It's a folk myth that you can only get eggs to spin cleanly on either the fall or spring equinox.  It can be done at any time of day or year, but what you genuinely need to do this successfully is an extremely fresh egg.  

The light is now noticeably shifting, the dark slowly visibly rolling back.  Very sunny days or very dark days both stand out from the patchy-not-quite-grey that is our spring in the Pacific Northwest.  But once all the flowering trees pop, it's a good bet that we're well away from winter and we're there now.  Instead of dead yard, everything has suddenly turned into a mass of green weeds, not yet up to growing speed due to the lack of sun.  However we get three more minutes of light every day, so full growing speed isn't far off.  Now that the apple tree is moved, the herb bed where it stood in a pot is about to be taken out and reworked, with a nearby raised bed getting a big ol' expansion.  The sage bush in that area will be my next spagyric herb.  My housemate knows to save the leaves for me if she gets around to chopping it down during a time when I'm busy with something else. 

Mostly for this entire week, I've just been operating in fits and starts of cosplay construction.  My plan is simple:  whatever outfits are in the best shape to go as of Thursday night are what goes.  I've got several things in process but I've had some tech snafus, some which could be reworked and some not.  And wigs.  They're practically like caring for living creatures.  We have a room for Friday and Saturday night, which is going to be a Goddess-send when it comes to downtown access on those weekend mornings.  The density is going to be something to watch out for.  Saturday is the BIG day.  Last year, downtown freeway exit ramps got closed because too many people were trying to come into downtown Seattle.  I actually have four work shifts, with one coming on Thursday, the set-up/get-ready day before the con starts.  This is one of the most hilarious configurations yet.  I haul some of my gear downtown on Thursday when I go early to check-in and get my badge, and leave it at Kalla's office, which is in the vicinity.  I do that again Friday morning with the rest of my gear, then work an 8-2 shift.  Kalla will take the bus to work, get off work not long after my minion shift ends.  Then we'll find each other and a strange series of punts and adventures will begin. 

On the intentional, social aspect of the con, my pendulum was consulted when it came to the speed dating.  The pendulum had some specifics:  I have to go twice.  I looked up the planetary energies of each session.  For the first, I get a Venus day, and the session spans times of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars energy.  The second is a solar day and the session will receive Venus, Mercury and Moon energies.  I'm probably going to dress in an interesting combo of my own clothing and be sort of Blade Runner butch for one session and do my X-men movie Blink cosplay option for the other.  Her makeup isn't too crazy, her clothing is all mine, and really if I can just get a herringbone braid into her wig, I'll call the outfit done until such time as I make her jacket properly.  If my Lorelei outfit works out, I'll wear that the day I'm not speed dating.  A muting-face-cage-mask isn't the sort of thing to wear for that, but wearing something that just got seen for the first time three weeks ago on tv on the busiest day of the con would be just about right. 

I've been doing alchemical fire circles (alchemifires) with the Vegas Vortex and related groups for a decade now. It's been interesting to watch the process refine and change over the years, and I made the effort to go to a variety of different fires so that I could see how the various branches of the Fire Family did their own thing. Mostly I've interacted with the West Coast off-shoots. I'm glad I got to three of the Hawaii/Oahu events before that group chose to disband at the end of 2012. There were a few years where there was some really fun experimentation and exploration in terms of ritual structure and alchemical metaphors, but things seem to have settled down much more now.  Illumination is clearly the next-gen of circles but so far it's working on disseminating the established culture, or at least that's the direction it seemed to take in year two.  If I get the chance to go see how Four Quarters does their alchemifires, I'd be curious about that one.

A few years back I took Robert Bartlett's Prima class on practical lab work and seeing how all the alchemical metaphors and material applied to actual laboratory chemistry was fantastic. In turn, this inspired me to start looking at laboratory procedures and how we might find new ways to play in ritual, riffing off other processes versus sticking to just the classical seven-phase structure.  For my own ritual work, I've been working with nine phases, adding Multiplication and Projection at the end after Coagulation.  It makes more sense to me to not just be standing there holding gold, and to do something after making it as the proper conclusion.

" I, Saturn, the greatest of the planets in the firmament, declare here before you all, that I am the meanest and most unprofitable of all that are here present, that my body is weak, corruptible, and of a swarthy hue, but that, nevertheless, it is I that try you all. For having nothing that is fixed about me, I carry away with me all that is of a kindred nature. My wretchedness is entirely caused by that fickle and inconstant Mercury, by his careless and neglectful conduct. Therefore, I pray you, let us be avenged on him, shut him up in prison, and keep him there till he dies and is decomposed, nay, until not a drop of his blood is to be seen."

~ "The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine," from Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat, von dem grossen Stein der Uralten...', Eisleben, 1599.

Having had this recurring Ripley Scroll thing, as I mentioned last week, I got to exploring the work of George Ripley more, and his Twelve Gates writings.

1. Calcination
2. Solution
3. Separation
4. Conjunction
5. Putrefaction
6. Congelation
7. Cibation/Nutrition
8. Sublimation
9. Fermentation
10. Exaltation
11. Multiplication
12. Projection

Not only do I think there could be benefit in having the metaphorical ritual/inner process not end with Coagulation (creating the gold), but I also found from my own work that having more and shorter phases across a long period of time makes for a more smoothly flowing ritual.  There's less up-and-down as far as actions which mark the time, and it's easier to give more intentional action to a shorter period of time.  Less loss of momentum.  We already have an established structure at work in the community, so introducing a variation isn't that difficult.  It's sort of like how Illumination tried something last summer that was sort of like the usual affinity group process but they changed the metaphor and didn't assign specific group leaders.  There were enough attendees who were familiar with collaborative improvisation to hold the hands of everyone else who was freaking out from never having done it before.  In my perfect world, I'd like to do this at MayFire where almost everyone knows the drill, and we'd just play the game with some new pieces.  One catch to that might be that it is such a small event, having more groups would make them too small to be practical about this.  Illumination which runs double to triple the size of a MayFire could be more suitable.

Gates one through four are standard.  Putrefaction is really interesting, because at Vortex fires rotting is lumped in with Calcination and I think it would be really interesting to have done some purification work and then take a deep dive down to see exactly what the shit is at that point.  Congelation is a thickening and slowing down.  The Cibation phase is the perfect spot for literally "feeding" the ritual or group.  I'm not yet sure how a group would enact Sublimation.  That's rare enough physically as it is.  Fermentation is standard.  Exaltation, Multiplication and Projection seem like a great way to energize and head to the end.  Bring the energy up, expand it and then connect it to the world outside the ritual space.  Seems like a natural to me.  Ripley has a section after the gates he calls the Recapitulation and that seems like the afterglow part of the ritual.  I need to research more into the phases and explore their facets.  I also think the symbolism of "gates" could be significant.  

I'm still working out the manifestation of cob house workshops and festival fires for the spring and summer.  May has the potential for one cob workshop and two potential events.  In earlier May is MayFire in Vegas and (hopefully) at the end of May will be another Northwest Alchemy Conference.  I haven't heard from Karen since late summer so I guess it's time to go poke her and see what's up.  June or July could have cob building.  June has Shakespeare in Ashland.  Early July I usually house-sit for the 'rents, later July has a faerie festival potential.  And August is Illumination.