★Alchemy for Personal Transformation(#4of4)

begins 12/16/16 12:00 noon EST

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“ _{last workshop (#3) which preceded this…can be located here} “:http://bmindful.com/forum/thread/9631/alchemyforpersonaltransformation3

“Alchemy for Personal Transformation – The Royal Marriage” [Workshop #4]
_{By Laura Kohn, LMHC, CHt}

textileRef:145910977662adc410dc60:linkStartMarker:“Greetings lovelies! So today I bring you the last article in our series on using the ancient wisdom tradition of Alchemy for your own personal growth and discovery.

• ~ “ _{info for The Magician’s Free Bmindful Workshops}”:http://bmindful.com/forum/thread/9609/infofortodaysfreeworkshop#post125580

• ~ We have previously stated that The Great Work, Alchemy, is a metaphor for personal growth or what Carl Jung called the individuation process. We also stated that this work is about making something lesser into something great and when this happens the Philosophers Stone, or Unity Consciousness is reached. We also introduced you to our two main figures in this great process the Red King and the White Queen which we said were symbolic of the ego (King) and the Soul (Queen), and we said that this metaphor works fractally in that it describes workings in the outer world and the inner world through the play of archetypes. Today I would like to discuss the process of the Royal Marriage and how we use this process for our own journey to growth and wholeness.

Before anyone can achieve Unity Consciousness, which is a type of consciousness where the illusion of separation falls away and all is seen as One, one must first travel through the consciousness of Polarities. It is fitting that we shall speak of Polarity Consciousness at this point in time when we are seeing such a marked division within the country and the world at the moment. You see, in Polarity Consciousness there are always opposites, us and them, good and bad, right and wrong, strong and weak. We enter into the world of polarities and our job is to experience the opposites so that we can understand them fully before we move to the next level. You cannot experience the light until you have experienced the darkness, for without the contrast we would not be able to notice the light just as the fish that swims in the ocean doesn’t fully understand the quality of water since it has no experience of ever being out of it. The problem with polarity consciousness is that it is limited and creates a filter that makes our experience of the world much narrower. Let us look at the polarity of right and wrong to see how this works, and I shall give you an example that I often see in therapy when I am working with couples.

This week I had a couple come in who were not married but were thinking about getting married but they were fighting quite a bit. They wanted to see if they could take their relationship to the next level and possibly get engaged but they were not sure since they fought so often. The root of their problem had to do with money. He owned his own business and was doing quite well financially; she was in the process of starting a business and had little to no income at the moment. She felt that he should pay for the hourly therapy session because he was making good money and it would be financially easy for him and he felt she should “have some skin in the game” and pay part of the bill to show she was serious about making the relationship work. Because each person thought they were “right” they spent a great deal of time arguing about why their position was superior. Neither really heard the other because they were either too busy trying to convince the other of the strength of their position or the weakness of the others. I let them go around and around for about 10 minutes with each person stating why they were right and the other was wrong before I said to them, “Both of you have valid points. What you are failing to see is that you are arguing about personal preferences not about which position is correct. How can you say someone’s personal preference is wrong?” Personal preferences feel much less stressful than when someone is not acknowledging when they are wrong, don’t you think?

You see Polarity Consciousness creates a filter that can trap us because the mind actually shuts down in varying degrees the ability to see other options once it perceives something as being right. Rarely will you ever hear a Ku Klux Klan man or even a staunch Democrat or Republican say “Interesting perspective, I never thought of it that way. Thank you for enlightening me!” They can be so dangerous or insular because they think they are “right”. Another way to say this is you can’t learn what you think you already know. So while Polarity Consciousness has its upside, it creates a quick shortcut we can use to make decisions in lightning speed, it limits us because it doesn’t take context into account. You could say it’s wrong to steal, but what if your family was starving and that’s the only way you could feed them at the moment? Things can be blurrier once you step outside of polarity thinking but you have the freedom to create the best choice in the moment based on the context of the situation not just what your parents, society, or the church told you how it should be. It therefore requires one to think for themselves and take full responsibility for their decisions. This is pretty much how a King or a Queen thinks isn’t it? The King isn’t running around saying “Let me ask my Dad first.” So when you start moving past polarities you reclaim your own sovereignty and become the ruler of your own life. I told you this was a pretty powerful metaphor didn’t I?

So let’s talk about how this reconciling of opposites happens and The Law of Three. In the personal growth game one reconciles opposites by understanding what is in their personal Shadow and instead of fearing these previously unacceptable or unlikable parts of self we acknowledge them and understand how to work with them instead of against them. We dive into our unconscious mind by looking at the symbols we create in our outer life and the archetypes we play out and become aware of when we are doing it so we can choose another path if that makes sense. For our couple that came to therapy, they were both competing to play the archetype of the victim. He felt he gave financially and it was never acknowledged because he had money anyway, and she felt like she was not on equal ground with him because he judged her on her financial situation and did not acknowledge the other areas she contributed to the relationship. Two victims never works so in their dynamic they would switch off between being the victim and being the victimizer by belittling the other, storming out unexpectedly or issuing ultimatums. Because each was so caught up in being right they could not see any of the deeper dynamics of what was happening in their relationship. Everything was happening subconsciously. So in Unity Consciousness there is room for each person’s preference and room to compromise in the middle and no one has to be the victim which is much more empowering. She ended up paying him a small portion of the therapy session and he said if they came for 4 weeks and things got better he would pay the entire fee for the session, he just wanted to make sure there was a firm commitment to work on their issues. So in essence, Unity Consciousness is about having room for everything because one polarity can’t exist without the other anyway. Electricity can be used to light a lamp or kill someone in the electric chair but in the end it’s all just energy. We attribute meaning and interpretations and beliefs about how it’s used but that’s often an individual subjective thing.

When opposites come together a third different thing is created and you invoke the Law of Three. Think mother, father, child; body, mind and spirit; beginning, middle and end which represents completion. In Alchemy the idea is to make room for paradoxes so that one can see the larger third thing. In Eastern traditions this was done through the exploration of Koans such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” The Alchemist looks to join body, soul and spirit together so that one’s true divinity radiates out at all times. This is only done through the work of reconciling opposites and by making the unconscious conscious. Right now in our country you see a lot of clashing of opposites. This is done to break down the old paradigm so that a new thing has space to emerge. Many are playing with the polarity of right and wrong in an attempt to understand the true nature of power. At the same time you are slowly starting to hear the voice of a third position which is “Let me understand you with compassion and through this you may be able to understand me and then we will no longer be enemies.” After all we are all Americans at the small or narrow scale, and inhabitants of Earth, or humans at our foundations. A very powerful third thing will be created when we no longer have to play the polarity game of victim/victimizer or powerful/powerless.

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  So the Alchemist looks to “marry” emotions with logic, heart and mind, body and soul to create the Philosophers Stone. This is the place where we are guided by both our emotions and our logic, but we don’t become trapped by either. We can make conscious choices in any given moment and we can forgive ourselves when things don’t turn out exactly as planned. We can also make space for those who don’t think like we do without fear and where we can voice our truth and allow others to voice theirs in safety knowing there are multiple “rights” at any given time. This does not mean we accept poor behavior from others, or allow ourselves to be mistreated, however. It just means that if we need to make a correction, remove ourselves from a bad situation, or make a different choice, we can do so and move on without wasting time blaming ourselves or others for how and why we got there in the first place. This is how we become the Sovereign of our own lives and this is where we become the conscious creators of our reality, thus emulating the Prime Creator and unfolding our own magnificence as a part and parcel of the Divine.

Useful links to learn more:

1 “Therapy as an Alchemical Process”

2 “The Sacred Marriage”

3“The Sacred Marriage from a Christian Perspective”

4 “Divine Sacred Union”

So that my lovelies is just a small taste of one of the most deep and powerful metaphors of the Ancients, Alchemy. Once you step onto the path of ancient wisdom traditions you see that they are filled with rich symbolism and very deep truths. The ancients were far from primitive. Science is just starting to understand what some of what the Buddhists, Vedics, and Yogis have been saying about the working of consciousness. The ancients used a lot of symbolic language to expound high level concepts because symbols stack information more efficiently. A picture speaks a thousand words as they say.

If you want to understand some of the deeper mysteries then understand that these stories are symbols that represent other things.

Alchemical Wedding-picture

They are not to be taken literally. The literal is the realm of the left brain, the ego or the King. The deeper truths come from the Great Queen, the right brain, and the symbols of the subconscious mind.

• ~ It is no different today than it was thousands of years ago. We just need to set aside our bias and look to the symbols to hear the Ancients whisper to us again. This is how we bring the Great Mother back into balance with the Father, this is how we heal the planet, and this is how we heal ourselves.

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  I have very much enjoyed our time together and as this Magician takes her leave of you I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a bright and happy new year! Look around you for the magic and get out there and play. Acknowledge your King and your Queen and look for the places where they live in harmony together and build from that place. Play with the idea that the opposites you see all around you are plays of energy and archetypes. Jump in and play with them or watch in fascination as others play with fervor and abandon for all opposites must exist, and while we prefer to stay in the light, the darkness also has its place for there is no thing that exists around us that is not ultimately Divine in nature.

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Ado precious ones… and until next time!

May we all keep our crowns and robes close to our heart and continue to include heart-y laughter whenever it feels right… generally does(: ( Poppy )

I know this will be a great thread/series to return now and for time to come!

Thank you everyone for participating in ways you choose! ✉ Thank you Laura for creating these discussion-workshops for Bmindful! (:

Thank Thank you to The Magician !!

It is no different today than it was thousands of years ago. We just need to set aside our bias and look to the symbols to hear the Ancients whisper to us again. This is how we bring the Great Mother back into balance with the Father, this is how we heal the planet, and this is how we heal ourselves.

I look forward to doing my part to hear the Ancients whisper and bringing about balance.

In response to Priestess Within’s post:

Have a wonderful holiday season Priestess!

Body, mind, and spirit, what a combo! Does that come with a drink? Just kidding. The marriage of the king and Queen (opposites) seem to me to represent a good balance between the two. The magic is to stay balanced in body, mind, and spirit. Not an easy task, but worth the effort in dealing with yourself and others. I always say too much of a good thing(ice cream) is not a good thing. I wouldn’t want to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Would you?

In response to Poppy’s post: I probably have at one point but that was in my earlier days when balance was not in my vocabulary. I will admit in the spirit of self disclosure I probably could eat pizza for all three meals but only for a few days, lol!

In response to The Magician's post:

In response to Fly me to the moon's post:

wonderfully thought provoking quote-Fly me to moon!

I want to reread it again... Love how it made me feel... 

DEEP DOWN ALL CONTRADICTIONS ARE MEETING TOGETHER

 

 

And thank you for bringing back the workshop. I was thinking about this recently... and so great to see again!