Alchemy
Our altar with paintings of the alchemical process, a figure of a refugee created by group member Helen, and gifts from the natural world (as well as our loyal long eared companions)
Last month, students of Wild Wisdom School reunited on a stunning autumnal morning in the vessel that has held our journey and now continues into year 3. Our theme, aptly so, was alchemy. At the heart of Wild Wisdom School is the intention to restore the sacred marriage that has become divorced in our dualistic culture. The fragmentation has divorced masculine from feminine, spirit from matter, rational from intuitive; one typically being favoured over the other. To those seeking only the mind of reason, alchemy is the primitive forerunner of chemistry, however to others seeking a more integrated path, chemistry is a bereft fragmentation of alchemy. In alchemy the rational mind is in union with the intuitive, and matter in union with spirit. Alchemy, from the Arabic ‘al kimia’ (which translates as the art of the black soil) is the art of inner and outer transformation.
The talking stone that carries the prima materia through the sharings of the group…
…and flowers of blossoming life
We experienced alchemy through meditation, history, imagination, reflection and creativity. Through the portal of history we travelled back to its roots in Ancient Egypt, through to its presence in culture today. Unlike other parts of our western heritage, we didn’t have to dig deep for the voice of the feminine since it is already very strong with many of the famous alchemists being women, including Maria Hebraea (or Maria the Jewess) who created the Bain Marie, an apparatus for distillation still used prolifically in labs today. Through the portal of the imagination we delved into our own experience of transformation and with this memory moved through the 4 stages of the alchemical process guided by Sam.
The following is a reflection from Christine:
The sacred task suggested by Sam of reflecting on a recent transformative experience before our day together was for me the perfect first step into this alchemical journey. Seeking the Green Lion in this quiet and reflective way allowed me to discard the expected and discover (yet again) the extraordinary in the ordinary. So rather than an apparently much more dramatic transformative experience, I found myself sitting beneath ‘my’ Ash tree on the hill over the course of the past year, as seasons changed and bare branches and black buds slowly turned to feathery green – and my sense of connectedness at a time of sometimes dramatic disconnection (personally and in the world).
Blanket of mist rising as the earth woke up that morning
Leaf and cobweb in the morning dew
The significant insight for me was in acknowledging the irreplaceable role of separation in the journey towards integration, but this only becoming material for the alchemical vessel when the will is there to see it with honesty. Only when we step out of the running, when we stop deceiving ourselves and instead opt for truth, regardless of how ugly the truth is, can things begin to change.
Last week the US got a new president in the form of Donald Trump. At first, I was in total disbelief, I looked at all those who voted for him with disdain, and I feared for our future. However, standing within the field of alchemy I feel a different response brewing. Trump represents something very ugly to me, but he also represents a yearning for truth. I still fear our future, and I feel very uncomfortable about such a person in the most powerful seat in the human world. However, I also feel a sense of something bigger, perhaps a vessel holding the darkness that we seem to have fully stepped into now. Knowing the process of transformation as alchemy lays out, and also from my own experience of transformation, I can feel a sense of trust that the powers of alchemy are at play. Alchemy is a process uncontrollable by human hands. What we can do is to create conditions, to tune our spirits, and to surrender ourselves to the movement. Control and certainty are the very things that prevent transformation.
Through this journey into alchemy, which began in our Wild Wisdom weekend together, I have started to see that the Universe itself is the ultimate alchemical vessel, and transformation through life, death and rebirth is its primal dance. Humans cannot choreograph the dance, but we can learn the moves, and through the willingness to participate and the strength to surrender control, we can learn to dance well.
Knowing the process of alchemy, knowing this fundamental process within life, I trust the darkness will give way to light.
Words and photos by Beth Thomas
