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Rock crystal dagger hilt, Mughal Empire, 17th century

from The Victoria & Albert Museum

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Margaret Atwood, True Stories; from ‘Small Poems for the Winter Solstice’

TEXT ID: Other things made of light: hallucinations & angels.

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blackberry blossoms photographed by benjamin t. gault, c. 1890.

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It was only the thin thread of a cloud, almost transparent, leading me along the way like an ancient sacred song.

Yosano Akiko, River Of Stars (trans. Keiko Matsui Gibson and Sam Hamill)

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how can any language be ‘ugly’ if it’s always also the language passed along from a mother to her child, the language of two lovers in the dark, the language of stories told by grandfathers, the language of vows and eulogies, the language of learning and singing and feeling and connection and culture… how is all of that not inherently beautiful

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Slavic celebrations of summer solstice in Poland. Event in Puławy, via pulawy.naszemiasto.pl.

Jumping over bonfires is a traditional activity during the Slavic celebrations of the Kupala Night (also known under different names for example Sobótki in many parts of Poland). It’s a part of a ritual in which the bravery and faith are tested, but also a popular way to impress the beloved person during that unique night of the year. Couples or friends could try to jump over the bonfire together, holding hands, as a test of their compatibility and cooperation - if failed or let go of the hands, the couple was seen as destined to separate.

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“I once had a body that wasn’t a body—it was a voice in a god’s mouth. It was the holy vowel.”

— Ruth Awad, “Moral Inventory,” published in Wildness

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“Ask her how he touched her. His gaze touched me before his hands touched me. Ask her how he touched her. I didn’t ask for anything; everything was given. Ask her what she remembers. We were hauled into the underworld.”

— Louise Glück, The Burning Heart

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“White butterfly of my dark dreams,”

— Gane Todorovski, from A White Butterfly I Called My Love; Reading the Ashes: An Anthology of the Poetry of Modern Macedonia (ed. by Milne Holton & Graham W. Reid)

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Her kisses are the roses, That glow while dusk is deep.

Sara Teasdale, from Helen of Troy and Other Poems

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jasminesapphires:  black lace, antique markets, rosariums, old perfumeries, spice boxes, raw silk, ornate jewels, fruit plates, nights at the opera

jardindefruits:  dried flowers, ancient jewellery, syrups, honeycomb, lush gardens, fruit trees, crushed herbs, kajal vials, white pomegranates

preciousjewels:  antique gold, dark velvet, rare orchids, diadems, ginkgo trees, falling stars, solar eclipses, bejewelled daggers, midnight gatherings

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“There was a stir of music, Mixed with flowers, in her blood;”

— Stanley Kunitz, from Passing Through: The Later Poems; “First Love,”

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“I had no language for what was passing through me.”

— Meena Alexander, from “Fault Lines,” originally published c. 1993 (via violentwavesofemotion)

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“When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back.”

— Rebecca Solnit, from Wanderlust: A History of Walking; “Magic Overload,”

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Palestine, between 1921 and 1923. Scholten, Frank (1881-1942)

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Badawi al-Jabal, tr. by Christopher Tingley and Richard Wilbur, from Modern Arabic Poetry: an anthology; “The visit”

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my hobbies? Uhhhhh symbolism mostly. metaphors and implications and the like.