The Tattooed Alchemist

Posts for Tag: mayfire

Neither Spirit Nor Smoke May Escape

Alas, the clouds came in and sealed over just as the lunar eclipse was just to get started.  I made do just fine with a live stream of an observatory feed on the internet.  Magickally, kept things simple.  I had been contemplating spending the alchemical Easter doing a distillation but some household matters came up which needed tending and I shifted to more of "get your lead out" spring cleaning vibe instead.  A great productive day after that.

I have heard back from the EBC and I am not a featured artist this year.  That's actually okay, as had I gotten a slot, I'd then have had to figure out how to resolve the conflict with the already-scheduled trip #2 to Ashland this year.  There is an option for me to sell some art there, maybe, but I think it's best to just keep energy going toward the journal publication option.  I also had an idea for what could be a proposal for an art installation that would run from summer to fall as part of the Carkeek Park Heaven & Earth 6 exhibit.  The idea is based on the Notre Dame photos too, something along the lines of making a symbolic cathedral viewing experience.  Roughly.  Sort of... Anyway, I still have time to think about that.  The facts that it's practically right next to my parent's new house and the title this year is "As Above, So Below" are nudging me.

Put the mixture into an earthen pot, and place over it an alembic or distilling vessel, rendered airtight with clay. Let it stand one day and one night before you put it on the fire. Then expose it to gentle heat, and let it distil continually for five or six days and nights. Thus let it flow by drops; carefully lute your glass receptacle so that neither spirit nor smoke may escape, and when the liquor distilling assumes a blue or pallid colour, then abstract nothing further.

- from Chapter 2, The Testament Of Cremer, Abbot Of Westminster, And Brother Of The Benedictine Order

I've had a few phone calls from Vegas.  A's geared up and ready to rock and roll on whatever this is that she's doing.  It's just going to be for a few hours one night, but I'm still totally all over it.  It appears that my offer of help for getting ready ahead of time may involve digging holes.  Speaking of phones, my Euro-trip candy bar died on me over ECCC weekend, but I went on eBay and bought another.  I went for a full keyboard on this disposable model, and it will do WiFi too.  Getting it up and running took about 10 minutes and mostly involved swapping the SIM out of the old and into the new.  That will be nice for all the travel I have coming up. 

On other tech fronts, I've solved my stove and cooler share for MayFire.  And I got a strategy for being in town from roughly DMC's Beltane until MayFire set-up, so as to facilitate my ride-snagging on the front end.  On the back end, I'm good with either being dropped at the Temple, or couch-surfing in town.  Most likely those details will still be unplanned when I begin my trip.  Which doesn't bother me, and it's interesting to think how once I would have lost my mind over that.  I'm actually looking forward to nailing down a day to run around all over by myself.  I have a lost photo safari to honor, and fisheye and macro effects in Vegas are going to be interesting.

Persist In The Asperity Of Fire

I actually got an application sent off to the Esoteric Book Conference on Tuesday, which was their deadline.  I wasn't sure I was going to do it as I couldn't think of a bookish-enough presentation topic, and then I decided I would put in an application as a visual artist.  I'd like to share some of my alchemical photography from Notre Dame in Paris.  So, the application is in with some sample images and we'll see what happens.

I am confirmed as heading up the Mars affinity group for MayFire.  The last time this occurred the infamous Transformation Safety Agency came into being and people had to check their baggage and fly; we had a 10-year-old "Iron Man" in cardboard and aluminum foil armour shedding his symbolic lead; and "the big finale" was 'Ease on Down the Road' from the Broadway musical The Wiz, because "you don't carry nothing that might be a load..."  With that as the past precedent, there's no telling what's gonna happen this year.

Let the Calcinatory Furnace be made square, in length four foot, and three foot in breadth, and let the thickness of the Walls be half a foot; after this manner: Luna, Venus, Mars, or other Things to be calcined, must be put into Dishes or Pans of most strong Clay, such as of which Crucibles are made, that they may persist in the Asperity of Fire, even to the total Combustion of the Thing to be calcined.

- Geber, from his Book of Furnaces

I just found magickal pants that look like my peacock hair on eBay.  They are my size (meaning waist size) and are in a new-but-used state.  I made an offer a bit below the "buy now" and it was accepted.  I will hem the life out of them and they will be great.  This is the largest-sized pair of Phoenix Rising pants I've ever gotten my hands on.  I've sworn not to buy directly from the clothing designers at full price due to their sizing, which insists I am at least 6" too short for the rest of me.  I buy their pants used and do alchemical things to them.  Some might say I Frankenstein these pants.  This pair is going to be epic.  Memo to self:  order more hair color now, so it arrives before you leave for Nevada.

Went to the fabric store to get last minute things for this weekend in Portland.  Also went to see CATWS for a 2nd time, since it was playing right around the corner with a perfectly-timed matinee.  So many feels.  When I got home (Tuesday afternoon around 4ish), there was a message on the phone.  From the guy who runs the Esoteric Book Conference, and is an esoteric press/publisher, who also puts out a periodical.  They like my photos, and want to talk with me about putting them in the next issue of the Clavis Journal.  I called back.  I'll upload some stuff for them to review before I head south this weekend.  That I did not expect. 

The Fruits Of Sun And Moon

Suddenly this week, the energies have shifted sharply towards activities and actions that signal Separatio, the alchemical phase that I observe as aligned with the spring equinox.  This is the part of the alchemical process where decisions are made as to which materials are being carried forward and which are being removed after the stage of Dissolutio (which was Imbolc).  In my life, this often takes the form of firm decisions made and committed to for events in the spring and summer.  I'm picking which gatherings to attend and these then all shape the further stages of alchemy for the year.  Now is when I commit to working with certain energies and refinement processes, discarding other choices. 

I got email back from the temple priestess and I'm good to go for my guest house needs for my larger conceived adventures.  So, at this point, I just have to let a few people know I'm having adventures in April and May, and find my airline tickets.  I got email from the alchemical priestess in Vegas and have accepted her offer to run a planetary group at MayFire.  I have to let A know I'm hard-confirmed for her event April 26-27 and will arrive a couple days earlier.  I'll also get some gatherings at the temple too, for the new moon and Beltane.  And I have to check in with my Bay Area road-wife, as we barely broached the MayFire topic at P-con, and see how roadworthy she's feeling this spring.

1. Light Supreme, who art the Divine in Nature and dwellest in its innermost parts as in Heaven, hallowed be thy qualities and laws!

2. Wherever thou art, all is brought to perfection; may the realm of thy Knowledge become subject unto thee.

3. May our will in all our work be only thee, self-moving Power of Light! And as in the whole of Nature thou accomplishest all things, so accomplish all things in our work also.

4. Give us of the Dew of Heaven, and the Fat of the Earth, the Fruits of Sun and Moon from the Tree of Life.

5. And forgive us all errors which we have committed in our work without knowledge of thee, as we seek to turn from their errors those who have offended our precepts. And leave us not to our own darkness and our own science, but deliver us from all evil through the perfection of thy Work, Amen.

~ from "Eckartshausen's Prayers,"  one of two prayers written by Karl von Eckartshausen for alchemists, from Über die Zauberkräfte der Natur, Munich, 1819, translated by Joscelyn Godwin

I got out in the yard during a break in the rain this week and did some pruning and weeding.  The antique roses got their annual hack down.  They responded so well to this last year, I hope we get even more blossoms this summer.  I also finally got a handsaw and removed a super-thick-and-dead hunk of thorny cane.  As I already have saffron in process, when I cut back some of the crazy rosemary growing intertwined with the roses, I did not save the herb.  Both saffron and rosemary are Sun plants, so I didn't need another for my spagyric work.  But I may take some rosemary from another bush later in the spring and distill some essential oil as it's so useful.

The housemate backyard survey/discussion required took place, and the apple tree has an agreed-upon new spot where it will be taken out of it's big pot and put into the ground.  That's me digging a freaking deep hole.  There appear to be some tulips in the vicinity which I will have to just encounter and move on an individual basis.  We hope this allows the tree to stop dropping its fruit which is what happened last year.  Temps also have shifted enough it seems like a fair time to pitchfork up all the straw and see how the strawberry plants overwintered.  We decided that since these really are happier in pots, I'm going to move all the plants to the front yard where we have some large, fancy planters that don't have much going on in them, or only have early spring bulbs.  The strawberries will wind up lining the front steps of the house.  I have to look up strawberries alchemically.  There's got to be something magickal/historical I can craft from these exquisite berries....

Sulphurous Nature Alone Doth Not Profit

Last Saturday was the new moon, which I often do not utilize as an opportunity to do magick, but I'm starting to make it more of a regular habit to do so.  The moon cycle then takes on a nice flow of Solve and Coagula, whereas if I just mark the full moons it's not the balance of the two phases.  It seems like spring now, a continuous flowing between raining and not raining.  The weekend I was out of town at PantheaCon, we got some truly crazy weather and the snowpack that had been really light so far this winter season was apparently amended in one swell foop.

The spring crocus have come up and opened, although it's often so overcast that the blossoms are closed for most of the day.  The roses need to be cut, it's time to find a spot to transplant the columnar apple tree and I had a sudden inspiration last night to rip out some more of that nasty patch of invasive fennel (non-edible) and see if I can get some sunflowers planted in that spot.  Those would make a great border between our house and the neighbors where the fennel has been trying to run wild.  We have a lot of yard re-arranging still to do this coming season so I want to grow just a few things that are fun and don't take much effort.

In particular Transmutations, its Sulphurous Nature alone doth not profit, but with other Sulphurs, especially those of the Red Metals, it does reduce thick Waters, duly terrificated into Gold; so also into Silver, if its nature be subtilized into a thin water by Quicksilver which (amalgam) amongst others is made well enough by Tin.

- from the Aesch-Mezareph, translated into English, from W. Wynn Wescott's 'Collectanea Hermetica' series at the end of the 19th century. 

I've gotten calls from both A & E in Vegas.  E was blissfully short due to my wireless phones battery not being able to hold much of a charge (it's time to replace the battery).  A was one of those long ramblers, with two cut-outs, one on her end and one one mine and the third time was the charm with the really wildly-departed conversation.  I'm feeling more called to her event in April, but practically would dictate that I would then just stay in NV for three weeks, with the last week being MayFire.  Turns out the DMC is having their Beltane the weekend in between, so the trick would be to get someone to bring me into town for a day or two and catch that.  Perhaps stay with Johnny and Dani for that bit.  Or now that A has her own place, I might venture forth and see what's up there.  Freakin' Angel, that's what....

In the meantime I'm up to my ass in my own distractions with the mundane, especially on the pop culture front.  I'm equally scared and looking-forward to the speed dating at the comic con.  J thinks it's perfect that I'm doing it.  I picked the number of sessions and which ones to register for by pendulum.  I'm now down for two of them, one Friday, one Sunday.  And I've gotten instructions on how to present myself different at each appearance.  Seriously though, I've done kinky speed dating a few times before and mostly it was amusing to "meh," with a rare "wow, I hope that guy finds me interesting in two minutes too!"  Which did happen once, and was nice sporadically for about a year after that.  I need to just go read some angst and get this shit out of my system...

Thank goodness for cosplay distractions.  K is funding an ocean of tulle, which will ultimately be draping attitude-misted gothic-sister personas.  No-sew skirts.  It's going to be epic, like the Evil Princess Skirts our five-year-old selves didn't know who to tell we were dreaming about them at the time.  Only affordable.  And I have some fabu ideas for making the ends more ratty and apocalyptic.  And there was one important realization:  the lower we make the waists, the more elegant the sweep.  These need to be hip-slung skirts like what burst out from the lower edge of a tight corset, giving us longer torsos.  I'll be wearing this thing again in the future with delight.  But not at a fire circle, that's for damn flammable sure!