a single secret word

 

When geometric diagrams and digits
Are no longer the keys to living things,
When people who go about singing and kissing
Know deeper things than the great scholars,
When society is returned once more
To unimprisoned life, and to the universe,
And when life and darkness mate
Once more and make something entirely transparent,
And people see in poems and fairy tales
The true history of the world,
Then our entire twisted nature will turn
And run when a single secret word is spoken.

Novalis (1800)
translated by Robert Bly

(a u m . . . ) 

botanica gothica

Laurissa, Laurissa, quite contrary.

How does your garden grow?

With gothic darkness and

Bela Lugosi Lillies all in a nice little row.

With Bloodgood maples,

Double Purple Devil's Trumpet (Datura)

(and if Edward Gorey made sunflowers)  

the Black Knight Scabiosa can all be seen in the moon-glow.

With Black Salvia also known as S. salvatrix, Sage the Savior

(one of the ingredients of Four Thieves Vinegar, a blend of herbs used to ward off the plague, cuz heaven knows we all need some saving).

And Black Shiso leaves waiting to become salad du morte served with a side of fresh nightmare as the story goes.

The Garden, adorned in her Black Lace Elderberry, listens as the

Black Heart Sweet Potatoes,

and Dark Opal Basil sing haunting lullabys to each unsuspecting passersby.

We'll happily refill your goblet with a Stevia sweetened Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) tisan

 

as you speculate with the Dark Lord Geranium

about the mysterious note the Inky Fingers Colius left before he disappeared last night...

(I've been gardening moochoss-much this year. All of the above characters and many more happily or perhaps eerily, reside at Dasila's Euphorium Estates located centrally in the Orchard Grove Caravan Park.)

reason and passion

And the priestess spoke again and said:

 "Speak to us of Reason and Passion."

 And he answered saying:

Your soul is often times a battlefield, upon which your

reason and your judgment wage war against passion and

your appetite. 

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul,

that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your

elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the

peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the

sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can

but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in

mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and

passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own

destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the

height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your 

passion with reason, that your

passion may live through its own daily resurrection,

and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your

appetite even as you would two loved guests in your

house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other;

for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and

the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the

white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of

distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say

in silence, "God rests in reason." 

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes

the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the

majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe,

"God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf

in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and

move in passion. 

-Kahlil Gibran  

(Yes, that is a D & D image above...grok the hilarity if you dare.)