For PantheaCon20 we had a full moon, Mercury was in retrograde, the first two days were alchemically aligned with digestion and the last two were with dissolution.  From what I experienced, it was a great con with a lot of old stuff and new stuff, and my balancing act of all that and taking care of myself worked.  I had really good friends at the con with me, and I felt our room situation was utterly drama free this year.  I felt like I got really good quality one-on-one time with each of my three close friends at the con, and I also managed to get alone time when I needed it too.  

I didn't think I'd be dyeing my hair peacock before I went, but I did.  I didn't think I'd run into other people who seemed to have the same idea and who did peacock hair that didn't look anything like mine and yet was totally recognizable as also being peacock hair, but I ran into two of them.  And one had formerly had flame hair which I did last August.  And that's just three heads out of an entire con.  I was wearing my Gojira slippers when I encountered a furry.  I mesmerized a lady's baby with my Minion.  I got to use my first gender neutral pronoun in a group discussion.  I did not endlessly snack on sugar.  Despite staying up nearly every night until 1:30am, I did jump right out of bed at eight the next morning and was out the door anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes later to do something starting at 9am. 

I attended two rituals that were closely adapted from original material created in the late 1800s.  I'll take that as a sign to look more closely at the material I have which deals with the same time period.  Undoubtedly this will relate back somehow to the photographic material I have from Notre Dame and the writing of Fulcanelli.  I can tell already.  I created two charms as part of two classes.  The first was in one of those two Victorianesque rituals, the other was in Kalla's pop magick class.  One is a stone which was soaked in wine and charged by placing it under my tongue and reciting a long spell.  The other is a slight-imperfect 12-sided die which looks kinda flamey and which is now connected to an energetic thought-form, otherwise known as Agent Fox Mulder.  I really left my mind open to see if any of the characters I've obsessed over or put energy into over the years wanted to step up when it came to that ritual, and that's who did.  I have to craft a new mojo bag that can be tucked into my everyday bag and which will hold a few more things than the one I have now.

I will be exploring and playing with all my ideas and self-created roadblocks around the concept of daily practice for a bit.  Or maybe I'll be bugging myself about just thinking about it and not doing much.  Suffice to say, I got to hear some stuff I needed to hear again in that class and we'll see how I do with it.  I got a physical, jewelry-style charm at the con too, from the vendor Amber Moon, who made my walrus ouroborus.  It's a tiny magickal cottage, and I'm going to charge it up to help me manifest Right Home, in whatever form that is best for Me and my Found Family. 

I had not done any sort of sacred/bdsm scene at the con in years, and I have to say I had one hell of an efficient and yummy one this year.  I tried to keep it simple but allow the involved humans to get a deeper experience, and make the entrie exchange more sacred.  It worked alright, almost to the point where I was a little amazed myself at what had happened.  One of those instances where I found myself durings bits of it watching my hands and then I'd reconnect that they were mine.  Those freakin' Gojira slippers were ridiculous, extremely comfortable and unexpectedly grounding.  It made it much eaiser for me to draw energy up and into my various arm actions.  I just know one of my mentors all those years ago would have been proud of the silly slippers.

And now we look ahead, to March.  Ahead of us is wind, the equinox and Separatio. 

Imbolc may be the earliest start of spring, and although on many levels we have had a mild winter, we're not done yet.  We just had a great run of days that went something like high of 36, low of 28...Brrrr!  And of course, just what did I do the day before the sudden freeze appeared?  Yeah, you guessed it... I had all my hair cut off.  Like the majority of my head is about a half inch of hair.    Looking ahead to the con, I'm seeing Bay Area nighttime lows that are 15-20 degrees higher than the present PNW daytime highs.... I'll take it!  I spent the past week wearing sweatshirts and hats around the clock inside the house, I'll be glad to ditch that routine for a bit. 

I went on eBay and held a wild hair dye buying spree.  I'm really embracing the Peacock's Tail phase of alchemy in my inner work at the moment, and trying to keep a variety of rapid changes going in my day-to-day world, and so I'm playing with color more this spring to put a bit of zing into things.  I'm still going purple but I'm going to have some mixed highlights, something I can play around with into summer where the where and what of the highlights will shift.  Colors ordered were Ultra Violet (dark blue-purple fave from last summer), Lie Locks (a fairly-strong-looking purple I've not tried yet), Bad Boy Blue (royal blue) and Electric Lizard (ECCC minion green, it just so happens...).  The box was anticipated to arrive on Monday Feb 10th but arrived on Saturday Feb 8th.  Hair shenanigans were moved up from Monday to Sunday.  I bleached all on my own this time.... whoa...

Among the 7 planets I am called the Sun.
My pointy crown symbolizes the process:
First, we become completely subtle and pure
And bind with Mercury,
Then the black raven grows.
It is buried in the grave,
Rising anew,
Adorned with lillies, and betrothed.
Then at last the Sun-Child appears,
Bedecked with purple on his throne.

~ from Hermaphroditisches Sonn- und Monds-Kind, das ist: Des Sohns deren Philosophen natürlich- übernatürliche Gebährung, Zerstöhrung und Regenerirung oder vorgestellte Theorie und Practic den Stein der Weissen zu suchen und zu machen. Durch einen unbekannten Philosophum und Adeptum in 12 emblematischen Figuren und so vielen Paragraphis. Mit Applicir- und Beyfügung so vieler Canonischen Versen des berühmten Schwedischen Adepti Northons: aus einem alten manuscript gezognener praesentiret. Nun aber nach dem mystichen Verstand und innerem Weesen expliciret, nebst denen Caballistischen Zeichen Salomonis durch einen Lehr-Jünger der Natur. L.C.S.
Mayntz, bey Joh. Friederich Krebs Buchhändler. Geduckt in der Churf. Hof und Univers. Buchdruckerey bey denen Häffn. Erben, durch Elias Peter Bayer. 1752.

The strangest manifestation of Solve as of late would have to be this weekend's discovery of my favorite jeans coming out of the dryer minus a goodly portion of each inner thigh.  Alas, favoritism combined with several weeks of freezing temps that brought long underwear into play seems to have resulted in the wear-through happening on the sly.  Not what I wanted to have happen when I was actually thinking "I should just wear those jeans the whole con, they'd be perfect..."  Fortunately a quick trip to the thrift store and $7 later I have jeans that just need some length hacked off the legs and they'll be good to go.  Which means tonight I'll be spending a short time with that most magickal of products:  Stitch Witchery.  A little cutting, a little folding, a little pinning and a little ironing, and I'll have shortened pants.  (But still be a Long Pants Man!)

Today is a traveling day. (Huzzah for the modern miracle of automated posting!)  Alchemically, it corresponds to dissolution, is attuned positively and is dominated by air influences.  I can work with that.  I arrive in San Jose tonight, the evening before the evening before PantheaCon starts.  My altar theme for myself this year is time and space.  I've tried to bring decorative elements that represent those ideas more overtly for the room decor.  Packing was extra spazzy this year, with entire wardrobe designs laid out and mapped to the travel days and then discarded to begin again from scratch.  I had both color scheme and bigender angst.  In a snow storm too.  Actually, the snow part was sort of awesome.  It took until I had my hair really nailed down for the clothing thing to work itself out. 

Lying in bed in the morning this past weekend, watching big clumps of soft snow plop down into my light well from the overhanging tree, I was reminded of both the gentle water and fire at this time of year.  A steady, smaller flame is what is appropriate.  Patient mindfulness.  Inner and outer observation.  Any extra energy or pushing ahead really needs to be saved up for just a bit longer, for the more fertile season of full spring.  Time to get some projects into the pipeline and put MayFire out on that event horizon.  

(the image this week is from last week's prosperity ritual, which took place during the Super Bowl broadcast.  That's the clay figurine which was broken up to release frozen patterns, entrenched habits and dried up thinking.)

With Imbolc, we mark the phase of Dissolution in the larger alchemical process of the year.  In the Pacific Northwest, Chinese medicine teaches that predominant health issues in this region will traditionally express themselves as issues of too much cool moisture.  So while it might be appropriate for alchemist's doing personal work in some areas to need to find ways to add liquids to their inner process at this time, I'm finding that a removal of some excess moisture is better suited to where I live as well as my present work.  Different areas have been reviewed and thinned out.  Items have gone to recycling, the trash and been donated.  I'm working to remove an excess of those fluid elements of life which can too easily flood us.  A big pile got picked up yesterday morning, yay!

Surveying what's growing in the house and yard, I've got a near-complete list of potentials for crafting my first homemade set of seven essentials.  Some herbs are in very short supply, others are much more generously available.  We have a few things on hand

• Saffron - Sun
• Mugwort - Moon
• Lavender - Mercury
• Jerusalem Artichoke - Venus
• Aloe - Mars
• Sage - Jupiter

We have a few things on hand which correspond to Saturn, however, they are all also toxic/poisonous in nature.  Not really where I should working at this time.  One Saturnian option is cannabis.  I'll have to consult my various oracles to see if that's appropriate.  Or where my poppy plants might correspond, and again if that would be appropriate.  Another option would be to pick a plant and grow it to harvest the material.  We're about to rip out our sage this spring, so I have to remember to let my housemate know I want the plant when it goes.  I'll have to read up on if I can pick Jerusalem artichokes whenever or if they do better with a certain season.  Our roots are a few years old, so there should be plenty to harvest. 

I'm really feeling the pull to purple already this year.  I felt red for a few weeks before I shifted my hair back in the fall, but it's even stronger and earlier this switchover.  It might have something to do with my personal processes.  It might be connected to sifting through all my clothing storage recently.  It might be related to my new minion.  Who can say?  There's a good chance that after being red these past two years at P-con that I will use that event as my changeover point this season.  I just got a haircut (goodbye dry ends from winter and hello, super short hair) and it's time to do roots again.  The whole back of my head is brown and grey, with the remaining red just being in the front.  Very nearly a clean slate.  Time to hit eBay for hair dye.

Speaking of the con.... it's ALMOST PANTHEACON!  Already part of my mind is distracted with the task of planning what to bring for this year's hotel room altar.  Something about P-con really seems to demand festoonery in the room.  And what to wear.  As with any year, I can't wait to see what this year's con turns out to be.  While clearly related, they really do tend to turn out rather differently from one another.  I've got trusted roommates, we're on-site, C's coven has a suite, people are teaching, all pieces that go towards making a great event. 

As the Super Bowl fell on Imbolc this year, I and my friend K decided to do some prosperity work during the game and see if we could use the happy energy of millions of people.  We started on a solar hour for Sunday, and continued through until the next Sun correspondence.  During the Saturnian time, to break and let go of old habits and that which isn't serving me, I smashed a figurine I made of myself a few Pantheacons back.  It was an air-dry clay that had never been fired.  I felt it was a great representation of everything stuck, dried, inflexible and featureless in my life.  The ceramic was still so sharp-edged that it hacked up the tea towel that K gave me to wrap the bag I put the figurine into before hammering it.  There were candles burnt, oils annointed and I made a charm from a mix of found and precious items.  The outcome of the game seems to bode well for the magickal work....