Triumph in My Song

Black lives matter, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is committed to doing the hard work to ensure that we continue to amplify Black voices and support the vital work of civil rights organizations and other organizations that dismantle and fight white supremacy through education, legislation, legal advocacy, and pushing for systemic reform. We pledge to work for racial justice and true and authentic equitable inclusion, both as individuals and as a company.

Racial justice begins with each of us. At Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, we are committed to boosting the voices of BIPOC, committed to listening, committed to accepting correction. Unlearning the institutionalized bigotry and structural biases of white supremacy is incredibly difficult. Challenging your own biases, your own prejudices, and the comfort of your privilege can be extremely difficult, and few people want to deliberately give up any perceived power. But we have to do this hard work – all of us do – if we want to combat white supremacy, racism, and institutional brutality. We all have to recognize that privilege is built on the shoulders of oppression and commit to dismantling the structures of white supremacy even when (especially when!) it is frightening or uncomfortable to do so. Every day in this country, Black people are murdered by police, subjected to hate crimes, denied employment, loans, medical services, housing, and equal access to opportunity. What is discomfort in the face of these terrible injustices?

What else can we all do? First, we must pledge to listen to Black voices, pledge to uplift Black voices so they cannot be smothered or disregarded, pledge to de-center our own narratives, and commit to listening when we are being corrected. We must commit to educating ourselves about the history of racism in the United States, commit to decolonizing our media by reading books and watching movies, plays, musicals and television programs created by BIPOC, and commit to using whatever privilege we possess as a shield that protects others. We must refuse to be silent; we must speak up louder than ever before and refuse to allow ourselves to be intimidated into inaction. Do not lose sight of this: your words matter, and it matters when you take a stand against racism. Make a commitment to calling out racism wherever you find it. No, you probably won’t win over most rando trolls on the internet or your racist uncle, but your words will give other people strength, you will foster courage, and you will show vulnerable people that they are not alone. The power of your voice empowers others to speak up. Call out racist actions, racist ideals, and racist policies wherever you find them. When you say nothing – when you do nothing – nothing changes, and silence is complicity. It isn’t enough to not be racist; we must be actively anti-racist.

If you cannot attend a protest, you can help by contributing to bail funds, funds for legal representation for protesters, or by making donations to organizations on the front line. You can make phone calls to your congressional representatives, your mayor, your governor, and to police departments, and you can do the hard work to ensure that you help reform your own community police departments.

I am Asian and I am Ashkenazi; I know that I will never truly understand what it means to be Black in America, but I will do all I can to fight for equality and civil rights. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab stands with Black Lives Matter, and we will work, listen, speak up, and fight with all our hearts to protect civil liberties, confront injustice, and support organizations and individuals that combat white supremacy. Systemic and institutional racism is a plague on this country, and together we need to bring an end to racism, police brutality, and the policies and constructs that are in place that permit both to exist.

At the beginning of June 2020, we made donations to the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, and Know Your Rights Camp. Proceeds from Triumph in my Song will be split between Black Lives Matter, the Center for Black Equity, and the NAACP. Triumph in My Song is an ongoing scent series, and will be updated as we are able.

  • Apostrophe of Time Perfume Oil

    O fleeting Time! whence art thou come?
    And whither do thy footsteps tend?
    Deep in the past where was thy home,
    And where thy future journey’s end?

    Thou art from vast eternity,
    And unto boundless regions found;
    But what and where’s infinity?
    And what know we of space unbound?

    The furrowed brow betokens age;
    But who thy centuries can tell?
    Was ancient seer or learned sage
    In wisdom’s lore e’er versed so well?

    Hast thou from childhood wandered thus,
    Companionless and lone, through space,
    With mystery o’er thy exodus,
    And darkness ’round thy resting place.

    What lengthened years have come and gone,
    Since thou thy tireless march began,
    Since Luna’s children sang at dawn,
    The wonders of creation’s plan?

    How many years of gloom and night
    Had passed, long ere yon king of day
    Had reigned his fiery steeds of light,
    And sped them on their shining way?

    Thou knowest — Thou alone, O thou!
    Omniscient and eternal Three!
    To whose broad eye all time is now —
    The past, with all eternity;

    In whose dread presence I shall stand,
    When time shall sink to rise no more,
    In that broad sea of thy command,
    Whose waves roll on, without a shore.
    – James Madison Bell

    The overwhelming incalculability of space, the glow and fade of countless days, the starry expanse of night. A scent that reaches into eternity and towards forever: glittering bergamot, lemon peel, and golden amber, star-flecked labdanum, neroli, and clary sage.

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  • Limitations Perfume Oil

    The subtlest strain a great musician weaves,
    Cannot attain in rhythmic harmony
    To music in his soul. May it not be
    Celestial lyres send hints to him? He grieves
    That half the sweetness of the song, he leaves
    Unheard in the transition. Thus do we
    Yearn to translate the wondrous majesty
    Of some rare mood, when the rapt soul receives
    A vision exquisite. Yet who can match
    The sunset’s iridescent hues? Who sing
    The skylark’s ecstasy so seraph-fine?
    We struggle vainly, still we fain would catch
    Such rifts amid life’s shadows, for they bring
    Glimpses ineffable of things divine.
    – Henrietta Cordelia Ray

    Dusk-purple jasmine and wild plum, orris absolute, honeysuckle, red mandarin, and benzoin.

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  • On Imagination Perfume Oil

    Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
    How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!
    Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand,
    And all attest how potent is thine hand.

    From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend,
    Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
    To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
    Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.

    Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
    Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,
    Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
    And soft captivity involves the mind.

    Imagination! who can sing thy force?
    Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
    Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
    Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,
    We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
    And leave the rolling universe behind:
    From star to star the mental optics rove,
    Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
    There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
    Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.

    Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes
    The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
    The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
    And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands.
    Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
    And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain;
    Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
    And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d:
    Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
    And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.

    Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
    O thou the leader of the mental train:
    In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
    And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.
    Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
    Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler thou;
    At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
    And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.

    Fancy might now her silken pinions try
    To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high:
    From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise,
    Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
    While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies.
    The monarch of the day I might behold,
    And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
    But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
    Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
    Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
    And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
    They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,
    Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.
    – Phillis Wheatley

    The unbounded soul: a vibrant, airy, uplifted amber with smoked vanilla and coconut, tuberose, orange blossom, wildflower honey, and sheer musk.

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  • We Wear the Mask Perfume Oil

    We wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, –
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
    We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
    We wear the mask!
    – Paul Laurence Dunbar

    This poem – this song – is one that has moved me since my childhood, and it’s so incredibly difficult to translate it into scent. I don’t know if I am capable of doing honor to Dunbar’s words; all I can do is craft something that is akin to how much this makes my heart clench. The scent I have chosen is a soft lavender with dry woods, carrot seed and iris, sandalwood smoke, and wisteria.

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