Elemental Alchemy

A woman I admire posted this poem on her blog:

My dad said he was a diamond
in the rough. Forty years and
no diamond. Your children
inherit a chisel.

Her poem put me in mind of the Buddhist concept of "difficult gifts" and the Christian story I heard growing up about "gold tried in the fire". As a Green Witch, I think in terms of alchemy and transformation. I've met so many golden women friends who were tried (and tried and tried) by the volatile alchemy that was their family system and who did more than simply survive it; they took these difficult gifts and made them into something rich and strange. These women, these rare, untarnished women, left the dross of this culture behind them. They came out strong because they had to.

An alchemist's lab (like a flour mill or a fire works factory) is built with brick on the sides and a tin roof on top so that when the inevitable explosions occur the energy is sent up and out, and the people inside, survive. Maybe that's what writing and giving, and marching and sharing our truth does for us, it sends all that anger, fear, disappointment and pain up and out into the dark night of our collective souls where it is transformed into jeweled pinwheels, glittering comets and flaming chrysanthemums, so that no one is harmed by the force of these illuminations, so that back on earth we can rethink, rebuild and try again.

Sia

For: Artemesia, Jan, Kitchen Diva, Lynn, Owlwind, Rabbit, Rowan, Snakemoon, Thalassa and Token.

Image: Elemental Alchemy by Gaelin Larrick