Today my guests are Jerry and Linda Beers Aydlott of Sacred Sparks

Welcome!

DRAGONFLY Brooch by Sacred Sparks

Tell me a little bit about yourself/the history of your store.

Sacred Sparks is home to Jordan Valley Studio, where Jerry and Linda Beers Aydlott, design and create their art together. They have been earning their entire living from their art for 38 years. They live in a rural setting in the Jordan River Valley, where they heat their home and studio with wood… Grow herbs, veggies raise chickens, and offer their back yard to their visitors to enjoy as well. The grounds of Sacred Sparks offers a Labyrinth, Goddess Garden and Faerie Pathway for their customers to enjoy. They also host a Beltane event in early May.

Jewelry created by Linda and Photography and steel Garden Sculpture created by Jerry are the main focus.
Linda studied art at Michigan State University and The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts in the 60′s, now known as the Detroit College of Arts and Crafts. She met Jerry at an art show on Beltane, May 1st 1971. They were married on Mabon, September 23rd, 1972. Since that memorable day on the Autumnal Equinox the couple has earned their living from traveling to art shows east of the Mississippi. They sold their work on a wholesale level in the late 1980’s, and were represented in 130 galleries and boutiques around the country. In 1994 they open their shop “Sacred Sparks” to a local public and now offer their creations to a wider market online.

Jerry was pulled into photography by taking slides of Linda’s jewelry for juried shows. His self-taught abilities to capture the best image of an object has evolved. Jewelry was the biggest challenge with highly reflective surfaces. Jerry’s photographic path lead him to discover a great way to capture his love of nature and wild birds. Jerry’s other passion is creating metal garden sculptures. He worked with sculptor, Jim Millar, learning the craft of brazing, bending and hammering bronze. Later, Jerry studied welding at Northern Michigan University. Known as the ‘Bird’ man, Jerry is often called on to share his photos and lead Bird Walks.

Linda’s passion is for jewelry making. Working small has always been a compulsion for her. She fabricates all of her pieces, working directly with the materials of her choice. She loves to work with Sterling Silver, 14K Gold Filled, Copper, Brass, Titanium, Precious Metal Clay, precious, semi-precious stones, beads, crystals and other materials that are suitable in the moment. Her designs are inspired by her spiritual path an eclectic blend of all religions, but nature takes precedent. The Living Goddess smiles back through her work, the Celestial Magick of a starry night will enchant you, the Realm of Faerie can capture your heart. Linda loves to cook, get her bare feet muddy and hang with the froggies down at the mossy-banked creek.

East Wind Angel by Sacred Sparks

Tell me what makes your store UNIQUE from all the other stores that sell a product similar to yours.

Our store ( brick & mortar or on line shops) is a place we try to connect with people from the place of Spirit. Not religious, far from that dogmatic, human created system, but from a place that is pure Light, pure Love and all the wonderful aspects that follow behind and within it. We humans have so much potential, so much to offer to this beautiful world, yet so many are lost in the mundane of life, where color, creative approaches and passionate expression of joy are lost, to trends, political correctness, time lines, dead lines, appearances we put forth to impress others and affect what they think of us. Our effort here is to link people with their higher selves, their child within, their TRUE Self. We hope we can encourage folks to reconnect with imagination, and self expression, to live with PEACE and LOVE for all things good. Our efforts to support our desires are through our art, our offerings in our store, and the experiential walk through the fieldstone Labyrinth we built, or the Faerie Paths we have nurtured along the brook that sings by the ancient Black Willows. Wandering the paths will lead you to a bench where you can sit quietly and hear the little brook singing, and chortling it’s stories to anyone who will listen. Those stories are filled with a Soul calming essence that will tug at heart strings and fantastical imaginings.

I facilitate a Women’s MoonMeet each year to bring women back to that base element of Mother Earth and Goddess. I used to do several in one warm season here, but that got to be too much, and I found that one per year was effective and Healing for the Feminine Essence.

We also hold a Beltane or May Day Celebration here as close to May 1st as possible and a benefit for the Women’s Resource Center near by. That day is full of Spiritual meaning, great music, incredible fun, and offers blessings to a community organization that is constantly needing support on all levels. How many can say they have woven the ribbons around a May Pole? It is a ritual that symbolizes honoring and beckoning the growing season to be fruitful and prosperous.

Maidens Rite of Passage, necklace for your daughter, by Sacred Sparks

Do you do custom orders, designs, etc. If you do, what kinds of services do you offer for custom orders, what are your policies regarding custom orders?

Yes, I do custom orders, but I retain all rights to my artistic license… meaning if what the person is asking, does not fit into my creative way of thinking, I simply request the right to make the piece, as I see it in my minds eye, and use the materials that coincide with my design idea, using the requested item/idea as a springboard. I guess what I am saying, is my mind has a path of it’s own and I won’t interfere with that, nor allow someone I don’t know to interfere with that.
I have tried to create special orders in the past that just didn’t fit into my way of designing. A block is thus created, I struggle, get frustrated, procrastinate as a result and nothing happens, or something is not a representation of my work. I have found, if I push something that just does not fit with my designs or thoughts, I end up with something I am completely unhappy with. Even if the customer is happy, I feel like I have prostituted myself. That is not a positive result for either person involved.

The Relm of the Goddess by Sacred Sparks

Your links:

Store:  www.sacredsparks.com

www.etsy.com/shop/sacredsparks
Blog:  www.sacredsparks.blogspot.com
FaceBook:  www.facebook.com/Sacred.Sparks
Twitter:  twitter.com/#!/sacred_sparks

Faerie Orbs in the Night by Sacred Sparks

Thanks to you both for being here!

Esscentual Alchemy was featured in Craftsyble’s Valentine’s Day Guide!

I’m working on some DIY natural perfume tutorials, which I will make available for sale.

Doing taxes (boo hiss )

This week I have created a floral base, and a chypre base.  Now I wait…always the tricky part for me!

Tarragon grows to 120–150 cm tall, with slender branched stems. The leaves are lanceolate, 2–8 cm long and 2–10 mm broad, glossy green, with an entire margin. The flowers are produced in small capitulae 2–4 mm diameter, each capitulum containing up to 40 yellow or greenish-yellow florets. (French tarragon, however, seldom produces flowers.)

French tarragon is the variety generally considered best for the kitchen, but is difficult to grow from seed. It is best to cultivate by root division. It is normally purchased as a plant, and some care must be taken to ensure that true French tarragon is purchased. A perennial, it normally goes dormant in winter.  It likes a hot, sunny spot, without excessive watering.

Russian tarragon (A. dracunculoides L.) can be grown from seed but is much weaker in flavor when compared to the French variety.  However, Russian tarragon is a far more hardy and vigorous plant, spreading at the roots and growing over a meter tall. This tarragon actually prefers poor soils and happily tolerates drought and neglect. It is not as strongly aromatic and flavorsome as its French cousin, but it produces many more leaves from early spring onwards that are mild and good in salads and cooked food. The young stems in early spring can be cooked as an asparagus substitute. Grow indoors from seed and plant out in the summer. Spreading plant can be divided easily.

Tarragon has an aromatic property reminiscent of anise, due to the presence of estragole, a known carcinogen and teratogen in mice. The European Union investigation revealed that the danger of estragole is minimal even at 100–1,000 times the typical consumption seen in humans.

Tarragon is one of the four fines herbes of French cooking, and particularly suitable for chicken, lasagna, fish and egg dishes. Tarragon is one of the main components of Béarnaise sauce. Fresh, lightly bruised sprigs of tarragon may be steeped in vinegar to impart their flavor.

Tarragon is used to flavor a popular carbonated soft drink in the countries of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and, by extension, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The drink, named Tarhun, pronounced [tarˈxuːn] Тархун), is made out of sugary tarragon concentrate and colored bright green.

cis-Pellitorin, an isobutyramide eliciting a pungent taste, has been isolated from Tarragon plant.

In Slovenia, tarragon is used as a spice for a traditional sweet cake called potica.

Russian Tarragon shares the same botanical name and is grown from seed. However it is not a suitable substitute for French Tarragon which is sterile and grows from cuttings. Russian Tarragon has little if any flavor.Tagetes lucida is a much better substitute.

The scent and taste of tarragon is disliked by many garden pests, making it useful for intercropping as a companion plant, to protect its gardenmates. It is also reputed to be a nurse plant, enhancing growth and flavor of companion crops.

Tarragon reduces platelet adhesion and blood coagulation and thus may help prevent cardiovascular disease.

In one study in rats, tarragon showed significant antihyperglycemic activity in streptozotocin-induced rats compared to the standard drug.  The herb has the potential to act as antidiabetic as well as antihyperlipidemic.

An ethanolic extract of Artemisia dracunculus alleviated peripheral neuropathy in high fat diet-fed mice (a model of prediabetes and obesity).

A. dracunculus oil contained predominantly phenylpropanoids such as methyl chavicol (16.2%) and methyl eugenol (35.8%).^[7] Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of the essential oil revealed the presence of trans-anethole (21.1%), α-trans-ocimene (20.6%), limonene (12.4%), α-pinene (5.1%), allo-ocimene (4.8%), methyl eugenol (2.2%), β-pinene (0.8%), α-terpinolene (0.5%), bornyl acetate (0.5%) and bicyclogermacrene (0.5%) as the main components.

The plant’s common name and Latin name originate from the belief in the Doctrine of Signatures which suggested that a plant’s appearance reflected its possible uses. The serpentine shape of tarragon’s root made herbalists believe it could cure snake bites. From this came the Greek name drakon (dragon), the Arabic tarkhum (little dragon), and the Latin name dracunculus (little dragon).

(info and pictures from Wikipedia)

Tarragon essential oil is a colorless to pale yellow liquid display a uniforim sweet, fresh, clean, anisic-spicy bouquet

In natural perfumery it is used in trace amounts in herbal bouquets, culinary perfumes, chypre, cologne and green-floral bases.

(info from White Lotus Aromatics blog)

Mediaeval Baebes – The Circle of the Lustful

Noi leggiavamo un giorno diletto
Di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse
Soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto
Per più fiate li occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso
Ma soso un punto fu quel che ci vinse
Quando leggemmo il disïato riso
Esser basciato da cotanto amante
Questi, che mai da me non fia divisio
La bocco mi bascio tutto tremante
Galeotto fu ‘l libro e chi lo scrisse
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante

Mentre che l’undo spirto questo disse
L’altro piangëa sì che di pietade
To venni men così com’ io morisse
E caddi come corpo morto cade

Welcome!

clear crystal cluster bracelet by Tali's Creations

Tell me a little bit about yourself/the history of your store.

amber briolette cluster earrings by Tali's Creations

Tell me what makes your store UNIQUE from all the other stores that sell a product similar to yours.

Feature one of your items and tell the story about that particular item.

Necklace by Tali's Creations

Do you do custom orders, designs, etc. If you do, what kinds of services do you offer for custom orders, what are your policies regarding custom orders?

Custom Order from Tali's Creations

Links to find Tali’s Creations

turquoise nugget and ss chain necklace by Tali's Creations

 Thanks for being here today Tali!

I’m involved with a perfume project from The Alembicated Genie…won’t say more than that right now   But currently the thesaurus and dictionary and I are hanging out.

I’m reading a book, called Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead by Barry Barnes.  Fascinating stuff, and giving me thinking ideas

I’m still waiting for the Time Lord.  (I love saying that, gives me a delicious thrill of clever word play)

Doing some evaulations and learning how to build perfume bases now.  Like building my own version of a chypre base.  Putting the basic compounds of what makes up a Chypre, together and giving it a twist ala Amanda.

FYI:  The basic construct of a chypre base includes the following essences, with the main focus on the first *four ingredients:

*bergamot
*oakmoss
*ambrette
*labdanum (cistus)
vetyver
patchouli
sandalwood

The rest is just window dressing

Tomorrow is Friday Finds.  See you on the flip side!  As always thanks for reading

The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas (or Spice Islands) of Indonesia. The nutmeg tree is important for two spices derived from the fruit: nutmeg and mace.

Nutmeg is the seed of the tree, roughly egg-shaped and about 20 to 30 mm (0.8 to 1 in) long and 15 to 18 mm (0.6 to 0.7 in) wide, and weighing between 5 and 10 g (0.2 and 0.4 oz) dried, while mace is the dried “lacy” reddish covering or aril of the seed. The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7–9 years after planting, and the trees reach full production after 20 years. Nutmeg is usually used in powdered form. This is the only tropical fruit that is the source of two different spices. Several other commercial products are also produced from the trees, including essential oils, extracted oleoresins, and nutmeg butter.

The common or fragrant nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia, is also grown in Penang Island in Malaysia and the Caribbean, especially in Grenada. It also grows in Kerala, a state in southern India. Other species of nutmeg include Papuan nutmeg M. argentea from New Guinea, and Bombay nutmeg M. malabarica from India, called jaiphal in Hindi; both are used as adulterants of M. fragrans products.

Nutmeg is a dioecious plant which is propagated sexually and asexually, the latter being the standard. Sexual propagation by seedling yields 50% male seedlings, which are unproductive. As there is no reliable method of determining plant sex before flowering in the sixth to eighth year, and sexual propagation bears inconsistent yields, grafting is the preferred method of propagation. Epicotyl grafting, approach grafting and patch budding have proved successful, epicotyl grafting being the most widely adopted standard. Air-layering, or marcotting, is an alternative, though not preferred, method, because of its low (35-40%) success rate.

Nutmeg and mace have similar sensory qualities, with nutmeg having a slightly sweeter and mace a more delicate flavour. Mace is often preferred in light dishes for the bright orange, saffron-like hue it imparts. Nutmeg is used for flavouring many dishes, usually in ground or grated form, and is best grated fresh in a nutmeg grater.

In Penang cuisine, dried, shredded nutmeg rind with sugar coating is used as toppings on the uniquely Penang ais kacang. Nutmeg rind is also blended (creating a fresh, green, tangy taste and white colour juice) or boiled (resulting in a much sweeter and brown juice) to make iced nutmeg juice or, as it is called in Penang Hokkien, lau hau peng.

In Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used in many sweet as well as savoury dishes (predominantly in Mughlai cuisine). It is known as jaiphal in most parts of India. In Kannada, nutmeg is called jaayi-kaayi/jaaipatre, jathikai (சாதிக்காய்) in Tamil and jatipatri and jathi seed in Kerala. In Telugu, nutmeg is called jaaji kaaya and mace is called jaapathri. It is also added in small quantities as a medicine for infants (janma ghutti). It may also be used in small quantities in garam masala. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India.

In Middle Eastern cuisine, ground nutmeg is often used as a spice for savoury dishes. In Arabic, nutmeg is called jawzat at-tiyb (جوزة الطيب).

In Greece and Cyprus, nutmeg is called μοσχοκάρυδο (moschokarydo) (Greek: “musky nut”), and is used in cooking and savoury dishes.

In originally European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in potato dishes and in processed meat products; they are also used in soups, sauces, and baked goods. In Dutch cuisine, nutmeg is added to vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and string beans. Nutmeg is a traditional ingredient in mulled cider, mulled wine, and eggnog.

Japanese varieties of curry powder include nutmeg as an ingredient.

In the Caribbean, nutmeg is often used in drinks such as the Bushwacker, Painkiller, and Barbados rum punch. Typically, it is just a sprinkle on the top of the drink.

The pericarp (fruit/pod) is used in Grenada to make a jam called morne delice. In Indonesia, the fruit is also made into jam, called selei buah pala, or is finely sliced, cooked with sugar, and crystallised to make a fragrant candy called manisan pala (nutmeg sweets).

The essential oil obtained by steam distillation of ground nutmeg is used widely in the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. This volatile fraction typically contains 60-80% d-camphene by weight, as well as quantities of d-pinene, limonene, d-borneol, l-terpineol, geraniol, safrol, and myristicin.  The oil is colourless or light yellow, and smells and tastes of nutmeg. It contains numerous components of interest to the oleochemical industry, and is used as a natural food flavouring in baked goods, syrups, beverages, and sweets. It is used to replace ground nutmeg, as it leaves no particles in the food. The essential oil is also used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, for instance, in toothpaste, and as a major ingredient in some cough syrups. In traditional medicine, nutmeg and nutmeg oil were used for disorders related to the nervous and digestive systems.

Nutmeg butter is obtained from the nut by expression. It is semi-solid, reddish brown in colour, and tastes and smells of nutmeg. Approximately 75% (by weight) of nutmeg butter is trimyristin, which can be turned into myristic acid, a 14-carbon fatty acid, which can be used as a replacement for cocoa butter, can be mixed with other fats like cottonseed oil or palm oil, and has applications as an industrial lubricant.

It is known to have been a prized and costly spice in European medieval cuisine as a flavouring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Saint Theodore the Studite ( ca. 758 – ca. 826) allowed his monks to sprinkle nutmeg on their pease pudding when required to eat it. In Elizabethan times, it was believed nutmeg could ward off the plague, so nutmeg became very popular and its price skyrocketed.

The small Banda Islands were, until the mid-19th century, the world’s only source of nutmeg and mace. Nutmeg is noted as a very valuable commodity by Muslim sailors from the port of Basra, such as Sinbad the Sailor in the One Thousand and One Nights. Nutmeg was traded by Arabs during the Middle Ages and sold to the Venetians for very high prices, but the traders did not divulge the exact location of their source in the profitable Indian Ocean trade, and no European was able to deduce their location.

In August 1511, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, which at the time was the hub of Asian trade, on behalf of the king of Portugal. In November of that year, after having secured Malacca and learning of the Bandas’ location, Albuquerque sent an expedition of three ships led by his friend António de Abreu to find them. Malay pilots, either recruited or forcibly conscripted, guided them via Java, the Lesser Sundas and Ambon to Banda, arriving in early 1512.  The first Europeans to reach the Bandas, the expedition remained in Banda for about a month, purchasing and filling their ships with Banda’s nutmeg and mace, and with cloves in which Banda had a thriving entrepôt trade.  The first written accounts of Banda are in Suma Oriental, a book written by the Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires, based in Malacca from 1512 to 1515. Full control of this trade by the Portuguese was not possible, and they remained participants without a foothold in the islands themselves.

The trade in nutmeg later became dominated by the Dutch in the 17th century. The English and Dutch engaged in prolonged struggles to gain control of Run Island, then the only source of nutmeg. At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch gained control of Run, while England controlled New Amsterdam (New York) in North America.

The Dutch waged a bloody war, including the massacre and enslavement of the inhabitants of the island of Banda, just to control nutmeg production in the East Indies in 1621. Thereafter, the Banda Islands were run as a series of plantation estates, with the Dutch mounting annual expeditions in local war-vessels to extirpate nutmeg trees planted elsewhere.

In 1760, the price of nutmeg in London was 85 to 90 shillings per pound, a price kept artificially high by the Dutch voluntarily burning full warehouses of nutmegs in Amsterdam.

As a result of the Dutch interregnum during the Napoleonic Wars, the English took temporary control of the Banda Islands from the Dutch and transplanted nutmeg trees to their own colonial holdings elsewhere, notably Zanzibar and Grenada. The national flag of Grenada, adopted in 1974, shows a stylised split-open nutmeg fruit. The Dutch however continued to hold control of the spice islands until World War II

Connecticut gets its nickname (“the Nutmeg State”, “Nutmegger”) from the legend that some unscrupulous Connecticut traders would whittle “nutmeg” out of wood, creating a “wooden nutmeg” (a term which came to mean any fraud).

World production of nutmeg is estimated to average between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes (9,800 and 12,000 long tons; 11,000 and 13,000 short tons) per year, with annual world demand estimated at 9,000 tonnes (8,900 long tons; 9,900 short tons); production of mace is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes (1,500 to 2,000 long tons; 1,700 to 2,200 short tons). Indonesia and Grenada dominate production and exports of both products, with world market shares of 75% and 20% respectively. Other producers include India, Malaysia (especially Penang, where the trees are native within untamed areas), Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Caribbean islands, such as St. Vincent and Grenada, which produces 20% of the world’s nutmeg supply. The principal import markets are the European Community, the United States, Japan and India. Singapore and the Netherlands are major re-exporters.

One study has shown that the compound macelignan isolated from Myristica fragrans (Myristicaceae) may exert antimicrobial activity against Streptococcus mutans, but this is not a currently used treatment.

Nutmeg has been used in medicine since at least the seventh century. In the 19th century it was used as an abortifacient, which led to numerous recorded cases of nutmeg poisoning. Although used as a folk treatment for other ailments, nutmeg has no proven medicinal value today.

In low doses, nutmeg produces no noticeable physiological or neurological response, but in large doses, raw nutmeg has psychoactive effects. In its freshly-ground (from whole nutmegs) form, nutmeg contains myristicin, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor and psychoactive substance. Myristicin poisoning can induce convulsions, palpitations, nausea, eventual dehydration, and generalized body pain.  It is also reputed to be a strong deliriant.

Fatal myristicin poisonings in humans are very rare, but two have been reported: one in an 8-year-old child and another in a 55-year-old adult, the latter case attributed to a combination with flunitrazepam. The effects of nutmeg can take several hours to take effect, and can last for several days.^{[citation needed]}

Myristicin poisoning is potentially deadly to some pets and livestock, and may be caused by culinary quantities of nutmeg harmless to humans. For this reason, it is recommended not to feed eggnog to dogs.

Peter Stafford’s Psychedelics Encyclopedia quotes an 1883 report from Mumbai noting that “the Hindus of West India take [nutmeg] as an intoxicant”, and records that the spice has been used for centuries as a form of snuff in rural eastern Indonesia and India, latter seeing the ground seed mixed with betel and other kinds of snuff. In 1829, the Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkinje ingested three ground nutmegs with a glass of wine and recorded headaches, nausea, hallucinations and a sense of euphoria that lasted for several days.

Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes and chemist Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD, documented reports of nutmeg’s use as an intoxicant by students, prisoners, sailors, alcoholics and marijuana smokers. In his autobiography, Malcolm X writes about taking nutmeg and other “semi-drugs” while serving time in prison.

The Angewandte Chemie International Edition records the use of nutmeg as an intoxicant in the United States in the post-World War II period, notably among young people, bohemians, and prisoners. A 1966 New York Times piece named it along with morning glory seeds, diet aids, cleaning fluids, cough medicine, and other substances as “alternative highs” on college campuses.

Nutmeg was once considered an abortifacient, but may be safe for culinary use during pregnancy. However, it inhibits prostaglandin production and contains hallucinogens that may affect the fetus if consumed in large quantities.

(info and pictures from wikipedia)

Nutmeg essential oil is a colorless to pale yellow liquid displaying a terpenic topnote in Sri Lankan distilled oil with fresh, warm, sweet, aromatic spicy body note and a woody undertone

In natural perumery used in spice accords, culinary perfumes, after-shave lotions, chypres, high class florals, and incense bouquets.

(info from White Lotus Aromatics Blog)

“Sumer Is Icumen In” is a traditional English round, and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. The title might be translated as “Summer has come in” or “Summer has arrived”.

The round is sometimes known as the Reading rota because the manuscript comes from Reading Abbey though it may not have been written there. It is the oldest piece of six-part polyphonic music (Albright, 1994). Its composer is anonymous, possibly W. de Wycombe, and it is estimated to date from around 1260. The manuscript is now at the British Library. The language is Middle English, more exactly Wessex dialect

The original manuscript, written in 1225 AD, is written in mensural notation, a precursor to modern musical notation:

To sing as a round, one singer would begin at the beginning, and a second would start at the beginning as the first got to the point marked with the red cross. The length between the start and the cross corresponds to the modern notion of a bar, and the main verse comprises six phrases spread over twelve such bars. In addition, there are two lines marked “Pes”, two bars each, that are meant to be sung together repeatedly underneath the main verse. These instructions are included (in Latin) in the manuscript itself.

The music is somewhat more readable in modern notation:

This work is also one of the earliest examples of music with both religious and secular lyrics, though the secular ones are perhaps better known. It is not clear which came first, but the religious lyrics, in Latin, are a reflection on the sacrifice of the Crucifixion.

Article from Revolutionizeher

Article from Somer Sherwood

Article from The Haby Goddess

Article from Lex on What the Craft

I hope this is interesting and good reading for all of you.  Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll be back on Sunday for some music selections!