Alchemy; making Gold, making Soul
MY 20-YEAR JOURNEY WITH THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION
There are certain teachings, systems, places and people that we meet time and again on our spiral human journey…until eventually we know -they are not just an integral part of our myth, they make up its very backbone.
Alchemy has been a major part of mine.
alchemy {al·chy·mia}
/ˈælkəmi/ • noun
from the Arabic al (“the”) and the Greek χυμείᾱ and/or the Egyptian khem
(khēmeía, “art of alloying metals / chemistry” and/or “the Black Land”, referring to Egypt)
• a series of operations for transmuting base metals into gold
• the process of inner transformation culminating in the union between the conscious & unconscious parts of the psyche; the journey to wholeness
2001 -the seed
My very first encounter with Alchemy was through the wildly popular book “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, when I was 17. It had been given to me by my then-boyfriend, whom I had hugely idealised with my very romantic, adolescent mind -only to have my heart hugely broken also, soon after.
A year later, I am sat on my hotel balcony, on the island of Samos, on my very first solo vacation, with “The Philosopher’s Stone and the Tree of Life” by Israel Regardie open in my lap.
A gentle evening breeze is touching my skin, the scent of oregano fills the air, the near full-moon is shedding its light, and shivers are moving up and down my spine as I drink in the cryptic words of Hermes Trismegistus that I don’t quite understand, but feel so magnetically pulled toward.
The memory is vivid. An early spark of recognition.