Many things I like about Alchemy.                                                      8.1.09

 

1.           Alchemy -- I like the way the word sounds. It’s the sound of the in-breath (Al) and out breath (Ka-Mi). Try it.

 

2            Al-Kemi  it  means maybe  or maybe black dirt or maybe both

 

3.           The Technical, The Spiritual and The Intuitive: It’s a real fusion of head, heart and hand. It brings together

              thinking, feeling and doing as equal partners. .  I like that.

 

4.           The alchemist is always a part of the experiment. S/he is the alembic in which transformation is happening

 

5.           It’s a nice blend of right brain and left brain activity. Sometimes we need logic and clarity and the explicit; other times

              only the intuitive, the mysterious and only the implicit will do.

 

6.           It’s not dogmatic.  There is not just one way or even one goal.  Even “The “philosophers stone” is really…

 

7.           There are 12 major  processes and over a hundred other alchemical processes. Do you know how many permutations

              and variations there are? Bletting, Calcination, Ceration, Cohobation, Congelation, Corporification, Digestion,Dissolution,

                   Distillation, Fermentation , Filtration, Fixation , Multiplication , Projection Putrefaction, Putrefying bacteria, Solution, Sublimation ,

                   Unity of opposites

 

8.           Alchemy is the knowledge and experience of the mixing of matter and spirit. Contemporary alchemical process might

              include such familiar processes as:  glimpsing, nuance, flicker, accident, the ambiguous, the indistinct, the

              fleeting, glances, sighs, coincidences, bibliomancy.

 

9.           Alchemy welcomes affinities.  It works with materials or qualities which seem opposed to each other.  Really, they

              are just related to each other.  Here are many many many of them

 

10.          As above, so below.  That’s a fragment from an old document.  It means that there are always two levels on which

              transformation is happening  So you can ask:  What Else is going on here?

 

11.          The alchemists “laboratory” was a labor + oratory--place to labor- do work, to pray  (orate). Some images also

               include musical instruments, implying a place to play. I like that. It reminds me of many artists’ studios and good

               children’s play areas.

 

12           It understands Time in an old way.  Time is not linear; it’s circular or a spiral.

 

13           Some things can be discovered; some things come to reveal themselves and other things stay a mystery.

 

14           Those images! 

 

15           Alchemists had the best job description: “priest-scientist-magician” or a sacred intuitive technician

 

16.          Alchemy make no distinction between organic and inorganic matter ; all matter is sacred and alive. It was a

              form of practical animism, precursing the Biophilia Hypothesis and Gaia

 

17           Alchemy is hopeful. I like that. I like to know things can change; things always change; everybody, everything

               transforms.

 

18           A powerful alchemical metaphor is the matrix or the web.  All things are interconnected and the subtlety and

              complexity of interaction is profound. 

 

19           Alchemy is about turbulence.

20.         Alchemy is about colors.

21.        Alchemy is about shapes.