Alchemical Perfume

I love Christmas ads. I know. Commercialism is ruining Christmas and making us forget about the baby Mithras Jesus. But they're festive, nostalgic, and sometimes quite beautiful. Yes, I worked in marketing for long enough that I actually appreciate the artistry of advertising. And the industry rolls out some of its best work at the holidays.

A couple of years ago I noted a perfume ad featuring Julia Roberts that resurfaces every year at this time. It is full of elegant, if not terribly subtle, allusions to Rousseau and the French Enlightenment.

Much of popular entertainment, of late, from movies and television to the Olympics, has me marveling at the imagery. Is the symbolism subconscious or deliberate? I don't know, but it's getting really hard to miss it. 

This new ad from Dior, featuring Charlize Theron, is nothing short of stunning. The past is nothing but a "dream," an illusion. "The future is gold" she says, ascending through an oculus into a "new world."

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News for the Soul Cancels James Ray

I got this in my email earlier today. News for the Soul's Nicole Marie Whitney has canceled an interview with James Arthur Ray which had been scheduled for Sunday. Here is her statement:

Wow. Ok. We started our day with quite the barrage of emails regarding my announcement yesterday.

The emails were regarding my announcement of the scheduled James Ray interview on Sunday which has since been cancelled.

I had planned to do this interview (not as a promotional fluff piece) from day one because I have questions and I felt our conscious community needed some closure and maybe even healing on this matter. And learning. Many teachers out there – some of them reading this right now – conduct very similar events and ceremonies. And some of them have almost had very similar things occur.

I am speaking from first hand knowledge and experience.

We all have questions and need some sort of closure on that event – none of which OUR community has had the hutspa to do as yet. A Pierce Morgan interview is no substitute for a conscious and real perspective on the situation. There is more to say but clearly our community (or at least a vocal section of it) is not ready for this to happen. Thus I have chosen to cancel the James Ray interview that I had announced for Sunday.