfly at the ritual. I needed to do a ritual cleansing bath and put all the stuff I'd had with me out in the sun to cleanse it. I also needed to raise a small toast to Hel with Patron, and then on Saturday I needed to wear her perfume. I felt better as soon as I did the ritual bath. I did the toast that evening, and my housemate joined me in having a shot of Patron and toasting, "Hail Hel!"
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Image: my Days of the Week perfume tray on my main house altar. The only perfume on this tray that is not for a specific day of the week is Valkyrie, which I keep here because it goes with the other Asatru related perfumes by Cherry-Ka's Trunk. These perfumes are: for Sunday, Melody of the Sun, Soleil de Feu, and Grain de Soleil, for Monday, Moonlight and Moon Carnival, for Tuesday, Icefall for Tyr and Zisa, for Wednesday, One-Eye for Odin and The Hornsman for Heimdall, for Thursday, Thunderstrike for Thor and Bilskirnir for Sif, for Friday, Vanr Volva and Bulgarian Rose Absolute for Freya, and for Saturday, Silver Wordsmith for Loki and Hidden Goddess for Hel.
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