Tag: Alchemy

topographia

Alchemy provides an anatomy of the individuation process and a metaphorical methodology for perceiving the psyche. By beholding our inner experiences through the stages of the “Great Work,” we learn to transform the heavy lead of suffering and stagnant complexes into the gold of psychological wisdom. This perspective honors the heat, the dissolution, and the eventual crystallization of a more refined, integrated self.

  • Little Did He Know

    Little Did He Know

    A month after my husband’s death, I wrote that I had discovered the substance of my faith and “found out what’s true for me.” But I don’t know a damn thing today.

  • Breaking Up

    Breaking Up

    Without psychological separation, we don’t know where we end and the other person begins. Our projections veil the reality of things until we withdraw them and set ourselves and others free.

  • Moving On

    Moving On

    Sometimes we have to move on, because what is no longer necessary or supportive of growth must be let go.

  • Carnival

    Carnival

    The carnival is, among other things, a human manifestation and celebration of the orgiastic urge. It is what Cirlot calls a “call to chaos.”

  • Letting Go

    Letting Go

    When the basis of one or more habits decays or disappears, we discover we don’t know who we are any more.

  • MapQuest

    MapQuest

    People like to know where they’re going before they go somewhere. We use our maps for even the simplest excursions. There’s something comforting about knowing where you’re going, isn’t there?

  • Things Fall Apart

    Things Fall Apart

    If you have ever lost anything of great substance, ever experienced the dissolution of an important relationship or the death of a beloved, you’ve known what it is to sink to your lowest point.

  • Hour of Lead

    Hour of Lead

    Unfortunately, we don’t get to choose the means of our transitions and transformations. What changes us is proportionate to our own nature.

  • The Slime of the Small World

    The Slime of the Small World

    These depressions, anxieties, compulsions, headaches, knots in the stomach, irritations, petty and not-so-petty arguments—that’s where the gold is. This is because the only way the psyche has of speaking its distress is through our symptoms.

  • Doing the Work

    Doing the Work

    Life isn’t fair and there is no observable grand scheme for rewarding good and punishing evil in the temporal world. Those who are good, generous, and even innocent can and do suffer beyond measure.