The Soul as Kombucha: The Alchemy of Personal Transformation
What are you alchemising Sweet Friend?
I used to think that alchemy was to do with chemistry. Reading an ancient text recently it struck me however, alchemy isn’t about chemical breakdowns... it’s about personal breakdowns.
The central maxim of alchemy is ‘Solve e Coagule’: Separate & Recombine. I don’t think the alchemists were simply experimenting on chemicals however, I think they were experimenting on themselves.
Modern science is all about breaking things down into their smallest parts in order to understand them, but it doesn’t really concern itself with how to put the pieces back together again. Fortunately the alchemists left us a map.
In China, the tradition of ‘inner alchemy’ is well known, and is preserved in the imagery of acupuncture. A human being is like an alchemical laboratory; the body is the fragile glassware that the experiment takes place within. The intestines and kidneys are called ‘the lower burner’, the stomach and viscera are the ‘middle burner’ and the chest is the ‘upper burner’. But what is being burnt in this complex smelting equipment, one may ask?
You are what is burning sweet friend, along with all the ideas you’ve been taught about who you are supposed to be.
One of the most basic alchemical processes for separating your essence out of the dross of your life is simply ‘fermentation’. The texts describe the way plant material is put into a big fermenting vat and ‘drowned’ in water - so feeling like you’re drowning is a clue that something alchemical is underway.
Furthermore, in ancient Greece someone formally undergoing a process of initiation was called a ‘neophyte’: it literally meant ‘new plant’. Fermentation is the stage of rotting and ripening where all the dank and mouldy corners of your soul are slowly composting themselves down ready for that ‘new plant’ to grow.
The goal of fermentation however, is an alcohol, which is then distilled into a pure and strong ‘spirit’ ... and that spirit is you.
The difference between a good productive ferment, and something that more resembles a mouldy lunch box is the right 'container'.
The texts speak of a ‘hermetically sealed vessel’ which translates into time and space to descend into your own private underworld – the bowels of your soul – and face those shadowy corners.
The ‘prima materia’ or ‘starting material’ is your wound: “in filth shall it be found” say the alchemists of the mysterious ‘philosopher’s stone’. When they say ‘filth’ I think they mean the suppressed parts of you that you were so ashamed of you stuffed into your psychological basement where nobody can see them… not even you.
This is pretty much all you need to know about this part, as the rest will take care of itself. Your soul is probably already fermenting dissent and discontent right now. Eventually out of the sludge your spirit emerges, it naturally floats to the top as a realisation of some kind.
But you’re not finished yet.
That insight is still kind of murky, so the alchemists then speak of the process of ‘distillation’. You apply transformative heat and a little pressure to the insight, and out of the wine we have brewed from our own sour grapes eventually arises something pure and radiant. This is none other than your own ‘spirit’, it was in there all along.
Fermentation takes us into the underworld, but distillation raises us up into the heavens for a time where we can see clearly.
Now you need to put that insight to one side for a moment, like a message in a bottle and using your new refreshed and spirited energy, scoop up all the sludge of your pain and discontent… there’s gold in that there sludge yet.
The next process is the toughest I reckon: ‘calcination’. This is the process of burning off the dross. Whilst the fermenting of your soul’s dissent was uncomfortable, this phase feels like a complete breakdown. It is. What is being broken down is the very idea of yourself that no longer serves you, chances are it never did. This is where we feel ‘the dragon’s bellows’ and it feels like no part of our old life and old self will survive. Yet something does, it always does.
Out of the ashes of what you thought you were, emerges the seed of what you have always truly been... the seed of the Neophyte, the seed of the New Plant.
Next something wondrous happens that they call ‘dissolution’. In order to integrate this experience, the pure gold that has had the dross and ore burnt off is dissolved into something larger than itself… something transcendental. Of that which we cannot speak, we must stay silent ... but hopefully you get the idea.
Then we have the easy final step to wrap things up, the whole dissolved package; your gold and your God is recombined with your very own distilled pure spirit.
It sounds so lovely when I describe it this way, but it actually feels like journeying through hell and back – because that’s exactly what it is. The main thing to remember is that everyone has to go on this journey sooner or later. You’re not a failure because you have a breakdown, it’s a part of being human, focus instead on not failing to make the most of the opportunity.
Like Kombucha however, the whole process pretty much takes care of itself when you look back on it. Life is a natural fermenting vat and our honey-laden souls are ripe for the process. Don’t worry too much about what to do about it all sweet friend, ‘it’ will definitely do you. In so many ways, all we need to do is to try not to get in the way.
May you rot, may you bubble, may you burn and may you dissolve.
With Heart,
Jimi
