On alchemy

Alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination.

I finished rereading The Alchemist ten days ago, at the same time James Clear’s weekly newsletter contained this post’s thumbnail quote. I smiled, because it dovetailed so well with my favorite passage:

'This is why alchemy exists,’ the boy said. ‘So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have [emphasis mine] to turn itself into gold.’

‘That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.’

‘Well, why did you say that I don’t know about love?’ the sun asked the boy.

‘Because it’s not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it’s not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transform and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.’ (Page 75)

In a previous post, I said that I believed that life is about holding the tension of opposites. In Buddhism, this concept is summed up as “holding things lightly.” The magic and power of alchemy is not in possessing and gripping onto the ability to make something less than into something more than. The moment you think of this power as yours, you’ve already lost it.

Everything in this world is transitory. Most suffering comes from trying to possess and hold onto things that will have to go one day. The magic is the event itself - the very process of change.

I’m not suggesting this is easy; as McKenna’s quote opens: it requires courage. And I believe that courage, like love, is not a trait but a state. It’s an action.

As we close January, what is an abyss into which you have been staring? How can you harness courage to leap? Can you think about holding your goal lightly so that you can take the action?

Be well, beautiful people.