I headed in to March on the great health news I got in February (see previous post) and I am definitely ready to keep up my Monster Powers and my dedication to perfume. One of my most significant magical and religious experiences of early March is not about perfume, though, but about dance. And of course, Thor. And the Gila Monster!

It was the 5th and it was supposed to be raining. My housemate showed me the weather radar and asked why it wasn't raining yet. I went outside to check, and it smelled like rain. Not the petrichor smell, that happens after it starts raining. There's a particular smell to the air when it's full of water. I had already ground coffee and brewed a fresh pot, which often is enough for Thor to appear. I said, "Maybe if I do my Rain Dance it will rain."

I found my Rain Dance art film ("Erin Lale Rain Dance" is usually enough search terms to find it on youtube) and started it. There was my friend the Gila Monster! I had filmed it long ago when I had no idea the special relationship I would someday have with the Gila Monster. I had not watched my film since then, and it was wonderful seeing it there.

The dancing started and I danced along. Not long ago I had said I was not going to try to rejoin the folk dance group. But now, I see that doesn't mean I have to give up dancing. I can still dance, and it's still powerful.

When I filmed Rain Dance, I specifically made it so someone watching it could learn the dance from the movie. I followed along and reviewed and relearned it as I went. Soon I was experiencing the joy of dance, and the joy of rain and all the experiences of the desert in my film. 

As I danced along with my short film, I realized several people in the film were dead now. My mom Meta, the woman who didn't turn when everyone else turned. Spinning made her dizzy so she never turned. And it was OK. Folk dance is about the experience of dancing, not about a performance. Not even when filming it.

Dutchie, "Happy Woman" in film. And off camera in her scene, Paul Deadrich doing the rain effects. All dead now. It was not a sad feeling at all. Rather, I felt connected to the dead.

After I danced, I felt wonderful. I had reclaimed dancing it and it was amazing. I went outside but it wasn't raining yet. I thought, maybe if I do the dance outside.

I did the dance outside in my front yard. I finished the dance with my hands up and a bit of a foot stomp to end it. And it started raining. I turned around and dark rain drops fell on the cement sidewalk. "Hail Thor!" I called. I went inside for a cup of coffee and as I poured it, I excitedly told my housemate what had happened. I went back outside and raised a toast with the coffee and called out, "Hail Thor! Thank you for the beautiful rain!"

I heard my voice echo and realized I had projected loudly. The street was full of light, from landscape lighting and cars and the pinkish street light on the corner and a plane going by overhead, and the city glow on the clouds in the sky, but I was the only person outside.

It was amazing! I've had the rain dance bring rain before but this was super special and just extra, as they say these days. I decided to celebrate with some perfume as well, because why not? I put on Thunderstorm by Demeter. Tomorrow is Thursday so of course I'll be starting my day with Thunderstrike by Cherry-Ka's Trunk as usual. 

As it continued to rain I wondered, "Where's my kitty?" Not long after that he meowed at the door. My kitty came inside and wanted to play. What a perfect evening!

Now, let's back up to the 1st. I have fragrant thoughts to share. Here are my March experiences starting at the beginning.

xxx

In March the original host of the monthly Tray Projects was ready to take hosting back over, so I was done with my Tray hosting duties, but of course I was still participating. My "tray" was really just a list of reminders to myself. I had tried making a physical tray at first and it just didn't work for me. I do have my Days of the Week tray, and I've made preselect trays for specific days and occasions, but making one for a whole month just ended up being confusing. But the reminder list was definitely useful to me.

March 2025 Tray

It’s actually super nice weather here in the afternoon but it’s still chilly in the early morning, and it could theoretically still turn wintry again. So, the feeling I want, as long as it’s cool enough in the mornings and evenings:

Snuggly sitting by the fire with a warm blanket and a cup of coffee and a bowl of pumpkin custard and my cat curled up next to me.

by the fire:

By the Fireplace

Cozy Campfire by Cherry-Ka’s Trunk

Midnight Bonfire by Magical

cup of coffee:

Black Opium

Coffee Cloud by Good Chemistry

Coffee White Flowers by Bohoboco

Cup of hot something:

Mulled Cider by Demeter

bowl of pumpkin custard:

Pumpkin Pie by Demeter

cat:

Panthere

La Panthere

Also: continue with using up samples, and continue with representing snow and ice with white glitter, and anything with winter in the name. And the general warmth of amber and of sunshine. And of course, as always, continuing my Days of the Week selections, even though I put my Sunday ones on my March tray too, just because I feel like I want a bit more sunshine right now. And have an occasional tropical getaway. And do what I want, because chaos! Anarchy! And Loki! Oh, I have the perfect thing for that. La Fin de Monde by ELDO. It’s a sample so it goes with “use up samples” but I’m including in here too because I do what I want.

Englitterating:

Black Opium the “glistening moisture fluid”

La Panthere Etincelante

Luminous by BBW, in the form of “glowtion” and of Diamond Shimmer Mist

Brightest Bloom Diamond Shimmer Mist by BBW

Winter in the name:

Winter Candy Apple by BBW

Warm amber:

Sensual Amber by BBW

Opium

Luminous by BBW

Luminous EDP by BBW

Cinnabar

Midnight Amber Glow by BBW

Boucheron

Warm sunshine:

Melody of the Sun by Mancera

Soleil de Feu by Tom Ford

Grain de Soleil by Fragonard

Golden Hour by Magical

Travel:

Fiji Sunshine Guava-Tini by BBW

Emily in Paris: Champagne in Paris by BBW

The pumpkin custard is definitely something I miss. Also souffle, especially when Charles comes over and makes it. I taught him how to make it just in time before my childhood allergy to eggs came back. Charles still makes it here even though he doesn't live here anymore because the kitchen at his current place is inadequate. 

But, discussing the dietary challenges of my new food allergies, especially the egg one, with my primary health care provider was the conversation that led to my getting prescribed my Monster Powers. So I don't resent the absence of eggs from my diet, even though I do miss specific dishes. I can experience the flavor profile of pumpkin pie / pumpkin custard in the form of perfume. There's no substitute for spinach souffle, though. 

March 1st being a Saturday, day of Loki, and having "use up samples" on my March list, I decided to go with an additional fragrance besides my usual Saturday perfume (Silver Wordsmith by Cherry-Ka's Trunk) and chose Le Fin du Monde by ELDO.

The front page of Fragrantica as February turned into March was dedicated to the Greek gods. Specifically, Adonis and Aphrodite, and their sacred location of love at the waterfalls and natural pool in Cypress. Link to article: https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Hellenist-Paris-The-Mythology-Collection-Adds-a-New-Chapter-This-Spring-22143.html

After I finished the custom fragrance Terrifying Bog Witch, I resumed working on Swimming in Silk, my flanker for Swimming in Perfume. Swimming in Perfume and its flankers were my fragrance for the Me as a Perfume Challenge which started on Fragram, the photo side of Fragrantica. The Challenge then moved to the forums where we have been keeping each other updated. I posted this:

"Definitely need a third fragrance for the Gila Monster. Representing my local desert would require a bunch of different scents and not all of them would be compatible with scents like coffee and vanilla. This is probably not even a flanker for Swimming in Perfume, I think it's going to have to be a stand alone.

OK so flanker #2, Swimming in Silk. I don't think I've ever said why silk. I used to operate a custom fabric and yarn dyeing business. I mostly did business via an eBay Store, where I also sold my sunprint fine art and various other items, including aromatherapy supplies. It was a successful business for years. Then, there was an economic shift (the Great Recession) where a lot of my crafter and theatrical design customers started doing their dyeing work in house, and the hand dyed look passed out of fashion for retail customers, and at the same time my arthritis was getting so bad I couldn't really continue to do the work unless I bought some machines and automated part of the process. Trying to mechanize while my sales were falling just didn't seem like a good idea so I stopped dyeing bolts of fabric. For a while I sold custom hand dyed scarves as I tried to clear out my backstock of fabrics, and then eventually I couldn't even do small pieces of fabric by hand anymore and stopped doing that too. I concentrated on writing and editing, and I was successful at that too, for a while. Then genAI destroyed my industry as my author customers abandoned the business and stopped buying editing services. So here I am starting a new home business, which does not involve silk. Any of this silk. Bolts of silk. Silk gauze, silk habotai, silk velvet, silk satin. And I also just lost 30 lbs. due to my Gila Lizard Powers. Today I took my sewing machine to be serviced. The new me is going to be... literally... swimming in silk."

And, I read about the new perfume Shantung Dream, which is also inspired by silk. On the thread for the Me as a Perfume Challenge, I posted about it and continued:

"It sounds lovely and I'd like to sample it. It also sounds like the total opposite of what I want to do to represent silk in my fragrance. As a former custom dyer, to me silk has an actual smell. It's not just an association of smooth, light, airy things. In fact when I encounter it in the dye tub it's very heavy!

Imagine hand rinsing a 30 yard bolt of silk velvet. Without wringing it, because that would damage it. Lifting it out of the rinse water, squeezing the dye out of it with nothing but the strength of your grip. Over and over, until the water runs clear. That's why I became unable to do the work when my arthritis got bad.

Mechanized dyeworks have a machine that does that. But if I bought one and used it, I could no longer call my product hand made. So I would have been in a different category of makers. I decided not to do that and got out of the business. I've reinvented myself in a new industry over and over. Anyway. The smell of silk!

So, silk is a protein fiber like hair. And in nature it's the fiber of a cocoon. The fibers are stuck together to keep the cocoon in a cocoon shape with natural silk gum. And that stuff has a smell. It's hard to describe. But you can smell it yourself on "raw silk" if it's never been washed. So undyed, natural color, unwashed raw silk cloth will still have this gum present and you can smell it. A whole bunch of it all together, wet, in a big tub, is a noticeable smell. That's the smell I would want to try to capture to represent silk."

 xxx

I filmed another appearance on The Bard's Archive. This time I talked about perfume, and my Monster Powers, and my new home business, Magical Perfumes and Products. I'll provide a link to my appearance when it goes live.

xxx

The perfume forum had a thread in which a member offered to read "what your collection says about you" and picked up some really super specific things, some of which I have blogged about on this blog. 

She said I hear the secrets of the wind. That goes back to one of my first blog entries here, in which I wrote about when I came home from my first day of kindergarten and asked my dad what religion we are, and he responded, "Listen to the corn. Listen to the wind. Listen to your heart."

She also said I read omens from birds. She literally used the word omens. Reading bird omens is also a topic I've blogged about here.

She picked up on flowing fabrics. She could not have Swimming in Silk in my collection because firstly I have not finished developing it yet and secondly the official collection shelves only have things that are in the database.

She read herbs and tea in my collection too. Those could be actual perfume notes so those are not as amazing for her to get just from looking at my perfume wardrobe. But the overall reading was as accurate as the best tarot readings I've had. I asked if she would mind if I blogged about this and she replied that she did not mind. So there is my report.

xxx

Another Thursday brought another visit from Thor in the form of a rain storm. This time I did not play the Rain Dance movie or dance. This time I put on rain related perfumes. Since it was a Thursday I already put on Thunderstrike and Bilskirnir, 2 fragrances by Cherry-Ka's Trunk that I keep on my main house altar for my Thursday morning devotions. I was thinking about the dancing and also how I would make coffee and invite Thor for a coffee. I did make coffee. And I put on Thunderstorm and Wet Garden, two colognes by Demeter. I considered also putting on Monsoon, my own fragrance that I made, but the monsoon rains come in summer and it is winter, so I just went with the 4 I already had on. And yes, it rained. Hail Thor! And it also snowed in the mountains again. Even in some parts of town that are merely mountain-adjacent. Not here, but it did rain.

The sky was still full of rainclouds as the time for the Blood Moon Eclipse approached. I said that if I happened to wake up when it was going, and it was clear enough to see it, I would go out and try to photograph it, and also howl. My family tradition was to howl at the moon, but along the way on my heathen path I started howling at the wolves that chase the sun and the moon. During an eclipse I howl at the wolves to let the moon go.

The sky cleared up just long enough for me to howl at the moon wolf. So I howled. I howled into the night. And then I went back inside and sat by the fire with the kitty for a while and went to sleep. I was confident the wolf would let the moon go. Just before dawn I woke up in moonlight. I looked out and there was the full moon, uneaten. The clouds rolled back in after I had a chance to see the moon.

xxx

I had the opportunity to test Divine Folie by Jean Patou.

Is it a perfume for a mad god?

Or is it a divine madness?

Or perhaps, "It is folly."-- Boromir.

In any case, how appropriate for me. It is a divine madness to think I could simply trade the sensual pleasure of food for the sensual pleasure of perfume, that my Monster Powers could propel me on a journey of fragrant weight loss. Except that it worked. So, Divine Folie: when it popped up in the auction listing, how could I possibly pass up the opportunity to purchase a vintage mini.

The top note was worrisome. Sharp and acidic, I dreaded that my lovely and lunatic perfume desire might turn out to have turned. But no, it was merely the citrus note of neroli.

A minute later, the scent was truly divine. Complex and "perfumy" in the way of all my favorite vintages. I detected floral notes, but they made room for something else, something deeper, probably vetiver.

And then, while the florals stayed on stage, they were joined by a lovely vanilla that took center stage, like a prima ballerina as the White Swan dancing in front of some sort of floral Greek Chorus in hues of rose and iris, edging the Swan's lake with flowers blowing in the wind. A demented vision for a divine folie.

There is no amber note in the note pyramid of this perfume and yet it smells ambery somehow, the vanilla note claiming its full exotic beauty. As she takes a bow and the dancers leave the stage, the divine scent of their performance remains, the perfection of their beauty transferred from dancers to audience, from flowers to nose to brain.

A dance, a flower garden, a bird gliding on a lake, a rare orchid blooming in the rainforest, a green carnation boutonniere on the lapel of a red-haired god. He smiles. "I'm not really insane, you know." He has given me the perfect opportunity for an sf geek like me to express sf geek love. I reply, "I know."

What a divinely mad, god-touched thing it must have been to make the first perfume. This scent on my arm comes not from the deeps of time but only from the last century, and yet, in paying close attention to the messages it carries, I partake a little of the divine madness of the poet.