abwatt

Here's the column for Scorpio II The Alchemical Apparatus for Double Distillation: https://andrewbwatt.com/2025/10/31/scorpio-ii-the-alchemical-apparatus/ This decan begins at 12:17 am EDT on Sunday 2 November and continues until late evening (10:33 pm EDT) on 11 November 2025. 

As I write these columns, I find that increasingly I try to work the divine attributes of the mythic figure of the Greek god or goddess into the story, rather than Austin Coppock's naming conventions. Yet the two are inextricably linked in my memory now, so it's not always possible to separate one from the other.

In this one, though, the imagery seems especially apt for me as a former school teacher. Leto, the goddess associated with bringing up children through education, is here contrasted with a double-distiller — the device which transforms and purifies both the principal material and its by-products. Just as the distiller refines some material and its distillates into purer forms, so to is the school teacher refined and (we hope) improved by contact with the personal growth of their students. 

I often feel such gratitude for my twenty years in the classroom. I'm sad that time had to end, at times... but I'm still honored that I got to do it as long as I did. I hope that for the most part I was worthy of the work.