The Spring is a very busy time for the practicing Alchemist as it is the season of collecting the famous “May Dew”. During the Waxing Moons of Spring, different methods are used to capture dew that carries the essential life-giving Celestial, Invisible, and Secret Nature’s Fire. It is most prevalent at this time of year, waking everything from the depths of Winter.
From this special dew, many different types of Water Works can be performed such as deliquescing salts, the creation of many different solvents, extraction of powerful salts such as Nitre (potassium & ammonium nitrate), distillations, and more. All efforts to extract, utilize, potentiate and evolve this “Fire”.
Perhaps the easiest and most popular work with the dew is the deliquescing of plant salts, which opens the door to numerous other works. The process uses very hydrophilic (water attracting) plant salts extracted from calcined ashes to capture the dew overnight, determining the previously neutral Celestial Fire to the mineral component of the Vegetable Kingdom. This creates an oily feeling liquid called the Oil of Tartar. This liquid can be used as is, as a type of Secret Fire (also known as a Chemical Fire) to be used as a natural plant-based alkali solvent.
This salt saturated solution is perhaps most famously known for its use in a Spagyric process called an Ens, which means Entity. This caustic liquid drives the essentials of the plant being worked with very quickly into the solution and is particularly useful for targeting alkaloids and plants containing minimal amounts of oil such as Lemon Balm.
Of course, with such a high Ph this solution is not suitable for ingestion so the extracted principles are removed with a Vegetable Magnet, normally Ethyl Alcohol. The alcohol floats on top of the Oil of Tartar and can either be gently shaken/mixed or heated from below to collect the desired substances before being decanted for use or further processing.
Oil of Tartar can also be evaporated and calcined again to repeatedly collect the Fire contained within the dew, creating extremely potent salts. Sometimes the Oil is left to evaporate in the Sun to also capture Solar energies alongside the Lunar Light while deliquescing during the night. Distilling the Oil of Tartar creates a very pure water laden with the Invisible Secret Fire and is called Angel Water. One can even attain a Stone with nothing but this especially charged dew, a stone that is said to easily melt thin slices of Gold and extract its Blood Red oil.
All of the above mentioned is barely scratching the surface of May Dew and Water Works in generalā¦one could truly spend a lifetime working only within this realm of what is called āThe Water Worksā.