Before we head into Christmas, I’d like to offer a further post on alchemy which gives some background to this very mysterious and enigmatic practice. It’s spiced up with some glorious alchemical illustrations which I hope will light your path through it. Do take a look, even if you think alchemy is not be your thing! You might be surprised…
This is the first in a series of experimental posts, which are drawn partly from my book ‘Everyday Alchemy’. I start today with an extract adapted from the Prelude to Everyday Alchemy, and I finish with a story of encountering a mysterious stranger in shadowy Amsterdam. This is a true account of something that happened to me the year that I turned twenty-one, and which I have kept private for many years. Is that enough to entice you to read on? I hope so!
Having acquired White Lead, do the work of women, that is: COOK ‘Do you cook supper sometimes? If so, you’re an alchemist.’ This usually produces a response of surprised delight, when I open a talk on alchemy this way. Many people are drawn to old alchemical imagery, as the psychologist Carl Jung pointed out, but …
This is the story of a dialogue with Mercury – a stay in the city of Prague – a performance which had never before been given. If you think that alchemy is always a deadly serious affair, then you haven’t met Mercury in his mischievous mood! I think it will entertain you, even if you’re not normally partial to alchemical writings.
William Blake – poet, artist, visionary. He’s a writer I’ve long admired, but only recently did I come across some new research which reveals the unusual source which may have inspired him in his knowledge of mystical philosophy. Lullabies, visualisations, ‘love feasts’, and a great range of hermetic and kabbalistic literature were all to be found in the Moravian Church, of which his mother Catherine was a member. Let’s take a journey through this research, accompanied by some of Blake’s stunning images, and ending with the joyful intimations of the ‘other world’ that he experienced on his death bed.
In this post, I reveal some of the secrets of medieval Exeter, and announce that I am going to take a winter-into-spring break. There’s also an intriguing quest to write about ‘Pilgrimage of Place’ – could your experiences perhaps form part of this future blog?
‘Eating Apples’ is a musing on age, memory and transformation,. A personal love story of my mother’s ties in with the quest to distil and relive our memories. An intriguing alchemical saying opens the way: ‘Lock the tree with the old man in a bedewed house, and by eating of its fruits he will become young’
We’re coming up to the Feast of Michaelmas, on Sep 29th. And as I have a couple of stories about St Michael to impart, I’m posting a week ahead of my usual schedule, in time for his feast day. Note: Part Two of my Christening Mugs Stories will now appear on October 10th St Michael …
Earlier this year, when my husband and I dived into the Castle Museum in Bude, to take shelter from the pouring rain, I discovered to my surprise that artist Pamela Colman Smith had also been a native of this Cornish town. ‘Pixie’ Pamela is best known for painting the Rider-Waite Tarot pack. It has enthralled several generations of Tarot users now – I first came across her vivid set of cards at the age of nineteen – but her own extraordinary life story has been little investigated until recently. Although she ended her days as a quiet recluse, she spent her early years as a traveller, a talented actress and singer, and a friend of famous composers and poets, as well as a hard-working and gifted artist. Her entry into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn triggered the collaboration with the esoteric scholar A. E. Waite, which led to the creation of the Tarot deck. She was also inspired by spontaneous visions which arose when she listened to music. This is just a brief resumé, and I invite you to read about her life and art in the current post.
The cracking of an egg – symbol of new life, and death of the old. From a humble decorated hen’s egg for Easter, to a cosmic egg from which hatched the Greek gods, it can both delight and alarm us. In my book ‘Everyday Alchemy’ I recount a turning point when I found myself suspended between life and death, and reflect on the ‘wake-up calls’ which reach us, perhaps from another dimension of existence.
Cherry's Cache 