When Jessica Ferri asked if I’d like “to do something for Sylvia Plath’s birthday?” I did not hesitate to say yes, despite not knowing exactly what that something might be, and feeling like I didn’t have enough time to properly formulate anything. I had a week before the event at her Temescal Alley book shop, which would feature an author’s talk with Plath scholar and author of Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation, Emily Van Duyne. I have recently been crafting bespoke perfumes based on a client’s astrological birth chart. This work had thus far been happening with living clients, but why not explore the chart of someone who had transitioned back to spirit?

Sylvia Plath is an iconic and mythic figure in poetry, her reputation and mythology growing exponentially in concert with her tragic suicide at the age of thirty. Legions of fans and critics alike have built an artifice of her character since her death in 1963. Many remember her only because of her death, mental health struggles, and some of her poetry that danced so elegantly with darkness and struggle. Van Duyne’s compelling biography asks the reader to consider Plath as a whole person. A brilliant woman who became entangled with an abusive husband and wrote some of the best poetry of the 20th century.

Before this ask, I had a vague knowledge of Plath - just that she was a poet and had written The Bell Jar. I am sure that I had read her poetry in high school, but I did not have a recollection. The first impression of her chart does lead the astrologer to see a very pronounced, depressive, and challenging placement. Saturn, the ruling planet of her Aquarius rising, is strongly and uncomfortably placed in Capricorn in the 12th whole sign house of self-undoing, confinement, hidden enemies, mental illness, and transcendence. Saturn is the planet of coldness, boundaries, limitations, constriction, solitude, and death - a necessary but challenging energy that in its constructive mode gives us structure, boundaries, and opportunities to be reborn, but in its shadow is the Prince of Darkness himself and can bring death, destruction, and grief. Pair that placement with a nitpicky fallen Venus in the Virgo 8th house of death and other people’s resources, and upon first glance, the artifice of the sad girl poet is confirmed.

In my approach to the chart I consider the Hermetic Lot of Eros which is a mathematical point derived from the distance between the planet Venus - planet of relationships, connection, love, beauty, and art - and the Lot of Spirit which is derived from the distance between the sun and the moon cast out from the ascendant and speaks to all things in our life that are aspirational and about what we choose to nourish the soul. There isn’t much in classical literature that we have that speaks to delineating the Hermetic Lot of Eros, but I had a hunch that it could guide me towards what someone might choose to adorn themselves and feel more beautiful with.

Sylvia’s Lot of Eros lands at 27*59’ of Leo in her 7th house of the other, the angular or pivotal place opposite the 1st house of the self. Not only is it in this house, it is nearly exactly conjunct her descendant degree at 28*22’, which is the horizon line and place of the setting sun and directly opposes the place of the ascendant, the place of the rising sun, where the breath of life inspires the body at the moment of birth. This is an incredibly potent point of the birth chart, and the Lot of Eros pointing to this place was very intriguing.

The sign of Leo is opposite in placement to her rising sign, Aquarius, and is oppositional in so many ways. It is the sign of the zodiac that is ruled by the Sun, the Dark Prince’s mortal enemy. Often times the sign opposite the rising, beyond being a place to find partners and significant others in our lives, is a place in which we discover or reclaim something of ourselves that we seek out in those others. It is a mirroring place, and the reflection that Sylvia wanted to see was bright, warm, shining, and bold like the Sun. Mars is also found in the setting place, in Leo. The planet of war, aggression, severance, bloodshed, and passion here at once speaks to the violence she met in her husband, but also, in its mirroring function, illuminates the unincorporated part of self she so longed for. That part, which I believe is beautifully expressed in her sensual, passionate, and evocative writing, and which I aimed to capture in this perfume.

Her Sun, which rules Leo and her 7th house of marriage, is located in Scorpio, in the pivotal 10th house of career and public identity. Also in Scorpio is her evening star, Mercury, as it is freshly emerging from under the beams of the Sun. Mercury is the planet of communication, writing, thoughts, translation, data, and movement, and this Mercury, as it finally emerges from being hidden by the Sun’s blinding rays, makes a powerful statement in the angular 10th house. It is a telling placement. Sylvia shone brightly as a writer, poet, and academic, her writing dove deep into the messiness of life, she found beauty in the compost, illuminating the shadows - a quintessentially Scorpionic ability. And she supported and facilitated the success of her husband’s career simultaneously. Her Sun in Scorpio and Mars in Leo share a reciprocal relationship called mutual reception in addition to a whole sign square aspect. Each planet rules the sign of the other, and can see each other through a classical aspect, and in this way, they boost each other, providing gas to planetary placements that are otherwise not particularly dignified or noteworthy in those signs.

This symbiosis between her Mars in Leo and Sun in Scorpio placements is what inspired the perfume, Pursuit. I leaned into bright, sharp, and hot top notes with fresh ginger, black pepper, and bitter orange. The heart of the perfume is floral and sexy with orange flower, ylang ylang, and spicy jasmine sambac. The base notes anchor the perfume with classically masculine leather notes from labdanum, more sex appeal from vetiver, and dry, resinous wood notes from Buddha wood and frankincense. There is also an animalic note from Africa stone to push the sense of longing and desire. Like all of my perfumes, Pursuit has an almost edible quality that adds to the feeling of hunger.

I had promised Jessica that I would try to whip something up for the event, but that I wouldn’t be 100% until I had a formula that I was proud of. The day before the event, I landed on this formula. I spent hours working on it while listening to old recordings of Sylvia reading her poetry that I found on YouTube. It was haunting in a way that was exhilarating and not at all spooky. I felt guided by the presence of her voice, filling my sails with confidence. When I told Jessica about the perfume and the notes it contained and why I chose them, she immediately said that we should call it Pursuit after the famous poem she wrote the morning after meeting for the first time, Ted Hughes, the man who would become her husband and abuser. I hadn’t come across that poem yet, but when I read it, I knew that it had inspired my perfume. How is it possible to be inspired by something simultaneously from the past and the future? Time is a concept, and spirit works in mysterious ways.

Pursuit is laced with solar and martial imagery throughout, “more lordly than the sun”, “the hot white noon”, “blood, let blood be spilt”. It is pulse-quickening, erotic, ravenous, and terrifying. It speaks to desire and has a mirror-quality that insinuates the poet as both prey and huntress. The panther is at once Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

You can read Pursuit here.