Soul of the World

 In the December 2020 issue of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine, the reader finds an ad for products offered by Anima Mundi Apothecary. A quick trip to the Anima Mundi website is not a quick trip to information, but clicking a few times rewards the seeker with all kinds of material for future blogposts, for, as a reader may suspect, any business with a Latin-derived name may also contain other ancient material of interest. According to its website Anima Mundi Apothecary’s mission is

TO BRIDGE ANCIENT REMEDIES

TO THE MODERN WORLD.

Anima, animae f. is a Latin noun that means “breath, soul, life.” Mundus, mundi m. is a Latin noun meaning “world.” The phrase anima mundi, meaning “breath/spirit/soul of the world,” expresses the feeling a human perceives on a fine summer afternoon when a breeze blows that animates everything. The human feels the vitality of the world like a living presence that transcends the earth, trees, plants, and animals. The phrase has existed in philosophical thought for millennia; a person could spend a lot of time reading about the idea of anima mundi. Or a person could read a lot about botanical remedies, such as elderberries, on the Anima Mundi website. Or, for a breath of fresh air, a person could step outside and expect some life to admire, like the little walking stick I spied last night. 

Vulcan's Fire

Everybody loves Vulcan, the Roman god of blacksmiths and fire. A catalogue from The Spice House found its way to my mailbox.  Flipping through the artistic pages, I almost dropped the booklet outside the post office, for there under the category of Best-Selling Blends was Vulcan’s Fire Salt:

This fiery salt is named for Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. Vulcan’s Fire Salt owes its

spicy, deep flavor to a secret ingredient discovered by The Spice House’s founder

many decades ago.

Hmmm…did the founder visit one of Vulcan’s workshops in Sicily? Is Vulcan really the god of alchemy? Or is this fanciful description another example of the enduring legacy of the ancient Romans?

In this blog readers have encountered many products—wrenches, garden tools, motorcycles, cars—named for the multi-talented creative god, but this may be the first edible. If you want to breathe a little fire as you dine, Vulcan’s Fire Salt may be the spice for you.

 

Laminating the Heavens

 

Are home-made gifts better than store-bought? I treasured a pencil cup made from a soup can, felt, and macaroni for years and only threw it away when I discovered that mice were gnawing at the (gold spray-painted) macaroni. But first I took a picture that will live forever on the internet. Another gift of a laminated piece of paper with words, decorated with a black-and-gold cord accented with a few mismatched gold-colored buttons hangs on a towel-rack in my bathroom, where it has hung for at least a decade and a half. Simple gifts may not age well but they bring great joy. 

Not a crafty person, I thought I could try laminating some quotations written in my shaky calligraphy. My research into laminators led me to the Fellowes corporation, where I discovered a ridiculous cascade of laminators for every possible situation whether infrequent home use, moderate office use, or industrial/business use. And all gradations in between. 

The most amusing discovery was that Fellowes laminators have Greco-Latin names including heavenly mythological names, from least expensive to most: Ion, Spectra, Halo, Callisto, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, Venus, and Proteus. Ion is a form of the Greek verb ienai, “going,” halo derives from Latin from the Greek word halos meaning a “circle” or “threshing floor,” and spectra comes from a Latin verb specto of “looking at.” Callisto was a companion of the Greek goddess Artemis. Seduced by Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, Callisto was transformed into a bear and lives on as the constellation Ursa Major as well as one of the moons of Jupiter. Saturn is the Roman name of Kronos, the father of Zeus in Greek mythology. Neptune, god of the seas, is the Roman name for Poseidon, brother of Zeus. Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. In mythology Proteus is a prophetic seal-herder of Poseidon, capable of changing his appearance; in astronomy Proteus or Neptune VIII is a moon of the planet Neptune. 

The Fellowes website does not give much information about the company’s acquisition of laminators, though they may originally have come from Germany. Those who built and designed them must have seen some fanciful resemblances to planets or space exploration. Other models of Fellowes laminators are Cosmic, Lunar, Mars, Vega, Voyager… quite an array of office machines! When faced with a wide range of choices for a product, I usually choose a product with a mythological name, all other criteria being equal. But all these choices of laminators are out of this world!