Wit, Wisdom & Wonder

We've had a rather sudden influx of large orders recently, which had me calling on favors to help grind and mix. This afternoon Alicia and I made more than a dozen individual incenses - including everyone's horror to make The Altar of Eleven Spices. Our hands are still sticky from the Galbanum and Balsam.

I've been experimenting with new Imbolc & Candlemas incense recipes this year as the traditional ones haven't been popular. I'll be featuring Brighid incense, of course, which is absolutely delightful and one of our more popular incenses.

This month we'll be offering additional Sampler Packs (a Divine Sampler #2 & #3) which necessitates additional God incenses. Suggestions welcome. After long last, we'll also be offering bulk herbs!

Also coming in this quarter, we'll be offering additional products via affiliations with Azure Green and likely Peter Stone Jewelry (we have already partnered with Amazon). As well as a very exciting development I'll wait to fill folks in on!

Now I just need, you know, to actually do all that stuff. Whee!

I've spent the last few hours dickering with several spelling and format errors on the website. After tidying up, I also added a hyperlink to our Book Recommendations page from most of the How To Guides.

And to celebrate my continued web designer development, I've added a whole new How To Guide: Names & Substitutions.

Go forth and learn yourself!

A few design issues, but otherwise the Store is up and running again! All hail Rainbear for helping me sort out the nightmare of osCommerce updates! In other exclamation-worthy news I've finally learned to make tables, will wonders never cease!

Using this technique, I've made a few of the How To pages a bit more readable:
http://www.triplepillars.com/BasicIngredients.html

And added additional recipes to our Simple Incenses page:
http://www.triplepillars.com/SimpleIncenses.html

The Herbal has been moved to the How To page, which seemed a more usable location for it. At some point I'll likely work on the readability factor of the Herbal, but that's for another chapter in the HTML workbook.

Things to Come-
I'm currently working on adding a KBLH/Tree of Life section, which likely won't be ready until the end of the weekend at the earliest. I'll also be adding using the Alephbet as spirit guides, which should tie in nicely to the Archangel section I'm tweaking, as well.

As always, any recommendations?

Migration has occurred and there are hiccups. But much glory.

What's going right:
All email accounts are functional.
The website has been updated with new pages (see Updates below)

What's going wrong:
The shopping cart/store is fairly screwed up, the categories do not work however all products are available via New Products. This we are working on post haste!

Updates:
How To's - Book Recommendations (a'la Amazon), Getting Started, Making Incense Cones, Safety and Tools & Equipment.

Grimoires - We now have an Herbal available, there is a strange coding error on the Herbs M page (most of the descriptions are entirely in bold). We are working on this, slowly.

What's coming up later this month -
Hopefully a fixed shopping cart/store.
Bulk herbs.
More Grimoire and How To's.
Photographs! Tell your friends!
Via our Associate Program: censers, mortars & pestles and the like.

So here's your talk back section - what content would you like to see on the website? More How To's? An Archangel Grimoire? More herbal information? More magical essays, articles, etc.?

I mean it, people, don't make me upload a midi on there!

I had scheduled today to work on the various webhosting issues with Triple Pillars. There's no way I can continue to use our current host, they never fix anything permanently so everything they fix is absolutely guaranteed to break again. I'm still not getting notifications of orders, which they insist nothing is wrong on their end. Good bye, Lypha!

Hello, Nightowl!

The order process and email system will likely be down during the migration, so if you're having problems please email or instant message me.

Unfortunately, I've been called into work today because the boss is sick and I'm the weekend closer. No worries, just not what I was planning to do today.

When I'm not rescuing rabbits or other strays (kid, too) I tend to treat myself to lovely warm baths, clay treatment mask and a good book while listening to the BCC.

Needless to say, having already done that tonight, I'm at a bit of loose ends while I choose additional material to add to the Triple Pillars Grimoire. I've got a couple friends trying to fix the site and they've essentially told me to stop messing things up while they fix it. *grin*

One of my favorite things about making incense is the research and testing involved. I've been working to translate the Torah's recipe for the Altar of Incense recipe. Breaking it down into manageable quantities, I then have to figure out what the modern names for a few ingredients are and if necessary, provide replacements when necessary.

Tonight's experiment, Altar of Incense (aka 11 Spices) in tablespoons:

Cloves 2
Cinnamon .25
Cassia .5
Frankincense 2
Spikenard .5
Saffon .5
Ginger .4
Cedar .1
Galbanum 2
Balsam 2

Sadly, I'm completely out of Galbanum & Spikenard, the latter much to my befuddlement. How the hell did I run out of Spikenard? I rarely use it. Even without these two ingredients, its quite wonderful. They've been ordered, so in a few weeks I'll be able to finish the experiment and see what we've got.

Along that note, I've made an Exodus (30) Anointing Oil, we'll see how it sets up. For those curious, equal parts: Frankincense, Myrrh, Galbanum, Cinnamon, Cassia, Calamus & Styrax. So far, so good!

I'm also experimenting with the idea of offering bulk herbs, woods & resins, some powdered, on Triple Pillars. Not quite sure how I'd work that, but its something to consider.

The site is back up and functioning, though sadly not yet on the new webhosting service. I'll be adding additional pages this week, which hopefully folks will enjoy.

Egyptian oils - scheduled to arrive Wednesday. Sadly, the Ambergris did not ship with this order and is on indefinite hold in Giza, Egypt. They sent us additional Red Amber, instead, we're told. We're planning to put up the 7 Chakra oils first: lotus, jasmine, the two ambers, musk, sandalwood, attar of roses, etc. And we may have Lilac! We hope to offer imported hand blown bottles for those purchasing a fluid ounce.

Blended oils - things are setting up quite well with the two Abramelin oils. The Hyssop oil is coming along nicely and we should have a gorgeous Three (aka Three Wise Men, Three Kings, etc.) oil I expect will be a big hit for dressing oil (Myrrh, Frankincense & Sandalwood).

Damn, this thing would be perfect for incense making!

Q: How do I come up with the unique blends on Triple Pillars?
A: Lots of ways!

Let's take a recent creation "Three Graces" as an example. I've been wanting to make an incense to the Graces for some time, as well as incenses based on the Muses. While making a batch of "Memory Drops", a Classic Formulary recipe, I realized that the addition of an additional ingredient and the tweaking of a few quantities would make something truly wondrous (humble, eh?) So I took roughly half the batch of MD and experimented. What came out was a lovely, gracious incense that literally (Sadie: LOL) had people raising their eyebrows and exclaiming that they really liked it. For those who don't live nearby, I have a truly wretched habit of grabbing anyone who comes near my front door, shoving something under their nose and demanding "what do you think?" Fortunately, most folks have been very tolerant of this. I even come bearing a bag of samples when I go visit friends, and they've been incredibly tolerant of this, too. If even one person sniffs and responds with "feh", I won't put it up on the site without additional experimenting (usually adding additional ingredients) and another round of pestering folks.
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Any other questions? :)