Light of the Night: The First "Pennzoil"

More exquisite magic came in the mail yesterday . . . and the return address could not hint at it more appropriately.

Not that I'll be returning it. I will be giving this eBay seller a great review, however, since not only did he pack it so well, he relisted the item just for me, after a session-timeout hiccup prevented me from making a purchase.

Straight outta Oil City, PA, this small bottle of bona fide crude comes from the first place oil was drilled for in the lower 48 states. It's a light crude, more fluid than the Alaska Valdez sample, and thus richer in lighter (and more toxic) molecules like gasoline and kerosene. Smells like it, too. These souvenir bottles are perfect for my needs, where I wish to not only see but smell and touch the oil, yet where less than a drop will be sufficient for magickal workings under Aliria-Naphtha's guidance.

I blessed the bottle (it's plastic, but that's all right) of oil and then meditated on it. What came to focus was the longing for light that gave rise to the first great oil boom, when people found that kerosene gave a steady, reliable lamp flame. Relief, joy, coziness and greater productivity infused later and later hours of the night; of course, fires were still a risk, but so were they with candles.
We had no idea, then, what price we would eventually pay for the convenience of Naphtha's gift: It wasn't so bad just with lamps, which folks had been running on mineral oil for thousands of years, but then someone designed a machine to run on the copious "waste" left over from kerosene refining --- a product they called gasoline.
Today, 41% of every average barrel of crude goes into making gasoline. . . .

Aliria-Naphtha and her material domain on my altar, which is growing quite crowded. Mineral oil not being the gentlest on life, I plan to use minimal amounts in sacred oil potions and other blends. Aliria's magick is the most energy-dense stuff on Earth --- you really shouldn't need a lot, unless you're powering some huge machine . . . ideally, not then, either, in the future!

I'm in the process of making another polymer sculpture, which is meant to honor Gaia and Aliria in more of an indigenous aspect --- the black oil snake who moves within Mother Earth as her blood, her dark spirit-daughter with the sun's fire in her belly, and occasionally emerges naturally, bearing flame in her palms.

First, a pair of delicate little arms, waiting to be attached . . . then a solid, blocky face, placid and wise, as befitting a spirit of the land . . . It's taking longer than anticipated but should be well worth the effort.

The "Black Snake" is actually part of a less-than-pleasant prophecy of the Lakota people, namely that when a great black snake enters the land, the world will end. They've taken this to mean the Dakota Access crude-carrying pipeline or DAPL, which they are still fighting even now that construction is complete and oil is being moved through. During the protests, only money kept me from making the trip and joining in solidarity. I did write a letter and collect signatures . . . only to have Trump elected, and the effort rendered moot, since he's the sort of man-boy bastard who can barely read a well-scripted letter, much less a handwritten cursive one.

As I see it, this sculpture honors the soul of Aliria as she is unfettered, uncontained by pipeline or tank, she who has moved within the cracks of the Earth since long before the foolish age of mankind and will continue to do so long after we are gone.

Elixir of Life, Fluid of Death

It came in the mail earlier today*, this last sacred thing; this most versatile, in its forms and disguises, of Dark Earth's powerful gift.

It arrived from Anchorage, in a padded little envelope with a tidy and pleasant signed note, for which a good review is most certainly in order.

eBay is one of the few places online, I've discovered, where one can purchase a nice-sized and affordable sample of crude oil. Yup . . . I'm that weird woman, who buys things like crude oil online, instead of a DVD or fitness set or kitchen tool (no shame in doing so, though!).
I can't find my bottle of heavy fuel oil from Daddy, labeled "Texas Tea", in all my boxes. But I didn't feel my altar to Aliria-Nafta would be complete without a sample of the real thing, nor my magick work under her guidance fully explored until I could touch oil with my senses by means of a link --- especially since oil is so readily turned into other things, its disguises littering, literally, our daily lives. To touch the source, feel it, smell this darkest and greatest of Mother Earth's potions, this substance of such unfathomable power from which damn near half our society is made, is intensely important for me.
Crude oil samples of various size, price, and locality --- many in "oil memorabilia" souvenir form --- pop up on eBay at intervals. This one seemed a good size for the price, $5! ($9, with shipping), a "Buy it Now" option, and a nice black color. (I have another coming as well, from the Drake Well itself, sent from where else but Oil City, Pennsylvania. How slick is that?)

Tonight I again drew out the capped vial. The feelings kept coming, slow, thick, potent: The same small vial sold as a fundraiser for a children's charity held a fluid made from millions of dead life forms, a fluid that, mishandled once, had caused thousands of animal deaths via the Exxon-Valdez spill. Questions still hung. Would I be able to open the jar, or was it glued shut? To touch the oil was my goal, in however judicious amounts. My friend Kathleen told me the trick of using rubber bands to give you grip on a jar lid, and, carefully, holding the vial precisely upright and keeping fiercely in mind the sneaky nature of oil, I managed to open it.
Then crude oil touched me for the first time: A tiny smeared, dark brown dab was on my fingertip, then in my palms, spreading its thin silky film over my hands, covering them with the scent of diesel. Like the smell of Daddy's engine room, really. I found a small blackened seashell --- a shell, I thought, how appropriate --- and placed most of the residue in it, as a reservoir for future "annointings". In this case, a very, very little dab'll do ya; no more needed.

With the oil still on my hands, I blessed the vial, which I stood next to Aliria-Nafta's statue, and the shell. "I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing," I began. "I am naive, born into this era of intense change. . . ." I offered gratitude for this amazing gift that had done so much for us, and asked for help that we use it with greater wisdom and respect. I asked for Gaia's forgiveness for the lives we had taken or harmed in our idiocy; I asked Naptha to spare adding us to her realm too soon, even though that is eventually where we must end up, with the turning of the great cycle, the wheel of time.
But for this moment, which is all I have, I asked for help in staying connected to my sense of gratitude for the beauty of all before me, for the life in my body and the understanding that evolution gifted my wonderful mind, my soul. I assured the collective Earth Divinity that when I thought of a more specific job I needed help with, since deities apparently like it when you invoke with a specific task for them in mind, I would let them know, if not by voice then by intent. And by the end, I had tears, which I wiped on a dried daisy and burned as an offering.
I felt in my heart that on a given day, this is the best I can do: Magic, like us, isn't always perfect, or glossy, or pre-worded, or spectacular; more often, it is spontaneous, a messy plea in the dark. It's about meeting the Spirit where we're at, again and again, on a daily basis preferably, while dressed in PJ shorts with flames on them and red-painted toenails, with crap on the chair next to us and a job to be at tomorrow. It's trusting the Divine Ones to help us persist: persist in being grateful, in seeing beauty, in exploring with pleasure the Mysteries, and in completing what they're calling us to do, what we were sent here for.

It's time for bed, and I've washed my hands, brushed my teeth; but the scent of ancient rock oil still clings to my palms.


*Technically, the posted date is early morning on the day following the mail arrival

Jezebel and the Red Tent

Rec Gone Wrong

Evil beer bottles! Suspiciously velvety cheese! Bikers with attitude eating lunch in the park!

It's this week's brief episode of. . . . Rec Gone Wrong!

Because when your own government is putting children in concentration camps at the border, and everyone from Stephen King (master of imagining horror) to war vets ("Don't we remember this kind of government shit?") to Severus Snape ("Excuse me, didn't you kids just read about me fighting this kind of government shit?") to holocaust historians (no elaboration needed) is pointing out the direction we're headed, it's helpful to find stupid reasons in your own life to laugh. When we're not laughing, we're reading the news, groaning, or cussing.

I'm waiting for the extinction, or at least death, of certain excuses for humanity currently "leading" the USA. Until then, pass me a beer. Oh and I'll scrape the fuzz off this cheese --- don't wanna waste it, then shoot the money buying more.