Ten months.  This past year has not been as outwardly productive, and yet there have been so many internal shifts and changes.  It continues primarily as such, both comforting and uncomfortable in its processes. 

On and off as I have done lab work, there was always the vagaries of the fountain pump to contend with.  That's what you get when you accept a gift of a free, used pump and then do things to it that are non-fountain-like.  After many experiments where I felt the pump was on its last legs....I took a bit of time and online credit and now have a new pump for the condenser portion of my distiller.  When I last searched for new pumps, pricing was double what I found this go around. 

I sort of love the Pagan heresy in the quote above, that fire isn't really an element.  That's just me, continually poking at shit that stirs people up. 

Also over the mundane holiday season, I had the opportunity to unpack a shipment of gifted meat for another person, stuff where pounds and pounds arrive, specially packed with dry ice and sent overnight.  The sort of shipment that comes in an incredibly dense and thick foam insulation container.  The sort of thing that can act as a cooler, but with a few easy modifications, could potentially become a macerating vessel.  This would be a simple as making just enough of an opening somewhere to run a power cord into the container and then it's your pick of either a low wattage lightbulb or an old heating pad that preferably doesn't have a shut-off feature.  This is where you can then gently warm things. 

Why would you gently warm things?  Because that's actually how most lab processes start, with Putrefaction or Maceration.  Only purely inner alchemists are the folks who think you just zip straight into 'burn it to white ash' and even the ones who really know what they are doing don't act like that.  They hang back and start ritual slowly, letting others get all hot and bothered right off the bat.  Warming up slowly before getting on with it actually works well for the predominant number of human activities but we have a really good thing about "do as I say, but don't watch how I actually do it" going in our modern culture at the moment.

Solstice evening I got a big batch of roses out of my freezer from when this one bush all came into bloom simultaneously over the summer, right near the summer solstice, and distilled rose water from that.  You can't do steam with roses, the petals wilt into mush, this calls for a bath distillation.  Like in a big cooking pot.  Once that step was done, I ground up the bottle of expired saffron that an acquaintance gave me and added it to steep.  I strained it the next day.  That is the most yellow-stainingest fluid I have ever created.  But it also shows that fabrics which are orange, which people call saffron-colored are not actually dyed with saffron.  The fluid looks orange but the stain is close to lemon yellow when fresh, and butter yellow when faded.  Not actually orange at all.

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.