The talk that Normandi Ellis gave at Mysterium keeps echoing for me, the part where the Pharaoh was wrapped up and left inside the underground tomb to psychically become a gelatinous mass and transmute into a new form.  By the time I get this post written up and it goes live, I will have just about a fortnight left in my three month Vegas tenure.  I can't tell where I am in the process of transformation but my Vigil of the Eye revealed the process to me and there is a mixture of both revelation and revulsion in that sort of naked lunch moment.

My Mercury Retrograde was somewhat quiet but since going direct, I have seen all manner of strange and sudden energetic shifts.  I had an interesting healing session with my friend J.  She just lets Spirit run through her, blending a variety of modalities.  She found some key points in my body that were tied to important blocks of energy and important moments, a very way-out-of-left-field approach that landed smack on some stuff that then shifted palpably.  Weird stuff that made me feel funky but then better.  That's about as good as it gets.

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.

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. 

I was re-potting strawberries the other day, moving them from where they'd been wintered over under a bed of straw into pots on the south side of our house.  A man was walking by with his dog and he stopped to admire a rosemary bush next to our front steps.  The dog ambled up the steps to greet me.  We chatted and I told him how I make essential oils and have made it from another rosemary variety in our yard but not this particular bush.  He looked up at me and said "You must be quite the alchemist."  I said that I actually was an alchemist.  He thought that was great, we exchanged names and shook hands and he was on his way.  Partly because of alchemy I don't think that was a coincidence.  And partly because his beautiful Labradoodle's name was Gaia. 

When I uncovered the berries from their winter hibernation the straw that had been heaped over the pots had a weathered layer on the outside, a drier layer underneath and then a really decayed, slimy layer down right over the pots.  On top of this layer were a LOT of happy, fat earthworms.  I carefully gathered up the straw and moved it to our compost pile so everyone living in the straw can keep right on doing what they are doing.  When I cleared away the straw from my fuchsia bush, there were no worms in the straw but the lowest layer that had been touching the dirt was thick with mycelium.  Another excellent garden sign!  This straw also got carried carefully to the compost pile.  Most likely when we get further into the project of the raised beds and moving that stuff around, the broken down straw and all the beneficial inclusions are going to get mulched into the new beds. 

The worms and mycelium got me thinking about various manifestations of elemental energies.  The worms were up above the actual dirt, almost living in the air, and yet buried inside a thick heap of straw.  That felt like Earth of Straw, if you were going to look at it like an alchemical purification.  And then over in the fairy garden, not one single worm in the straw and a thick paste of mycelium way down at the bottom.  Given the really delicate and serious transformative nature of mycelium, that felt like a manifestation of Spirit of Straw.  

from "THE TOMB OF SEMIRAMIS - Hermetically Sealed, Which if a Wise-man open (not the Ambitious Covetous Cyrus) he shall find the Treasures of Kings, inexhaustible Riches to his content."  H. V. D., 1674.

I had my last training/briefing before ECCC this past Sunday.  I had to go downtown to the Sheraton, which sits immediately adjacent the convention center.  Most of the area was utterly devoid of humans except for two types:  minions on their way to a last training or people doing the St Patrick's Day Dash.  Buses were re-routed, part of the freeway was closed, and it was raining like crazy.  The slightly soggy nerds were an excited and friendly bunch.  There are about a thousand of us, at least on paper at this time, set to help assist 75,000 at a sold-out event.  Ten percent will never make it to the con, for whatever reason.  Last year, 80% of the full-time Saturday volunteers never showed.  The event is working to really not have that happen again.  A distinct lack of parking contributed.  Various con methods were altered to get rid of lines and backup that also contributed.  It's going to be insane.

And every freaking day I think up another cosplay idea.  A pox on my brain.  Actually, if I can get the Blink wig braided, that's all that has to happen for that outfit to be done "enough."  But it's going to take a few tries, as I have never done herringbone hair braiding before.  I've got my bamboo strips ready to steam and shape, and went back and made way more screencaps of Lorelei's face cage in Agents of Shield.  There's a whole piece on the front I didn't notice at first, and it's not totally shown clearly.  But my brain goes "Huh...?  Looks like a spool or two and maybe some big gears..." when it tries to deconstruct it.

Over the weekend, K and I cut an entire 40 yard bolt of tulle into approximately 6" strips.  The 54" folded width was perfect as-is.  Once we had all those strips, we tied some elastic into loops to make waistbands, slapped in a movie and started knotting on strips.  Most of a movie later we had below-the-knee/tea-length, gothic/ratty, princess/fairy, black tulle skirts.  Materials-wise, that's about $15 per skirt and about three hours of crafting labor.  Stasi and Zella are gonna kill it at the PDX vampire ball. 

One really important pre-con detail did get crossed off my list this week.  I can now pronounced "yaoi" correctly and confidently aloud.  That was one of those things that just had to get handled.