The Crown

Photo by Chance Agrella

When my alchemy group met in early November, it was to explore the symbol of the Crown, which is usually intended as a recognition of something — achievement or status, perhaps. We created crowns out of grapevine, colored paper and various sparkly materials, and wore them at the end of the evening, laughing together at how marvelous and outlandish they were. Our leader said, “Would you ever make a crown by yourself at home? No. But do you deserve one? Yes!”

One of our members, Ann, missed this particular gathering due to an injury. This was too bad, as we all agreed that this would have been exactly Ann’s sort of project. Her creations are always lavish and colorful. It would have been such fun to see her fashioning a crown.

After the gathering, we circulated photos of the work via email. Ann expressed her admiration and appreciation of our images and told us she had been awarded a “crown” of her own, a cervical collar she would wear for the next 7-10 days while her neck healed. She joked that she could perhaps decorate the collar as her crown project, but that this would be over the top.

Our group was unanimous in voting that it would not, in fact, be over the top at all. It would be quite appropriate. I remembered another project that Ann had done in which she incorporated a quote from Carl Jung that I can’t exactly recall (though if any of my fellow adepts remembers it, perhaps they will be so kind as to post it in a comment). The quote was a reminder that the point of our work is not to become perfect, it’s to become a whole person. The things we try so hard to hide about ourselves, the flaws, the disfigurations, the wounds and the quirks, are also where we carry a hidden power. So why not crown the accidents and injuries, the bizarre and the absurd as well?

I can easily picture Ann wearing a fabulous, bejeweled neck brace on a wonderfully long, regal, injured neck.

 

Update -  Ann sent the quote I referred to in the post above. It reads:

“The unconscious is always the fly in the ointment, the skeleton in the cupboard of perfection, the painful lie given to all idealistic pronouncements, the earthiness that clings to our human nature and sadly clouds the crystal clarity we long for… there is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for  completeness, and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.”

Jung, CW 6, p. 78

The World Tree

“I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate. For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of things they belong to in my language….”

- Treebeard from J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

There are significant trees in any number of religions and mythologies. In Christianity, knowledge of good and evil comes from a tree, as does immortality. Buddha finds enlightenment sitting under a tree, as does Isaac Newton, in his own way.

The World Tree, or Axis Mundi, has roots that reach deep into the lower world, branches that reach high into the upper world, and branches that spread out in all directions in the middle world. It’s the place where knowledge from all these directions comes together.

This month’s alchemy group explored the World Tree image.  I felt a bit intimidated, at first, by the prospect of forming any representation of the tree that is the axis of the world. It would have to be spectacular and unusual. It would have to be the type of image a person could look at and think, yes, this tree is somehow special, different.

Ultimately, the tree I constructed was actually very ordinary looking. It had a thin trunk, a few branches, roots shooting out in all directions. It was not spectacular, and yet, it did look to me like it could well be the center of the world. It reminded me that any place can be the center, the place where the knowledges of upper and lower, north, south, east and west are all connected.

The Fool

Whatever the answer
it’s yes that’s the question.
I am a fool dancing over the edge.

- from “Take Me for Longing” by Mark Simos

I was talking with a friend about first love, and she told me about hers, a relationship she had in college that ended miserably. She was heartbroken for a long time, though eventually, of course, she moved on, and at the time of the conversation, was a few months married to someone else whom she loved very much. She said, “You only get your heart seriously broken like that once. After that, you’re always more cautious.”

That’s what I was thinking about when I met with my alchemy group to explore the archetype of the Fool. I remembered that energy of first love, where the world opens up and all things seem possible, and we don’t yet know the real pain of feeling loss or betrayal in a relationship that once seemed so beautiful and permanent.

The Fool in the tarot deck is usually about to step over a cliff, though he’s looking up and doesn’t notice. A small dog nips at his heels, or in some decks, bites him on the leg, trying to call his attention, perhaps get him to look down and avoid catastrophe. But the Fool isn’t about avoiding catastrophe. He’s out to meet it head on. He’s often seen carrying a bag on a stick, hobo-style, a small bag with just a few belongings.

During the image-making process, some of us chose to craft a bag of the type the Fool might carry.  We were invited to imagine what might be inside, and what such a bag might be made of. There were a number of brightly colored, glittery fabrics to choose from. I couldn’t decide, so I wound up using scraps of a number of different types of fabric, some on the outside, and some on the inside of the bag. The main fabric wasn’t brightly colored at all. It was dull and full of holes, net-like. It appeared very old and worn. The result was a patched-together bag that looked like it had been repaired, badly, time and time again. Some of the material on the inside showed through; it looked like it could easily spill its contents at the first sign of trouble.

The Fool in the tarot deck is the very first card, numbered zero. But the deck itself is cyclical in nature. It’s not meant to depict a beginning and an end, but a journey that happens over and over again. The bag I crafted belonged to a Fool who had seen many such journeys already. I thought of what my friend said about love and thought that this was true about so many things. We can lose big in all different areas of our lives and get our hearts broken, then we sometimes spend the rest of our lives getting up the courage to set out again, to even approach the edge of a cliff like the one we stumbled off to begin with.

If we’re wise like the Fool is wise, we set out anyway, knowing there is more trouble out there than we can possibly contend with, knowing the bag is full of holes, knowing we’ll avoid the familiar cliffs, perhaps, but that there will be others. Perhaps we look down a bit more. Perhaps we learn to listen better to the faithful dog companion. But hopefully we also look up, and risk trouble, and even dance a little bit on the edge of a precipice or two.

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.

Coniunctio

All shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

from “The Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot

Coniunctio is the alchemical process of combining elements that were previously separated. It is often conceptualized as union of opposites to form a third, sometimes symbolized by marriage, but Coniunctio can also involve more than two elements.

It was odd to work with my friends on Coniunctio images this week because it was the last of these gatherings. No sooner had we explored a process of coming together than we went our separate ways, home or otherwise, though people were reluctant to leave and lingered almost a full hour past the time we’d agreed to end.

With all three of the alchemical processes we experienced through the process of image making, there was a definite diversity of interpretations within the group. But nowhere was this truer than with Coniunctio. One friend centered her image on a union of natural and man made materials. Another focused on color and wove black and white materials together. A third focused on a quote from Jung about how “…life calls not for perfection but for completeness….”

In each of these processes I have found that certain materials speak to me strongly, demanding to be used. For Coniunctio, the loudest voice from the material table belonged to the magnets. I knew I had to use them and feature them prominently in my image. I wanted the piece to have a certain attractive quality, a certain gravity to it, as though it pulled everything around it toward the Coniunctio taking place at its center.

We are, by nature, drawn into Coniunctio. We form communities, relationships, families,  corporations — groups of all kinds, like this gathering of friends. We speak of these things as though they are discrete events, but a marriage, for instance, begins but does not end with the act of getting married. Relationship, Coniunctio, is a process that converts its original elements into something new, such that, even at the next Separatio or Mortificatio, the elements that enter these processes are not the same as the elements that entered the Coniunctio process. We are drawn to this transformation over and over again, always in flux, and always changing and being changed by one another.

Psychologists and philosophers have heated debates about this: Is there truly such a thing as an essential self? Or are we just the sum of the influences of culture, friends, and family? Ultimately, to me, this question is rather uninteresting, an I tend to think of if, perhaps a bit more lightheartedly, as the wave/particle dualism of the self. We are at once discrete and continuous.

Working with Coniunctio, I felt my continuous aspect was a bit more at the forefront of consciousness, and I am grateful to friends, both within this alchemical group and in other aspects of my life, for the ways in which they influence my world, for the continual Coniunctio we are all engaged in together.

Separatio

Separatio is the alchemical process that involves, as its name suggests,  the  separation of elements. Sometimes this is represented in a gentle way, like  sorting and organization. Sometimes it’s violent, like cutting. 

When I met my friends in the art therapist’s garage again this week, I already felt rather separated from myself. A few days before, I’d been robbed at gunpoint. The perpetrators did not get much in the material sense, but my sense of safety, my peace of mind, and my confidence were definitely wounded. It was a violent Separatio.

So I approached the alchemy and image making process with a mind that was rather divided already. Chaos fought order in the piece I put together. I had in mind to create something neat and simple, but my materials seemed to want to burst out of their containers. A variety of inner voices vied for attention, and somewhere along the way, my mother’s voice became very insistent, because there were seashells on the material table, and my mother, having grown up near the ocean, knows that anything that comes from the beach has a healing power to it. 

My final Separatio image centered around a small set of dirt-filled, divided containers in which lavender and rosemary seeds were planted. Looking at it, I remembered that my Mortificatio project had also incorporated dirt, in a pile at the center of what looked like (I shudder to think about it now) the aftermath of a crime scene. But the dirt in the Separatio project was divided, contained, promising that hopefully, eventually, something will grow.

Mortificatio

…And then there was only
this story.
It followed me home
and entered my house –
a difficult guest
with a single tune

from “Night and the River” by Mary Oliver

In alchemy, mortificatio is the process of death, destruction and decomposition. In Michael Meade’s words, it’s the point in the creative process when everything is going great, and then suddenly it all turns to shit again.

Last night, I gathered with some friends in an art therapist’s garage to explore the process of mortificatio through image making with the materials she had assembled there. Some were natural items – dead plants, rocks that resembled bones. Some were man made – rusted metal, shredded paper. Some things seemed to have long decayed while others had just recently died.

The gathering was part of a three week group aimed at exploring alchemical processes through images. Mortificatio proved a difficult place to begin. The art therapist asked each of us to consider what was currently dying in our lives, and the imagery that surfaced was violent, uncomfortable.  My piece incorporated some crushed violets, heartbreakingly purple still, though they were wilted and bruised. Some drops of red food coloring proved startlingly and unintentionally reminiscent of blood. Where usually in image making I’m drawn to creating something with a permanent structure, something I can put in a corner of my apartment and revisit from time to time, I found myself unable to do much with a mortificatio image until I gave myself permission to make it impermanent, scattered. I wanted to remember it, but not to take it home with me. Other group members seemed to feel the same and thought it would be fun to toss all the images in a bonfire, or set them out on the water in a burning boat like a viking funeral.

Mortificatio did feel like the right place to begin, uncomfortable though it was. It felt very akin being lost, another uncomfortable place in which death and terror are possible, and yet, I know from experience, possibly the best place for a new adventure to start. Today, though I dismantled last night’s work as soon as it was done, it’s those crushed violets I remember, and the dark, loamy looking pile of dirt beneath them.