If I ever thought that these planetary tinctures would be the same process, seven times over, I have, again, been corrected. Jupiter was a cinch, Saturn (in Capricorn) was earthy and needed extra purifying and filtering. And Mars?
More than the first two, this tincture I felt a real need for-to better balance the parts of my personality, perhaps. When I first assembled it to macerate, I felt that it could be possible for me to understand why Hannibal crossed the Alps and Caesar, the Rubicon. The jar felt hot in my hands, right from the very start. Even as I coveted the drive, passion and power that was inherent, I could also sense the danger. But I wanted it, anyway.
But, true to the Mars personality, this project has been a battle. I could not do the calcination on the original date because my area of New Jersey was under drought warning and a high alert for fires. Considering that snow melt and flood is a more usual problem in the spring, this is highly unusual. And, because I use Everclear at 190 proof for the menstruum, I didn't dare attempt the burn inside the house.
The day after I had wanted to do the calcination it started to rain, and rain, and rain (weather spell? What weather spell? I just had a little talk with a couple of entities about the danger of drought). It rained for a full week. The no burn regulation was lifted and this past Tuesday night, Mars hour, I took my bowl of alcohol soaked ginger root chips outside to ignite. (The picture is above) But no sooner did I have it lit, than the rain started again. The rain didn't bother the alcohol burn off, but that was it, no glowing coals, no smoldering, no ash. Just damp little black charcoals chips made from ginger. Damp and blackened-that pretty much describes how I felt at this point in the project.
The moon will be full very early Saturday morning (12:01am) and I had wanted to be done with this before then. Rummaging through my pantry, I was able to jury-rig a pretty good crucible, and for the last two days I've worked on reducing the coal to ash and then refining the ash. It will be done on time.
Dogged and determined, I can do (even if I don't enjoy it much), but that is rather earthy, not fiery. So the question is: at what point does determination shade into drive, push and yes, power? Should I have spent more time with that (possible) salamander, last year?
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4 comments:
A comment and a request...
Comment: Awesome! I loves it. Makes me want to do it myself.
Request: Can you label your calcination posts, slap a tag on them for easy reference?
Not a bad idea about moving the experiment out of the kitchen. My son and I were melting solder in a porcelain pestle on the gas stove in order to make "counterfeit" roman coins in a clay mold (a school project, as you can guess). The mortar exploded, scattering red -hot porcelain and solder all over the place. I know my wife will put up serious resistance to experiments involving flames in the kitchen now. But what can I do? We live in an apartment, and don't even have a yard or a garage?
I admire your persistence. It's the only way to get things done, in mystical/magickal life or mundane life.
>>So the question is: at what point does determination shade into drive, push and yes, power? Should I have spent more time with that (possible) salamander, last year?
It's always gonna be a case-by case situation. Each thing determination is gonna be applied to, it's gonna vary wildly, especially with what is brought to the table from each person and why they are that way. Which one it is is the percentage of your life that each thing is taking up, the drive, push and power.
In order...
Labels, as per your request, RO. At least for this series, and if my allergies get bad enough that I have to stay indoors, perhaps I will work on labelling more of my posts.
I do recommend a projec like this. Working through a series of Powers (Planetary, Sefira or whatever) in a physical as well as magica/spiritual has some interesting effects-plus you can share the tinctures.
Scribbler, I do empathize with your lack of space. I suspect that much of the "tradition" of WMT requiring the magician to go off into the countryside in solitude comes from the more compact living space of the cities of Europe. Traditionally, these tinctures were made with brandy, which has a much lower proof than the Everclear. I know people who have used brandy and done the whole project in their kitchens. The people at the yahoo discussion group EmeraldTablet have been very helpful to me, if you are interested, you may want to look the group up.
Gordon-thanks for dropping by. And, yes, clearly reactions vary from situation to situation. It may be, that what I am hoping to get from this particular tincture has been a minor effect within me for so long, that I will need to acclimate to it. It so, it is certainly a better result than crash and burn.
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