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. 

In my alchemical wheel of the year, the summer solstice is distillation.  A series of events and activities that began earlier in the year are all now coming to a time of finer planning and attention to detail.  Given that we're still in Mercury retrograde, it means going a bit slower and understanding that things will come together more at the last minute, and that's okay.  Expressing the energies of distillation means more mindfulness in decisions.  My word back at MayFire was "choice."  I have to make more discriminating choices now.  

We've actually had summer-warm weather in the Emerald City lately.  The garden is full of color, but we got enough water to top off all the barrels with the last storms so we've been able to ignore the hose for a bit longer.  It's time to hit the walking-path-edge of the lawn again, to differentiate it from the formal meadow.  Walking to the solstice parade, I took a photo of a fantastic patch of wild sidewalk garden which I felt was a perfect example of what we're trying to grow.  I think I want to give Dad back his weed whacker and get a tiny push mower for our needs instead.  It will wind up being a LOT quieter, and without having to deal with a cord, it might be a lot easier too.