In the Julian calendar, which was being used in England when he was born, Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642.  When the Gregorian calendar went into effect, that shifted his birthdate to January 4, 1643.  One website I read proposed that the two dates should frame "The Ten Days of Newton," and it should be celebrated as a holiday period in honor of the many discoveries and developments that came from Newton's explorations.  That would make a good Pagan holiday out of something scientific...

Nor is it possible to make those distinctions between the Mystic and the Occultist that have from time to time been attempted; as when it is averred that the former follows the path of Love and the latter the path of Power and Knowledge.

from THE SECRET FIRE: AN ALCHEMICAL STUDY by E.J. Langford Garstin

An interesting meditation I have been pursuing for some time now is "How do you tell what's real alchemy?"  How do you judge who knows their alchemy and who doesn't?  During my recently-ended association with the Grey School, I considered the one other person who was primarily associated with the alchemy department to be inexperienced and their teachings flawed based on their approach and explanations, or viable lack thereof in the latter.  In the last few weeks I was told by a friend of a duo on Kickstarter working to raise funds to start an alchemy laboratory and make spagyrics.  Having read their pitch and watched their video, I felt they don't demonstrate an appropriate level of knowledge and experience for what they are attempting to do.  Their recently added FAQ which states they just joined the IAG doesn't carry any weight in that all you have to do to join is pay your reg fee.  I emailed a few questions, and while the guy who answered seemed nice enough, the reply I got is that they are about to go into the cannabis oil biz and sort of run an alchemy lab on the side.  I'll stick with buying my spagyrics from the folks in OR who I met back in 2007 for now.

How much opinion comes from educational experience?  How much from association?  For me, both of those are easily a solid two-thirds of what informs my decisions.  The last third, which I've just recently come to name, is "the fire."  At the Esoteric Book Conference, I had a great conversation with a man and bought a deck of meditational alchemy cards he made.  He gave me a slim booklet of compiled artwork on the side for free, because he said he could see I had the fire for alchemy.  The spark, those flames, are something I look for in fellow alchemists.  That woman at the school and those guys on the internet.... I'm not feeling the heat, I'm not seeing the fire.  

Moving from the macrocosm to the microcosm, how do I judge my own alchemical growth?  I follow the Wheel of the Year as an alchemical cycle, moving from calcination through to projection, and then repeating.  Yule is calcination.  What do I need to burn away?  What am I doing to obscure myself?  What is my dross?  I'm not surprised I finally left the Grey School this year.  It wasn't serving my magickal growth.  My original goal in joining the school was to study alchemy, and that wasn't happening.  I had issues with how the school was being run, how the curriculum was developed and I feel that most of the teachers don't hardly practice magick themselves.  That last month there I was continually aware of being in an inflamed state of mortifactio. 

I got through my two solstice vigils in better physical shape than I anticipated.  The solo one was my longest yet, and I only dozed off once about 5:15am and woke up after about 15 minutes.  I broke the night into nine alchemical phases and did an appropriate spagyric each phase.  I picked an incense for each using my pendulum, and drew a Goddess affirmation card too.  For something I found in the toy/game aisle of the thrift store for just a few dollars, those cards have been amazing.  I should bring them to use for a daily draw at PantheaCon.  At the second vigil I was at the apartment of a couple I met at the cob workshop this past summer.  Among their other guests was the guy who owns The Purple Store (where my 'unapologetically purple' t-shirt comes from) and a man who was part of the Pagan group who staged the ritual at the alchemy conference last May.  He was the one handing out the small keys at one of the gates.  I offered several rounds of gongfu tea in the night, and the new water warmer (gift from my aunt and uncle in Boston) worked beautifully.  

Perhaps I'll revive my alchemical tea ritual at the alchemy conference....

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.

With all my magickal energy and attention having come back to me and my own priorities, I find myself looking at my alchemical processes and the Wheel of the Year.  I got off of following the Wheel as an alchemical process what with all the distraction and that's been a real disservice I've done myself.  A few years back, I had a year where I really followed the sequence of correspondences I established for myself and it would up facilitating a really amazing period of growth and prosperity that last several years.  Clearly I have come full circle and have to reinvent.  I'm trying to get on the 'upside' of Nigredo, working with it and diving deeper, seeking the Sol Niger instead of wallowing at it's mercy as has been the case for some significant portions of this past year. 

"Wherefore my Child, all is concealed in Saturn, which we have need of, for in it is a perfect Mercury, in it are all the Colours of the world, which may be discovered in it; in it are the true black, white and red Colours, in it is the weight, Saturn is our Lattin."
- "A Work of Saturn" by Johann Isaac Hollandus, From Of natural & supernatural things. London, 1670. Transcribed by Joshua Ben Arent

The cold snap has hung in there, although there is moisture coming and once our cloud cover/blanket returns, temps will warm up a bit.  But in that teeny overlap, we might get some snow flurries.  Alchemy has a lot of literature about collecting dew and other forms of water that carry life energy, but living in a place where dew in the spring just doesn't hardly happen, I've been investigating other forms of water collection.  The debate on snow is plentiful.  Some feel it's just frozen rainwater.  Some say it's got the lowest content of secret fire due to the time of year.  (nigredo water?)  Here's the "catch" on catching water:  it has to be captured without touching metal, plants or humans.  To do so will energetically realign it with one of those three realms.  So, using my weatherproof and lightweight metal mixing bowl of the past is out.  I'm going to try using a huge ceramic bowl or maybe an enameled cooking dish, the latter of which would be much more resistant to freezing and breaking.  Or I'll have to rig up some sort of fabric snow hammock. 

Made a supreme score for the Pagani wardrobe on eBay the other day.  Second time I've gotten a pair of their pants where the design is no longer available, and saved $50 off the retail price.  Those  are some serious peacock's tail pants.  

I did some work in the animal realm last spring, making a lard soap.  It came out a tad too brittle, a sign of being off just a tad on the fat to lye ratio, and I've just had it in the cupboard ever since, but now I'm about ready to grate the whole mess up, melt it down and add just a touch more oil to it and it should be able to be re-cured into functioning soap that may be just a wee bit super-fatted.  Which is actually a luxurious thing.  Working with animal fats is one of the few ways you can do alchemical work in the Animal realm in the modern age without running afoul of animal cruelty laws.  I don't mind if my vegan friends find it distasteful. 

My folks are off to CA to see my Mom's sisters.  Normally I would go house-sit at their place but with this chest cold still taunting me, I'm not up to it as much as they have a super comfy sofa that sits in front of a huge tv with way too many channels.  I'm just not up for being ill in a place that takes an hour and a half on public transit to reach. 

Tomorrow night, technically 12:01am Friday, we see the second installment of the Hobbit.... Me and my red beard are totally ready to go.  We sprang for the really good tix this time, no Lie-max, it's the real deal (and 3D) down at the Science Center. 

In this 1910 postcard, we see a woman distilling a man in a retort, and examining the love that is being extracted.  This is a fascinating illustration on a few levels.