This is an excerpt from The Mermaid Materia Mystica, the workbook included in this season’s Writer’s Group and the Darkwood 101 mystery school.
When I began formulating The Mermaid anointing oil, I was a Mermaid.
I was living and working in Marshall, NC, and if you’d walked into the town’s cornerstone coffee shop and asked “where can I find a Mermaid” they would have said “on the island, studio 204”.
In 2008 I dressed up like a Mermaid during the town’s monthly artist open house events, and eventually had a whole “school” of Mermaids joining me each month.
All these years later, Marshall is now practically famous for its annual Mermaid parade.
But my connection with The Mermaid went much deeper than donning a costume and shakin’ my tail with my buddies.
I’ll get to that story in a later chapter.
Back then, I craved depth.
I craved presence and escape, freedom and definition, fluidity and solidity.
When I was formulating this anointing oil, it took a while to wrap my head around how to marry these contradictory feelings in a scent.
I ended up blending deep roots with ethereal flowers, ancient conifers with fresh citrus, and with the added touch of psychic openers and witchy herbs, The Mermaid anointing oil was born.
This anointing oil is weird by design.
Some people can smell the sea in it and describe it as “briny”. Some people struggle with its ineffable nature. Some people find it deeply off-putting.
This oil blend is complex.
The roots serve to ground you so that you can dive and travel without getting lost.
The flowers remind you to bloom, unfurl, and be.
The conifer needles help with strength and perseverance, a reminder that your deepest essence must flow all the way to your extremities to ensure survival when the going gets tough.
There are herbs that open you up to what’s beyond the veils; trance, shamanic journey, and deep communion with the unseen.
The qualities of this blend capture the spirit of The Mermaid.
It’s spooky, an homage to The Mermaid’s true nature — not just tits and hair and a big bright smile. She’s provocative.
Of all my blends, people always ask “what is this” when they smell it, or “I can’t tell if I like it or not, but I can’t stop smelling it.”
Ultimately, I wanted this blend to invoke your own divine weirdo.
I wanted it to kindle a curiosity about your own unique nature.
love and Mermaids,
xo
kv
PS: this is me on the 2008 flyer designed by Ben Walters.
