With a little help from our friends...

I was whining a few days ago about my waning perfume mojo, and the generous, loving, scarily intuitive Chayaruchama immediately sent me a care package containing a passel of fragrance samps, among other delights. There are so many I haven't even had a chance to work through them all. So far I've tested Aftelier Cepes et Tubereuse (unbelievably beautiful--where has this been all my life?), Ava Luxe Palisander (the most sensuous woody frag I have ever encountereed), and Ava Luxe Moss (I am so smitten with it that I have already ordered a bottle of my very own.)

I can't wait to try the rest, and the more muscular beauties in my own collection are starting to appeal to me again. I don't want to jinx anything, but I think BitterGrace has got her groove back.

Of course, those of you who know Chaya understand that her insight and discernment are as powerful in the spiritual realm as they are in the sensual. She included a copy of Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy in her gift, with what she described as "some trepidation." I guess she feared the Pagan in me might not appreciate Cohen's intimate conversations with YHWH.

In fact, eavesdropping on Cohen and God pleases me much more than listening to Cohen coo to his lovers. The love poems make me cringe a little. These prayers are beautiful, and more genuinely passionate, I think, than Cohen in love. (Anyway, dear Chaya, have you forgotten that my grandfather was a Nazarene preacher? How could I not have a soft spot for this stuff?)

Here's a passage I especially like:

"From you alone to you alone, everlasting to everlasting, all that is not you is suffering, all that is not you is solitude rehearsing the arguments of loss. All that is not you is the man collapsing against his own forehead, and the forehead crushes him. All that is not you goes out and out, gathering the voices of revenge, harvesting lost triumphs far from the real and necessary defeat. It is to you I speak, solitude to unity, failure to mercy, and loss to the light."

From Book of Mercy, Leonard Cohen, 1984.