The Tattooed Alchemist

Posts for Tag: fire circle

Kindle The Fire Of The Sages

The heat of distillation can be quite fierce.  We just had a week-long run of 85-90 here in the Emerald City, in case anyone was wondering just what people mean when they say 'climate change.'  As with any time of extremes, as much as people complain, the extra challenge tends to make you drop away what's superfluous and just deal with what's necessary.  Not unlike when I'm attending a festival.  I'm definitely distilling across multiple areas of my life.

I have some filtration on my plate this week more specifically.  The influences are pretty good and it's time my cordial stocks were replenished.  I just have to work out how to do it in the cool garage versus the overheated kitchen.  We're pretty much helpless to cool the kitchen until the overall temps drop.  I've made some great headway on a few spots in the yard as the heat makes for very dead weeds and those suckers pull right up.  I want to yank a bunch of vine-ish stuff out from under the butterfly bush we have in our northeastern corner of the yard (my zone) and get a flowering shade plant mix in there instead. 

For this is the most excellent substance of the Sages, and is rejected only by the foolish. Its substance is like, but its essence unlike, that of gold. Transmute the elements and you will have what you seek. Sublime that which is the lowest, and make that which is the highest, the lowest. Take quicksilver which is mixed with its active sulphur; put it into a well-closed vial, and one alembic, plunge one-third of it into the earth, kindle the fire of the Sages, and watch it well so that there may be no smoke. The rest you may leave to me. I ask you to do no more, but only bid you follow my unerring guidance.

from The Remonstration of Nature, made to the erring alchemists, and complaining of the sophists and other false teachers. Set forth by John A. Mehung.

It's a fortnight until I'm on the road, so lists have formally started and piles are messily taking shape just about everywhere.  The challenge to stay warm where I'm headed will be moderate for brief times but there's a dampness/dryness factor that seems to be to be more the key than how hot/cold.  I have to figure out how to overlap fire circle clothing with choices appropriate to being with my family and going out to dinner and stuff for four days too.  That's going to be a bit of a weird mix.  I had a big phone call with my incense sister in Vegas the other night and we've both got lists of stuff to bring for bringing it on.  We joked that although changes in how things run this year are going to free up most attendees from juggling costumes and props, some of us are just going to still be doing it.   

And speaking of Las Vegas, that funky concept of me house-sitting for my friend and taking care of her critters for three months while she goes to Costa Rica is still moving forward.  I now have a time frame.  Her departure and return travel dates are November 29, 2014 thru until March 6, 2015.  Talk about your distillation process, I've got to boil it down pretty simply and quickly:  can I really live in Las Vegas for December through February?  That just plain takes P-con out of the equation, and I'd be in town for Mysterium already.  I'd be there for the holidays, that would be interesting.  My friend actually proposed that I just stay after Fall Fest straight through all November, but I just dropped an event on my calendar for the first weekend in November, so I think on my end I'm going to try and work it so I head to Vegas two weeks early and get oriented with the animals and all.  I still have to check off a lot of things before this is a locked-in done-deal, but like I said, it's still moving forward.

It Ruptures, Dissolves And Congeals All Things

I feel like my past week was very dissolve... Sitting adjacent Lake Washington and observing the waters and Mt Rainier for hours.  We even had a nice heat wave that reminded me more of the summer temps of my Eastern childhood.  I got buzzed by hummingbirds.  At dusk, I watched for bats.  Gentle heat, lots of water....but not for much longer as I'm now starting my countdown to Illumination, and multiple alchemical fires.

As summer solstice is Conjunctio, thus Lughnasadh follows aligned with Distillatio, the distillation of Mercury.  As Lammas celebrates the wheat harvest, so the process of distillation brings more discrimination to the alchemical purification.  Now, having started to see harvest from our efforts earlier in the year, we begin to separate the wheat from the chaff in our processes.  Having had discussions with people on the event side of Illumination, I have an outline and some guidance and thus what I'm going to be doing and bringing gets refined.  And with Illumination taking place around Lughnasadh, really potent work can be done.

This fire is mineral, equal and continual, and never evaporates unless over excited; it has certain of the characteristics of sulphur, is taken and originates elsewhere than in the material. It ruptures, dissolves, and congeals all things, and similarly congeals and calcinates; it is difficult to find by industry or by Art. This fire is the epitome and abridgement of the Work in its entirety, taking no other thing else, or very little, and this same fire introduces itself and is of mediocre heat; for with this little fire the whole Work is perfect, and all due and necessary sublimation achieved together.

from Pontanus - The Secret Fire, 16th Century

I've been tapped to "co-docent" the circle, and while I am supposed to be put in touch with my other co-docent ahead of time, I'm prepared to show up on site in a few weeks with a name and the half face I remember and improvise from there.  Because that's how fire circles go that way sometimes.  I'm also going to be involved in incense/scenting and the root fire.  Both those aspects of the circle are going to be tuned a bit more this year.  For incense we're going to try and have intentionally-chosen scents at specific times with more purposeful scenting of the circle to help support the specific energy.  We're gonna want a stash of charcoals for that, and I think I'm going to pick up a different type of lighter, one of those torch ones for cigars and high-wind conditions.  I'm not dicking around with a damp charcoal in the middle of the night in a forest in the Pacific Northwest.  I want that shit to light without burning my fingertips off on the lighter trying to do it.  Why yes, I learned a few things this past MayFire, thank you for asking...

How busy I was at MayFire and how seldom I was at or in my tent made me contemplate how I pack in new ways.  I'm on the meal plan this year, and I'm pretty sure that the post-Illumin road trip can be done stove and cooking gear-free, so I'll have some items to eat off of and not much else.  I am going to have a lot of snacks however as the food altar at Illumination is one of the least compatible with me that I've encountered, not to mention once the dew comes down, anything that was out is totes disgusto and usually winds up being tossed which makes for lean offerings after that. 

I have had my eye on a new pair of fire gloves.  There were a few moments at MayFire where I was holding a totally flaming log and thought, yeah, these gloves have given many years of good service but it feels like I might want to start looking...  I found a company that makes a variant of their hearth/fire gloves that have smaller hands and wrists for women.  This is relevant to my tiny-handed interests.  And there are at least a half dozen women who are just waiting to hear what I have to say, knowing how I use my gloves.

I have mugwort drying in the basement.  I have to see what will be fresh in the yard that could get picked for the root fire brew.  That's going to be varied a bit from how the Forestdance people do it, more Root Fire 2.0.  We will not be doing any all-night complex phased rituals.  They are doing one night with three big phases, down from the HFT's four-phase outline.  But it sounds like one intention for this year is to keep people present and not have them spending all night watching a clock, getting together props and costumes, and waiting to perform.  And as much as some people get off on the big organized thing, I think it's busy but not fresh like it once was experientially.

But of course, all that don't mean shit right now because I have a date tomorrow night.