TO THE APOTHECARY ON MAIN.
The place where I feel most at home
second to none save my own
and like to me a savored treat
is the chymist's down the street.
As soon as in the door I tread
and storekeep's bell chimes overhead,
man's foolish world away does soar
to vex me in that time no more
Herb and root and oil and brew
always have I coins too few
to purchase of my list but part
to blend the passions in my heart.
Phials of myriad secrets wait
in portent my longing sharp to sate
foetid jug and dusty cask
their alchemy yield to the flask
As the shelves belov'd I deign to browse
and my deepest desires begin to dowse,
no wraith of fear can a means divine
to infect my inspir'd mind
Only a daemon of faint despair
ever chances enter there
when I contemplate a future bare
of a soulmate with whom my art to share
Yet if in solitude I must proceed
'tis that I my brilliant calling heed;
a subtle craft mastered by few
where lie aplenty discoveries new
Forever subject am I, 'tis sure
to the Apothecary's lure
and when down this street I stride
check my glare and step aside!
Poison foul and philtre fair
extracted gall of species rare,
a special order writ I send
before my caldrons I attend;
Against my kenning none can stand
as ingredients bend to my command -
potions are summoning one by one
and with glee I cry,
There is work to be done!
-- Severa Joan Magus, this day on 2018
The door swings wide, as though backing away at my approach, and a bell nailed to the beam above tinkles its little warning, not so much merry as furiously tinny. The scent of the apothecary embraces me, the scent of the familiar. Bad eggs, rotted cabbages. Herbs and roots, insect parts, powdered gemstones. How many thousands of things has magekind learned to put into potions, and more than a few of them are found here. This isn't Slugg and Jigger's, not the apothecary on London's strip of glitter where all the students shop, no! This is the big place, with all the back rooms, where the serious brewers go. And from the second I step inside, I own it.
A lifetime of that scent has conditioned me, and I can't suppress the surge of excitement that fills me, an electric blend of relaxed ease and tension alike. There is a deep sadness now, as well, one that will never fade, because never again will I brew at her side; but the love of this craft will never leave my hands, my veins, my mind.
If only, if only I did not have to teach potion-making to those who do not appreciate it. Oh, to be left alone to brew in solitude, where I could keep her memory alive and all to myself, tucked against my heart, inside its riveted armour where no one else is allowed.
"Morning, sir! What can I help you with today?"
Not my old aquaintance, the head chymist and proprietor, but an assistant. One so fresh, he doesn't even falter when my glare lands on him. I know every shelf and jar in this place, which means there's every chance I know them better than this wet-behind-the-ears whelp. I open my mouth and draw breath over a razored tongue, anticipating the release of its venom. But the old warlock in a corner, arms tentacled greedily around a load of bottles, beats me to the mark, cackling.
"Oi, you prat! Doan't you know who 'at is?"
"It doesn't matter who he his, it's my job to help him find what he needs," the assistant retorts, defending himself to his credit.
"That's Professor Sev'rus Snape, from up there at 'Ogwarts," says the old warlock cheerfully. "Best damned potion-maker this side o' the bloody damn Alps, man! Best thing you kin do t' help 'im is get your arse ourta his way, afore you git plain stamped on n' run over!"
I narrow my eyes at the old relic. Aleric Smeek. The lout. But he is decidedly Imperturbible; un-F-withable, as some say; I shoot him a trademark sneer and he simply cackles again.
"Deprived you o' yer fun, din't I, Snape, eh? Mind, I was sore tempted to watch, bu' I couldn't let the pore bloke get gutted, now, could I?"
My mouth is again stayed by a flap of the swinging door in the back, followed by a greeting.
"Ah, Severus! Let's see today's list."
The apothecary's proprietor claps his hands, then rubs them together. I actually enjoy this little dance of ours. Bellarmine Tipple: the man gets a thrill out of sourcing ingredients as much as I relish brewing, enjoys meeting challenges as earnestly as I take pleasure in setting them.
"Watch and learn, boy," Mr. Tipple adds to the assistant, a quill now ready in his hand.
I whip a parchment list from a hidden pocket and present it with a flourish. He scans it quickly with a long-practiced eye, his forehead knotting below tightly combed and oiled gray hair; one furry eyebrow cocks behind round, gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Hmm," he begins, "as I suspected, a special order here. . . . Dragon scales, you'll want the Ridgeback; Trondheim's a better grade than Stockholm. . . ."
He checks items on the list with crisp strokes, or skips by them.
"Let's see: Glasgow, Amsterdam, Timbuktu, D'Jakarta. . . . You're looking at three hours, two days, eight days, and . . . eleven-point-five days by Silk Road Carpet Express, provided the weather doesn't go to bollocks; we've got a nasty storm pattern over the Caucasus at the moment, might need to make a detour to Bombay. . . .
"Merlin's nose, how I wish we they'd let us employ carpets here," Mr. Tipple pauses to grouse. "Backward-thinking Ministry fools! The cargo I could pack on one of those Persian palace models! Ah, well. . . ."
"Excellent," I say, ignoring the assistant, who hovers, rather moronically agape. "Tortuous though I find it, I can wait." As I can. Many an apothecary wouldn't be able to source some of these ingredients at all.
"Fortunately, the rest we have in stock here -- GILL!" bellows Mr. Tipple over his shoulder, and I see a dark head poke in the back door almost immediately: his son. "Let's see how quick you can fetch up this list, eh? There's a dab hand, now, good lad!"
Gill snatches the list and vanishes into the back rooms again.
"A Hogwarts project?" asks the assistant, hopefully.
"No!" I sneer. "Not Hogwarts. Unless you presume I'd dare place manticore spit in the hands of jelly-brained students who have less finesse at handling materials than a spasmodic toad?"
"Class C Nontradeable, boy," Mr. Tipple points out sternly, to relieve the assistant's obvious distress, as I smirk. "Except we specialize in the hard-to-obtain and Classed Nontradeables -- if a fellow has either the cash, or the clout of someone like Professor Snape, here. And a Master of his level can't be expected to only brew Pepperup Potion for first years, can he?" To which I feel the amused twist of my lip deepen.
Bellarmine Tipple concludes, "Remember our credo here: Nothing asked, nothing told, and no exceptions, understood?"
Again to his credit, the assistant replies with the only sensible phrase one can in dealing with either Tipple or myself:
"Yes, sir."
Above and below: The U.S.'s first pharmacy, owned by Louis Joseph Dufilho, Jr., New Orleans
They are places of fascination even for those uninterested in medicine, or, for that matter, magic. With their hundreds of bottles and jars of labeled yet still-mysterious substances, strange ingredients of all sorts and consistencies, odd textures and smells, apothecaries of the traditional type beguile, horrify and delight by turn. For those who do practice medicine, chemistry, or potistry and do know what to ask for, the kid-in-a-candy-store affliction quickly takes effect.
Unfortunately, traditional apothecaries are becoming more seldom seen, at least in a working sense. Every pharmacy, a precursor to Walgreens yet far from resembling one, used to stock its lion's share of bulk chemical powders, herbs and liquids. Nowadays, Big Pharma has left us with sleek packages of plastic and far less of a do-it-yourself spirit; the onsite pharmacist him/herself, formerly a compounder of their own medicines, has given way to the mega-billionaire corporation. Vestiges remain, and I love going into a place like Walgreens and finding basic ingredients, like Epsom salts or castor oil, and remedies so trusted they lasted, like Prid and Walton's liniment.
But for us modern Gen-X, Zennial and Millennial brewers who find ourselves nostalgic for an era we never were forced to endure, the natural or herbal "apothecary" or New Age magick shop is often our best wager. In Stumptown we find herbal centers like Clary Sage and Green Dragon, magick-focused shops like Sacred Well or Moonshadow, and Oriental medicine specialists such as Vital Compass and the wonderfully-named Wing Ming's (which I have yet to visit but anticipate gleefully, since I've heard their selection is large and includes more than just herbs).
The history of the apothecary goes back a long way, but that of properly licensed pharmacies in this nation is more recent, and its origin less blurry. In the early 1800s, one Louis Joseph Dufilho, Jr. became America's first licensed pharmacist, and opened his apothecary shop in 1823. It's a shop that still stands today, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. But as of 1950, it became a museum: The abandoned building was rescued after a hurricane ravaged the area, and continues to house this legacy to our medical history. The store by no means compares in age to certain apothecaries in Europe, some of which date back many centuries, but I still consider it well worth a visit.
Today, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum offers a window into the apothecary of old. Visitors will be greeted by the ever-ubiquitous glass ingredient jars and bottles of all sizes, terrifying medical instruments such as bone saws, pharmacy equipment like pestles and scales, and even a display of live, wriggling leeches of the sort used in bloodletting -- all of which were once an indispensable part of medical technology.
In addition to these dubious, even chilling aspects of historical medicine, the museum features a soda fountain. Even in my own recent youth, I frequented a soda fountain conjoined to a pharmacy, and as a teenager I found myself earning wages there by making banana splits and sundaes, sucking on traditional lemon drops during break. (I miss you, Triana, great boss lady.)
Interestingly, Dr. Dufilho also sold formulas from the voodoo or hoodoo tradition, which has a large and eloquent arsenal of magical recipes for potions, oils and powders. This being New Orleans, there was a steady demand, whether by those who considered hoodoo their primary mode of dealing or those who preferred a regular pharmacist but were nonetheless curious. While a step up in legal legitimacy from other, mainly hoodoo African-American merchants in the city, Dufilho still learned to make hoodoo potions from a local voodoo priestess. He then sold them behind the counter discreetly using an order-by-number system, since, depending on the circumstance or family faith, a customer might not want to be overheard or seen buying a voodoo potion.
The museum also highlights the importance of alcohol, known as Acqua Vitale, and even stronger narcotics like opium, morphine and belladonna in early pharmaceuticals. A patent medicine, such as the little trial bottle I recently purchased of "Dr. King's New Discovery" with contents and label still intact, might contain 25% or more alcohol and even chloroform. Drug addiction clearly wasn't as much a concern then, so long as symptoms were relieved! Absinthe began as a remedy, and even Coca-Cola once contained both alcohol (as did 7-Up) and cocaine; no doubt, there's the source of one country doctor I saw in a movie, prescribing Coca-Cola. Since alcohol was a medicine, it could be obtained from a pharmacy like Dufilho's during Prohibition. ("Have yeh got any brandy?" asked Hagrid. "Yeh know, fer medicinal purposes?")
After Dufilho, a physician owned the building, on whose second floor he set up his practice. His study has been recreated as an exhibit. Artifacts from his surgery, along with residential objects, discarded bottles of remedy, and a plethora of other items, were discovered by excavating a common place for historical peoples to dump their random trashy bits -- the toilet! (Also called the privy) These, too, are on display.
Thus, the intertwining of early pharmacy practice, surgery, general medical health care, and 19th century alcohol and drug culture is elucidated in this fascinating museum.
What does Dr. Dufilho's former haunt have to do with my interest in potions, or a silly vignet on a dour wizard chemistry teacher? For me, it's all connected. Pot, potus, potio, potion -- all come from the Latin potere, meaning "to drink". Here is where the science, art and, yes, magic of drinks and mixtures for all purposes intersects. With the right blend of ingredients, a beer or soda can be taken as a healing brew, a remedy can be enjoyed as a cocktail delicacy, and with the proper added intention, any drink or blend is transformed into a magickal potion: A powder can become a curse, a water or wine imbibed as a sacred communion with fairies or the Higher Powers.
That's why, if you crack open my own mighty handwritten tome, Potus, you'll find it all. Medicinal potistry and herbalism; beverage potistry, like beer, mead and hard cider; traditional or magickal potistry; theurgical or sacred potistry. As a woman who always loved science, art, and magick, I've found that "potions" as we know them in the real world is one of several wonderful ways to combine these passions.
Healing, meanwhile, adds to these the magick of the human body and soul, and our connection to plants and the greater Life-source of Earth's energy-body. Science again: As in Physics, we like everything else are simply energy. The crafting of a bottle of potion is like combining notes (in Perfumery, you even call the scents "notes"!), which you add to your body's existing symphony -- hopefully, of a harmonic nature.
So it is that by researching topics like these, I deepen my understanding of what I refer to as "Potistry", and everything that remotely falls inside its fascinating umbrella. In doing so, I feel I draw ever closer to the subtle, exquisite craft practiced by the character of Severus Snape, who so inspired me during a time of great difficulty and spiritual searching.
But I also, piece by piece, trick by technique, learn about our collective history as a species, and how we have evolved our relationship to the Universe and each other through the arts of healing and magick -- out of the past, and into this present day, by one of the most direct routes: drink. Outside Dufilho's apothecary museum, garden beds hold wormwood, sage, rue, and other precious herbs . . . ingredients used from before the time of herbal master and abbess Hildegard von Bingen, yet which have passed through my own fingers and down my throat as healing remedies.
Snape may be fictional, but the archetypes so powerfully channeled by him are, most definitely, not. And like the Master casting free the student on their own quest, Snape-as-inspiring-Animus has sent me out into the world -- both physical and cyber -- to learn all I can about, not fantasy, but the real and genuine craft of the Potion.
The thought that one day I could walk into a real apothecary like Dufilho's and know all, not just some, of what I'm looking at is immensely thrilling. There's also a kind of desperate yet ecstatic joy in realizing that I will never, can never, know it all; that there is just too much to know. There's always more to learn, and that possibility lends to me a sort of obsession, not a damaging type of obsession but a rich, joyful kind. As a journey, this craft has lots of interesting turns, challenges and diversions . . . and plenty of sightseeing.
One question does remain: Whether I will find, as the poem I wrote mentions, "a soulmate with whom my craft to share" -- a person as nutty as me, who doesn't mind my weird mad scientist's lab, or my art, or other odd professions.
But, really: Would you say no to a partner who can brew beer, cider, wine, sodas, love potions, and a remedy for that darned chest cough you keep getting? Even if, once in a blue moon, she does spontaneously turn into her old master Snape, greasy black hair and all?
C'monn.
You know you wanna try this stuff.
And so, with happiness, I repeat:
"There is work to be done!"
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