A note before we begin: I wrote most of this post in those strange, suspended days before this morning’s devastating election results. As I sit here now, trying to reconcile my small personal joys with the weight of what’s happening in our world, I find myself cycling through waves of anger, grief, and a deep, gnawing worry about what comes next.
Chuck Wendig articulated it perfectly this morning: “What I know is that I don’t know. What I know is the things I thought I knew, or that I believed were true, really aren’t, and that once more I exist in need of a word, perhaps a German one, that expresses both the act of being shocked and a total lack of shock at the exact same time.”
Part of me wanted to scrap this post entirely – it feels almost frivolous to talk about movies and recipes and foliage when so many of us are grappling with real horror and uncertainty in our lives. But. I find myself clinging to these small moments of light, these tiny victories and simple pleasures. Not as distraction, but as defiance. It’s saying: yes, we’re hurting, we’re scared, we’re angry – and we’re also still here, still cooking dinner, still telling stories, still finding ways to nurture ourselves and each other. Sometimes maintaining our rituals and celebrating small joys becomes its own kind of resistance when the larger world feels overwhelming.
So I’m sharing this post, written in a different emotional landscape than the one we’re in now. The world feels heavier today, darker. But we have been here before, and we know how to hold each other through the long night. We always find our way back to the light.
31 days of horror movies! For those who haven’t been following along, I committed to watching and reviewing a horror movie every single day in October. TLDR; my favorite viewing last month was SHE WILL. My brain is now approximately 75% jump scares and spooky soundtracks. I’m simultaneously proud of once again completing my annual challenge and ready to watch nothing but Japanese lifestyle videos on YouTube for the next month.
I watched a handful of these films while I was visiting my horror-averse sister; because she sat through a few of them with me, I promised rewards of Bridgerton marathons and cake. I actually adore scandal and gossip and melodrama and sparkly beaded frocks so I enjoyed it more than I thought! (I will say though, it could use more vampires and werewolves and eldritch horrors from beyond.)
Cooking & Eating
After a month of microwave popcorn and bowls of soup squeezed in between movie viewings, I’m getting back into proper cooking.
For many years, I have pooh-poohed quinoa as gross and pointless. Turns out all you need to do is flavor it. Whatever you’re seasoning it with, add some more. Then, a lot more of that. I stirred some lemon juice and lots of homemade pesto into some hot quinoa, and it was absolutely delicious. As an aside, “hot quinoa” sounds like an Urban Dictionary entry. Also, I don’t use a recipe for pesto; it’s basically every herb I’ve got in the garden (basil, sage, fennel, chives) + whatever nuts I have (pumpkin seeds, almonds) + garlic + lemon juice + olive oil + parmesan.
After working with sourdough for the past four years, I finally got brave enough to begin adding extra junk to it. I just made a garlic + parmesan loaf and a pickled jalapeño + sharp cheddar loaf, and they were insanely good. (This is the sourdough recipe I use, but I have been experimenting with higher hydration.)
I have been making this Thai coconut shrimp soup at least once a week for the past two months, and it is marvelous. I also made a kabocha squash soup that I garnished with cilantro, and that one bowl of soup turned me into a cilantro lover.
While I was visiting my baby sister in Indianapolis, we spent an afternoon in Carmel and went to a small-plates style restaurant called Divvy. I love little bites of all kinds of things; it is my favorite way to eat! Highly, highly recommended.
Reading
Finally catching up on my nonfiction TBR pile that got neglected during movie month. Currently, I am reading:
Fiction-wise, I recently finished the following three books…
Snake Oil by Kelsey Rae Dimberg Three women’s paths collide at a wellness company when its charismatic founder starts losing her grip on her billion-dollar empire. Not wellness horror per se, more like a wellness thriller, but I feel like it’s taken the best and strongest of all the concepts and ideas written about in the past few years and honed it into something really enjoyable.
She’s Always Hungryby Eliza Clark A delightfully weird and darkly amusing collection of stories about hunger in all its forms, from body horror to alien flora to the all-consuming desires that make us human. There is one story that is alternately so dumb and absurd that it’s actually brilliant. Like many collections, there are hits and misses, but overall, I thought it was a hoot.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister Wherein siblings deal with their supernatural family inheritance in Appalachia and the ancient bargain they made with their cranberry bog. This weirdly reminded me of my childhood love of The Boxcar Children – both tap into that deep satisfaction of seeing siblings create their own world and systems of care, even in (or especially in) strange circumstances!
I saw proper autumn foliage for the first time in I don’t know how many years! It was glorious. This photo was taken just outside my sister’s house as the leaves were only just beginning to fall.
We did not have much luck growing tomatoes or zucchini this year, but we learned we can grow unlimited eggplants, serrano peppers, and okra! Next year I am planting ALL of the peppers!
The relief of falling back into routines. Yvan’s broken foot this summer really threw me off in more ways than I realized. I’ve begun waking up early again and journaling my dreams, and I didn’t even realize how much I had been missing that little morning ritual. Also, the more frequently I write about my dreams, the better I get at remembering them, and my dream life is starting to feel all the more rich and vivid for it!
A new ceramic cooking skillet. My old one was so gross. I want to cook ALL the eggs now! And a salt grinder (I’ve just been pouring directly out of the Morton’s container my whole life, hehehe.)
When friends say something nice about you! I was mentioned in the very excellent Hauntology Now! substack last month, and I was so humbled and surprised. What a lovely thing!
Currently Inspired By
My new tea shelf! Now that Yvan is on his feet again, he was finally able to finish this project. This means all of our teas are out of boxes and in plain view now, so we will remember to drink them!
Caitlin McCarthy’s Goddess Oracleis a moonlit treasure chest overflowing with mystical beauty and arcane wisdom – a brilliant gem for art enthusiasts and practitioners of the unseen alike.
The prolific and insightful art writing of Elizah Leigh, whose keen eye and thoughtful commentary continually inspire me to look deeper and write better.
All the things I’ve been gloriously wrong about lately (quinoa needs seasoning! cilantro isn’t evil! Bridgerton could use some eldritch horrors but is still fun!)
The quiet pleasure of creating order from chaos, whether it’s recording dreams, or reviewing 31 days of horror films
Finding my way back to these rambling little life updates.
The necessity of fierce determination and tender care for the times ahead.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
a summoning for The Art of the Occult, featuring bloodmilk, BPAL, and Roses & Rue Antiques
BEHOLD, MORTALS!
By peculiar planetary alignments and mysterious postal machinations, signed copies of The Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook For The Modern Mystic have writhed their way back into existence! Like phantoms at dawn, these tomes have a habit of dissolving into the ether – so if you seek to infuse your Hexmas season with deliciously strange splendors, the moment pulses with possibility. Summon your copy directly from my web-realm before they skitter back into the void!
For those who haven’t yet ventured into these enchanted pages, imagine slipping into art history’s most bewitching territories: automatic drawings scratched out in prophetic frenzies, sacred geometries encoded in cathedral stones, mythic beasts prowling through moonlit gardens of esoteric symbols, and cosmic maps charting the vast seas between worlds. Here, in the spaces between reality and dream, generations of artists have attempted to capture glimpses of the ineffable.
Within these pages, you’ll encounter both celebrated visionaries and hidden pioneers of mystical art. Witness Hilma af Klint’s monumental temple paintings, created decades before abstraction was “invented,” channeled from realms unknown. Lose yourself in Madge Gill’s mediumistic masterpieces, thousands of intricate works produced in trance states by moonlight. Follow Remedios Varo’s alchemical transformations and Leonora Carrington’s occult bestiary. Delve into the fierce, shadowy visions of Marjorie Cameron and the wild-souled ink drawings of Vali Myers. In our own era, discover Laurie Lipton’s ethereal graphite phantasms, Alison Blickle’s modern mystical narratives, and Shannon Taggart’s haunting documents of contemporary spiritualist practices. From the symbolic paintings of the fin de siècle to the resurrection of witch-worn folkloric imagery, these artists translate their otherworldly experiences into visual feasts that still pulse with uncanny power.
This is more than just an art book – it’s a skeleton key to understanding why humans have always yearned to capture the uncapturable, to paint the invisible, to draw down the divine. Through 175 carefully curated artworks divided into explorations of The Cosmos, Higher Beings, and The Practitioners, you’ll discover how artists across time and space have translated their mystical experiences into visual feasts that still resonate with otherworldly power.
Perfect for:
Modern mystics and seasoned skeptics alike
Your favorite art historian with a taste for the transcendent
That friend who has more crystals than socks
The coffee table that yearns for something more esoteric than casual conversation starters
Anyone who’s ever wondered why humans keep trying to paint the unpaintable
Your own personal cabinet of curiosities
The cosmic wanderer who collects beautiful oddities
Hexmas giving (because nothing says “seasonal cheer” quite like a deep dive into mystical artworks, and everyone’s shelf needs a touch of the numinous)
These enchanted editions tend to vanish rapidly. Summon your signed copy before they return to whatever dimension they came from. No incantations required (though your incantatory reviews if you already have a copy are always appreciated!)
Art is, after all, magic made visible, and hopefully you will consider this book your grimoire. Here, in its pages, each brushstroke is a conjuring, each line a spell cast in pigment and possibility. Within these collected visions and voices, the unseen takes form and the ineffable finds its image.
Stora Skuggan Fantôme de Maules Ghost roads converging on a cemetery, whispers of a green-cloaked figure vanishing into mist. Fantôme de Maules unfurls like a secret, a sylvan, spectral musk, dark green twilight gleaming through branches, hovering just above the skin. The green here isn’t lush or vibrant, but austere – the color of twilight filtering through pine needles. There’s a whisper of lavender, more herbal than floral, and a hint of dry, shadowy spice – prickly subterranean murmurs from some hidden place. I catch wisps of mossy flowers through the mist, their fragrance elusive and fleeting, obscured by that omnipresent veil of cool, verdant fog. It’s beautiful, in a melancholy way, like stumbling upon abandoned ruins in a forgotten glade. The scent carries a weight of isolation, of time stretching endlessly through silent forests, the grass and loam of secret paths trodden by solitary feet. The bittersweet ache of chosen seclusion, of a world deliberately left behind. The gossamer soapy-powdery aspect feels like a fading remnant of civilization, washed away by years of woodland solitude. It’s a fragrance whose presence is defined by absence, a mystery I’m not sure I want to unravel – what’s missing, or why it matters.
Clue Warm Bulb opens with a subtle but singular blend of fuzzed salinity combined with the scent of a heating element, evoking the imagined aroma of a Himalayan salt lamp covered in a fine patina of dust. I have several of these lamps, and mine don’t smell like much of anything in particular, but this opening is always how I thought they would smell. It’s the essence of warm, mineralized air, like you could smell the soft, pinky-orange glow emanating from rough-hewn salt crystals beneath a thin veil of settled particles. The fragrance makes me think of the lamp’s alleged ability to ionize the air, creating an olfactory impression of a purified, slightly electric atmosphere tinged with a hint of neglect. As it develops, the scent undergoes an unexpected transition, as if a forgotten offering has been left near the lamp’s warm glow: a small dried bouquet and a marshmallow, both altered by proximity to the salt lamp’s warmth and accumulated residue. Imagine pressed flowers; their colors faded but still discernible, mingled with the powdery sweetness of a marshmallow slowly desiccating in the lamp’s ambient heat, all covered by a ghostly layer of time’s passage. Though not a scent that wildly excited me, Warm Bulb’s quiet journey from dusty, electrified minerals to withered floral sweetness proved to be an interesting olfactory experience, even just to think about and write about, if not to wear.
Crushed Fruits from Regime des Fleurs shimmers and unfurls like an overripe reverie, fruit flesh and flowers awakening from brandy-soaked slumber; an ultraviolet tumble of plums, an infrared rush of raspberries, a kaleidoscopic cascade woven through the fold of a forgotten black velvet painting, glossy and dripping and beckoning with the urgency of a thousand hummingbird hearts. That 1970s canvas time-shifts into a 1990s dress, empire-waisted, bell-sleeved, phantom filigree choker at the throat, echoes of stompy boots, an ambery oxblood slash of Spice or Black Honey staining ghost-lips. A current of boozy bitterness and dusky incense, a smoky scent of hazy late neon nights bleeding into dawn, of kisses that taste like vintage lipstick from a dream you haven’t had yet but always remember the moment before waking.
Arcana Wildcraft Daydreams of Trees is an olfactory landscape that defies botanical reality. Though violets are conspicuously absent from the listed notes, they emerge as unmistakable titans, ascending to arboreal majesty in a fantastical forest. In this otherworldly realm, violet blooms tower like gentle giants, their presence both awe-inspiring and benevolent. Colossal purple petals the size of skyscrapers, soft, velvety, and gossamer-thin despite their impossible scale, filter the sunlight, casting an ethereal glow that’s mirrored in the scent’s interplay of light and shadow. Beneath them, a tapestry of green unfurls – crisp, resinous, alive with the whispers of coniferous giants paying homage to their violet overlords. A cool breeze carries hints of herbal sweetness, mingling with the earthy richness of the forest floor below. These floral kaiju drift through the fragrance like benign Mothras, their movements sending waves of sweet, powdery aroma cascading through the air. The very essence of the forest seems to pulse throughout – a complex amalgam of woody warmth and floral opulence as if the boundary between tree and flower has dissolved completely. Daydreams of Trees is a perfumed dreamscape of quiet grandeur, a world where towering floral sentinels stand watch over a woodland transformed by their vast, violet shadow.
Carnival Wax Deathtrap is a smoky vanilla-incense-sandalwood-resin scent full of vaguely oracular pronouncements; it smells profound in some indefinable way. It wraps me in a nebulous aura of mystery and hazy hidden knowledge – though no one knows who hid this knowledge, why they bothered, or if anyone’s actually looking for it. I go about my daily routine feeling like a walking enigma, a bearer of arcane secrets, while everyone else is probably just wondering why I smell like a dusty old pile of books or some such. Deathtrap transforms me into the keeper of a cosmic puzzle that nobody asked for; it has cast a spell on me, convincing me of its intense profundity while simultaneously robbing me of the ability to articulate why. Trying to explain its essence is like grasping at the fading wisps of a vivid dream. The words hover just out of reach, shimmering with meaning, only to dissipate the moment I open my mouth. I’m left with nothing but a lingering sense of having touched something mystically significant, even if I can’t quite remember what or how.
Cocoa Pink Paper Butterfly is a lilting confectionary cradlesong of lightness, sweetness, and softness – frosted tea cakes, sugary breakfast cereal milk, delicate pearls of vanilla musk, and wisps of phantom florals. But like all lullabies, it carries an undercurrent of melancholy beneath its gentle exterior. Why are the songs we sing to innocent babes so often tinged with sadness? And so, somehow, this sweetness and light immediately draws forth a wistfulness from deep within. It’s a perfume that deserves its own entry in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows –
Paperiperhonen /pa.pe.ri.per.ho.nen/ n.
-A state of being in which one finds comfort in gentle sorrow, like being wrapped in a lace shawl knitted from memories and dreams, a cocoon of bittersweet reverie.
-The paradoxical sensation of feeling most alive when embracing one’s melancholy, finding unexpected depth and richness in the quieter, darker emotional landscapes.
-A moment of bittersweet clarity in which the veil between joy and sorrow dissolves, revealing that our deepest mirth and most wrenching tears spring from the same well of human experience
This fragrance doesn’t smell of sadness, but it smells like sadness feels – soft, sweet, and strangely comforting. And now, as I finally explore this sample from earlier in the summer, I’m struck by a new wave of melancholy: it was a limited edition, no longer available. This realization adds another layer to an already complex emotional experience, embodying the very fleeting beauty it captures.
Mihan Aromatics Mikado Bark is a cozy, comforting scent without any of the typical hallmarks perfumes of coziness and comfort rely on. It’s not rich or foody, and I would not say it’s overly nostalgic in any particular way. It’s a fragrance whose spicy, woody notes are all not exactly ghosts of themselves, but they’ve all been shushed and hushed, and all together, their muted echoes harmonize with exquisite subtlety. It’s a perfume that hovers like a hazy veil, both grounding and uplifting in its gentle presence. It carries the softness of lamplight pooling in shadows at dusk, yet also evokes the fleeting warmth of sunlight piercing gloomy afternoon clouds. The scent invites introspection, smoothing sharp edges and muting bold tones into a delicate accord. It’s as if familiar aromatic notes have been reimagined – their essence captured, then softened and warmed. The fragrance conjures the image of a lone verdant remnant amid a sea of faded crimson and rust as October yields to November’s chill. Lingering in the air, it embodies the autumnal, contemplative spirit of hobbits, reimagined as a gremlincore playlist steeped in hauntological reverb.
Two fragrances from Solstice Scents immediately conjured some very specific imagery for me…!
Devil’s Tongue: Beelzebub thunders into Bike Week, his presence a tempest of lime and leather. Ancient wings, creased like a well-worn jacket, flex as he grips chrome handlebars slick with condensation from his frosty margarita. The air crackles with a zesty electricity, mixing citrus sting with infernal heat in a heady cocktail. Beneath his wheels, the earth exhales a deep, earthy groan – a mix of smoke and unholy soil that speaks of vast, wicked subterranean realms. At the edge of town, he pulls into a ubiquitous coffee franchise, the aroma of seasonal vanilla latte cutting through the infernal haze. The barista, unfazed by the sulfurous fumes, squints at the order screen and asks with practiced cheer, “Is that for Beelz, or is it Bub?” The Lord of Flies accepts his steaming cup, his “thanks, babe” shrieking out in a voice that’s part anglerfish daydreams, part chiropteran echolocation. With a final rev that sounds like the gates of hell grinding open, Beelzebub toodles off into the sunset, leaving behind a trail of vanilla-tinged brimstone and the faintest whiff of lime-kissed leather.
Thornwood Thicket: In the depths of the thicket, juicy purple orbs split open, birthing a swarm of cooing, jellied creatures that multiply with alarming speed. Sticky berry nectar drips from gnarled branches, transforming these chirping morsels into mischievous imps that skitter through the underbrush, their numbers doubling with each twig they snap. Ancient trees groan under the weight of the burgeoning horde, their woody sighs mingling with the fruity frenzy. The forest floor pulses, a living carpet of vegetation that shivers and expands, sprouting more berry-scented fiends with each quiver. Every breath draws in air thick with frenetic, fragrant energy as these jammy juggernauts overrun the woodland, their sweet symphony rising to a fever pitch. The once-serene grove twists into an ever-expanding maze of berry-fueled bedlam, leaving visitors dizzy in a haze of multiplying aromas and rambunctious, fruit-filled pandemonium.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
