Sublimatio

Photo by Katinka Kober

Sublimatio is the alchemical process associated with air. Chemically, it could be represented by steam rising. Psychologically, it could be understood as moving above a situation in order to get an objective view.

In many spiritual systems, it’s understood that we live in the middle of things – as Tolkein would have it, Middle Earth. There are underworlds and upper worlds as well. My alchemy group understood Sublimatio as both ascending and descending, getting out of this middle world for awhile in order to see things differently. So when we began exploring this process through image making, Sublimatio showed itself most often in the form of a ladder. One participant, a psychotherapist, talked about therapy as a process of descending the ladder with a client and coming back up with something useful, building connections between the realms. Another person constructed a beautiful, tall tree-like structure that resembled a sail or hot air balloon, barely weighted down and looking as though it could catch the winds of the upper world at any moment and be pulled away.

In my own work, I saw a definite contrast between Coagulatio, in which we built stepping stones for a horizontal, Middle Earth path, and Sublimatio, for a vertical, between-worlds path. I was far more comfortable with Sublimatio. I almost always prefer to rise into the intellectual and spiritual, to see with the bird’s eye view, or to climb down to the unconscious archetypal depths.  It was easy to construct a ladder, much harder to build a horizontal path for a journey in this world. The ladder felt old, well built and often used. The stepping stone was beautiful and difficult, new and untested.

Coagulatio

Photo by Renata Szar

Coagulatio is the alchemical process of coming down to earth, of setting things in stone.

I expected to have a lot of trouble with this one. I am much more comfortable in the abstract, spiritual/intellectual realms and often feel nervous at the idea of making anything too solid and permanent. So when the art therapist described to our alchemy group how we would explore Coagulatio through work with literal concrete, bringing elements of our choosing and setting them together with concrete or grout, I wondered what in my life I could possibly want to make that permanent and how I could trust my artistic skill enough to make this work. I wanted to take risks, to choose items from my world that really were meaningful, and I would have to believe that the process of concretizing or my lack of skill would not ruin the elements I chose.

As it happens, Coagulatio filled our little workspace with more laughter and light-heartedness than any process we have worked through so far. Though people talked about their trepidation at the outset, we all smiled and laughed our way through the project. Scary though it was, it felt wonderful to bring things down to earth for awhile, to pin a few things down, so to speak.

One of the options for this project was to bring materials together with concrete in plastic molds to form a stepping stone. This seemed an apt choice, since bringing a idea down to earth is often necessary before another step can be taken. I thought about my propensity for getting lost and how very rarely I have the opportunity to be conscious and intentional about how my stepping stones are formed, and with what material.

When our time was up, no one had finished. Even those who had completed the assembly of their pieces still needed time to let them dry. I took my own work home to complete it, and though I have worked on since, I still don’t consider it done. Where I expected to have trouble setting materials in stone, I now find myself wanting to add more.

Solutio

In  long ago college course on death and dying, I read that drowning was among the most peaceful ways to die. Reportedly after some initial panic, drowning is a very peaceful experience, not unlike floating.

My alchemy group explored Solutio last week, the alchemical process associated with water, a fitting follow-up to Calcinatio, the process of burning. Most people had peaceful associations with water, though we were reminded that water can also be aggressive and raging. Think hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans.

For me, though, Solutio called up the sensation of standing at the edge of the ocean and feeling all my words dissolve. Not just words, but any thought of words, as though nothing solid could exist beside the incredible, vast, primitive ocean. My Solutio image was a small container tangled with fabric resembling seaweed, like something that would wash up on shore, mostly empty, whatever it once carried having long ago dissolved in the sea. It felt not unlike Calcinatio, in which something that once seemed important must go up in flames. But Solutio did feel gentler. It let me picture those dissolved aspects of self, those old ideas, floating out onto the ocean. It let me consider what it is I would put in that container, to be slowly rocked out to sea.

Calcinatio

On some hill of despair
the bonfire
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it’s true, of course, to make it burn
you have to throw yourself in …

from “Another Night in the Ruins”

by Galway Kinnell

 

Before my alchemy image-making group got together last week, we were encouraged to think about Calcinatio, the alchemical process of burning, and what might currently be “on fire” in our own lives. We considered fire as life energy, fire as a purifying force, fire as a cooking process that changes one substance into another.

When we began making images, I wanted to make something with two pieces: one permanent, stable entity and one entity that would burn. I constructed a frame to act as a sort of fireplace and decorated it with a woodburning tool. I liked the idea of the stable portion being decorated with the marks of past fires. The wood for the frame was a sunbleached white driftwood the group had decided looked like bones, giving my frame a skeletal look. For the burning portion, I thought of ceremonial kindling bundles and decided to create something similar, so I wrapped charcoal in burlap, supported it with a frame of sticks, and tied the ends with string. When I finished, though, the kindling bundle was larger than the frame of bones I built to house it.

I thought of what fire had looked like when it showed up in my life in times past, like sickness, sometimes, more often like being lost. I thought of what seemed to be burning up for me now, old plans and visions for the future, the illusion of thinking I know where I’m going. I read Galway Kinnell’s poem about kindling a fire that could light the great sky, and I considered the care I’d taken in constructing my kindling bundle, how I wanted to be intentional about the bonfire I started, how and with what materials I would start it. I did not want to wait for illness or lostness to burn away what I no longer needed.

When I looked at my Calcinatio image again, the kindling being bigger than the fireplace felt like the punchline to a joke.  Of course, I had built the frame of bones first. Of course, the kindling for the fire was far too big to burn inside that small frame I had taken such great care in constructing. You have to let the self start the bonfires that will break the bones of the ego, if the kindled fire is to light the great sky.