BPAL: Harvest Moon '05
I smell like the Feed Store.
When I was growing up, my family went from some fairly traditional religious practices (Catholocism) to some pretty non-traditional ones (anything but Catholocism). This was all well and good, and for awhile, my mother was practicing wicca with a number of pagan types in Sacramento. The head of one of the largest (and most reviled) groups had a feed store, which was located on Franklin Boulevard. The name of this establishment was Al's Feed, Seed and Antiques.
It was a medium sized wearhouse building, that, upon entering, one noticed that it was in many ways a fairly typical feedstore (in that it sold feed, seed, etc.), and that it was covered (covered) in dust. And the items that were covered in dust were strange, esoteric books, statues of non-traditional christian dieties and/or prophets, magic(k)al paraphanalia, and a whole host of other items of dubious value and potentially legality.
The place had a smell that was very distinct to it: old incense, hay, dried flowers, and alcohol. It smelled like animals and decay. My best friend at the time was the daughter of the proprietor, and we spend countless hours staring at the candles that had burned down, pouring melted wax over the skulls of strange creatures, reading excerpts from books that had our right-wing teachers known about, it would have been an instant call to Child Protective Services.
Next door to the store, on the same property, was a small green house, known, shockingly enough, as the Green House. In this house, rituals strange and esoteric took place. My friend and I would tell each other stories about what happened in the house. Acolytes to the Feed Store and the Green House told each other that the place was haunted, although in my opinion it is more likely that the only things haunting it were the ghosts of gossip and the detritus of those rituals that was never completely cleaned up.
This is the lengthy description of the scent with a history/folklore lesson:
The Harvest Moon, by definition, is the Full Moon that falls closest to the Autumnal Equinox, and thus, it shares some of that Sabbat’s characteristics. This Full Moon was thus named because it rises within half an hour of the sun’s setting, in the Northern Hemisphere, and at this time farmers are able to work longer into the night by the light of this Moon. As the year draws to a close, the Full Moon rises an average of fifty minutes later each night, with the exception of a few nights surrounding the Harvest Moon, which only rises 10-30 minutes later. This moon is also, to the human eye, the fullest and largest of the year’s Moons, hanging gloriously huge, yellow and low in the night sky, and many Moon Illusions trick our eyes at this time.
The Harvest ushers in many celebrations in magickal work, including the Equinox and the Festival of Janus, God of Doors. Janus is the Roman Lord of Gateways, beginnings and endings, and transitions. Thus, the Harvest Moon is a time for blessing new undertakings, the onset of new and progressive phases in one’s life, and rites of passage into adulthood. This time of year also marks one of the Festivals of Dionysus, Lord of Ecstasy and the Vine.
The autumnal scents of gladiola, chrysanthemum, aster, dahlia, anemone, bergamot, marigold, sage and verbena dust a blend of wine-soaked apples, plums, and red pears, mulling spices and brown sugar, the ivy leaves of Dionysus and Janus’ amaranth and lingum aloe.
I suppose it's appropriate, then, that it should smell like the Feed Store, and all of the associations I have with it. Scents have a way of pushing nostalgia buttons the way nothing else can, and this is no exception. And while I think that I like the scent itself, I'm not sure that I want to have these trips down memory lane every time I wear it.
When I was growing up, my family went from some fairly traditional religious practices (Catholocism) to some pretty non-traditional ones (anything but Catholocism). This was all well and good, and for awhile, my mother was practicing wicca with a number of pagan types in Sacramento. The head of one of the largest (and most reviled) groups had a feed store, which was located on Franklin Boulevard. The name of this establishment was Al's Feed, Seed and Antiques.
It was a medium sized wearhouse building, that, upon entering, one noticed that it was in many ways a fairly typical feedstore (in that it sold feed, seed, etc.), and that it was covered (covered) in dust. And the items that were covered in dust were strange, esoteric books, statues of non-traditional christian dieties and/or prophets, magic(k)al paraphanalia, and a whole host of other items of dubious value and potentially legality.
The place had a smell that was very distinct to it: old incense, hay, dried flowers, and alcohol. It smelled like animals and decay. My best friend at the time was the daughter of the proprietor, and we spend countless hours staring at the candles that had burned down, pouring melted wax over the skulls of strange creatures, reading excerpts from books that had our right-wing teachers known about, it would have been an instant call to Child Protective Services.
Next door to the store, on the same property, was a small green house, known, shockingly enough, as the Green House. In this house, rituals strange and esoteric took place. My friend and I would tell each other stories about what happened in the house. Acolytes to the Feed Store and the Green House told each other that the place was haunted, although in my opinion it is more likely that the only things haunting it were the ghosts of gossip and the detritus of those rituals that was never completely cleaned up.
This is the lengthy description of the scent with a history/folklore lesson:
The Harvest Moon, by definition, is the Full Moon that falls closest to the Autumnal Equinox, and thus, it shares some of that Sabbat’s characteristics. This Full Moon was thus named because it rises within half an hour of the sun’s setting, in the Northern Hemisphere, and at this time farmers are able to work longer into the night by the light of this Moon. As the year draws to a close, the Full Moon rises an average of fifty minutes later each night, with the exception of a few nights surrounding the Harvest Moon, which only rises 10-30 minutes later. This moon is also, to the human eye, the fullest and largest of the year’s Moons, hanging gloriously huge, yellow and low in the night sky, and many Moon Illusions trick our eyes at this time.
The Harvest ushers in many celebrations in magickal work, including the Equinox and the Festival of Janus, God of Doors. Janus is the Roman Lord of Gateways, beginnings and endings, and transitions. Thus, the Harvest Moon is a time for blessing new undertakings, the onset of new and progressive phases in one’s life, and rites of passage into adulthood. This time of year also marks one of the Festivals of Dionysus, Lord of Ecstasy and the Vine.
The autumnal scents of gladiola, chrysanthemum, aster, dahlia, anemone, bergamot, marigold, sage and verbena dust a blend of wine-soaked apples, plums, and red pears, mulling spices and brown sugar, the ivy leaves of Dionysus and Janus’ amaranth and lingum aloe.
I suppose it's appropriate, then, that it should smell like the Feed Store, and all of the associations I have with it. Scents have a way of pushing nostalgia buttons the way nothing else can, and this is no exception. And while I think that I like the scent itself, I'm not sure that I want to have these trips down memory lane every time I wear it.