Apothecary of the Week

from Old West Apothecary

via The Steampunk Home

Desired Home V

Speaking of Marie Antoinette, you can't talk about her without talking about her 'country-style' home away from home, Le Petit Trianon.

C'est tres jolie n'est-ce pas?  If she wasn't already materialistic enough she ALSO got this - the French eh?

This was her quaint country-style villa where she could relax and get away from the gentrified, stuffy environment of Versailles.

It makes me love my rustic country-style hand carved and turned pine dining table all the more - just bought it the other day!

Oui, darlinkas!

Top image via Trip Advisor
Centre image via Sanfrancisco Sentinel
Bottom image from Paris Album

What to put inside of the aforementioned green cubby house

A reconstruction of the room that Marie Antoinette was to have occupied shortly before having her head lobbed off.

"One of the most moving rooms in the whole museum is this little reconstruction of how the royal rooms in the Temple Prison may have looked, using furniture that was actually used by the family during their imprisonment. It’s a lot more cheerful and colourful than you might expect but then these niceties were not to last long as one by one the family’s luxuries were withdrawn and they were parted from each other."

I would like this room in that cubby house (as an actual house) in the forest please!

From Le musée Carnavalet

via Madame Guillotine 

The most amazing science/humanities website EVER for documentaries!

Steaming Madness have the most incredible documentaries - and the link there takes you to one about the scientific research behind the possibility of a 'divine creator' - too interesting!!!

Desired Home of the Week IV

When I was eight years old I believed I was a witch: I hugged trees and spoke to them with my friend Louise.  We shot bolts of lightning out of our fingers and each got ourselves an old perfume bottle each which we put water in as our marvellous elixir for magick.  We played with the fay and my dear friend defended animal rights adamantly - and yelled at boys who stepped on bugs!

The me of then would have ADORED this fun house - just let me design an adult one NOW!

by Artificium

Interesting article on ESP

There are two truths universally acknowledged about extra-sensory perception (ESP). The first is that the anecdotal evidence is often fun and fascinating to read, whereas to peruse the experimental evidence is as boring as batshit, as our antipodean cousins say, and the investigative methods generally employed would for most of us banish insomnia for all time. We can’t avoid discussing these methods and their results in these entries, but we do promise to be brief and to strive personfully not to ruin your reading experience.


The other truth, which psychical researchers do not deny, is that the term ‘extra-sensory perception’ covers a multitude of apparently paranormal manifestations that are nearly impossible to disentangle. The basic labels are telepathy (literally ‘feeling at a distance’, usually translated as ‘thought transference’); clairvoyance (sometimes called ‘remote viewing’), or psychically seeing things occurring at a distance; precognition, gaining knowledge of something that will happen in the future; and retrocognit­ion, psychically perceiving events in the past, usually revealing details otherwise known to only one or two witnesses. Or to none that are living. Psychically discerning the fate and present whereabouts (if any) of the Ark of the Covenant would count as retrocognition...
 
Read the rest of this article here in the Fortean Times
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More on the Akashic records as mentioned in this article

Smell of jasmine 'as calming as Valium'

"Laboratory tests found the fragrance and its chemical substitute dramatically calmed mice when their cage was filled with it, causing them to cease all activity and sit quietly in a corner. When the air was breathed in the scent molecules went from the lungs into the blood and were then transmitted to the brain.

Feeling stressed? Then go mow the lawn, claims researchBrain scans showed the effect on a chemical called GABA on nerve cells was enhanced by the fragrances and helped soothe, relieve anxiety and promote rest. Professor Hanns Hatt said the results published online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry can "be seen as evidence of a scientific basis for aromatherapy"."

Read the rest of the article here.

Desired Home IV - 'The Brain' by Olson Kundig Architects (2002)

The Interior

via The Steampunk Home

Two final images from

Olson Kundig Architects

Desired home III - Harad's Treehouse Hotel (North Sweden)

Designed by Sweden's Tham & Videgard Hansson Arkiteckter.

To view a series of images including the interiors, click on this link to see the mastery and beauty of this project from the Telegraph.

An artist's impression of one of the rooms

from e-hoosta

from dvice

Thought of the Day II

"I'm somehow always grateful for the "little" bad things that happen to me because they aren't "BIG" bad things...." - Dita Von Teese, July 6 2010

I adore Dita: she's intelligent, classy and has a very healthy outlook on life.  One of my other favourite quotes went something like 'I don't concentrate on how 'skinny' I am, I like to concentrate on how strong my body feels' so that she concentrates on her health and vitality before thinking about her size.  I also love that she apparently walked away from the divorce with Marilyn Manson without wanting to 'split' any of their assets in any sense: she just walked away elegantly without physically dividing their history into objects and money.


Three cheers to Dita and her gorgeous boutique aesthetic.  I especially LOVE her in these colours.

Top image from The Swelle Life

Bottom image from Glam

Desired Home of the Week II

from Cultblog

It's as though a piece of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings was put into Barcelona.  Save one for me, please.

Designed by Antonio Gaudi.

Cape of the Week II

via Cousas

... is she looking at you?...

Witchy outfit of the week XI

by Franck Sorbier

from his circus collection 2006

via Fashion Insider

Evolutionary findings of the week II: Bizarre Deep Sea Creatures found

"The scientists believe some of the colourful and transparent creatures could provide the missing evolutionary link between backboned and invertebrate animals."

Due to copyright restrictions, all images of the amazing sea creatures can only be viewed via this link

A star is born - literally

The pictures of the Carina constellation were taken by the Hubble and were described by experts as looking like a "July 4 fireworks display". It shows a new star being born from within an existing star cluster.  This Hubble Space Telescope image was captured in August 2009 and December 2009 with the Wide Field Camera 3 in both visible and infrared light, which trace the glow of sulfur, hydrogen, and iron.

To read more go to The Telegraph (UK)

My idea of the witches of Macbeth

Doesn't mean they're not old - they could be 1000 years old - just well dressed :)

via Sun in Scorpio

Thought of the Day I

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him". - Buddha

Great Podcast I

Thelema Now! podcast
Ordo Templis Orientis
http://oto-usa.org/podcast.html
Review so far - This is a great podcast, it's just a shame about the fact that you're essentially listening to a telephone conversation so the quality of what you're listening to is raspy but the topics are fascinating with a history of the American underground occult scene.

New evidence that Cleopatra took her own life instead of snake bite myth

The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30BC and it has always been held that it was the bite of an asp – now called the Egyptian cobra – which caused her demise.  Now Christoph Schaefer, German historian and professor at the University of Trier, is presenting evidence that aims to prove drugs and not the reptile were the cause of death.  Hope for blind after scientists turn skin into eye cells"Queen Cleopatra was famous for her beauty and was unlikely to have subjected herself to a long and disfiguring death," he said.
He journeyed with other experts to Alexandria, Egypt, where they consulted ancient medical texts and snake experts.

"Cleopatra wanted to remain beautiful in her death to maintain her myth," he says on the Adventure Science show screened by the German television channel ZDF.
"She probably took a cocktail of opium, hemlock and aconitum. Back then this was a well-known mixture that led to a painless death within just a few hours whereas the snake death could have taken days and been agonising."

Cleopatra reigned from 51BC to 30BC and was the last person to rule Egypt as an Egyptian pharaoh. After she died, Egypt became a Roman province. She was an ally of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, and established a relationship with the Roman General Mark Anthony. They had three children together and there are letters that suggest she married him, although both were already married; she to a brother and he had a wife in Rome. In 44 BC, after the assassination of Caesar, she aligned with Antony in opposition to Caesar’s legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian.

After losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian’s forces, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed suit, aged 39 on August 12, 30BC.

Text from The Daily Telegraph - posted 29th of June 2010
Image from Full Issue

Evolutionary findings of the week: 'Fossils push back life by 1.5 billion years' - major scientific discovery & Leviathan whale with teeth

TAKING BACK EVOLUTION A FURTHER 1.5 BILLION YEARS

Why not just ad an additional 1.5 BILLION years to evolutionary history upon finding these little creatures which look like miniature brains.

A virtual image from the fossil (left) of what this creature may have looked like

Read the whole article here

LEVIATHAN WHALE DISCOVERED IN PERUVIAN SEDIMENT

An ancient whale the same size of a sperm whale has been discovered of late with huge teeth which could have been an incredible predator capable of eating other animals the size of dolphins and seals.
For more on the sea monster, click here for the BBC's link.