I've spent a lot of mental time revisiting Glastonbury lately. There were so many layers of magickal history laid down there, I can see why some people go there for a visit and then never leave. You could spend your lifetime peeling them back like so many layers of onion skin. Here's one of the smaller chunks of the Abbey found on the grounds of the historic site and modern church. There is a specific spot marked as being the graves of King Arthur and Queen Geneviere too.
When King Henry VIII took the throne, Glastonbury was still the seat of religion in England, and the Abbey in Glastonbury was rich as shit, and Hank wasn't down with that at all. He sent some guys to take care of the Abbot, which resulted in the Abbot being hanged, drawn and quartered. After that, London became the seat of English religious practice and the Church of England was free to dominate the playing field. I found a website ahead of my trip to Glastonbury where a woman recounts how she conversed spiritually with the last Abbot of Glastonbury and he supposedly communicated to her that part of why he got offed was due to his practice of alchemy. That's probably worth another look-see.
"Silver is less bounded by aqueous immaturity than the rest of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to a certain extent impure, still its water is already covered with the congealing vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection."
~ from "The Stone of the Philosophers" by Edward Kelly, published in Tractatus duo egregii, de Lapide Philosophorum, una cum Theatro astronomiæ terrestri, cum Figuris, in gratiam filiorum Hermetis nunc primum in lucem editi, curante J. L.M.C. [Johanne Lange Medicin Candidato]., Hamburg, 1676.
Legend has it that Edward Kelly (magickal compatriot of John Dee) found some philosopher's stone while wandering the ruins at Glastonbury Abbey one day. I can't help but imagine it like finding someone's dropped part of their stash on the ground. "Dude, check it out, I found some Philosopher's Stone just lying on the ground at the Abbey..." "Whoa, man, that's like so red....let's fire it up and transmute!" However, that account was published by Elias Ashmole, and John Dee's own diaries give a different account. I'm now going to remember this as one of those quasi-fictional moments in history, where there's the history and then the fictional romantic account and then my own pop-culture imaginings.
One of my fairly recent fictional explorations of alchemy was a book called The Alchemist's Door
When I was first introduced to the alchemical process, the mysterious Peacock's Tail phase was described as falling at the end of the Albedo, right before Rubedo starts. The more I've read and worked my own process, and learned more about laboratory alchemy, I've come to feel that it's more suited to falling at the end of Nigredo, before one begins to move into Albedo. In my transposing of alchemical phases onto the Wheel of the Year, the Peacock's Tail happens after Yule (Calcination) and before Imbolc (Dissolution). This year the flash of color(s) that signaled the event had to be the photo recovery. Normally at this time of year it feels very wet and Solutio, but we've only just had our first whole week of rain this winter this past week and already that's stopped, so it's been more of an inner process this year. But the feeling of things dissolving, thinning and separating gently is still lurking in there.
I've been doing a lot of bottle washing lately, hoping to get some cordial flavors finalized and portioned out soon. I have to sit down and do labels. I repeated a couple of fruits this year so those should just need typographical updating. I have to start thinking where I want to plant the apple tree in the ground next month. Time to start watching overnight temps.