Change of Scene

For never leaving town, it's been an era of great transition in my life. First, I lived in a single apartment for eight years while I went through jobs the way Ms. Zabini went through men; then, when I'd found somewhat reliable, recurring work at Widmer/Redhook that I could take or leave as needed and where my fellow employees didn't drive me insane with fake niceties, I began getting shufted from one living situation to another like an unwanted stray pet, so that any savings I made were gulped up each time by moving.
 It's gotten plain tiring!

I requested a whole month off work to be able to accomplish all the tasks I still wish to do before, and while, I also take care of the tedious business of moving. This week, I could barely get out of bed before work. I managed a few small creative endeavors, but didn't touch my lab. My Road Opening magick, to my shame, fell by the wayside. When all you do is sleep, commute, eat, work, and try to get your breathing pattern back to normal before copping out to sleep again, it's hard to get much else accomplished. I woke groaning in bed, feeling only the ghostly caresses of Severus as solace, unable to roll out onto the rug until the last moment, and most times had to literally "fuck myself up" in the morning. What kind of life is that? I have projects to make, at least two events to prep for . . . a life to live . . .

A low rent payment in this house has made possible a wee bit of savings; enough to take a trip. Since I keep being uprooted, why not pack a bag and take my work on the road --- or go where new and untasted work, or at least scenery, beckons? I have some experience now. I will come visit your country, help you garden, make medicine, build a wall, work wool, and yes, brew beer.

Today was my last day, for now, at Widmer/Redhook, or Craft Brew Alliance, as it's now known. I never imagined, first as a kid collecting Redhook caps and then as a collegiate who noticed the tall neon Widmer sign in club windows, that I'd be spending a few years in work there. I'll admit there are far worse jobs. I've worked far worse jobs, which is why I kept coming back, even as a mere temp, and stayed. And, they'd probably take me back after my leave. But with my move impending, I need to focus on launching this next phase to the best of my ability.

One of the most beautiful parts of the depalletizer setup: the multi-speed belt assembly of the "combiner"

Hours, days, weeks go by at a place like this, while you tune out the deafening roar of thousands of glass vessels and the tumble of conveyors, passing hours on a smartphone or book. But in the final minutes of this final day, I paused to enjoy the elegant, serpentine river of glittering amber glass as it flowed along the belt, on its way to market, then to deliver beer to buyers. I grounded, drew up energy from the Earth and energy down from the stars, the way I basically never do at work. Maybe I should. Practicing on-the-spot grounding, meditation, and magick is a good idea, because that's usually where you are: In the middle of life. I felt the energy flow through my heart, then concentrate in my hands. Then I held my hands out over the bottles, brushing the tops of them, walking along the belt. Trailing twinkling fairy lights of intention.
 "I want everyone who drinks this beer to feel happiness."
 One last blessing, at a factory making one of the most commonly consumed "potions" in this city, Portland, perhaps the USA's chief founding hub of craft beer.

 There's a small pang that comes with any change. Even when I badly need a break, even as emotionally rough as I felt yesterday. Will I miss the hours spent in easy work, encircled by the river of glass?

 Five til ten o'clock. Almost quitting time. I sniffed, aware of an unusual, acrid stench. Like when I use strong peroxide on my hair. It got a bit hard to breathe. Were they running caustic cleaner through the lines?
 Fuck it, I was off, up to the break room. The spell was broken!

 Ammonia leak!
 This, I'd never in my four years encountered this. The quality assurance lab person told me the building would soon be evacuated! Everywhere the air started to grow acrid, except for the break room, in which I took refuge with the others while awaiting the light-rail home. Now the spell was really broken!
 Flee, flee, my voices said. Go find that next phase, in a healthy place, with your heart's best work. Only come crawling back here if you have to, they're going nowhere fast!
 Clement the black forklift-driver gave me a quick bro-hug at the train stop. "Good workin' with ya," he said. "Who knows, this place might have a new name by the time you come back, the way things are going!"
 Then we boarded separate trains in opposite directions, me toting one last free 12-pack of Longboard Lager.

 Today's feeling goes with what I've learned over the course of this era in my life. Corporations come and go, and the system as a whole isn't necessarily your friend (although people can be, when they allow themselves to think and feel outside of what the system tells them to). The best life overall is lived by trusting your instincts; by knowing what changes to make, and when, in order to grow. Like a snake shedding skins, embracing change with grace is part of a well-crafted life.

Not a Nightmare, but . . . . .

Introducing... the Planetometer!

It's a machine I've wanted to create since I first heard of it late last year, but its complexity is beyond me at this time.

The Antikythera Mechanism, despite being not wholly accurate, still managed through the use of dozens of gears to track the movements of the planets in the sky around Earth, even taking their retrogrades into account. It was a brilliant piece of engineering, assumed to be invented or at least improved by Archimedes. It also pointed to the importance of the planets and stars to civilizations preceding ours, beyond merely reading our weekly astrology predictions.

Even those of us who desire to go beyond checking out the future of our zodiac signs in the Portland Mercury or Daily Gripe, who want to track the movement of stars and planets for magickal workings, and perhaps to plan our entire year, now have the vast resource of the Internet for our perusal. We no longer need a brass gear with 223 teeth to predict the next eclipse; a single website with a chart, pulled up by smart-phone, can tell us where Jupiter is and if it just went into retrograde. I am positive there are now amazing apps for professional astrologers, that show the whole celestial sphere along with its symbols and aspects at one click.

I, however, have not yet downloaded one of these apps (the closest I came was an app that displays the face of the Prague Astronomical Clock at preset times). I'm also a fan of hands-on material creativity, of learning by doing. This past year I've been exploring astrology with increasing focus, attempting to learn what each of the planets influence in different signs and aspects to one another, and it's a lot!

I'm also a visual person: A mere chart of symbols and numbers is challenging for me to visualize, until I learn their relationships in space and time. It's like trying to imagine the spacial movement of time on a round clock face, when you've only seen a digital clock, only more so --- you may be able to logic it out, but it's harder to "feel" those relationships.

Astrologers used to draw charts, I'm sure, with the twelve signs and houses of thirty degrees each, the angles and planets, and lines between showing squares and trines and so forth. (Reminds me of our Geology orienting studies.) When I first encountered my own birth chart as a teenager, my astrologer friend --- still my friend --- was already figuring the chart on a computer program, then printing it out on what was likely an ancient, dot-matrix printer; years later, I cut out the chart on its white paper and glued it into my book of shadows.

But even a chart is static, a strange language of lines, symbols, numbers. Somehow, I wanted to learn astrology more effectively by seeing the planets move. And I didn't want a cyber-solution, one more reason to be glued to my smart-phone looking at an app, the way I am this very moment. I wanted a real-world device. I wanted an Antikythera Mechanism.

As I said, despite my research, such a mechanism is currently beyond me due to time, tools, money and living situation alike. I'm no master clockmaker. But just as I could feasibly make an astrolabe or villaluna, I could make the dial portion of a celestial zodiac chart --- i.e. "planetometer" or astroloscope --- and set it by hand, the way you do a rotary calendar. As for the numbers, or ephemera, those can be found on the Internet, with little trouble.

What I envision for this project, then, is a kind of rough astrology "chart" that, rather than being drawn out, is formed simply by turning hands on a dial to current planetary signs and angles. It's less a detailed, down-to-the-minute-of-a-degree professional astrology readout than a daily, at-a-glance tool: "Oh right, today the Moon is in... and Jupiter is... which makes it a good day to be mindful of..."

My hope is that repeated iterations and uses of such a tool will lead me to grow increasingly aware of the astrological subtleties discussed in some of the sites I visit, such as Hare-in-the-Moon or Conscious Reminder, and thus begin to make my own predictions ...which I then can test against the knowledge of a professional. Research, try, compare: It's how I learned to formulate herbal potions, after all!

So, how to make this thing? As I've been plotting for months regarding the making of an astrolabe, the first step seemed obvious: Get myself some sheet metal. Preferably brass or bronze, as used in many instruments of old. This proved harder than I'd anticipated . . . There were no pieces large enough at the hardware stores, even if they'd been a reasonable price. Then again, I first decided to begin with a test-piece, anyway. An old round metal spice-box lid from Scrap would do!

At the same store, I got a few small thin copper shapes, originally sold for crafts. These would do for making the planet pointers. I'd need ten pointers --- eleven if you included the proto-planet Chiron, who's been in Aries (and the news) lately, and I did want to include it: Like Chiron, I have a wounded-healer faculty. A few nights ago, I cut and sanded the copper shapes into pointers. Each pointer was carefully shaped so the planet signs would be staggered, in case of a conjuction.

A couple nights later, I stamped the names of each planet on with steel stamps. Finally, last night I drilled holes, then painted on the planets and their signs with oil paints (more durable than acrylic). Today I got the correct size of brass screws, which I mis-sized yesterday --- even as I told Hal, an old coworker at the hardware store I once worked at, goodbye for what may be the last time. His last day was today. Like me, he is ready to move on with life. I offered him my best easy-yet-sincere, uplifing gift: chocolate.


What's next?
 I've asked myself that more than once today. For this project, the answer is pretty simple: Print out one of these beautiful zodiac dials, add degrees to get as precise as I can, screw on the pointers --- in order, of course --- and start using my new tool for daily astrology divinings! If the test version brings giod results, I'll make a better and more rugged one. With its info-crammed dial and thick stack of hands, I imagine the final product to sort of resemble an overgrown pocketwatch, except it functions more like a settable calendar. One day, though, if gears that small can be made. . . . .

It was a very odd watch. It had no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he said, "Hagrid's late."

In my excitement over the Antikythera Mechanism, I'd forgotten this detail from Book One. But planetary time is nothing new, especially for mages and alchemists! I'll be joining you shortly, Albus.

Creative Abandon: Full Moon Potter Rave

We had a full moon in Pisces on the 26th, which apparently was a good time to unleash creative energy and interact in new social ways. Last Friday night, I did a bit of both.

Must be a Slytherin. . . .

I loved this house, and this old green couch; the couch, at least, needs repairs

Two Potter-related "wizard" events happened this weekend: a rave dance party, which I went to, and a pub crawl, which I didn't. For one thing, I'd be going alone --- I hadn't scraped up any friends. I figured at the rave, I could watch the live acts and dance and still have fun, but a pub crawl? That struck me as the sort of thing you only want to do with friends: It was a pub tour combined with some online app trivia contest, costume contest, sorting hat whatever. . . .

There are fans. And, there are legits. My real friends know which one I am. There is, "Hey, let's get dressed up in costumes we bought, and buy themed drinks, and do trivia and see if we can win the souvenir wand set, it'll be fun." Then there is: "I bind my own books, sew my own robes, carve my own wands, work real hexes, read the fucking stars, don't need to prove my trivia knowledge because I know already how damned good I am, and I can brew a dozen potions that will kill you. Say, I'm free later this week . . . wanna go out for a drink?"
 Get the idea?
There's a bunch of fun-loving, douchey young Muggles dressed up; then there's that, "Hey, that's a good Snape --- wait a minute, is that real?"
 Kind of a party pooper, aren't I.

Yet I'm not. Friday night proved, to my satisfaction, I can still bust it out with the best of them.

Switching to swing shift can be tricky if you have evening activities. I got off my week's last shift and rode home antzily on the bus. After hurrying to get ready in my Snape clothes and missing the No. 72 bus by seconds, I grabbed my bike, shouted "Fuck you, Universe, outta my way!" and raced the bus, wearing black at night on a bike with no lights like a total bloody madwoman, to 42nd Street, where I caught the No. 75 instead of missing my connection. There were two bikes on the front already, but the driver let me bring mine aboard. I don't care what house she's in, it gets fifty points!

The line for the rave was long out the door. But the wait became considerably shorter when I began chatting and joking with the people next to me in line. Yes, they were young and a bit douchey, but Snape had a couple of, ahem, potions before setting out, and had another right there in line --- one of the benefits of wearing bottles on one's costume! Just in case the doormen checked me, I downed my small cargo of port. "Hey Snape, what kind of potions you got for us?" one guy asked. I held up an empty vial, swayed theatrically and told him, "You're too late!"

Several of my fellow waiters, a trio of young men, had outrageous accents. It was hard to know who was "faking Brit" or not, and it turned out they were genuine, red-passport-carrying Irishmen! Then we were all in, and I was on tip-boots trying to see over the dense crowd.

At the rave:

All eyes on the Dark Lord

. . . .or else!

It was clearly a LGBTQ-friendly event, which I am glad to see going strong. The live acts were silly, sexy lip-synch cosplay performances of characters, including Myrtle, Hagrid, Hermione and Bellatrix; the last was a seven-foot-tall crossdresser in amazing makeup and frizzy black wig, a fearsome drag-queen whose rapid act was nothing less than insane (as fitted Bellatrix!). But the final act took the cake: a deliciously terrifying female Voldemort who (from what I could tell) sat on someone and wand-whipped him to 'Say my Name', until the crowd was shrieking and laughing. Her white-veined head makeup, as with the Bellatrix actor, was fantastic.

Lethally hot: a sort of dark kindred to my female Snape, a woman channeling Voldemort! We couldn't exactly kiss the hem of her/hir robes; I wasn't close enough in the crowd to see if anyone tried kissing anything else.

I don't actually go to many Potter events; not since the movies. I've never been to any Cons (conventions, i.e. ComicCon, KumoriCon). I'd certainly never been to an event quite like this.

The live acts ended, then it was everywizard for her'imself as the dance party resumed. My newly-made wand served well on one guy's backside, and glow-sticks waved on all sides. Rarely has Snape been seen to freak-dance so well; and I saw no other Snapes there: many folks weren't even of a specific character. But Snape doesn't dress to dance like that, and I got very sweaty very quickly. This would be one time Snape washed his robes!

I hadn't grind-danced in nearly a decade, of the sort I'd done in college. But I certainly did that night, after pairing up with a non-costumed fellow who turned out to be as surprisingly considerate of my comfort as he was willing to push the edge of our moves --- if I could rewind to the end of the night, I'd actually thank him more articulately. He had the treat of mutually arousing dance with the great Severus; and while such dance isn't easy when the parts you want to grind are draped with wands and bottles and belt-pouches and more bottles, Snape is a master for a reason, and managed perfectly well, thank you.
 Severus, you wicked thing, you!

Genuine Irish Gryffindor song and chivalry (well, Katie's not Irish).

Who are these people? I still don't know, but that guy on the right looked a helluva lot like Rupert Grint's brother.

Salty bum!

Irish bloke does white-trash American

For some reason, I was reluctant to ride home; I kept chatting with the little group I'd met while waiting, as they debated their path onward outside. It turned out the house of one of the Irish boys, Alex, was right over on Clinton Street. Well? I had my bike. So I took a chance on them and hung out at their place a couple more hours, and made a few acquaintances, at one point donning a silly wig that looked like the spawn of Bellatrix and Captain Hook, parrot included. New friend Katie invited me to the ComicCon --- next weekend, as it is.

Things got wild quickly. Gryffindors, it seems  will ride anything, including each other.

"Um, Bellatrix. . . .?" Put a bird on it! The most feasible item I could find for myself in the "you gotta wear something" box. The parrot sold me. . . .

. . . .but it didn't want to stay put.

 After a nicer-than-expected ride home on empty streets under a fat yellow moon, I nestled gratefully into bed about 6:15 a.m., into the waiting arms of my black-haired animus.

This is a rare type of event for me, as it was for another gal at our little post-party. But it was fun, cost me little (thanks to my instinct and sense of caution, besides financially), and served to stir the cauldron of my life with a little extra spice and make some memories.

 Having been into magic and sorcery since before Potter, I walk in a weird space. Can I remember "witchy" stuff before HP came out? Yes, I can: I'm old enough, and thank Gods for that. I remember before it took possession of anything and everything "magical", or at least tried to. There's a clear difference between real magehood and the dorky pseudo-magic, stereotypical wizard-slash-frat kid culture of Harry Potter in a context like this, at a themed party. The line blurs elsewhere, though, thanks to how many things the Potter series borrowed and appropriated --- it's nearly inescapable at this point, so that you might be fine in public in merely a witch's pointy hat; but if you're seen packing a quill, or broom, you might have to start fielding comments because the HP shit is so culturally ubiquitous. I'm thinking your best bet for that, besides shirking obvious House affiliations or merchandise, is to wear a big, blatant pentagram. Nobody in the Potter series wears one of those. And maybe an equally big pair of headphones . . . the kind that scream: Don't bother me, don't ask me stupid questions; I'm a real mage, and I am fucking serious.
 But for a night like this, there's no harm in getting into the spirit, and loosening all that uptight, student-of-Magistery-for-life seriousness with a little abandon.

The Final Burn

Summer: It's supposed to be that season you like, as conditioned by the school year. Sun and beaches and skimpy clothes and street fairs and yay.

However, after weeks of temperatures in the 90s, even 100s, here in Stumptown a lot of us are pining for gray days and air that isn't hard to breathe in.

I have only marginal energy for things like street fairs when I'm as blasted by heat as we've been. One of my buddy's co-workers plain got heat stroke and passed out on the job, leaving my buddy to employ his fortuitous medical knowledge, then clock back in, leaving him jittery on adrenaline and stressed afterward.

It would be great if all I had to do was lay on a beach and be bored, but I have to work --- lately, in an un-air-conditioned factory. Before long, I'm understandably longing for a dungeon like Snape's to closet myself in. The closest I've come is putting space reflector cloth over my two skylights at home, and letting the AC run nonstop, kicking on and off as it deems fit.

Harder for many to bear than the heat, though, is the smoke. This happened last year, too: With so many consecutive dry days, California and Oregon caught fire. Thousands of acres burned, and ash rained down on Portland; I recall lifting a hand and actually catching ashes in my palm, my heart hurting for the countless trees that were lost to the flames. It's going on again now. Possibly less severe than last year, especially in our region, where the largest fire was started accidentally by a young dunderhead (and all it takes is one), but not by much, it still has people coughing on the smoke pouring in from Washington State.

Air quality warnings have been issued, ours being nearly the worst in the nation right now. I'm fairing all right despite the smoke, but others are suffering noticeably. Some days, the sunlight is golden even at midday, like a lamp through agate, and a fat red sun hovers above the horizon long before sunset. The sun looks kind of pretty that way, but what it indicates isn't.

Conditions as they are, it's not a time to skimp on our most precious of potions, but to indulge and be grateful. Laughing, I wonder: Where did this come from? Is it a joke or not? Well, if water can be burned, it can be dehydrated, right? In any case, it takes more water to reconstitute this here!

All things pass, and if we're lucky (and interpret our forecast correctly), the final burn of summer is on its way out tomorrow: Temperatures are supposed to drop into the 70s, then the 60s, followed by a few days of rain. We can only hope. Not only the trees and plants will be cheering!

We humans may be part of the problem, but wildfires are natural. Yet it doesn't mean they don't cause a lot of suffering. I feel as much for the animals who are either trapped by the blaze, or sent scrambling through human-inhabited areas as they flee what used to be their home. Even the humblest of deaths, such as this image that's been making the Internet rounds lately, brings tears to my eyes:

This snake's defiance in the face of certain doom is both heartrending and empowering. How many other creatures are forced, sometimes needlessly by us, into this position? The image offers a powerful takeaway message:
 Don't rush in recklessly brave to the point of stupidity (that's for Gryffindors). But when all is lost, go down with your tail up and your fangs out!

Post-note: There's a buzz on that the federal government is thanking the wildfires for clearing a path for the proposed trans-mountain oil pipeline. Am I the first to say: "Um, excuse me but . . . barf?" Or hiss, or gag, or SPEW? How many more ass-whippings will it take us to learn? This week we're lamenting the passing of Aretha Franklin, and worrying with due cause about the demise of respect, as well. Her soul sista Tina reminded us --- as I couldn't help but recall during that idiot dystopian craze ---- that we don't need another hero, another golden idol (sorry, Potter), but rather to cooperate and empathize; and we sure as hell do not need another damned pipeline! It's not even our entire species. Not all cultures or nations were as clueless, wasteful, or in denial as much as ours. With the worst government in the history of a society that was already greedy, callous and disconnected from Nature from its inception thanks to Western patriarchy, I think it's time to re-grease the hair and dig out the black hats.

Slytherin Aesthetics

My logical mind tells me I probably shouldn't be buying too much more stuff, as I have to move by October 1st. Mediating mind suggests it's perfectly okay to buy more stuff, if I make room in my storage unit by ditching stuff that no longer feeds my spirit or lifestyle.

Slytherin visceral / survival / emotional reptile mind says: "Grab it now, while you see the opportunity, so you can integrate it into your nest later. You don't know if you'll find another like it."

While it's not necessarily true that an item is unique and I'll never spot its twin, or something even better, it's also true I have the urge to nest, to create an aesthetic in my home centered around what I like looking at . . . even as my house is being shunted out from under me. Is that any reason to stop longing, planning, storing up, or grabbing goodies of opportunity? Reptile mind says no. One day, it suggests, I will have a less transitory nest . . . or more pertinently, a nest is wherever and whenever you make it, permanent or not. After all, there are none of us permanent: Live the life now!

One of the strengths of the HP series was that it did draw on so many archetypes, styles, aesthetics, personalities and, for lack of a better term, vibes: i.e. moods, colors, emotions. There is an aura that hovers around our ideas of what represents Slytherin House, for example. I feel the photo above captures the better end of that spectrum well, including Old-World elegance, even decadence; mystique; territorial comfort; wealth, of an inherited-mansion variety; distinction in quality; and passion. All this is in addition to general feelings and imagery we tend to default to about what is "witchy".

Of course, you may not be a rich Slytherin; you may be a moderately poor (like me) or even dead-arse broke Slytherin, yet still be drawn to those aesthetics. One of the ways I entertain my sense of taste, yet remain moderately broke instead of going dead-arse broke, is thrift-shopping. How many times have I seen witches on social media asking for tips for "broke witches"! Yes, the magick is all inside you, but, but, but . . .
 "I want stuff!"

Reclaim-It is a store near my (current) home that specializes in retrieving and selling stuff originally bound for the landfill. I was in the other day --- What the hell was I in there for? Oh yeah, jumper cables --- and, while I nixxed out on jumper cables, I found other goodies. A cauldron stand, finally! A over-fire hanging hook (cauldrons again; Damn you, Severus, you've possessed my soul). And, this brass beauty: It was being used as a stand for some ceramic fountain doodad, but I thought: "That's a candle-holder ring, maybe for a holiday wreath. And, it's mine."

A few lengths of chain from the building surplus shop, plus some green candle stubs from the craft surplus shop --- get the idea? I know this town's cheap corners --- and, voila!! I got busy with the pliars, and soon had a decent Slytherinish chandelier. It needs a bit of work: It's cockeyed, though that only lends to its old, manky-mansion-full-of-doxies charm.

I just had to light it right then. Delicious! Candles require care, of course, being a fire hazard. NO unattended manor candles. After I tweak this, add better chains, drip catchers, etc., it wouldn't be much more to find old chandelier crystals at a surplus or antique shop, and take my D.I.Y. creation further, up to true elegance . . . though perhaps not of Malfoy calibre. (But let's see Lucius try to wrangle a pair of those pliars, let alone two pair at once!)

With all other room lights off, I just looked at my little chandelier, then at the rest of my small living space. It was sobering, actually. Even at quintuple candle-power, my room was pretty dim. I reminded myself: This is all people used to have for light. No electricity, until our species' yesterday, really. No fluorescents, no LEDs, not even a lousy Edison-Swan energy hog of a bulb. We are quite fortunate today. Still, it takes but one candle to keep total darkness at bay.

 As for Hogwarts? It must be pretty dim, especially in winter. Having just made candles, and found it to be excessively tedious (granted, I'm not set up for it, factory-style), I can only assume Hogwarts has litters of candles, and magically replenishing, too! No wonder the Potions blackboard is nearly illegible.

Class in Session: 8.18.18 8:18 --- Potion Candles

  The oily drip, drip of candlewax was particularly soothing, for he was in the dungeon hideout making candles. The tapers dipped of their own accord into a wooden vat of hot wax over which they had been levitated. They weren't ordinary candles, of course: The hot wax had been imbued with some powerful potions and spells.
  He should be studying for his OWLs and not making candles, but it was a fascinating new aspect of potion-making that recently had him enthralled; and besides, he would be paid in galleons –- quite a few of them -- for this particular batch of candles. . . .

  She noticed the candles immediately. They were scarlet tapers, hanging by their wicks over a vat of solidified wax.
  Candle-making? That was something Lily associated with home crafts and such-like; but knowing Severus, they would not be as innocent as they looked. . . .

  "I see you've been making candles," Lily said, more to break the silence than anything else.
  He glanced over at the batch of scarlet tapers. "So it seems," he said succinctly. "They're special, of course."
  "How 'special'?" she said, the note of doubt in her voice unmistakeable, "Oh, you're using this book, aren't you?" She pulled one out from the pile called Magical Candles. Opening it randomly, she found herself looking at a Chapter titled Poisoned Candles. She almost dropped the book.
  "Is this what you're doing?" she asked hoarsely, feeling a cold dread clench around her heart. She should have known!

  "Always quick to jump to such conclusions, aren't you?" Severus answered, his eyes glaring at her darkly from beneath lowered brows. "No, I'm not making poisoned candles. The ones over there have been commissioned by a seventh-year for his own use, actually, so they're definitely not poisoned."
  "I – I'm sorry, Sev. But with your fascination for such stuff . . . and I know you could be expelled for preparing poisons! If the rumours about Sirius's cousin, Bellatrix, are true, she was almost expelled for trying to poison –"
  "But I do find them fascinating, very fascinating!" Severus cut across her jumbled apology rather harshly, as though to make it quite clear that he would not hear anything more against it. "They combine the properties of Potion-making with that of enchantments, but unlike a normal potion, their effect is not instantaneous: It is slower, more insidious, lasting as long as the candle burns. . . ."
  His voice grew lower, more intense, as he described his new-found magical interest, and she found herself drawn to its deep, velvety quality, and the barely-suppressed excitement born of new discoveries that she could never resist. . . .

"They're not all poisoned, Lily: And whatever the effect they produce, you'd never think of blaming something as innocuous as a candle, unless you expressly know of its presence in the room. The candle flame would just release the potion, slowly but surely, and you would breath it in, and then. . . ."
  He placed his hands on the desk, leaning closer, his intense dark eyes holding her spell-bound.
  ". . . .and then you start feeling the effects, so slowly you are not aware of it at first. The ingredients are fascinating. . . ."

--- from Lily and the Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 133

We don't often think of candles and potions together.

Buckland's Candle Magick and similar books detail how to use candles in spells, paired with tools like annointing oils, sigils, and pure intention; Aromatherapy or scented candles and their recipes abound. More rarely, dried herbs, crystals and the like are directly incorporated into candles. Occasionally, I find this type on the market: a few of these contain just a few "magical" ingredients but are sold for $20 or more apiece under some catchy woo brand name. Please. Magic hour, my ass. More like empty wallet.

This excerpt, from one of my two all-time favorite fan fiction pieces, elucidates more closely how I view this craft: That a candle, prepared a certain way, is a type of "frozen potion" . . . for good, or ill. In Chamber of Secrets, we heard --- for the first and last time --- a brief reference to poisoned candles in Knockturn Alley. (So many twists and possibilities went unexplored, thanks to subsequent reams of angsty drivel and typical schoolkid idiocy! Thank goodness for fan fiction! And for Snape himself, whose point of view tends to be less, well, doofus!) This fic simply expanded that theme, be it fair or foul, at the hands of a young Severus Snape.

Long before this, however, I had designs on unusual or "special" candles. Years ago, some old book I'd found led me to try my hand at making candles with colored flames, as much for kicks and mood as for magick (and subsequently weathering my parents' snarky comments).

Thanks to the Internet, this information is easily available compared to that day long ago, when I stirred copper salts I'd nicked from my college Geochemistry lab into the simmering wax. The results weren't too impressive; a few had flames that sparked and stuttered a faint green, but I'd been hoping for something a little more, well, flamboyant. Many years would pass before I made candles again, perhaps because they're a bit involved (and, I can be lazy).

Like Sev's candles, mine were slightly poisonous, but only due to their copper compounds rather rhan intentionally. Want to make a poisoned candle? Try sulfur! Pure sulfur melts and burns with a gorgeous blue flame; it'll also take your breath away, with no extra curses needed.

Sulfur candles were once used more frequently to fumigate buildings of pest bugs. Advanced Potistry assignment? Combine the right mix of essential oils to mask the rotten-egg reek of sulfur, thereby disguising its presence when burning. . . .
Add a good hex, and you're all set! Not for sale to under-seventeens. Yes, I admit, I'm a Slytherin.

Again on the Internet, there's lots of advice about how to make magickal candles, how to incorporate different herbs, stones, oils, and so forth. (Typical combinations on the Web seem to center on the Four Elements, the Chakras, or common worldly goals like love and money.) That basic kenning, fortunately, is something I already have under my belt. Once you get a feel for how various colors, oils, herbs, planetary movements, and stones correspond to each other, and have a good set of crafty talents that you know how to adapt well (cooking, cutting, carving, mixing, sculpting, re-purposing, measuring, estimating, timing, a sense of when and how to add different materials together to "engineer" a project or goal, etc. etc. etc.), you can focus on the magick itself --- both before the "jump-off" moment, and during the making or cooking of the project.

So it was, circumstances favored my making candles once more. I'd amassed a stash of both herbs and oils. I'd gathered some discount wicking and wax from Scrap. Finally, I had a fortuitous set of times to work with: Palindrome week, specifically the date 8/18/18, and no less than seven planets in retrograde --- a good energy for going inward, reviewing, and rewriting life changes. One problem I've noticed with this planetary spirit-work and astrology spell stuff is that you've got a nice day, but you have to work, and the Moon's only in Aries for like two days, and then Uranus is making a trine to... and... and... and...

As I see it, candles are a convenient tool for addressing this, because as with an alcohol-based or other preserved potion, they don't go "bad". Their energy might get a little stale after, oh, years; but they can retain the properties and celestial alignments with which they were made, until they are burned. For this application, less than for a tea or tincture, a candle is ideal for "freezing" a particular energy or time, so you can revisit it later for future work. In this case, I was aiming for "higher" life-path magick, of a type like spiritual alchemy. But there's no reason you couldn't make a more prosaic, pragmatic, results-here-and-now sort of candle --- the way Severus did!

And so I began my work. Grabbing all my materials, I hauled ass downstairs and set up about the kitchen stove. I wanted to use my pendulum, to divine ingredients, but there's a problem when you live in an AirBnb --- guests. Two girls were working at the kitchen island, and while they were sweet and friendly, I didn't want to appear all Fullmetal Potion Master in front of them; I had no issue making candles in their presence, but, if only to avoid diluting my own power, I chose to keep the magickal nature of my work on the down-low . . . and a pendulum certainly does appear "woo".

It took awhile for the wax to melt, using a tin can as a rudimentary (and disposable, due to messiness) double boiler. Hey, I said I brewed potions in a tin-can, alley cat style!! I ended up with a hybrid beeswax-parafin-soya wax mix, because frankly, that's what my budget begat --- beeswax is expensive. I'm saving a larger, pure chunk of beeswax in case I make salves or ointments; whereas candles, not being used on the body, can be made of recycled wax, or stuff that's a little grunge.

Meanwhile, I chose and finely-cut my herbs. Just by instinct; I figured it's actually good to go with the gut sometimes, and not get too reliant on a pendulum. Alas, no mortar and pestle, either --- mine are packed. This herb blend I set aside. Pure reasoning told me to leave a large wax core in the candles, then add the herbs toward the outermost dipped layers. I couldn't make too many candles, due to limited wax. And dipped tapers are, let's face it, tedious. I settled on eight, or four pairs, with a pair per wick.

Herbal Powder Blend, 8.18.18 Candles

1/2 teaspoon Rose petals, i.e. rose, sunflower petal et. al. Potpourri mix (from art class), cut to tiny pieces
1/2-1 tsp. Mugwort
1/4-1/2 tsp. White Sage
1 tsp. Perovskia (Russian Sage)
1/8 tsp. (or a dash) Opoponax resin
1 pinch - 1 dash Asafoetida
1/4 tsp. Wisteria, or a few petals cut to tiny pieces
1/8-1/4 tsp. Hornet Nest paper, cut or torn to small pieces
  If no mortar and pestle, place in bowl, then grind and mix for awhile with fingers, enchanting blend as you do so.

With the base wax melted (and extra wax to add as the pool in the tin can depleted), I began to dip. The wicks had to be straightened the first few times, and I cooled them each time in a glass pan of cold water, then dried them. A wax mass formed, golden-colored like the beeswax, which suited my Sun-and-Mercury-in-Leo, ego-reprogramming magickal goals just fine. Layer by layer, the "infant" candles began to grow thicker. . . .

A few layers in, I added a blend of oils, drop by drop into the wax. I selected them on a basis of scent, celestial association, and numerology. I included two oil blends, as well, due to my phase in life and spiritual work: my retrograde Capricorn banishing and cleansing oil I made some weeks previously, and the Road Opener blend I bought at Moonshadow.

Oil Blend, 8.18.18 Potion Candles

5 drops Vetivert
5 drops Lime
5 drops Rose
4 drops Cinnamon
4 drops Tangerine
3 drops Banishing blend
1 drop Red Dragon Road Opener blend
  Note: These add up to 27 drops, a power number. My basic candle formula suggests 10-20 drops of oil.

I stirred the wax well, then started dipping again, periodically monitoring the stove's gas flame. If a candle started getting lumpy, I smoothed it out by rolling it on a piece of parchment paper. I also trimmed the candles' bases, where excess drips built up.

Finally it was time for the herbs. I didn't want to add them to the wax. Instead I dumped the powdery, piquant mixture from its bowl and spread it out evenly on the parchment paper. Then I dipped each candle a good long one and --- quickly, before the wax hardened --- rolled it in the mixture. After the herb roll, I gave each candle a further roll on the parchment paper to press the herbs into the wax and smooth it out.

As in the photos, I now had candles coated in a powdery, tattered blanket of herbal material. This comes off easily, so a few more coats of wax seemed a good idea. The wax can was low again, so now I added more --- except, I added some pinky-red chunks of wax, plus a handful of small, concentrated red wax dye pellets. This turned the batch a warm peach color, again suited to the magick I was working.

When this fresh batch had all melted and integrated, I began dipping again, starting with one quick, careful dip to seal in the herbs --- I didn't want them all falling off in my wax can. The above photo shows bare herbed candles next to candles with the first of these sealing coats on, and thus just a hint of peachy overtint.

I continued to add a few, literally four or so, more coats of wax, leading to the increasingly peach-colored hue of the candles: Three stages of this are shown above. More care and parchment-rolling (due to drips) were needed as the candles grew in girth; soon I had to tip the can as I dipped, for the wax diminished quickly. The process smelled delicious, though, and it was a pleasure to witness the candles evolve. When I felt the candles not only had the herbs properly sealed in but were also fat enough, I stopped dipping.

Dipped tapers can take a loooong time. When I finished, and our sweet guests had finished making their commemorative trail-running video (so cute! Go girls!) and peeked over to admire my work while on their last nighttime toilet runs, three hours had gone by; Magic Moment 8/18/18 at 8:18 p.m. had slipped unnoticed, but not unplanned, into the candles, likely when I was mixing and stirring in the oils. This was also an eleven day in Numerology, and 11:11 probably came and went while I fussed with the coats of herbal powder. So much work, for eight candles! With my current setup, they're not cost-effective; but I did it for personal magick and experimentation, not profit.

It's also worth noting that because the process of dipping tapers requires a deep reservoir of wax, I had wax left over --- quite a bit. I'd planned ahead for this, too. Along with the wax and wicks and other junk from Scrap, I'd bought a used ice-cube tray, which I cleaned and greased with olive oil beforehand. When I was finished, I poured the tin can out into the tray, making perfect little reserve cubes of enchanted wax! Even if I run out of my special candles, I've got a stash of wax in the hole.

Both times I've made candles, I've done dip tapers. It occurs to me that molded candles would be, like, thirty times quicker to make, and I wouldn't have to deal with the leftover wax reservoir problem; nor even the mess, such as I kept it to a minimum (though I'd probably still melt my wax in a tin can). All I'd have to do is melt and pour, maybe stir in some herbs or add an herby layer --- not dip, roll and cool for three hours.

But dip candles offer extra potential for enchantment because each layer, or group of layers, can be tailored differently --- be it inscribed with sigils, imbued with a planetary oil, spiked with an herbal blend and so on. The candle thus releases a sequence of enchantments as it burns. I suppose an alternative to dipping this type of candle is a multi-pour molded pillar, each layer imbued with different colors, herbs, or potions.

But what if you wanted to hide certain layers, colors, or powers until the candle burned down to that level, thus allowing the candle to work a sort of enchanted sneak-attack? Dipping that layer in the other colors, burying it in the middle, might be the way to engineer this candle. Or, you could somehow combine molding and dipping. I've already mentally invented one that burns through a whole mood-inducing and/or planetary progression . . . until it ends up in sulfur at the bottom. Because that's me, and now we're going out on an experimental limb, getting inventive and fancy, and possibly a little dangerous. Now, I'm thinking like one young Severus Snape.

So! With a finished creation in hand, what shall I do with these beautiful candles? Burn them, of course, but certainly not all at once. First I'll empower them, then I'll employ one when I revisit the work I want to explore more deeply. My last couple of summer weeks will no doubt be busy, and I'm not one to rush the magick --- especially if it's, well, deep spiritual stuff.