The Great Work of Alchemy

The alchemical transformation cycle and the cycle of seasons, and how I use both to tell me what time it is

Photo of the northern lights, by Vincent Guth

If you’ve been reading my work for some time, you are already aware of how enamored I am with alchemy. I picked it up like a holy habit from the work of Carl Jung, who spent his prime years obsessed with translating alchemical documents and studying its system of symbols¹. Alchemy became central to the development of his own understanding of the nature of the psyche, especially the aspect of it he could come to call the collective unconscious. He learned that in the process of experimenting with earth and metals, attempting to transmute lead into gold, alchemists realized they must experience internally and ultimately embody the changes they hoped to effect with their materials—that an inner alchemy had to accompany the outer alchemy. And that there was an outer you could only access by going that deeply within. In the symbols alchemists used to protect and preserve their wisdom, Jung saw the perfect metaphors for understanding processes of psychological transformation.