Having had a variety of close calls with Mercury Retrograde action while traveling to and from P-con, and having dodged any untoward effects in those encounters, it does not surprise me that the retrograde finally bit me in the ass this week.  I arrived at my house-sit, about an hour and a half via transit south of where I live, and right as I slid the key into the door I could then suddenly recall with perfect clarity changing the key on the ring to not be the lake house anymore and instead be the park house.  And there I was, at the lake house door, with a park house key.  Expletive deleted, indeed!

So, I ditched my bags in the back yard, discretely watered a bush and got my tuchis back on transit to haul north again.  I had a proper bio break, grabbed a key, put on another warmer layer and headed right back out into near-rush-hour transit.  As with the previous run, everything with perfectly synchronized and I even beat the Google map estimates both ways by a bit.  I did a run to the PCC this AM for a few things. 

"You see by means of this diagram (which has been confirmed to be perfectly exact by J. Boucher, who received an identical one from his master Fulcanelli), that Cold and West generate Water, Wet and Hot generate Air, Hot and Dry generate Fire, and Dry and Cold generate Earth. In their turn, Earth and Air generate the Mercury Principle, Air and Fire generate the Sulfur Principle, and Fire and Earth generate the Salt Principle. At the second stage of The Work, the Mercury Principle and the Sulfur Principle generate Philosophical Silver, or Silver of the Wise, and the Sulfur Principle and the Salt Principle generate Philosophical Gold, or Gold of the Wise. The copulation of the two then gives the Chrysoprase."

From Spiritual Alchemy, Inner Alchemy - Ambelin, Translated by Piers A. Vaughan © May 2005.

So, my friend A is putting on a thing, a new thing, out at the Goddess Temple in late April.  I've been contemplating going to it on and off since she told me about it after Illumination last August.  I'd been feeling "on" again, and then my phone rang on Monday night.  We got cut off twice, but clearly the third time was the charm or the Goddess really meant for the call to go on that long, but I'm energized even more to the idea of going, and making it an extended stay at the Temple.  I'd be there for about a fortnight ahead of MayFire.  A's triple fire idea really could use some more anchoring from people who seem to grasp her framework, and it would seem I'm one of those.  Some of the work I'd like to visit this week while I've got myself in a retreat structure would be to divine out that situation and see if it locks down as a "go."  If I find the right one airfare, that would take care of most of it.  I should probably also contact Candace and talk with her.  There are some projects she and I could take on during an extended stay.

Looking ahead to late March and the comiccon... it's clear I have to commit to going to the speed dating.  Srsly.  Randomized, public risks are good for trying to break or shake off old patterns.  And the con environment certainly brings a truly new-to-my-experience level of novelty.  I have to go find a soundbite of Chris Evans talking about how what's best for you is to do what you fear.  I'm going to need the constant reassurance.  My bigender sense spins in circles at the thought, trying to figure out myself for this sort of challenge is almost paralyzing.  Clearly March is going to be interesting.

March 3rd is Girls Day in Shintoism, and Tokara will be having a special tohryanse (open house) this weekend for it.  Traditionally dolls are displayed for the week ahead of the holiday.  This makes me think about the pop culture magick class, and how I'm probably missing one or two necessary female action figures for such an occasion as that's where my dollish interests would lie these days. 

My health finally recovered enough that I felt it appropriate to take a mini-retreat made possible by my parents doing some travel and wanting a house-sitter.  I waited until I'd had my glorious Hobbit late night last Thursday and traveled south on Friday afternoon.  It was one of those long-haul busing actions.  The second leg of that was me and about four dozen, hardened, urban middle-schoolers.  It was interesting to watch my aura auto-deploy itself:  in a space where the standing room was sardine-tight, no kid wanted to sit next to me but had no issue sitting next to any of the older-looking adults. 

I got to spend about four days on the shores of Lake Washington with Mt Rainier seemingly sitting just on the other side even though it's really a couple of hours away by car.  Yes, it's that huge.  It's blanketed with snow and is just beautiful.  There are an amazing number of hummingbirds there, taking advantage of the feeder my parents have hanging out on the deck.  When Kalla came by on Saturday we went outside so she could photograph the mountain, and the birds were zipping right past us, totally at ease and playing with each other.  That night we went to the luminary display around Greenlake.  It was nice, not too cold and dry. 

"When you see your matter going black, rejoice, for this is the beginning of the work."

- Rosarium Philosophorum

I have finally begun an undertaking that is an elementary and classical step in alchemy, and interestingly, one which many modern alchemists overlook.  I'm surprised that I didn't do this sooner, but then it also makes sense that I am doing this now as the sign that I am ready to do this, and wasn't supposed to do this before now.  I am about to begin my work with the seven essentials.  This is a course of spagyrics attuned to the planets and the days.  People who dismiss laboratory alchemy are those that tend to discount or miss this process in alchemical growth.  In straight-forward terms, the alchemist assembles seven spagryic tinctures, one for each planet and you take them as appropriately attuned on each day of the week for a year.  

As with all alchemy, there's no one way to do this.  In fact, one of the methods is to start completely randomly.  Others say to start based on choices made from one's own astrological chart.  Others work with plants native to where they live.  When I took Robert Bartlett's PRIMA class, he talked about this and how ingesting the plant medicine would bring about alchemical understanding no matter how you chose to start, and just by doing so, the process would unfold and offer up guidance in its own way.  Sort of like, if you just start walking the path, you'll learn and get there along the way.  While the taking of spagyrics is said to lead to comprehension and effects that can't happen any other way, it's in the making of your own spagyrics that is supposed to really bring about deep insight and subtle knowledge. 

For my first round of this, I am going to be working with spagyrics made by Al-Qemi, of which I already have an assortment.  I had to order a couple of planets for which I didn't have a representative tincture, and I did that using a pendulum to select the plants.  While I take these, I will work on a series of tinctures that I prepare myself, with the plants chosen based on things I grow myself or which come into my life or otherwise indicate they are part of the series. 

My sister found a friend to take the treadmill we have in our garage that we got from another friend of hers, and so this next week, when I am done with my mini-retreat, the garage should quite literally begin to open up.  I will have access to a variety of things of mine that are boxed up behind where the treadmill is now.  A definite dross pass through the garage is going to happen.  I'll be curious to see what's been stashed down there which I have forgotten.  I know there is some kitchen stuff in those boxes, but I can't be exactly sure what else.  Probably art supplies, and undoubtedly a goodly amount of novelty accumulation.  I'll get to confront feelings of needing to keep things with the fact that I have not had to use or access those things in about seven years.  Nigredo, anyone?  One other side effect of the garage makeover should be being able to have a bit more lab space.  I'd like to get my cordial stuff situation down there and not be in the kitchen with it as much. 

This coming weekend is going to be sort of stupendous.  Friday night I'm going to do my traditional Yule vigil, ahead of the actual moment of Winter Solstice on Saturday morning, about an hour after sunrise.  Damn, that's gonna be one hella long night, but then again, it always is.  Saturday itself has a variety of options.  From Saturday night into Sunday morning, I have been invited to attend a Yule vigil held by a couple I met at the cob workshop this past summer.  Most likely I will try and do the Unsilent Night Seattle event (dependent on weather), at 7:30pm and then head over to 2nd Yule when that finishes up.  I am going to bring all my tea gear and offer gongfu-style service to whoever is attending.  These are geeky, kinky peoples so I'm really looking forward to it.  It's going to be extra nice because my aunt and uncle in Boston gifted me with a water warmer off my Amazon wish list for the holidays.  Now I'm really ready to crank out the tea!  I'm looking at it as being like two nights of fire with the first being serious magickal workings and the second being a party fire.  Thank goodness it's not really fires because two sixteen-hour stints on my feet less than 12 hours apart would be rather painful.  I'm really looking forward to rocking the Gojira slippers the second night.  That crowd should dig on them.