This time is about alchemy. This time in my life. This time on the planet. Many of my posts will be about alchemy. A friend is struggling with physical illness. Physical illness can be a powerful alchemical cauldron. I use that term to mean any experience in life that serves as a vessel for the process of alchemy. There are many in life and physical illness is one of them. Parenthood is another. I have no kids so I have not experienced the alchemy of parenthood firsthand, but my imagination is good, so I can imagine.

I am in a different alchemical matrix. One that is more of an alchemical bootcamp. I will title (several) future blog posts this way.

In my life, the rug got pulled out. It was a kind of merciful pull-out in that my husband and I had some time to work with. It was not like the kind where people experience floods and fires and lose everything they own in an hour or two. My pull-out gave me some time to work with. I used it.

I moved, with my husband and two cats to a rock. A Mesa, 8600 feet in the air in the southern Colorado desert. We have no water (that I know of) or electricity on site. We live in two 490 sq ft yurts that are connected and our very handy RV, which is a source of some so-called normalcy, having a toilet and some kitchen applicances. Keep in mind, though, that none of these things are powered or resourced the way your kitchen appliances and toilets (likely) are. Sadly…so sadly….poop doesn’t magically disappear into some municipal water supply. We are accountable to our own poop. Bet you want to sign up for this life right now!

Yesterday, I wanted to cook rice and I did not have much water. I only had what was in my water bottles and that was running low. Once the bottled water is gone, there is no more.

I googled whether I needed to rinse rice or not. Alchemy point: I have always rinsed rice. That is how you do it. Seems small, but not rinsing rice is a challenge to my sense of “the right way to do things.” THAT right there is the main alchemical axis of this kind of life. Constantly challenging the “right, safe, good way to do things.” You’d be surprised how much of your power and identity are caught up in this. It is caught up in innumerable ways in your sense of self, your life and how you live it. So many ways. It is at work almost every moment of every day.

Overwhelmingly Google contributors said to rinse rice. I knew the reasons why, but I wanted to see if there might be a lone voice in the wilderness daring to say it was okay not to rinse. Rinsing the rice to reduce arsenic and dirt convinced me to try.

For days now I’ve been looking for my fine-mesh sieve. It is what I use to rinse rice and quinoa. The mesh is small enough so the grains don’t fall through in the rinsing. Alchemical Point #2: It is what I always use. “Always use” feels very comfortable when you can keep it going, but it is not alchemical. What the fuck do I do now? That’s the voice of alchemy. I’m pretty sure the sieve survived the scorched-earth packing of the final minutes of the move from the townhouse we left, but I do not know what box it is in. We had to rent some storage units, some the size of closets, it is likely in one of them.

For a couple days I did not cook rice because I did not have the sieve. Old me. Has to do it the way she likes. The way it “should” be done. Finally, I punched some slits into a plastic cup and used the smallest amount of water to rinse the rice. Alchemy. I used our Instapot for the first time on the Mesa. I wasn’t sure the solar generator would accommodate the electrical demand of the pot, but it did! Hooray! The sun cooked our rice. We had rice for dinner. It was delicious.