Graveyard Dirt

'June Roses'(1898) by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864 – 1933).

Pencil and water-based colour on paper.

(Note: writing this response with Capitals™ bc its long and kind of hard to read otherwise, I’m trying to do that more with my longer posts)

Either an ecological event or a superorganism, depending on how you look at it.

To explain this. like. we do not ‘know’ what a lichen is. We know like, what they are, or at least we’re getting increasingly closer to finding out everything that makes up a lichen, but lichenologists have really struggled to define it as like, A Sole Thing. Botanists and mycologists of the past thought lichens were primarily fungi, because when you dried one out and weighed it, most of the dry weight was fungus; this is why today we still name lichens based on their fungal components, while it turns out that the give and take of all organisms in a lichen are pretty much equal.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, we’ve known that for a long time, but now we know, for instance, that some fungi can pair up with different species of algae to make different lichens. How can we reliably name something after it’s fungus if that fungus can pair up with different things to make multiple different ‘species’? And as of 2016 we know that lichens can have up to four different players: a fungus, an algae, a yeast, and (in some families) a second fungus, previously thought to be parasitic on the lichen itself. 

I will personally argue that lichens are an ecological event. To me, this theory gets down to lichen reproduction, which is….completely off the shits. 

Lichens can reproduce in a few different ways, the simplest ones being 1. a piece of lichen breaks off and lands in a fitting environment, creating a new lichen that’s a clone of the mother system, and/or 2. a lichen has special organs that release specially-made ‘mini lichens’ that have the main components packaged together into little ‘spores’ (these organs are called isidia and soridia, and look slightly different), creating a similar result to #1 with a clone of the mother system. 

Now, you may be wondering: ‘But lichens have sexual structures. can’t they have like, Lichen Sex™?’. Which. Like. This is where it gets wild, because it ties back to the ecological mystery of how lichens ‘make new lichens from scratch’ so to speak. 

The thing is, those sexual structures don’t have the components paired together. They only produce sexually-made spores of the fungus, and if these spores land in the right conditions, they won’t form a lichen, they’ll form a non-lichenized version of that fungus. So, conventionally, as we currently understand it, the way for them to form a new lichen would be for two compatible spores- one algae and one fungus, or like, one algae and one fungus or one yeast, we don’t know how those other components fit into the equation yet– to meet in the right conditions, under which case the pair recognizes each other and starts to spontaneously go down an entirely different developmental path to become a lichen. Keep in mind that lichen and algae spores are like…everywhere in the air and in the world around us, just the majority of them don’t find the proper growing conditions and die, so this does happen enough to make all the lichens we see on a day to day basis.

But. There are agonizing mysteries about this process. For example:

-We do not know how the algae and fungal spores, when they meet, know that they’re compatible in the first place. Like, on a cellular level. 

-We do know that after a certain point, the organisms involved are locked into their developmental path. They need to meet at an extremely young age (as spores) to become a lichen. If a mature fungus and a mature algae meet, nothing happens, even if they would have been compatible as spores.

-Science, to my knowledge, still has not yet been able to replicate the ‘lichens being made from scratch’ process in a lab. The spores will recognize each other and start developing on a microscopic level, and then they’ll just….stop developing and die, which is why we can only produce new lichens in a lab by growing sterilized fragments from old lichens. Whether or not we’ve just been like, missing all the ‘ingredients’ and you need a yeast or second fungus or something to finish the process, I have no idea. 

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Let him take care to choose the day and hour when he will strive to capture the elusive mandrake. Alas, even the best authors will hardly help him dispel his doubts, for their tomes abound in contradictory instructions.

According to one, Saturday is the auspicious day. According to another, it is Friday, the day of Venus, that is suitable, since the mandrake is a plant with aphrodisiac properties. A third asserts that before undertaking anything, it is important to wait for sunrise and refutes the opinion of the first, who considers the darkness of night favorable. As for the fourth, he states that it is impossible to find this root except shortly before the rising of the Pleiades, which are seven stars, that is to say, around the beginning of September, and not at any other time of year. But the latter thinks on the contrary that, being busy blossoming during the holy night of Christmas, she offers only weak resistance to the one who seeks the honor of abducting her.

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(in "La Mandragore" A.M Schmidt.)

Anonymous Bolognese Painter, c. 1450–1475

Saints Pierced by Thorns (Polyptych fragment)

Tempera and gold leaf on panel

Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Italy

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There are many saints which can wear the mantle of "master of wolves". Among them are Saint George, Saint Martin, and Saint Nicholas. In Romania, however, it is Saint Andrew that bears that title.

Saint Andrew functions as many things to the people of Romania: he is the patron saint of the country, he is credited as bringing Christianity to the region, and on his feast day of November 30th, he is charged with blessing and shepherding the wolves from every corner of the land. It is said that he parcels out each wolf's allotment of food for the winter. Some stories say that the wolves will hunt in packs of twelve, much like the twelve apostles. They are imbued with supernatural swiftness such that no prey is able to escape them.

There are some local stories that say that Andrew is the priest that Zalmoxis transformed into the Great White Wolf in order to protect the Dacians, thereby making Saint Andrew the first werewolf. At the very least, there is a level of syncretism due to the nature of both Andrew and the White Wolf being protectors of the region.

... garrigue does not reveal its name, but the breath of the wind that passes through it clearly reveals its own.

Mandragora (1742).

Hand-coloured etching.

The composition of Aperture starts with aldehydes, which delicately refresh the spicy game of hot and icy shades of pink pepper, white pepper and black pepper. The heart of the composition introduces a harmony of flowers, wood and tobacco, while mixing notes of elegant jasmine, tobacco and cedar with a hint of lemonish shades of lily of the valley. The base of the composition incorporates animalistic flavors accompanied by musk, ambergris, amber and elegant vetiver. Notes: Aldehydes, Pink Pepper, Black Pepper, White Pepper / Tobacco, Jasmin, Cedarwood, hint of Muguet / Musk, Vetiver, Ambergris, Animalic Notes, Amber

Today's perfume, Aperture by Ulrich Lang, promises nuances of urine and pungent public toilets… which is exactly why I hunted down a sample in the first place. (😏)

Yes, absolutely, pungent public toilets! There's a faint faecal flirtation, but urine is far more prominent. This is a well-used public bathroom where the toilets haven't been flushed after use, and the cisterns have been stingily rationing water. Layers of urine-soaked toilet paper have been macerating in the toilet bowl all morning and into the day, and whatever liquid remains has evaporated to a concentrated syrup.

That's just from smelling the sample uncapped. Let's see how the perfume plays out on application…

Alas, the toilets have been flushed! There's still a faint body odour vibe - not dank morning breath or the unclean smell of an unwashed, sweaty body, but more fluid and alkaline, like sexual body secretions - though it's not pungent like public toilets.

...actually, maybe there's a hint of a toilet that hasn't been cleaned in a while. But, like, just a mischievous, maybe-so-maybe-not suggestion.

So we got flowering rowan (that's the alkaline sexual body secretions), a smear of toffee-coloured feral honey (there's polite and proper honey, and then there's "these bees have obviously licked a goat's sweaty, dirty ass" feral honey), and clean, warm fur that's been lovingly stored in an old wooden chest.

I think I like this. I think I like this a lot.

Granted, it's not as nasty as I was hoping it'd be, but the animalic dry down is intriguing, almost enchanting. It doesn't smell like a barn; it smells like grandmother's fancy clothes from her younger years, stowed away with much affection and fondness, as if by carefully preserving every article, she preserves the treasured memories attached to them.