@ligeia-of-the-rhine

malformalady :

Tapetum lucidum eyeshine in a deer. The tapetum lucidum is a layer of specially adapted cells behind the retina that reflect light. When a bright light shines on the tapetum, it reflects a bright glow that can be seen from a distance.

What appears to demarcate the horror story from mere stories with monsters, such as myths, is the attitude of characters in the story to the monsters they encounter. In works of horror, the humans regard the monsters they meet as abnormal, as disturbances of the natural order. In fairy tales, on the other hand, monsters are part of the everyday furniture of the universe.
Noël Carroll, from The Philosophy of Horror: or, Paradoxes of the Heart.

Orpheus- I can swear that I see him
the women tearing him apart and the wind
running with his limbs
as if touching his cheeks, I ask him:
Which of them cut off his head?
And I am surprised
poetry did not find him
love could not find him.
Ocean whose waves intertwine
among the chords of his guitar
console us- tell us:
is it true that you saw Euridice among them?
Adonis, from Beginnings of the Body, Ends of the Sea.

scurybooween :

Never-ending dance under the moon.

ring a ring o’ roses by Sarcoma/ Iris rottovski

sheherazade:

welcome to my blog. my target audience as i blog is god, who loves my posts and devours them when i offer the posts up like wine in a chalice. this is not because i am a prophet. it is not because i am holy or have special knowledge. it’s because i’m god’s silly rabbit. his silly, wicked rabbit. hope this clears things up. cheers

gorgonapologist:

Transgress your body’s borders, shed your skin, embrace your monstrous flesh. Freed of the shackles of the vulnerable female body, I will be reborn as a woman who devours.

Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Monstrous Flesh: On Women’s Bodies in Horror

Lucy Westenra has two selves. She is all silly sweetness in the daylight, but as Dracula’s powers invade her, she becomes a florid predator at night.
Nina Auerbach, from Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth.

jaguarappreciationblog :

Bloodied in battle, a rain-specked jaguar bears fresh wounds from a fight with wild pigs in Madidi National Park, Bolivia, in 2000.

by Joel Sartore (x)

roserosette :

Death Bed, 1977, George Barry

Because you are afraid of your own hand. How could you have asked her to stay?
Donika Kelly, from Bestiary: Poems.

I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I’m afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I’d take to bleeding inwardly.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë,

Markings, not wounds. For they were a special language, a sacred text.
Joyce Carol Oates, “Leave Me Alone God Damn You” from Lethal Kisses: 19 Stories of Sex, Horror, and Revenge edited by Ellen Datlow (via bluebeardsbride )

ibvyache :

I.B. Vyache, “The Rotting Dollhouse” from Conversations Over Sanguinaccio Dolce

amourduloup :

— Marion Strobel, Bride (x)

bluebeardsbride :

How did it know the dreams of his childhood? How could it have guessed that particular emblem, of being hoisted out of a street full of plague into a house that was Heaven?

“Because I am yourself,” it said, in reply to the unspoken question, “made perfectible.”

Gavin gestured towards the corpses.

“You can’t be me. I’d never have done this.”

It seemed ungracious to condemn it for its intervention, but the point stood.

“Wouldn’t you?” said the other. “I think you would.”

— Clive Barker, “Human Remains” The Complete Books of Blood

What was it you saw in my face?
the light of your own face,
the fire of your own presence?
H.D., from Eurydice. 

thurinusworks :

I recently gave myself a crash course in jewelry-making to design a pair of guillotine earrings, inspired by some friends’ interest in the pair from the French Revolution that made the rounds on Twitter a while back. Assembled from laser-cut walnut, gold-plated findings, and Czech glass beads.

Decided to make a few more available on Etsy!

weil-weil :

“Why is vengeance such a deep-seated and intense passion? I can only offer some speculations. Let us consider first the idea that vengeance is in some sense a magic act. By destroying the ones who committed the atrocity his deed is magically undone. This is still expressed today by saying that through his punishment ‘the criminal has paid his debt’; at least in theory, he is like someone who never committed a crime. Vengeance may be said to be a magic reparation; but even assuming that this is so, why is this desire for reparation so intense? Perhaps man is endowed with an elementary sense of justice; this may be because there is a deep rooted sense of ‘existential equality’: we are all born from mothers, we were once powerless children, and we shall die. Although man can often not defend himself against the harm others inflict upon him, in his wish for revenge he tries to wipe the sheet clean by denying, magically, that the damage was ever done. … But there must be more to the cause of vengeance. Man seems to take justice into his own hands when God or secular authorities fail. It is as if in his passion for vengeance he elevates himself to the role of God, and the angels of vengeance. The act of vengeance may be his greatest hour just because of this self-elevation.”

— Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 305-306.

I hid my face in the lap of darkness like a lost child brought at last to his mother. Never again would I stray into the light:
Anna Kavan, from Sleep Has His House.

secifosseluce :

to give you an idea of how intense Italy is on terms of religious & sexy imagery… a song by sweet, harmless indie-pop band pinguini tattici nucleari has these lyrics in the chorus:

‘because in the end between a kiss and cannibalism there isn’t that much difference / kiss me hard until you devour me, I’ll live within you forever’ 

oneiro1996:

monotropa uniflora (ghost plant)

singingnowwhileromeburns :

Hannibal, 2.13 / Jacopo Vignali, Cyparissus (c. 1625)

It is night; and there is nothing false here. Night is reliable. Night does not dazzle us with treacherous fires. Night keeps a dark enduring silence for us… like sleep, deep sleep. By our own will we came here and tasted sleep before there was any need, because we loved to gaze at the face of night. But not quite at home… even among loved shadows… we can’t forget altogether the splendid sun… we sometimes have to dream of the place we came from.
Anna Kavan, from Sleep Has His House.

pinkballerinas :

“I am utterly spellbound in a fairy tale of my own making.”

— Anais Nin

bedeliasbird :

“The eyes rebel. An ephemeral god that we must devour arises among us. Fearful, we hand over the names. We learn the first syllables. It is not possible to disbelieve in fear with its foundations, its sacred tunnels, its somber genesis, its ardent evasiveness…

Even though sometimes love separates us".

—Gonzalo Márquez Cristo, frag. ‘Oscuro Nacimiento’, translated by Nicolás Suescún.

Murderers are easy to understand. But this: that one can contain death, the whole of death, even before life has begun, can hold it to one’s heart gently, and not refuse to go on living, is inexpressible.
Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Duino Elegies. Trans. Stephen Mitchell.

thedearidiot :

“Approaching an other human being we may claim to love and respect, we are in reality vampires in search of a meal. ‘We love someone,’ Weil writes, ‘that is to say, we love to drink his blood’.”

- Alec Irwin, Devoured by God: Cannibalism, Mysticism, and Ethics in Simone Weil.

earthstory :

everchanginghorizon

After days of trekking, we were happy to head back to town.. but a few min into the drive, we crossed this red stream. It was intriguing, so we decided to follow a small path that went upstream.. and found an abandoned stone house. Wonder what the story is here.

yesterdaysprint :

The Times, Shreveport, Louisiana, November 30, 1913