I look like me. As the weight melted off, thanks to my Gila Lizard Powers (GLP-1) , the bones in my face re-emerged. One day I happened to look in the mirror over the bathroom sink while I was washing my hands and was startled to see-- me.

"I look like ME." I said it out loud.

It was an odd, time-displacing, perfect reversal of that moment 30 years ago when I had gotten Depo-Provera injections in an unsuccessful attempt to stop bleeding all the time, had gained 60 lbs. in 3 months, and had happened to look in the mirror one day and didn't recognize myself.

"Who is that?" has now become, "I look like ME." I look like the me in old photos from before Depo. Except old, of course. I look like the me I should look like at this age if I'd never tried Depo. I only hope the healing on the inside has been just as effective. 

So here is more of my Monster Powers journey, the events of February while I honor the Gila Monster whose powers formed the basis of my new medicine, my health journey and my newfound obsession with perfume that followed, and of course, since this is still Gnosis Diary, all of that as it relates to my Asatru religion and personal gnosis.

***

Feb. 1st was the next Saturday after I had raised a toast to Hel with Patron tequila and promised to put on the fragrance dedicated to her, Hidden Goddess by Cherry-Ka's Trunk, on the next Saturday. Saturday morning I awoke early when my kitty jumped down and I heard his little feet land on the bamboo plank floor. There was just barely some grey predawn light starting in the sky, but that was morning enough, so I got up too. I put on the Loki and Hel perfumes, Silver Wordsmith and Hidden Goddess, whispering "Hail Hel." Thus I fulfilled my promise. Noting my intention on my blog post about January that I posted on the last day of January helped me remember to do this action the next morning.

That was also the day we held a root beer float party in memoriam for Tom instead of the usual Annual Tom Newman Memorial Shooting Party. We usually go out shooting every year near his birthday in February. In a previous year we had had a root beer float party instead because I was unable to go out to the desert, and this year another key participant was unable. 

We ended up using the pomelo extract for drinking rather than perfumery. We had a root beer float toast to Tom and then later we had a pomelo rum toast. We also did some dry fire in the back garden.

My traveling friends attended from out of state, which was really exciting for me. They had not had a chance to try my lip balms yet so of course I had them each choose a lip balm to sample. When it was Derin's turn instead of choosing one he asked me, "What does Odin say?"

I consulted Odin internally and relayed that Odin asked if he had a relationship with the god Ullr. He did; so he sampled the Ullr lip balm. Everyone liked the lip balms.

Feb. 2nd was the witchy clothing exchange for members of the Sin City Witches chat. We held it in the parking lot of a public park, so only certain types of things could be tried on, but we had fun and hoped for the best.

For those who are just joining the Monster Powers posts now: I started the Monster Powers series in fall of 2024 and earlier posts have an explanation for why it's Monster and what that has to do with perfume. And weight loss.

I was hoping to dump my whole wardrobe and get a whole new one because my old clothes had somehow gotten too long, not just too baggy. I shouldn't be surprised; after all, I have a Monster Power. I can very slowly change my shape.

It was a perfect afternoon for an outdoor meetup, sunny, still, and 72 degrees. A pair of geese flew low over our gathering, honking with enthusiasm on their way to the lake.

I ended up only giving away a few things and taking a couple of things, but it was definitely worth doing. A pair of witchy boots that had always been too narrow in the toe found a new home. What was a burden to me was a delight to someone else. Tom's jean jacket found a new home too. I took home a shirt and pants that looked like they would fit. The shirt was a wild assemblage of rainbow colors, asymmetrical as the costume of a court jester, someone's old Pride gear. It was oddly appropriate because I happened to be wearing a rainbow Heimdall T-shirt and bright purple pants at the clothing swap, and one of the participating witches said the shirt matched my pants. And it did, oddly enough; they were the same tone and level of brightness.

***

I continued with the monthly perfume trays. In January I took over hosting the monthly perfume tray thread while the regular host was traveling, and I co-hosted in February. In February I started having my "tray" be a virtual tray online and a list I kept in a document instead of trying to make a physical tray. I did this because making a physical tray ended up being confusing when I would look for something and it wasn't in its usual place. Plus I had "use up samples" on my list this time and putting that many things on a tray would be a big tray (haha.) 

My February 2025 tray:

White snow glitter:

Midnight Amber Glow (glowtion) – use this up

La Panthere Etincelante

Any and all glowtions and diamond shimmer mists

Black Opium “glistening moisture fluid” (glitter lotion)

Use up samples, and anything I have only a tiny bit of

Fire:

Midnight Bonfire by Magical

Winter in the title:

Winter Candy Apple

Florals:

Flowerbomb ruby orchid

Tea rose

Covered in roses

Rose absolue

Brightest Bloom

Gourmands:

Feve gourmand

Vanilla park

Fiji Sunshine Guava-tini

Calypso Clementine

Golden Delicious

Hot drinks:

Jasmin perle de the

Coffee Ritual by Magical

Coffee White Flowers

Sea related:

On the Horizon

Deep Ocean Amber

Light:

Luminous

Golden Hour by Magical

Town by Day:

Libre Platine

Sporty:

Olympea Solar

Greeting the Dawn:

(See my post Perfumes for the 7 Day Week)

Cat Time:

Sweetheart by Magical

Purr

Purr also goes for amethyst as the February birthstone, because it's purr-ple.

*** 

I had not been planning to buy any samples, but only swap and participate in traveling boxes, but then I read about another startup perfume house here in Nevada. Opula Perfumes, started by Jodie Tinker. Like me, she also does visual art. Like me, she started a perfume house in 2024. And like me, she loves our local Nevada desert sun. Of course I immediately ordered a sample. 

Dulce Solis perfectly captures the heat of the sun on a dry wash, with desert flowers blooming, powdery blowing dust and thirsty desert shrubs, and that moment when the sun goes down and the flowers close and the shrubs stop emitting their leafy scent and it all turns to a cool, shadowed stone. 

*** 

 One morning I went to the perfume forum and looked at the weekly theme thread, which was Art of Glass. There was a picture of a stained glass window with flowers, and the poster had asked what perfumes went with the flowers. One of the flowers was wisteria.

There used to be some product called Mysterious Wisteria. I think it may have been shampoo. I remember I liked it but nothing else about it. I was a teenager and I thought for a long time that was the actual name of the flower, I didn't realize it was just called wisteria until years later. This is so cool! I got another memory back! This is one of my favorite things about my perfume journey. And I didn't even smell it. Now just the suggestion that perfumes are involved is priming me to remember things.

***  

My housemate's daughter came to visit with her new baby. Instead of staying on the floor in M's room like her fellow and her fellow's mom had done long term, M asked to put her up as a guest in the main part of the house so they could use the hideabed sofa in the front room. That was usually where I did my weaving because the light is good in the morning so I had to move all my weaving stuff. That's also where my big screen is, where I watch TV and do most of my non business related web surfing, so I tried to be sure I was finished watching the movie I'd had cued up before she arrived, got the DVDs put away, moved my camera and other stuff I keep by my big screen computer. 

At the last minute I would cover the screen with the Costa Rica quilt screen cover I had made especially for it years ago, right after I had taken a real vacation-- not working or studying or networking or doing some project related to serving the community or the gods-- except mom was with me so it was in fact serving, serving family, but that didn't stop until she died. Anyway. What was my point? Oh yes, when I worked for Sprint-Nextel I took a week's vacation in Costa Rica. I went to the Cloud Forest specifically because there was no net access there and no one could reach me to ask me any tech questions. I bought some embroidered fabric pieces there and when I got home I made a screen cover with them for the big screen that I had also bought while I worked for Sprint-Nextel.

Having the hideabed pulled out and in use would also mean I would lose early morning access to the main house altar. It was my mom's old piano so it couldn't be moved. I usually put on my Day of the Week perfume when I first get up in the morning. I could move my perfume tray but I didn't want to move the whole thing, because I liked the symmetry of design of the various rollers by Cherry-Ka's Trunk, with alternating black and white caps and a design with the short and tall ones. So instead I selected one perfume for each morning M's family would be here and put them on a separate tray in my room. None of them were the rollers because I didn't want to break up the symmetry by moving any of them.

So instead I selected a rose perfume from my main collection for Freya for Friday: Rose Absolue by Goutal. And a cinnamon perfume from my main collection for Saturday for Loki: Cinnabar. And moved 3 perfumes from my main house altar to the new preselect tray in my room: the travel spray of Melody of the Sun for Sunday, the travel spray of Moon Carnival for Monday, and the sample of Icefall for Tuesday.

On that Saturday I put on Cinnabar for Loki because he likes cinnamon, but when I put it on I realized it just smells like me. I mean that in the way that M.'s fellow C. means when he says his one cologne that he has used since he was 12 makes him smell like himself. He has a true signature fragrance and doesn't use any others. In my teen years I also had just one fragrance. I think I had both Cinnabar and Opium but the differences between them are slight.  So, Cinnabar reminded me of me in my teen years rather than reminding me of Loki. 

There was a time in my life when thinking about my childhood at all was horrible and I didn't want my memories back, not even the good ones like the rose petal potpourri making and the apple peels and those other nice things I've gotten back (see my previous blog entries for those.) But that is over now. I didn't realize it, but that was healed when I wrote Some Say Fire. I can get back the good memories of my childhood and teen years now. I can cherish them as precious gifts to and from my brain. 

I looked at my photo albums. I saw photos of myself as a teenager and I said, "I want THAT back," and pointed to my body in a bathing suit. Not long after that was when I glanced in the mirror and said, "I look like ME." 

Image: my alternate Days of the Week tray for that week, with a reflection of the cat Sweetheart in the background.