Long time no alchemic blogging.  Really, 2017 and 2018 have been those kinds of years.  I have few things I formulated that I will have to note here, like my wild Citrinitas Cordial.

I think I finally got enough saffron in my 2018 crop to go forward with the recipe that got me started on saffron in the first place, almost eight years ago: the Elixir of Propriety.  This is a medicine crafted by Paracelsus, and one which he regarded most highly.  I'm not using his exact 16th century formula because it requires a Pelican, a type of glassware I do not have.  And it takes several months to make following his process.

But this essential formula stayed in play up until the early 20th century, with many healers compounding their own versions.  One recipe which caught my attention and seems quite replicable is from Herman Boorhaave from the 18th century.  This version also uses vinegar.  The vinegar base would be especially suited to using my radiant heat cordial infuser but it needs about three cups of liquid to operate and as near as I can calculate, I'm need to have about 5 ounces of vinegar based on the weight of my ingredients.

“Take choice aloes, saffron, and myrrh, of each half an ounce, cut and bruise them, put them into a tall bolt-head, pour twenty times their own weight of the strongest distilled vinegar thereon, let them simmer together in our little wooden furnace for twelve hours: now suffer the whole to rest, that the fæces may subside, and gently strain off the pure liquor through a thin linen; put half the quantity of distilled vinegar to the remainder, boil and proceed as before, and throw away the fæces. Mix the two tinctures together, and distil with a gentle fire till the whole is thickened to a third; keep the vinegar that comes over for the same use; and what remains behind is the Elixir Proprietatis, made with distilled vinegar.”

I still have a small amount of saffron from last year's crop, but I'd like to make a couple dishes for the impending winter solstice with saffron in them, as that's how it gets used by so many European cultures, so I don't want to put every thread I can find in the house into this.  However, as I sit here writing this, my brain is telling me I should use the ingredients I have, use the cordial infuser even if the product will be a lesser concentration than traditional, and let the 12 hours of simmering take place on the actual winter solstice.  My vigil, due to my northern latitude, is almost sixteen hours, and since I want to share my night between my options (home vigil and friends vigil) that could actually work, where I start the elixir infusing early in the vigil and that part runs overnight.  In the morning vigil hours, I can set the elixir to rest, and then after I sleep for a while, I can finish the reduction and thickening process that afternoon while still enjoying the full moon and alchemically fixative influences.

I'm liking this plan.  Time to mix up enough saffron paste to cover my cooking needs, and then I need to figure the weight of everything I have left and that will go in the elixir.

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.

Alchemy is a distillation process by which a great quantity of matter is purified until there is a small amount of something related but different at the end.  How one goes from a conventional, modern, Western lifestyle to one of a tiny houser is not unlike alchemy.  It's just that suddenly my equation for calculating dross just shifted so that something like ninety percent of my life is now judged as dross.

Some aspects of the lifestyle really do suit me and hopefully, I will find a way to exist inside current society in a way that is more comfortable for me by making these shifts.  So far, shifting over to a slightly parallel track just feels...wrenching...  I had an excellent conversation with my housemate the other day, as she too is working to live in a way that is more "true" and also finds it discomfiting in similar ways when moving away from the predominant mainstream.  

My first official load of downsizing went to the thrift store the other day when I was out doing errands with my father.  I have plans to ditch another infinitely significant load this coming weekend, as I will need a vehicle to get rid of what I have on hand.  The city is doing a recycle event where they will take anything with a plug.  I'm going to take advantage of that and let go of a desktop computer, a large television, a carousel DVD player and a VHS player.  Thirty years of technology now obsolete.  Everything will be environmentally recycled, reclaimed and disposed of properly.   

The impulses that attach us to things is strange.  Right before I came home from Las Vegas, my friend there gave me five teacups, things she'd purchased just for me...despite knowing that I had just spent three months getting rid of possessions in her home and about to come home to mine and attempt to get rid of even more.  I just took them to be polite and now they are in a pile to be donated away at the next opportunity.  I have yet another load of books the pendulum separated out for removal, and it's even larger than the last two chunks I sold.  There's a good chance those will remain piled on hand until I head south for Ashland and pass through Portland.  If I have to let go of books, I'm going to do it at Powell's.

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.