It sounds like a good name for a brick-and-mortar apothecary; although if I were to open my own, I'd probably go a little less cutesy and simply call it the Potion Master, for obvious reasons.
What is true is that the first two items of this post's title are the ones you have to really watch if you've only got a small space within which to work. Whenever I'm actively working with potions or herbs and I turn my back for what seems like a few minutes but is really a few days, my natural laboratory takes the opportunity to spread out of its allotted zone and across the floor, like some strange, creeping fungus.
Look at this place! What happened in here?! Well, I acquired some bottles and then I acquired some more, then some test tubes, then I had to wash them, and I absolutely am not restocking those crystals in their pouches until I note what they are, since they all lent their power to a particular potion and the recipe hasn't been committed to log yet. . . .
Things get out of hand quickly. Or maybe, I'm just facing my perennial problem again: not enough space.
Still, as gnarly as things sometimes get, I remind myself it could always be worse. I'll never, for example, suffer the agony of losing an entire palette of bottles across my lab or garage floor. A crate, maybe. A shelf of potion-filled vessels, if I'm really unlucky that day, or just dunderheaded.
Ideally, the craft of potions is allowed to grow as its practitioner does, where each type of material is granted its own space and ordering system. And this is a materials-intensive hobby-cum-career-cum-passion, or at least can become one very quickly. (I am grateful most of the tools and materials come more cheaply than those of, say, rock climbing.) But with a bit of effort, I've learned that even small spaces, a shelf, a windowsill, can be arranged into a pleasant, working mini-apothecary.
I love the idea of having the scent of hanging bundles of herbs and the familiar resource of ingredient bottles at hand, no matter where I choose to dwell. Nothing stinks like having precisely this type of headache, which you know can be relieved by this combination of herbs, only to find yourself saying, "D'oh! Out of stock!" or, "Crap! Storage unit!" Lately I've been thinking how much I do love Catnip and Damiana and just for how much I can use them, but that I can't use them for everything!
Not long ago I placed in fresh glass jars a collection of herbs I had previously stored in pouches, which is nice because then I can see them more easily. So the Catnip and Damiana and Oregon Grape went next to the codskins and alligator toes and a couple other weird things.
But I came up with the ultimate faux pas, which I've been meaning to correct for ages, and for which Snape would have my ass on toast in a handcart: unlabeled items!!! Fortunately, I know where I bought them, and a fairly good idea of what they are already, so it's not a serious travesty. But still! Horrors! If even one semi-powerful herb is in your collection, damn it, or unless you're just that good, labels are a really good idea.
Anytime one is working with a great many substances, especially to make magic or medicine, even a semblance of order helps to both speed up work, prevent mistakes, and keep you sane. Then the magic of scent and taste, oil and menstruum, formula and brew, can flow unimpeded, and the focus can be on creativity and intuition!
Wherever I go, there too seems to go my art stuff and my herbal lab. A little elbow grease, and my place will be organized again. Many of those supplies are for making a portable apothecary, about which I'm pretty excited. I also look forward to the new plants for foraging and medicine-making that come with the arrival of spring, even while parts of me are still lurking in a Snapeish, antisocial and hermitlike state of being.
I'm not looking forward to moving after next June, but I have to consider the bright side: Maybe I will manifest a place that's just as good, if not better, for facilitating the life I want to live, in all its creativity. A place where I have room for weaving words and pictures, and where jewel-bright vessels full of enchantment sit on the windowsill, infusing in the warmth of the sun.
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