Fires and Lotus

The smoke! The damn smoke, it is unbearable! Once again, California is lit, and not in a good way. This has been going on relentlessly since 2017, these summers long to late summer fires, some going on until the fall and the first rains. Hundreds of thousands of acres of our forests and grasslands are being consumed, one enormous bite at a time, until soon, within a few years, the entire state will be a scorched and blackened mess. 

Because of the fires, I have not gone to my usual harvesting spots in the mountains for oakmoss and mountain misery this year, so I am left with last year's harvests to work with. The locally harvested oakmoss is all but gone, but there is still quite a bit of mountain misery left. A shipment of really nice Italian oakmoss arrived a few months back, so it will be the oakmoss de jour until another harvesting trip is planned -- if another harvesting trip can be planned. I may have to visit another, less populated spot before that happens again, because mountain visitors here think the hillside they plunk their canopy over is theirs to abuse as they see fit. (This could become a long rant, so I will leave it.)

Today I'm working on a reconstructed version of Pink Lotus Kyphi which I won't be calling Kyphi anymore because it was rudely pointed out to me that it isn't 'traditional' so it doesn't qualify as a true Kyphi. Okie dokie. No problem. Next time be nice about it, eh? So, Pink Lotus Incense it is, and there will be a few changes to the original formulation. Improvements. Instead of persimmon, it will be cranberry, and instead of muscat wine, it will be a combination of vodka and sweet white wine. The rest will be as close to the original as possible.