Base Ingredients

• Coco shell charcoal powder

• Xanthan powder

• Palo Santo powder

• Lavender

• Blue Lotus

• Food-grade mica powder

Essential Oil

• Meditation

• Amber

• Patchouli

• Frankincense
• Jasmine

The Story

When I listened to The Lady of Shalott, I thought this was about the choice between safety and freedom in the new age. The Lady could choose to weave (a traditional female craft), do what others/previous generations expect of her (someone who upholds agricultural and artisan traditions), and be protected by the safety of her choice. Or she could look toward the wonders of the world (a connection to industrialization and the grander possibility) and sail to this shining new promise (sailing is a traditional male occupation), but fear the unknown. Boats are usually referred to as female. So, when she sails to Camelot, she hears a calling to find her own path and an alternative possibility in life, which she has only seen through a mirror.

She is not dead, but she merges with the progression of time, as represented by the water. Or rather, she sacrifices the old ways for this new, supposedly exciting, life. The hymning on the lake is similar to the songs of the sirens to lure men, and everyone can hear the echo of it. Sir Lancelot even comments on the temptation that has washed up shore, but everyone else, who observes this, has doubts about this "new and alternative path."

In this poem, it is the tradition that dies, not the woman. The woman changes from her attachment to the loom to her new attachment to the boat that migrates from the countryside toward the shining city of Camelot.

From Lord Tennyson, "The Lady Shalott":

"There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
'I am half sick of shadows,' said
The Lady of Shalott.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott..." (Lord Tennyson, 1842).

​

From Brett and Kate McKay, "Modern 'Neurasthenia': Curing Your Restlessness":

"The images we consume are full of moments showcasing life at its most vital and extraordinary. And so our minds are filled with the vast possibilities the world has to offer, and technology makes us feel that all these possibilities are just within our reach... New media and technology has seemingly brought the whole world just within our reach. But we can never seem to grasp it. We want to magically take it all in and we can’t. And so we feel depressed and anxious. We are sure that unlike us, others have found a way to lay hold of all the good stuff out there. We have this feeling that somewhere beyond our life, real life is taking place...

If our modern feelings of restlessness and shiftlessness is caused by the disconnect between our expectations and reality, then the cure lies in closing that gap. Instead of being overwhelmed by the seemingly endless possibilities in life, you must hone in on those things you truly want to do and can do.

1. Figure out what you can do...
2. Figure out what you want to do...
3. Take small steps...

At the end of the day, you have to accept that 'real life' isn’t something somewhere out there happening to other people[;] it’s what you’re living right now. This is your life. Start living it." (Brett and Kate McKay, 2009).