Quickthorn read Song of Solomon 1:3, Matthew 5:45, 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 for the 182.2ii’s word #10. “The river runs / The fragrance stays.”
Quickthorn read Song of Solomon 1:3, Matthew 5:45, 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 for the 182.2ii’s word #10. “The river runs / The fragrance stays.”
Gem: The Classical Latin term baccar (also spelled bacchar or baccaris) refers to an ancient, highly fragrant plant. To understand its linguistic, historical, and literary usage, it can be broken down into seven distinct aspects:[1, 2]
1. Grammatical Classification
Morphologically, baccar is classified as a third-declension neuter noun. It is an imparisyllabic non-i-stem noun that typically appears only in the singular form. Its genitive form is baccaris. [1, 2]
2. Etymological Origin
The word is a loanword borrowed into Latin from the Ancient Greek term βάκκαρις (bákkaris). Because of this, it is sometimes linked culturally and poetically to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, revelry, and ecstatic celebration. [1, 2, 3]
3. Botanical Uncertainty
In modern botany, the exact real-world identity of the plant remains unidentified and uncertain. Classical dictionaries and translators commonly suggest it could refer to the ivy-leaved cyclamen (sowbread), valerian, or foxglove. [1, 2, 3, 4]
4. Physical Properties
According to ancient records, the defining physical attribute of the baccar was its highly fragrant root. Roman society prized this root because a specialized, aromatic oil could be expressed from it for medicinal and cosmetic use. [1, 2, 3]
5. Alternative Naming (Nardum Rusticum)
In antiquity, the plant was frequently referred to as “rustic nard” (nardum rusticum) by commoners and certain authors. However, Pliny the Elder famously noted in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia) that while many people called it rustic nard, this was technically a misnomer. [1, 2]
6. Presence in Augustan Poetry
The term holds literary significance due to its inclusion in the works of Virgil, particularly within his Eclogues(such as Eclogue 4 and Eclogue 7). In these pastoral poems, baccar is mentioned alongside items like ivy to evoke natural abundance, protective magic, or rustic beauty. [1, 2]
7. Phonetic Pronunciation
In Classical Latin, the word was pronounced with a hard “c” sound as [ˈbak.kar]. This contrasts sharply with its Ecclesiastical Latin variant used in later church traditions, which evolved into a modern Italianate pronunciation. [1]
Chat: Baccar! A fragrant mystery.
You’ve gone from Babae, where God’s goodness leaves you speechless, through Brūma, where His presence remains through winter, to Baccar, where His goodness becomes something almost tangible: a fragrance.
But I noticed something particularly interesting in your seven lines.
You begin with an expensive perfume and end with the influence of God’s presence upon entire cultures.
A fragrance starts as something personal, even intimate, but it doesn’t necessarily stay where it began.
And I think that is the central movement of this septet.
1. A fragrance worth more than its price
“Your blessings are like a luxury perfume known throughout time as an expensive treat to enjoy.”
You begin with the value of the fragrance.
The natural biblical connection is Mary anointing Jesus with expensive perfume in John 12:3–5. Judas calculates its monetary value, while Jesus recognizes the significance of Mary’s act.
That creates an intriguing question for your opening:
Can something be enormously valuable without its greatest value being monetary?
The perfume was expensive. The devotion it expressed could not be purchased.
Song of Solomon 1:3 also fits your imagery directly: the beloved’s name is compared to poured-out perfume.
Your septet will return to that connection in line four.
2. The fragrance that isn’t reserved for the wealthy
“Many know of Your goodness, for You share it among us all.”
Here you quietly undermine the exclusivity of line one.
Luxury perfume is expensive precisely because not everyone can afford it.
But God’s common goodness isn’t restricted to those who can pay.
Matthew 5:45 is especially appropriate: God causes His sun to rise on both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.
The fragrance is priceless, but it isn’t sold.
That gives Baccar a connection to Affluo. There you discovered that mercy cannot be rationed according to human calculations.
Here, God’s goodness cannot be purchased according to human valuations.
3. The unexpected grammatical connection
“You are known to favor both genders, though You call neither Your own.”
I suspect you’re playing with Gem’s grammatical classification of baccar as a neuter noun.
You move from grammatical gender to the nature of God.
There’s a useful theological distinction here: God is not biologically male or female, although Scripture reveals Him as Father and uses masculine language and pronouns. Jesus, in His incarnation, is genuinely male.
So the comparison works as an analogy about God transcending human biological categories, not as a literal equation between grammatical neuter gender and divine nature.
But the more interesting thought is that God’s goodness isn’t restricted by gender.
His mercy is not a masculine or feminine possession.
And this is another instance of your willingness to let an obscure grammatical observation lead you somewhere unexpected.
4. The fragrance of a Name
“You gave us the Name by which we are to call You, יהוה.”
This line is where the septet becomes distinctly theological.
Gem’s fourth aspect concerns the uncertain botanical identity of baccar.
You reverse that uncertainty:
We may not know exactly which plant the ancients meant, but God has revealed His covenant name.
There’s a subtle distinction worth preserving. The divine name YHWH is revealed in Scripture, notably Exodus 3:14–15, although its ancient pronunciation is not known with complete certainty.
And now Song of Solomon 1:3 becomes especially meaningful:
Your name is like perfume poured out.
The fragrance isn’t merely associated with God’s gifts.
It becomes associated with His identity.
That could be a beautiful central image for the song:
The flower’s name was lost to time,
But You revealed Your Name to mine.
Not quite a finished lyric, perhaps, but the reversal is there.
5. The fragrance that fills the mind
“Your presence is like a heavenly fragrance that would fill the room and mind with thoughts that would likewise fill the mind.”
I think you’re reaching toward something beyond physical scent here.
Fragrance has a peculiar relationship with memory.
A familiar smell can bring back a place, a person, or a moment from years earlier.
So the movement becomes:
Fragrance → presence → memory → contemplation.
And your repetition of mind almost performs what you’re describing: one thought generating another, until the original experience fills your attention.
Second Corinthians 2:14–15 is particularly relevant because Paul describes believers as the aroma of Christ.
But Paul’s metaphor goes further than pleasant feelings. The fragrance of Christ is received differently by different people.
That prevents the analogy from becoming merely sentimental.
The presence of Christ is not simply a pleasant atmosphere; it is a testimony that calls for a response.
6. Rustic beauty beside the Au Sable
“Your rustic beauty has been with me many times up and down the Au Sable.”
This is the line that changes everything for me.
Up to this point, we’ve been discussing luxury perfumes, botanical uncertainty, ancient names, and theological imagery.
Then suddenly we’re beside the Au Sable River.
Gem describes baccar appearing in Virgil’s pastoral poetry, evoking the countryside.
You respond with a place where you’ve experienced God’s presence personally.
That’s the difference between reading about rustic beauty and remembering it.
And there’s another reversal:
The expensive fragrance of line one becomes the freely encountered beauty of line six.
No perfume bottle.
No purchase.
No exclusive audience.
Just the natural world and the awareness of God’s goodness.
I wouldn’t want the eventual song to lose the Au Sable. It gives the fragrance somewhere to live.
7. From fragrance to cultural influence
“Over the ages, Your presence has been part of fine culture determining its outlook and perspective.”
Gem ends with pronunciation. You end with the cultural influence of God’s presence.
This is your largest leap from the linguistic source, but I can see the intended connection: a word’s sound and use can travel through generations, while religious belief can influence how generations understand beauty, goodness, morality, art, and meaning.
Christianity has certainly influenced literature, music, visual art, philosophy, and institutions across many cultures, although that influence has been both constructive and, at times, misused.
What interests me is the way your final line enlarges the fragrance metaphor.
One person’s perfume fills a room. A shared faith can shape a civilization.
The analogy doesn’t require us to claim that every cultural expression associated with Christianity accurately reflects Christ.
It invites us to ask whether the aroma being carried is truly His.
That takes us back to 2 Corinthians 2.
The three movements I hear
1–3
The Gift
Priceless goodness, freely shared, beyond human categories.
4–5
The Presence
God’s revealed Name and the fragrance that fills our thoughts.
6–7
The Reach
God’s goodness experienced personally in creation and reflected through generations of culture.
One more connection: Baccar and your previous songs
There’s a sequence emerging that I don’t think either of us deliberately designed:
– Abdō: God’s Word hidden within the heart.
– Affluo: God’s mercy flowing outward.
– Babae: God’s wonders leaving us speechless, then giving us breath to testify.
– Brūma: God’s faithfulness enduring through time.
– Baccar: The fragrance of Christ reaching beyond the individual.
We’ve moved through concealment, water, breath, time, and fragrance.
And the striking thing about fragrance is that it spreads without the person carrying it necessarily being aware of how far it travels.
That might be the deepest connection to Paul’s imagery.
We don’t manufacture the fragrance of Christ through our own excellence.
We bear witness to Him.
The eventual song could have a chorus along these lines:
Baccar, let Your fragrance rise,
Beyond the reach of mortal eyes.
No earthly price could ever claim
The sweetness of Your holy Name.
But there’s one line I’d like to understand more clearly before we compose it.
When you describe God’s “rustic beauty” along the Au Sable, are you remembering the river itself, the forests and landscape around it, or particular experiences you had there?
I ask because line six feels like the personal heart of Baccar, much as Betsy’s telephone call became the heart of Brūma.
Me: Betsy and I lead a jr. high and high school wilderness trip there 3 or 4 times in Northern Michigan. We would canoe 110 miles of it in a week’s time. Sometimes the weather got fierce, but it was always beautiful. This post, http://www.briancarter.link/eagle-stars-and-cloud/, explains more about my experience on that river. One other time, while we were leading a trip, one of the canoes was sinking and we just happened to run across a leader of mine when I was a kid. He fixed our boat and we went our ways. Amazing timing, amazing times.
Chat: Now I understand why you chose the Au Sable for Baccar.
You and Betsy weren’t simply admiring a beautiful river. You were leading junior-high and high-school students through 110 miles of wilderness in a single week, repeatedly, sometimes through fierce weather.
And that story about the sinking canoe is extraordinary.
Of all the people you might encounter on a river in northern Michigan, at precisely the moment you needed help, you met someone who had been your own leader when you were a child.
He helped repair the canoe, and you went your separate ways.
There’s a beautiful generational pattern in that encounter:
Someone who once helped guide you through childhood appeared while you were guiding the next generation.
And the help you once received, in a different form, came back to you.
That gives your sixth line an entirely new dimension. God’s rustic beauty wasn’t only in the trees, water, and sky. It was also in the timing of a human encounter.
I wouldn’t claim to know with certainty why that meeting happened, but I can certainly understand why you remember it as an expression of God’s care.
Your post’s title, “Eagle, Stars, and Cloud,” also intrigues me. I tried opening it, but couldn’t retrieve the article, so I don’t want to pretend I’ve read the experiences you describe there.
What you’ve told me already suggests that Baccar could become much more than a song about perfume. It could carry the scent of northern Michigan: pine forests, river water, rain, and the memories of young people discovering the wilderness together.
And then there’s the fragrance of Christ in 2 Corinthians 2:14–15.
Consider this: the leader who helped shape your childhood appeared again while you were helping shape the lives of others. That is a remarkable picture of influence passing from one generation to another—exactly where your seventh line takes us.
I think we’ve found the emotional center of Baccar: the fragrance of God’s goodness lingering long after the journey ends.
I’d love to hear the story behind the eagle, stars, and cloud, too. It sounds as though that river still has more to tell us.
Oh, now Baccar has found its fragrance!
And I laughed out loud at this:
“I almost filled my pants, I mean, I praised God.”
There it is again—that wonderfully unexpected humor you slip into the middle of something deeply reverent. You take us to the edge of an extraordinary experience, then remind us that the witness is still very human!
But there’s something much more profound happening in this account.
Three requests, three moments of wonder
You describe a progression that I find fascinating.
First, the stars. You wanted your campers to experience the extraordinary night sky at Gabions. Rain threatened that experience, so you prayed for clear skies. The rain stopped, and the clouds parted.
Second, the eagle. Some campers had seen an eagle, but others missed it. You prayed that the rest could see one. Later, an eagle performed aerial maneuvers directly above the campsite.
Third, the heart. This is where the account becomes particularly interesting. You weren’t responding to a practical need or even a disappointment. You spontaneously asked God to write LOVE in the sky. Then a heart-shaped cloud passed overhead.
The stars
A prayer for the heavens to become visible.
The eagle
A prayer that those who missed the wonder might share it.
The cloud
An unexpected image that you experienced as a personal reminder of God’s love.
I can’t establish that those events were supernatural interventions, but I can appreciate how their timing and sequence became deeply meaningful to you.
And then comes the sentence that, to me, makes the entire testimony work:
“I don’t have answers, I am just a witness.”
That is remarkably well expressed.
You aren’t attempting to explain atmospheric conditions, eagle behavior, or the mechanics of divine intervention.
You’re telling us what happened, what you prayed, and how you responded.
You distinguish your experience from an explanation of its cause.
And that gives the account an unusual combination of conviction and humility.
But your final sentence is the most important
“Well… I do have one answer, He came to earth 2000 years ago and showed us much more than a cloud. Thank You Jesus.”
This is where you prevent the story from becoming merely a collection of extraordinary coincidences or signs.
You redirect attention from the signs to Christ.
The stars were wonderful.
The eagle was wonderful.
The heart-shaped cloud was wonderful.
But none of them compares with the Incarnation.
That brings John 1:14 to mind: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
You might say the heavens offered you a memorable picture of love, but in Christ, God’s love was demonstrated through a life, death, and resurrection.
And that distinction matters.
Now look what happens to Baccar
Your sixth line originally read:
“Your rustic beauty has been with me many times up and down the Au Sable.”
Before hearing your story, I pictured the scent of pine trees, the riverbanks, and the peaceful beauty of northern Michigan.
Now I picture a youth leader standing at Gabions, watching an eagle overhead, looking at a heart-shaped cloud, and trying to decide whether to laugh, cry, or change his pants.
And that is much more memorable!
But there’s a theological connection I especially like.
In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul says God spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ through His people.
You were leading students through the wilderness. They weren’t simply learning to paddle canoes or survive bad weather. They were watching how you understood and responded to the world around you.
Your prayers, your praise, your astonishment, and even your humor became part of their experience.
You were carrying a fragrance you couldn’t bottle.
And here’s another beautiful connection to your seventh line about culture and influence:
Years earlier, someone had helped lead you.
Years later, you were leading students.
And when your canoe needed repair, one of your former leaders unexpectedly appeared.
The influence of one generation was reaching into another.
I think Baccar has its musical identity now
I wouldn’t make this a solemn hymn from beginning to end. Your account has too much delight and spontaneity for that.
I’d begin with the scent of the river and the memory of wilderness. Then let the song move through the stars, the eagle, and the cloud, before arriving at Christ.
And perhaps the bridge could carry the heart of your testimony:
I asked for stars; the clouds withdrew,
I asked for wings; an eagle flew.
I asked for LOVE across the blue,
A heart appeared within my view.
I cannot tell You how or why,
I only know what met my eyes.
But greater love than clouds could show
Walked this earth so long ago.
And then your original seventh line could bring the song home: the fragrance of knowing Christ is carried onward through the people whose lives He has touched.
There’s one phrase I particularly want to preserve from your testimony:
“I am just a witness.”
That could be the song’s most powerful refrain.
Because Baccar isn’t ultimately about how sweet an experience was.
It’s about the One you believe you encountered—and the testimony that lingers long after the moment has passed.
Baccar: the fragrance remains.
Me: Tempusne est carmen scribere?
Chat: Ita vero! Scribamus carmen! — Yes indeed! Let us write the song!
For Baccar, I hear a gentle acoustic beginning that grows into something cinematic. I want the Au Sable to remain a real place, the eagle and cloud to remain your testimony, and the final destination to be Jesus—not the signs themselves.
For Mureka, I’d suggest cinematic acoustic folk, 80–86 BPM, with fingerpicked guitar, warm cello, subtle frame drums, and airy harmonies. Let the music swell at the eagle’s appearance, briefly fall quiet at the heart-shaped cloud, and then grow into a full, reverent final chorus.
I especially wanted to preserve the contrast between the expensive perfume of your first line and the freely given goodness of your second. By the bridge, that fragrance has become something passed through generations.
And I couldn’t resist ending with:
“The river runs / The fragrance stays.”
The wilderness trip ended. The students went home. The eagle flew away. The cloud disappeared.
But the testimony remains.
Baccar — fragrantia manet.
The fragrance remains.