PossesseTh' by Fire

Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile, Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from heav’n, with all his host Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers He trusted to have equall’d the Most High, If he opposed; and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in heav’n, and battle proud, With vain attempt. Him the almighty Power Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms. John Milton

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The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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The Death of Orpheus 1870 by Henri Leopold Lévy

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Sarya I Like a glass full of water falling from the table to the floor, the night cracked in every place: soaking wet. A conjunction, a new linguistic suffix, leave your eyes to me as an inheritance. Like a seagull with its chilled feet, returning to the hot waters, protect the sea now from me, from raki, from cheese. I touched your hands, separation poured from your face. II She came… hanging her little mouth from the sour vines of the heart, and drank a longing to her heart's content. The fire melted. It melted, the water returned to its crack. In the open, a gazelle's mouth touched this love. A gazelle, a thirst: a match. The universe added us to itself. I touched your hands, separation poured from your face. III The night becomes a landslide upon me, a swing from the sky inside me, children's laughter on my face. We pass through cities. So silent, such houses. My woman's voice in my ear, if it's not a fa. Run! For the sake of the stars' faces etched in the sky. Moon… I touched her hands, separation poured from her face. IV Rain hastily. Great noises are coming from where you are. Dangerous people. As if wanting to teach a new prayer to death. I cut off your breath with a blind dream. Fig seed, pomegranate, blood… All hastily. You moved away like a train. I became lonely like a waiting room. My head and eyes are at your service, I touched her hands, separation poured from her face. V You should know; No one who threatens to throw themselves off a collarbone under which wild waters flow, mentions the name of the woman they love anymore. The wedding night, like a cigarette extinguished on the night, like a candle flame turning the mystical paths. All the roses were buried in the earth while still alive! I… I touched her hands, separation poured from her face. VI My heart would be a small village house, made by a stonemason. A fountain would flow to peace, passing through the shade of the trees. But somewhere forgotten, any rose, had flowed into the pitcher long before the past. Now, time, an old reptile in abandoned beds. Velour… I touched her hands, separation poured from her face.

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GUCCI by Tom Ford 1996 Red Velvet Suit

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The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

Friedrich Nietzsche

[zendeyas]

Zendaya wearing ASHI STUDIO – Euphoria premiere

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Some young women confuse their self-worth with their ability to attract the attention of men, and so pour all their energies into makeup, clothing, and jewelry. If only they realized that virtue, honor, and self-respect are the marks of a true beauty.

Epictetus, The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life

[charnel-grounds]

Saprophial, “Kinship”

album cover design for Iotunn

pen & ink on paper, 2025

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When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[zendeyas]

Zendaya wearing MATIERES – New York premiere of The Odyssey

[possesseth-by-fire]

A poet once said, 'The whole universe is in a glass of wine.' We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflection in the glass; and our imagination adds atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization; all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts -- physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on -- remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure; drink it and forget it all!

Richard P. Feynman

[greengableslover]

KAMA SUTRA: A TALE OF LOVE (1996) dir. Mira Nair

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There is a powerful force within us, an un-illuminated part of the mind – separate from the conscious mind that is constantly at work molding our thought, feelings, and actions.

Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud

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Angel of Flesh 2020 by Santiago Caruso  

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Nothing whatsoever–neither popularity, nor wealth, nor power, nor the pleasures of the flesh, nor anything of the sort–should compete in your affection for the good that flows from reason and neighborliness. Although for awhile these inferior loves may seem quite compatible with an orderly life, they will soon overpower and destroy you.

Marcus Aurelius  

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Everyone dreams of the perfect vacation–in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You too long to get away and find that idyllic spot, yet how foolish…when at any time you are capable of finding that perfect vacation in yourself. Nowhere is there a more idyllic spot, a vacation home more private and peaceful, than in one’s own mind.

Marcus Aurelius  by “The Emperor’s Handbook”