Alchemy is a distillation process by which a great quantity of matter is purified until there is a small amount of something related but different at the end. How one goes from a conventional, modern, Western lifestyle to one of a tiny houser is not unlike alchemy. It's just that suddenly my equation for calculating dross just shifted so that something like ninety percent of my life is now judged as dross.
Some aspects of the lifestyle really do suit me and hopefully, I will find a way to exist inside current society in a way that is more comfortable for me by making these shifts. So far, shifting over to a slightly parallel track just feels...wrenching... I had an excellent conversation with my housemate the other day, as she too is working to live in a way that is more "true" and also finds it discomfiting in similar ways when moving away from the predominant mainstream.
Yet seeing more the matter to wax thick and to sink to earth, and this thickness stood first upon the water, and so leaving by little and little the thickness they saw the earth drowned himself in the water and stand in the bottom of the vessel under the water, which earth was yellowish black and feculent, they said that this was perfect corruption. Kindle the fire in the furnace after the Philosophers manner, and cause that all the matter be dissolved into water. Afterwards govern it with easy fire till the most part be turned into black earth, which in 21 days will be done. Know that this science is none other thing than the perfect inspiration of God. For all the Magistery or art is but of one thing and we shall prove it by the saying of the philosophers.
from the Pretiosissimum Donum Dei (photo of the Red Spring, Glastonbury, England by Rae du Soleil)
Having communicated with my fire family, I am now in that strange space where they try to offer the help they think I need or they feel like giving while I either try and explain myself more clearly or attempt to gently demur. I am becoming more and more attuned to language. How in one sentence there is the offer of understanding and support but a statement later the words have shifted and suddenly I can feel the subtle social pressures trying to nudge me ever so gently. Like Henry Rollins, this is why my optimism wears heavy boots.
I have my kombucha culture and will soon begin a new type of alchemical experiment: culturing cellulose fibers to make vegan leather. It should take a few weeks depending on ambient temperatures. I think I'm going to grow it in my large glass water bath vessel from my distillation rig. That should give me a round piece in the end, as whatever shape a container I use will wind up shaping the material that grows. I will want this to be several centimeters thick. I understand this material is not waterproof on it's own but I have a few ideas along those lines from all the mask-making I've done.
The impulses that attach us to things is strange. Right before I came home from Las Vegas, my friend there gave me five teacups, things she'd purchased just for me...despite knowing that I had just spent three months getting rid of possessions in her home and about to come home to mine and attempt to get rid of even more. I just took them to be polite and now they are in a pile to be donated away at the next opportunity. I have yet another load of books the pendulum separated out for removal, and it's even larger than the last two chunks I sold. There's a good chance those will remain piled on hand until I head south for Ashland and pass through Portland. If I have to let go of books, I'm going to do it at Powell's.