There his chains would be removed and he would be ushered into the waiting-room for a five-minute chat with his wife surrounded on all sides by security men and civilian-clad prison warders.

The powdered roots of the Guayacan (lignum vitae) have detersive properties, and were once used as a household cleaning agent.

1921, Edith Birkhead, The tale of terror: a study of the Gothic romance

The bardo in Tibetan means an intermediate state, most specifically the one after death when your soul wanders through the heavens and hell, trying to avoid rebirth into samsara—the realm of the material—and achieve nirvana or Buddhahood. […] Like everything the bardo journey takes place both inside you and outside. Like everything it's both a metaphor and not. I was born in the fifties in a nation suspended in the bardo state between a war a decade over and the hellsmoke light of a new war pulling in the East.