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. 

Suddenly this week, the energies have shifted sharply towards activities and actions that signal Separatio, the alchemical phase that I observe as aligned with the spring equinox.  This is the part of the alchemical process where decisions are made as to which materials are being carried forward and which are being removed after the stage of Dissolutio (which was Imbolc).  In my life, this often takes the form of firm decisions made and committed to for events in the spring and summer.  I'm picking which gatherings to attend and these then all shape the further stages of alchemy for the year.  Now is when I commit to working with certain energies and refinement processes, discarding other choices. 

I got email back from the temple priestess and I'm good to go for my guest house needs for my larger conceived adventures.  So, at this point, I just have to let a few people know I'm having adventures in April and May, and find my airline tickets.  I got email from the alchemical priestess in Vegas and have accepted her offer to run a planetary group at MayFire.  I have to let A know I'm hard-confirmed for her event April 26-27 and will arrive a couple days earlier.  I'll also get some gatherings at the temple too, for the new moon and Beltane.  And I have to check in with my Bay Area road-wife, as we barely broached the MayFire topic at P-con, and see how roadworthy she's feeling this spring.

1. Light Supreme, who art the Divine in Nature and dwellest in its innermost parts as in Heaven, hallowed be thy qualities and laws!

2. Wherever thou art, all is brought to perfection; may the realm of thy Knowledge become subject unto thee.

3. May our will in all our work be only thee, self-moving Power of Light! And as in the whole of Nature thou accomplishest all things, so accomplish all things in our work also.

4. Give us of the Dew of Heaven, and the Fat of the Earth, the Fruits of Sun and Moon from the Tree of Life.

5. And forgive us all errors which we have committed in our work without knowledge of thee, as we seek to turn from their errors those who have offended our precepts. And leave us not to our own darkness and our own science, but deliver us from all evil through the perfection of thy Work, Amen.

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. 

For PantheaCon20 we had a full moon, Mercury was in retrograde, the first two days were alchemically aligned with digestion and the last two were with dissolution.  From what I experienced, it was a great con with a lot of old stuff and new stuff, and my balancing act of all that and taking care of myself worked.  I had really good friends at the con with me, and I felt our room situation was utterly drama free this year.  I felt like I got really good quality one-on-one time with each of my three close friends at the con, and I also managed to get alone time when I needed it too.  

I didn't think I'd be dyeing my hair peacock before I went, but I did.  I didn't think I'd run into other people who seemed to have the same idea and who did peacock hair that didn't look anything like mine and yet was totally recognizable as also being peacock hair, but I ran into two of them.  And one had formerly had flame hair which I did last August.  And that's just three heads out of an entire con.  I was wearing my Gojira slippers when I encountered a furry.  I mesmerized a lady's baby with my Minion.  I got to use my first gender neutral pronoun in a group discussion.  I did not endlessly snack on sugar.  Despite staying up nearly every night until 1:30am, I did jump right out of bed at eight the next morning and was out the door anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes later to do something starting at 9am. 

I attended two rituals that were closely adapted from original material created in the late 1800s.  I'll take that as a sign to look more closely at the material I have which deals with the same time period.  Undoubtedly this will relate back somehow to the photographic material I have from Notre Dame and the writing of Fulcanelli.  I can tell already.  I created two charms as part of two classes.  The first was in one of those two Victorianesque rituals, the other was in Kalla's pop magick class.  One is a stone which was soaked in wine and charged by placing it under my tongue and reciting a long spell.  The other is a slight-imperfect 12-sided die which looks kinda flamey and which is now connected to an energetic thought-form, otherwise known as Agent Fox Mulder.  I really left my mind open to see if any of the characters I've obsessed over or put energy into over the years wanted to step up when it came to that ritual, and that's who did.  I have to craft a new mojo bag that can be tucked into my everyday bag and which will hold a few more things than the one I have now.

I will be exploring and playing with all my ideas and self-created roadblocks around the concept of daily practice for a bit.  Or maybe I'll be bugging myself about just thinking about it and not doing much.  Suffice to say, I got to hear some stuff I needed to hear again in that class and we'll see how I do with it.  I got a physical, jewelry-style charm at the con too, from the vendor Amber Moon, who made my walrus ouroborus.  It's a tiny magickal cottage, and I'm going to charge it up to help me manifest Right Home, in whatever form that is best for Me and my Found Family. 

I had not done any sort of sacred/bdsm scene at the con in years, and I have to say I had one hell of an efficient and yummy one this year.  I tried to keep it simple but allow the involved humans to get a deeper experience, and make the entrie exchange more sacred.  It worked alright, almost to the point where I was a little amazed myself at what had happened.  One of those instances where I found myself durings bits of it watching my hands and then I'd reconnect that they were mine.  Those freakin' Gojira slippers were ridiculous, extremely comfortable and unexpectedly grounding.  It made it much eaiser for me to draw energy up and into my various arm actions.  I just know one of my mentors all those years ago would have been proud of the silly slippers.

And now we look ahead, to March.  Ahead of us is wind, the equinox and Separatio. 

Imbolc may be the earliest start of spring, and although on many levels we have had a mild winter, we're not done yet.  We just had a great run of days that went something like high of 36, low of 28...Brrrr!  And of course, just what did I do the day before the sudden freeze appeared?  Yeah, you guessed it... I had all my hair cut off.  Like the majority of my head is about a half inch of hair.    Looking ahead to the con, I'm seeing Bay Area nighttime lows that are 15-20 degrees higher than the present PNW daytime highs.... I'll take it!  I spent the past week wearing sweatshirts and hats around the clock inside the house, I'll be glad to ditch that routine for a bit. 

I went on eBay and held a wild hair dye buying spree.  I'm really embracing the Peacock's Tail phase of alchemy in my inner work at the moment, and trying to keep a variety of rapid changes going in my day-to-day world, and so I'm playing with color more this spring to put a bit of zing into things.  I'm still going purple but I'm going to have some mixed highlights, something I can play around with into summer where the where and what of the highlights will shift.  Colors ordered were Ultra Violet (dark blue-purple fave from last summer), Lie Locks (a fairly-strong-looking purple I've not tried yet), Bad Boy Blue (royal blue) and Electric Lizard (ECCC minion green, it just so happens...).  The box was anticipated to arrive on Monday Feb 10th but arrived on Saturday Feb 8th.  Hair shenanigans were moved up from Monday to Sunday.  I bleached all on my own this time.... whoa...

Among the 7 planets I am called the Sun.
My pointy crown symbolizes the process:
First, we become completely subtle and pure
And bind with Mercury,
Then the black raven grows.
It is buried in the grave,
Rising anew,
Adorned with lillies, and betrothed.
Then at last the Sun-Child appears,
Bedecked with purple on his throne.

~ from Hermaphroditisches Sonn- und Monds-Kind, das ist: Des Sohns deren Philosophen natürlich- übernatürliche Gebährung, Zerstöhrung und Regenerirung oder vorgestellte Theorie und Practic den Stein der Weissen zu suchen und zu machen. Durch einen unbekannten Philosophum und Adeptum in 12 emblematischen Figuren und so vielen Paragraphis. Mit Applicir- und Beyfügung so vieler Canonischen Versen des berühmten Schwedischen Adepti Northons: aus einem alten manuscript gezognener praesentiret. Nun aber nach dem mystichen Verstand und innerem Weesen expliciret, nebst denen Caballistischen Zeichen Salomonis durch einen Lehr-Jünger der Natur. L.C.S.
Mayntz, bey Joh. Friederich Krebs Buchhändler. Geduckt in der Churf. Hof und Univers. Buchdruckerey bey denen Häffn. Erben, durch Elias Peter Bayer. 1752.

The strangest manifestation of Solve as of late would have to be this weekend's discovery of my favorite jeans coming out of the dryer minus a goodly portion of each inner thigh.  Alas, favoritism combined with several weeks of freezing temps that brought long underwear into play seems to have resulted in the wear-through happening on the sly.  Not what I wanted to have happen when I was actually thinking "I should just wear those jeans the whole con, they'd be perfect..."  Fortunately a quick trip to the thrift store and $7 later I have jeans that just need some length hacked off the legs and they'll be good to go.  Which means tonight I'll be spending a short time with that most magickal of products:  Stitch Witchery.  A little cutting, a little folding, a little pinning and a little ironing, and I'll have shortened pants.  (But still be a Long Pants Man!)

Today is a traveling day. (Huzzah for the modern miracle of automated posting!)  Alchemically, it corresponds to dissolution, is attuned positively and is dominated by air influences.  I can work with that.  I arrive in San Jose tonight, the evening before the evening before PantheaCon starts.  My altar theme for myself this year is time and space.  I've tried to bring decorative elements that represent those ideas more overtly for the room decor.  Packing was extra spazzy this year, with entire wardrobe designs laid out and mapped to the travel days and then discarded to begin again from scratch.  I had both color scheme and bigender angst.  In a snow storm too.  Actually, the snow part was sort of awesome.  It took until I had my hair really nailed down for the clothing thing to work itself out. 

Lying in bed in the morning this past weekend, watching big clumps of soft snow plop down into my light well from the overhanging tree, I was reminded of both the gentle water and fire at this time of year.  A steady, smaller flame is what is appropriate.  Patient mindfulness.  Inner and outer observation.  Any extra energy or pushing ahead really needs to be saved up for just a bit longer, for the more fertile season of full spring.  Time to get some projects into the pipeline and put MayFire out on that event horizon.  

(the image this week is from last week's prosperity ritual, which took place during the Super Bowl broadcast.  That's the clay figurine which was broken up to release frozen patterns, entrenched habits and dried up thinking.)