Alchemical Peregrinations - -The Inevitability of Latent Destiny - This Ember - 2021 Anka Kus Parfums

1. Chateau Gudanes 2. Danu Seith-Fyr 3. Proof of Flight - Danu Seith-Fyr 4. Red - Camille Akran 5. Unsplash

‘Do you aspire to mediocrity or do you walk the pristine edges and soar with wings of fire’ DsF 17

How often we are faced on our traversing of life with moments that seem final, that speak in the language of defeat. All of us deal with such junctures when we are seemingly lost and in a darkness lit only by the embers flickering of what we once were, or vestiges of dreams that are now guttering ashes. Ali Erkekli of Anka Kus Parfums translated such an experience when he created his perfume house, taking a barely flickering fragment which he had watched dying and engaged in a resurrection. The scent of ashes acrid in our nostrils can be transformed into a glory hitherto unknown, This Ember is the distillation of such an alchemical process and embodies the legend of the Phoenix - in the dying sun rests the seeds of ignition.

This Ember was also a finalist in the Art and Olfaction Awards 2022 and is well merited

I am an inveterate renovator of ancient buildings and whilst I revel in the beauty of their decay and listen attentively to the stories they wish to tell there is something that a new breath is required to resurrect, something of its finery and grandeur, a new life within old stones. Also I have been known to shed a skin or two or burn a few old ruffled feathers, in destruction is the stirrings of growth.

1. Unsplash . Embers - Mitch Martinez 3. Sylvia Makris 4. Oleg Doroshenko

   Baroque and ancient in all its dark materials and a tad gothic, This Ember conjures aged dark wood carved and gilded by centuries of hands, illuminated by a musk that speaks through the haze of dust stirred particles Hesitant, decayed doors mark passage and I am ushered in. As life enters into time-stilled decay, a shuddering breath quivering, in a moment of quickening, is audible in the ever present decades of silence.

   Remains of fires, spent, ashen and the long extingushed candles mingle in the air about me. Underfoot blown leaves in crackled form carry the scent of summers past, when the walls echoed with laughter and youth.

   Corners garner humid collections of memory, remnants of lives lived within its walls, huddled together in collective reminiscence, the scent of recollection in leaf mould garments, all is marking time in stillness.

   The walls closet a chill, the chill of the uninhabited, it seeps into stones and exudes a melange of time and lives distilled into this essence. This Ember seeps into suspension, knowing that there is a rising afoot, a beautifully constructed metaphor for the essential destruction and the eventual rise.

Dragon Danu Seith-Fyr 2016

Doubt in the face of such hesitation and you shall be burned also, for waiting is an important component, all is reforming in fragments that attract one to the other through the heart of this creation. This Embers richest treasure resides after journeying through the clearing and the waiting, bound in leather volumes replesendent with faded gilt, open the dust encrusted pages, smouldering glances dart forth and cast a shaft into shadowy corners , flickers of flame- lit forms appear. Emerging through resin saturated smoke, embers, once cold, yield up the newborn.

The scent of new flight mingled with plumes scattering ashes in its ascent. Once begun it is unstoppable, this new direction with destination unknown, yet the Phoenix flight is a miracle of trust and surrender. The transformation is complete.

This Ember is a profound experience on skin, a labyrinth of alchemical note, an encounter with shadows and fire, ashes and flight. A veritable concoction of mastery worthy of a Magus.

1.Embers - Miriam Eme 2.Sylvia Makris 3. Wings of Stone - Florence- Danu Seith-Fyr '4. Collage- Danu Seith-Fyr 5.Gold Body - Unsplash 6.Danu Seith-Fyr.

NOTES - 

Top:               Musk

Heart:            Amber, Vanilla, Ambergris, Rose, Cashmere Musk 

Base:             Oud Mostafa, Frankincense, Tobacco, Myrrh, Labdanum, Birch Tar,                               Cinnamon Bark, Virginian Cedar, Tonka Bean

Grateful thanks to Ali for the gifted bottle and for friendship and shared inspiration, the muse to each other.

This Ember -Artwork by Ali Erkekli - Anka Kus Parfums

Anka Kus Parfums and This Ember can be found here:

https://ankakusparfum.com/

https://ankakusparfum.com/products/this-ember

Follow on Instagram here -

@ankakusparfum

@danu_sf

@ode_r _