I finally heard myself, as I was telling my friend A at the neighborhood farmers market on Friday about my spring travels. It was the phrase "I broke wide open," that triggered my Coulson moment. When I heard myself say the phrase and remembered saying it more than once just like that. It dawned on me that this is not a "healing from," it's not going to go back to what it was before. The materia I shifted is just that: in a different place or arrangement. It's going to be slow healing, like this guy I knew who had a diverticula burst and they had to let his surgical wound heal open, not sewn shut. Yay, growth!....uugh...
I found this picture frame with an image of Mercury/Hermes at the Goodwill for $1, as you can see by the tag. Of course I got it. The image turned out to be a photograph, dated May 23, 2000 on the back. A brief bit of sleuthing on the internet and I believe there is a very strong case to be made that the picture now in my possession is the likeness of the Florentine statue of Mercury located in the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC, Canada. I don't know if the frame and image will remain together, but I can say that right off the bat I am just a tad more fond of the image...
Gather this with a spoon or feather dipping it in; and in doing so often times a day until nothing more arises; evaporate the water with a gentle heat, i.e., the superfluous humidity of the vinegre, and there will remain the quintessence, potestates or powers of gold in the form of a white oil incombustible. In this oil the philosophers have placed their greatest secrets; it is exceeding sweet, and of great virtue for easing the pains of wounds.
The last few days I've been walking around in my neighborhood via a series of alleyways that I've never walked on or hardly noticed in the eight years I've lived here. Mostly you see garbage trucks using them. I can wander most of my immediate area now on a connected set of private pathways which almost no other people or cars is using. It's surreal.
The OSF production of THE TEMPEST was amazing. The spellwork in the play is exemplary, and you can see how it's been a huge influence over the centuries on magickal language. But when you really look at it, Shakespeare crafted some fantastic magick, stuff that was super-powerful and potent, and the language is amazing at the end when Prospero undoes all he's cast, and it's so fucking ethical it's a freaking benchmark when you look at magickal practitioners today, about 400 years after this stuff was written. And there was this one part where Ariel rose up on wings and I swear to Tumblr the costuming and freaking everything was like Attack on Titan and I nearly lost it, which is to say nothing of K's reaction. Being in the theatre, versus a dark movie theater, we controlled ourselves. Just.
It's one of those lull-in-the-action moments of the year, a gap of quiet in the midst of some really busy times and travel. I alternate between feeling restful and restless. The constant light is actually now so pronounced it's making me crazy. I'm up late at night trying to get to bed and then turn right around and wake up very early. We've been having a dry spring, and so it was nice this past week to actually have some rain. The garden and the barrels needed it, and you could tell the city residents actually did too. Cool, clammy, subtle humidity is annoying and it appears to be something we will be seeing manifest more here as the climate changes.