It never ceases to amaze me, as I use bibliomancy to randomly select alchemy quotes for my own growth and the titles of these blog entries, how the most relevant quotes are revealed based on my circumstances.  As I write this, I am not in the verdant and icy Pacific Northwest.  I am in the Vegas Vortex, where I will be residing for three months.  And if you were to describe what it is I am trying to do here, outside of the pet-sitting for a friend which is a convenient hook, it is to have a Vigil of the Eye.

Vigil is the fruit of Hunger, for it expels useless sleep, often weighed down by too abundant nourishment. Now, contact between Man and the Celestial Assembly cannot succeed except during sleep, during a kind of doubling of the Soul outside of the Body. A sleep susceptible to freeing the Soul is a sleep which comes about during a serious fast. But our Vigil has another purpose. There are two types of Vigil:

a) The vigil of the Heart, which instinctively seeks contemplation;
b) The vigil of the Eye (vision), which realizes and objectivizes what is in the Heart (the Inner Temple and the Philosophical Egg), by defining it.

Vigil alone procures Knowledge of the Soul. It equates to Fire and to Faith.

I have many tasks I can accomplish here. I am trying to not use my usual ways of describing what I'm doing to see if I can find words and ways that support me more effectively. I have been on an effectiveness kick lately.

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Okay, so I wrote the above shortly after I got to Vegas in early December, and clearly I got distracted by the actual doing, and have not turned much attention to the contemplation until now.  I have been more effective but the first month or six weeks here has been about helping others to be more effective and I'm only now starting to get around to just working on my effectiveness again.  But I can say after my latest visit with my (literally) crazy friend E, I really am here on a Vigil of the Eye.  

I think a lot of people who feel stuck in their lives could truly benefit from taking three months to step out of their regular lives and go do their thing and lots of different things somewhere else for that time period.  

One aspect of this trip is looking at my daily life and what technically is important.  I am trying to pare down with the goal of becoming a tiny-houser in the semi-near future.  I could only bring so much stuff with me.  I am living in a house that is really different from mine, where the human who lives here shares some interests but not much.  Ever forget just what you have and what's important?  Try living with another person's stuff, mostly.  It's become clear what sorts of household tools and gear I consider necessary, because this person has different priorities.  I am baffled how a chef can not have hardly any kitchen gear, but then again, this one digs on raw food, but how can she not have a colander or strainer?  (Guess what I have to go find tomorrow?) How can someone who rivals me for clothing collecting not own any tools for caring for fabric and not know how to do laundry?  No one is right or wrong, it's what we both prefer.  But the clarifying effect, at least in my experience so far, has been great.  Especially as I am at the mid-point roughly. 

My life is way more about durable goods than this person.  So much in this house is disposable.  This small home went from having an overflowing garbage pickup twice a week to a partial can once a week when my friend left for her travels.  She left me a t-shirt I could cut up to make cleaning rags after watching me grind my teeth at all the paper towel usage.  I use all products for cleaning that are way more bio-safe and non-toxic.  I keep things for repair and fixing in my home.  We have good screwdrivers here but that's it.  As much as I like tchotchkes and altars, this person likes them even more.  I live with a scent-sensitive human, so I've learned to live in a way that minimizes scent.  This person fixes smells by adding even more smells, while living in a house which is never opened to the outside due to living in the freaking hood.  And a pet with asthma.  I smelled nothing in this house for the first month due to the ever-burning incense, my nose just shut down.

One thing that people have always said to me, over and over my entire life that just got said again this week, is that I should have a pet, it would give me unconditional love and help me feel better when I am depressed.  Just for the record, when I get really depressed and can not deal with taking care of myself, I think how if I had an animal I would kill it to save it from being trapped with and neglected by me.  Yes, I willingly stepped up for this gig with pet-sitting, but remember these aren't "my" animals.  As for that unconditional love, I have fucking buckets of that shit in my life and I wish I could either sell it to pay my rent or burn it so that it's not in my way anymore.  Unconditional love never did anything to stop any of the teasing or bullying.  Unconditional love just stands there and blinks and then says, "I don't understand you, but I love you anyway," and never tries to understand, leaving me feeling like unconditional love is a fucking liar.  Unconditional love is one of the most passive-aggressive things I've ever encountered.  Unconditional love doesn't seem to actually feel, like it's a cheap-ass way of ditching some genuine emotion that would be a lot more productive.  Unconditional love is the "it gets better" campaign of feelings, where people talk a lot but don't actually take any action to change anything.  I want passion, and challenge, I want someone I can fucking trust to watch my back, I want to help, I want to get helped, I want to explore, I want to struggle and grow.  I want conditional love because all I have is unconditional love and it's killing me like the death of a thousand paper cuts.

Part of me feels off my *something* from not being able to observe Yule as I have become accustomed.  I missed the intensity of the vigil, I missed having a fire in a fireplace all night.  I'm sort of working up a series of semi-shadow exercises for myself, mini-rituals to help get connected back into some of the magickal abilities I turned off or destroyed during or after a moment of extreme self-harm as a kid.  As I get some of the control and ability to discern some of The Other back, I also get these semi-magickal healing crises, just like if I was healing a mundane sickness.  That's very hard to deal with not being in my own environment.  As much as I can lie in bed here, it's not "my bed," and doesn't settle me the same as when I curl up in Seattle.  I can't ever close the door to the room I'm in, as it has dog-protected cat space in it.  And Areeya has lights that she never turns off, and I'm honoring her request to not turn them off, and that means I am not sleeping in total blackness as my body really desires.  Sure I put my head away from the faint glow and yes, I even have a blindfold but it's not the same as sleeping freely in a sealed, black space.  I got Areeya a mosquito net for Costa Rica, now I need to find me a blackout one.  There's no outside or nature to go to when I feel I need that.  Thank goodness for woodsy incense and Rainy Mood.

Imbolc will be here before I know it, as will my two Sisters-from-Other-Mothers for Mysterium.  I'm so happy to know they are coming.  My being here and having to tend a home meant no PantheaCon and the three of us have grown to really enjoy that weekend.  And having humans who grok my shit is, as always, just such a relief.  I'd like my keel to be a bit more even by the time they arrive.

I can't believe the bullshit I made up in my head about what it meant to take a few weeks off from writing here.  Seriously, you can't imagine what goes on inside my skull sometimes...

The first weekend in August I was at the Illumination gathering, held in Tidewater, Oregon.  This event marked my eleventh year since I went to my first fire circles in the summer of 2003, and a decade since I got my magickal name and began my service to the fire.  Truly, no two fire circles are alike and once again, I had an experience that was sort-of-like-but-not-really-like all the others I've attended.  I had a hard time being in circle more often than not this year.  But I had a good event with its own special challenges.  I had to come to grips with some shadow work (no surprise there) but also my role as someone who embraces shadow work in a community populated by a majority of light workers.

I raised my hand to speak at the Heartshare, and was "on deck" to talk after another person.  Who then spoke about stuff that I was just not prepared for that exploded all sorts of shit inside my head, so that instead of something nice and pithy I wound up spewing out a bunch of really raw stuff that I can't exactly recall now because I was so freaked out inside my head when I said it.  Ah, the joys of speaking your heart in community....

from Marsilius Ficinus, 'Liber de Arte Chemica', Theatrum Chemicum, Vol 2, Geneva, 1702.

So I do all that, and even more stuff with more strange symbolic meaning, and then my parents are moving to their new house.  This move takes them from an hour or more drive south of where I live to a seven minute drive north of where I live.  I walked over there three times in three days:  it takes me just over an hour because the hill climb portion winds me.  I'll get that down if I keep it up.  The 'rents are tucked into a neighborhood chunk surrounded by a big park on three sides, and are just a few blocks from the Sounds shore.  I don't know when I'll house-sit there as now we have the dog.

Oh.  Yeah.  Before I left for the weekend down the Oregon coast with the extended family, we got a dog. 

I've been somewhat distracted for the last week because on August 15, HubPages (the #1 site I write on) announced they were acquiring Squidoo (the #2 site I write on).  I can't even begin to describe the freakout that some users are having.  I'm trying to not get agitated over things that haven't happened, or things that have.  It might mean more money, or not.  But it will mean a lot of content editing.  And clearly, Google is not into content farms.

I hope everyone traveling to Burning Man is finding they can travel to Burning Man.  Beware the mud!

It's officially announced:  I'm the registrar for the Vegas Vortex.  I'm going to be in Vegas for two weeks in October.  The next part hasn't been officially announced, but here's how we want it to go:  I'm going to move there for 3.5 months, from mid-November to early March, to pet-sit while someone else goes to Costa Rica to cook for lots of people.

And then I have to get my ass back to Seattle because I'm going to need to be standing in line at the ECCC at the end of March because John Barrowman.

In the fullness of summer's heat, in the space between Litha and Lughnasadh, the alchemical materials are cooking away, distilling to become higher and more refined.  In my household, lots of choices and decisions seem to have suddenly shifted or arisen or something, and everyone who's spent this past winter wishing or working to get something different most likely got a couple options thrown right at their head this past week.  Distilling what do do about a fastball on the fly right towards your head can be tricky but it's either decide or watch that sucker hit you right in the face.  

I'm down to just a few functional days left before I am off on adventures and I'm teetering on almost being booked up solid.  My housemate's urge/desire to have another pet after the passing of the previous one this past year has suddenly come to a head this week, and Thursday is now an all-housemate trip out to the Olympic peninsula to look at a rescue dog.  Yes, right before we all are going to leave town for anywhere between 5 and 15 days.  All I can say at this point is stay tuned. 

from TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM

Wednesday (today, thank the Goddess for blog queues!) is errand day.  I get a haircut in the afternoon and the entire neighborhood will be going completely nutty-kookoo-bonkers tonight with the annual Seafair Parade.  Anything I want to get done, I gotta get done before noon to be practical about it.  There will be cannon fire and pirates by nightfall.  Friday I have to soak up as much K-energy as I can before I leave.  We're gonna make a night of it after she gets off work, with the chocolate exhibit at MOHAI and then we're going to see LUCY.  Seriously, we have discovered that when I have longer trips, we both seem to have a touch of separation anxiety.  We still email and whatever, but what stops is the use of each other as an external hard drive.  And it's not about data files, it's the processing power. 

Luggage is about to be staged and gear is on the verge of actually beginning to be packed.  I have to do a weather recheck.  And I got a head's up about a fancy-schmancy dinner for the family days, so I have to make sure I've got some clothing packed that doesn't have ember holes in them or pre-reek of smoke.  This year, as I am not solo, I have initiated a grand nesting scheme, the end result of which is, I hope, that my gear stays drier and I can better facilitate my daytime and nighttime circle duties.  If you get your stuff spread out over the Illumination site, it's almost as bad as when that happens at MayFire. 

The heat of distillation can be quite fierce.  We just had a week-long run of 85-90 here in the Emerald City, in case anyone was wondering just what people mean when they say 'climate change.'  As with any time of extremes, as much as people complain, the extra challenge tends to make you drop away what's superfluous and just deal with what's necessary.  Not unlike when I'm attending a festival.  I'm definitely distilling across multiple areas of my life.

I have some filtration on my plate this week more specifically.  The influences are pretty good and it's time my cordial stocks were replenished.  I just have to work out how to do it in the cool garage versus the overheated kitchen.  We're pretty much helpless to cool the kitchen until the overall temps drop.  I've made some great headway on a few spots in the yard as the heat makes for very dead weeds and those suckers pull right up.  I want to yank a bunch of vine-ish stuff out from under the butterfly bush we have in our northeastern corner of the yard (my zone) and get a flowering shade plant mix in there instead. 

It's a fortnight until I'm on the road, so lists have formally started and piles are messily taking shape just about everywhere.  The challenge to stay warm where I'm headed will be moderate for brief times but there's a dampness/dryness factor that seems to be to be more the key than how hot/cold.  I have to figure out how to overlap fire circle clothing with choices appropriate to being with my family and going out to dinner and stuff for four days too.  That's going to be a bit of a weird mix.  I had a big phone call with my incense sister in Vegas the other night and we've both got lists of stuff to bring for bringing it on.  We joked that although changes in how things run this year are going to free up most attendees from juggling costumes and props, some of us are just going to still be doing it.   

And speaking of Las Vegas, that funky concept of me house-sitting for my friend and taking care of her critters for three months while she goes to Costa Rica is still moving forward.  I now have a time frame.  Her departure and return travel dates are November 29, 2014 thru until March 6, 2015.  Talk about your distillation process, I've got to boil it down pretty simply and quickly:  can I really live in Las Vegas for December through February?  That just plain takes P-con out of the equation, and I'd be in town for Mysterium already.  I'd be there for the holidays, that would be interesting.  My friend actually proposed that I just stay after Fall Fest straight through all November, but I just dropped an event on my calendar for the first weekend in November, so I think on my end I'm going to try and work it so I head to Vegas two weeks early and get oriented with the animals and all.  I still have to check off a lot of things before this is a locked-in done-deal, but like I said, it's still moving forward.

from Pontanus - The Secret Fire, 16th Century

I've been tapped to "co-docent" the circle, and while I am supposed to be put in touch with my other co-docent ahead of time, I'm prepared to show up on site in a few weeks with a name and the half face I remember and improvise from there.  Because that's how fire circles go that way sometimes.  I'm also going to be involved in incense/scenting and the root fire.  Both those aspects of the circle are going to be tuned a bit more this year.  For incense we're going to try and have intentionally-chosen scents at specific times with more purposeful scenting of the circle to help support the specific energy.  We're gonna want a stash of charcoals for that, and I think I'm going to pick up a different type of lighter, one of those torch ones for cigars and high-wind conditions.  I'm not dicking around with a damp charcoal in the middle of the night in a forest in the Pacific Northwest.  I want that shit to light without burning my fingertips off on the lighter trying to do it.  Why yes, I learned a few things this past MayFire, thank you for asking...

How busy I was at MayFire and how seldom I was at or in my tent made me contemplate how I pack in new ways.  I'm on the meal plan this year, and I'm pretty sure that the post-Illumin road trip can be done stove and cooking gear-free, so I'll have some items to eat off of and not much else.  I am going to have a lot of snacks however as the food altar at Illumination is one of the least compatible with me that I've encountered, not to mention once the dew comes down, anything that was out is totes disgusto and usually winds up being tossed which makes for lean offerings after that. 

I have had my eye on a new pair of fire gloves.  There were a few moments at MayFire where I was holding a totally flaming log and thought, yeah, these gloves have given many years of good service but it feels like I might want to start looking...  I found a company that makes a variant of their hearth/fire gloves that have smaller hands and wrists for women.  This is relevant to my tiny-handed interests.  And there are at least a half dozen women who are just waiting to hear what I have to say, knowing how I use my gloves.

I have mugwort drying in the basement.  I have to see what will be fresh in the yard that could get picked for the root fire brew.  That's going to be varied a bit from how the Forestdance people do it, more Root Fire 2.0.  We will not be doing any all-night complex phased rituals.  They are doing one night with three big phases, down from the HFT's four-phase outline.  But it sounds like one intention for this year is to keep people present and not have them spending all night watching a clock, getting together props and costumes, and waiting to perform.  And as much as some people get off on the big organized thing, I think it's busy but not fresh like it once was experientially.

But of course, all that don't mean shit right now because I have a date tomorrow night.