My first video blog attempt. A commitment to Coagulatio not only for me but for the Earth.
Solutio: We Are Water
A culture that understands Solutio cannot pollute its Oceans as we now are. Oil spews into the Atlantic while corporate leaders firmly lodged in adolescence brush the epic poisoning off. This may turn out to be the greatest single event of pollution in the whole of human history. Yet it barely registers in the minds of many.
As a people we still take our Mother for granted, seeing her as a boundless receptacle for our waste, our messes. We're still stuck in 'me me me, more more more'. One wonders if this is the moment of Separatio that will bring us to our senses. Will our Mother Earth finally say resoundingly "NO MORE!"
When we begin life our bodies may be comprised of as much as 80% water. If we live a long life, becoming dry wrinkled remnants of our newborn selves, we may be made of as little as 50% water. When we drop below 50% we can no longer stay alive. We must be mostly water or we die.
Solutio is the process of returning matter to water, back to the Great Mother. Water is the prima materia, original matter - Mother of us all. Similar to submitting elements to Calcinatio, Solutio receives elements completely - until they disappear into a new 'solution.' Suspended in water our element has embraced the original state of all things, ready to be reborn. The alchemist can now ready other elements for a magical event of transformation.
Working with Solutio as a transpersonal process requires a little resistance to emersion. When we have not individuated, when we have not learned to stand as solid matter in the world, Solutio is actually a step backward. We are children giving up on our own potential: running back to cling to the apron strings of Mommy. There must be something solid (a self) in order to have something to dissolve, otherwise its just like oil polluting our waters.
I can still feel my first moment of preparation for Solutio - it runs like a vibration through my bones. As a child, every night during winter I'd slide under a blanket with my Mom as she warmed herself in her easy chair, squeezing in beside her. I reveled in my right as the youngest child - last to leave the womb, pressing against her hips on one side and the arm of the chair on the other. I was stricken with grief when one evening I could no longer fit, I'd grown too big! No amount of pushing would create the space I needed. I moved to the floor to join my sibling pack. Childhood was now trickling away through my fingers.
Leaving the personal Mother entices us to rediscover the Universal Mother. After a long journey of learning to walk through life without clinging to our Mothers, our ears become attuned to the song of the Great Mother. If we always take the personal Mother for granted we will never be able to hear Her call in its fullness. You cannot respect that which you cannot perceive, you cannot perceive that which you have not separated from. First comes Separatio, then a purification through Calcinatio, then you have something to offer up to Solutio.
Moments of dissolving have come and gone in my life. Some were profound, most incidental. When my Father died I realized I could never save anyone I love from death. The smaller self saw death as suffering, and I as someone who would care-take others and save them from this suffering. In that moment the caretaker dissolved a little more and my eyes opened a little wider to the world.
I suddenly became aware of the vastness of life, witnessing a profound cauldron in which we are all moving, swirling, unaware of the currents that surround us, part of a greater body. I came away with the understanding that death was not necessarily suffering, but we must each resolve our own relationship with death. We can help each other but there is a moment of transformation we must each face alone. Separatio, Calicinatio, Solutio.
In my wetsuit and mono-fin I ripple through the Pacific like a snake, tasting again Solutio out where the waves are building. It only takes a moment for my consciousness to shift back to Her rhythms. I've been through enough in Her waters to know I won't be treated like a child out here, there are no safe armchairs in the Ocean. Never turn your back on Her, despite Her abundant graces. Still, I drift in Her body, dissolving into Her heavings.
If we had given in to off shore drilling in California I might not be able to swim in these waves, to reconnect with Her. Some scientist believe life was born on the edge of a tide. Agitated by the lure of the Moon, surf initiated a spark from which all of us still flow. Solutio assumes the water you're using is pure. We can never really assume that any more, can we?
There is no human consciousness without water, without pure water. We may discover that water is consciousness embodied, once we as a people have offered ourselves fully up to Solutio. Lets hope its not too late for us to receive all the gifts water has to offer us.
Poem: We Are Water {click to enlarge and read}
As a people we still take our Mother for granted, seeing her as a boundless receptacle for our waste, our messes. We're still stuck in 'me me me, more more more'. One wonders if this is the moment of Separatio that will bring us to our senses. Will our Mother Earth finally say resoundingly "NO MORE!"
When we begin life our bodies may be comprised of as much as 80% water. If we live a long life, becoming dry wrinkled remnants of our newborn selves, we may be made of as little as 50% water. When we drop below 50% we can no longer stay alive. We must be mostly water or we die.
Solutio is the process of returning matter to water, back to the Great Mother. Water is the prima materia, original matter - Mother of us all. Similar to submitting elements to Calcinatio, Solutio receives elements completely - until they disappear into a new 'solution.' Suspended in water our element has embraced the original state of all things, ready to be reborn. The alchemist can now ready other elements for a magical event of transformation.
Working with Solutio as a transpersonal process requires a little resistance to emersion. When we have not individuated, when we have not learned to stand as solid matter in the world, Solutio is actually a step backward. We are children giving up on our own potential: running back to cling to the apron strings of Mommy. There must be something solid (a self) in order to have something to dissolve, otherwise its just like oil polluting our waters.
I can still feel my first moment of preparation for Solutio - it runs like a vibration through my bones. As a child, every night during winter I'd slide under a blanket with my Mom as she warmed herself in her easy chair, squeezing in beside her. I reveled in my right as the youngest child - last to leave the womb, pressing against her hips on one side and the arm of the chair on the other. I was stricken with grief when one evening I could no longer fit, I'd grown too big! No amount of pushing would create the space I needed. I moved to the floor to join my sibling pack. Childhood was now trickling away through my fingers.
Leaving the personal Mother entices us to rediscover the Universal Mother. After a long journey of learning to walk through life without clinging to our Mothers, our ears become attuned to the song of the Great Mother. If we always take the personal Mother for granted we will never be able to hear Her call in its fullness. You cannot respect that which you cannot perceive, you cannot perceive that which you have not separated from. First comes Separatio, then a purification through Calcinatio, then you have something to offer up to Solutio.
Moments of dissolving have come and gone in my life. Some were profound, most incidental. When my Father died I realized I could never save anyone I love from death. The smaller self saw death as suffering, and I as someone who would care-take others and save them from this suffering. In that moment the caretaker dissolved a little more and my eyes opened a little wider to the world.
I suddenly became aware of the vastness of life, witnessing a profound cauldron in which we are all moving, swirling, unaware of the currents that surround us, part of a greater body. I came away with the understanding that death was not necessarily suffering, but we must each resolve our own relationship with death. We can help each other but there is a moment of transformation we must each face alone. Separatio, Calicinatio, Solutio.
In my wetsuit and mono-fin I ripple through the Pacific like a snake, tasting again Solutio out where the waves are building. It only takes a moment for my consciousness to shift back to Her rhythms. I've been through enough in Her waters to know I won't be treated like a child out here, there are no safe armchairs in the Ocean. Never turn your back on Her, despite Her abundant graces. Still, I drift in Her body, dissolving into Her heavings.
If we had given in to off shore drilling in California I might not be able to swim in these waves, to reconnect with Her. Some scientist believe life was born on the edge of a tide. Agitated by the lure of the Moon, surf initiated a spark from which all of us still flow. Solutio assumes the water you're using is pure. We can never really assume that any more, can we?
There is no human consciousness without water, without pure water. We may discover that water is consciousness embodied, once we as a people have offered ourselves fully up to Solutio. Lets hope its not too late for us to receive all the gifts water has to offer us.
Poem: We Are Water {click to enlarge and read}
Calcinatio - What of the Fire Beneath the Cauldron?
Calcinatio is the first step in most alchemical processes. Elements are submitted to fire, superheating them until all impurities dissolve into ash. What's left is only that which is essential - only that which can embody the transcendent.
We all have a built in life force that knows when we have to cast off part of ourselves to achieve something new. If we submit to this drive we can emerge cleansed from sacred fires. To others we may seem like a different person, but we know we are simply more ourselves. It can be hard to trust the inner fire because it calls forth things we don't want to see. Darkness is distilled before it is transmuted. We may have to face some demons.
Calinatio is both epic and intimate, cutting large swaths through our lives, indeed through the history of our country. The Civil War was a conflagration of gargantuan proportions. Our nations future was offered up to this extraordinary conflict that took hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet its blaze could also be measured in the families torn apart by sides taken, and the individual freedom ultimately won by African Americans. That blaze was so great its embers have not yet completely died out.
I've stumble into my own Calcinatios quite a few times. Some were intense shamanic experiences where I was allowed to witness the essence that remained. Others took place in the blender of daily life, everything upended by its challenges in a culture that prefers calm water over raging infernos. Only in hindsight did I realize something had been consumed.
At one time or another, family, friends, work, relationships, and even spiritual practices have undergone Calcinatio. Especially in my youth I gravitated to its fires, begging it to strip away things I thought were cancerous. Often I asked for too much. I'm sure to many people I looked like the wandering dead at times, however I attribute my merciful ability to feel both of my feet solidly on the ground to my time in its sacred flames. Loved ones still bare the singe marks of those days.
Its not uncommon in shamanism to find oneself working intimately with Fire. When speaking with the spirit of Fire I'm always struck by how responsible and devoted to its task it is. It is the great renewer of life. It remakes the world so that we might plant seeds anew. It seems to have little time for human concerns about its impact on our lives. It knows its doing the important work of the world.
These days I find Calcinatio working on our land. Surrendering to work, surrendering to the baking sun is one way I can consciously offer myself up to transformation. When I resist the burning of the sun and the burning of my muscles I usually pay for it later. Mercifully age has lessened my fear of and ardor for consuming fire. I've come to understand Calcinatio as one way to remove that which is not fully authentic. Things in us that may waver are put to the ultimate test, we're always better off without them.
Life hints at what might serve as tinder. This or that habit creates conflict, I become less yielding, filled with the telltale sign of misplaced Calinatio: anger. In those moments I find myself asking - "what am I not receiving right now?" Always there seems to be something life is offering with grace that I have not allowed in. Always receiving the gift makes me available to giving up something new to Calcinatio. Ultimately it just comes down to saying "yes". Yes to the sun, yes to the hot dirt, yes to the fire. Certainly the same fire will be waiting for me in the garden tomorrow. I am preparing my "Yes" now.
Calinatio is both epic and intimate, cutting large swaths through our lives, indeed through the history of our country. The Civil War was a conflagration of gargantuan proportions. Our nations future was offered up to this extraordinary conflict that took hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet its blaze could also be measured in the families torn apart by sides taken, and the individual freedom ultimately won by African Americans. That blaze was so great its embers have not yet completely died out.
I've stumble into my own Calcinatios quite a few times. Some were intense shamanic experiences where I was allowed to witness the essence that remained. Others took place in the blender of daily life, everything upended by its challenges in a culture that prefers calm water over raging infernos. Only in hindsight did I realize something had been consumed.
At one time or another, family, friends, work, relationships, and even spiritual practices have undergone Calcinatio. Especially in my youth I gravitated to its fires, begging it to strip away things I thought were cancerous. Often I asked for too much. I'm sure to many people I looked like the wandering dead at times, however I attribute my merciful ability to feel both of my feet solidly on the ground to my time in its sacred flames. Loved ones still bare the singe marks of those days.
Its not uncommon in shamanism to find oneself working intimately with Fire. When speaking with the spirit of Fire I'm always struck by how responsible and devoted to its task it is. It is the great renewer of life. It remakes the world so that we might plant seeds anew. It seems to have little time for human concerns about its impact on our lives. It knows its doing the important work of the world.
These days I find Calcinatio working on our land. Surrendering to work, surrendering to the baking sun is one way I can consciously offer myself up to transformation. When I resist the burning of the sun and the burning of my muscles I usually pay for it later. Mercifully age has lessened my fear of and ardor for consuming fire. I've come to understand Calcinatio as one way to remove that which is not fully authentic. Things in us that may waver are put to the ultimate test, we're always better off without them.
Life hints at what might serve as tinder. This or that habit creates conflict, I become less yielding, filled with the telltale sign of misplaced Calinatio: anger. In those moments I find myself asking - "what am I not receiving right now?" Always there seems to be something life is offering with grace that I have not allowed in. Always receiving the gift makes me available to giving up something new to Calcinatio. Ultimately it just comes down to saying "yes". Yes to the sun, yes to the hot dirt, yes to the fire. Certainly the same fire will be waiting for me in the garden tomorrow. I am preparing my "Yes" now.
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