The Work of the Empress part I

Pardon me for the long quiet spell, but I did not really have anything magickally to add to the discussion and no one wants to read through my internal dialogue. Trust me on this one. The internal dialogue of a pregnant sex magickian is like a word salad. So now I do have something to say and am most willing to share.



Up until very recently this card has not made much sense to me. I mean yes, I got the general symbolism in the same way that people learning a new language learn words. After a while you not only learn the words but the subtly and the innuendos.



The Pelican pecking her breast to feed her young from her own blood was a biological misconception left over from antiquity. Even long after we figured out what she was actually doing, we still liked the image and perpetuate it even today. It is loving and self sacrificing. It is everything we associate with the best of the maternal instincts and motherhood. It is III or Binah in motion. Since she is right above the Abyss, she is not just pregnant with a child but with creation itself. This lead me to my ponderings on the alchemy of the Gnostic Mass.



As I prepare for the role of Priestess in the Gnostic Mass there are some tools that need to be constructed. One of the many are the ingredients for the Cakes of Light or Eucharist. While Crowley only describes the bare bone ingredients for the process there are several good recipes online. There are several ingredients that are not just shelf ready. The first one I wanted to tackle were the leavings of thick red wine.



After considerable research, I finally found what that has been accepted to mean. When you make red wine there are skins and such that are left at the bottom of the fermentation container. At first these seem useless, but on closer examination they are quiet useful. Funny how that works.

Those leavings actually contain cream of tartar. It is a leavening agent. This means that when you add a bit of this to your cakes, they become CAKES instead of flat cookies. What seems useless is actually used in place of baking powder or soda. It also has the effect of looking tremendously like menses.

Recently a suitable substitute has been determined to be used. It does not have the cream of tartar properties, but it is functional. You take red wine, generally Port, and reduce it down into a syrup. I looked for Port at Bevmo but got a Hamster kick for two different red wines by the same vintner. They were both Red Diamond labels. I had never heard of them before, but when you look at the bottle it appears to be a stylized unicursal hexagram. Coincidence? Maybe, but I ran with it anyway. The two that I used were a Cab Sauv. and a Merlot.

Because I am a CM geek and scientist by nature, I did it on the most solar day I could get ahold of. I chose last Sunday during the hour of Sol to start the process. If I got any solar, I might catch fire.

I have been feeling rather like death warmed over lately, but the push and kicks that I received to work on this were similar to the Enochian promptings. Even though you do not think that you can do it, somehow all of the energy appears. As soon as you are done you need a large nap. I learned long ago to just go with it or it gets worse and not better.

I took both of the bottles and emptied them into our largest stock pot. I turned the gas on the stove up until it boiled and then down to a simmer. For the next 6 hours, I stirred and watched. Slowly the two bottles reduced down into a thick red syrup. As I was checking it frequently, it seemed to take even longer.

Towards the end of the process I added a few squeezes of clover honey into the pot just to aid in thickening. It was pure Hamster prompt but it seemed to take the bitterness out of the wine and thicken it just enough to be functional. After it was reduced down to about 200 ml I left it to cool.

After it was cooled I poured it into 3 small bottles and stuck them in the fridge. They look like thickened blood and have almost a black tint. They are really strange to see sitting in your fridge first thing in the morning.

In the next part I will talk about the flours and the actual making of the cakes. This will be an adventure!