Jay Ramsay - Alchemy: The Art of Transformation

In every sense this book is the harvest of a group effort, although one hand actually wrote it; but this one hand couldnt have moved as it did without all Ive been given over the seven years of experience and study that formed the basis and prima materia of it. So I want royally to thank the following as co-facilitators in all their various ways:

Alison Roberts (author of Hathor Rising ), who first saw alchemy in me; Carole Bruce, who above all nurtured its seed; Barbara Somers, who gave it so freely through her lecture notes; Bronwen Astor, who gave me invaluable house room to fall through; Glenn Storhaug (of Five Seasons Press), who first showed me Burckhardt; Alexsis and Jag Robertson, who helped me negotiate Saturn; Jehanne Mehta, who showed me a new way of loving; Marion Fawlk, for her affirmation and purity; Ferenc Aszmann, for his wit and radical integrity; Rae Beth, who confronted me with my shadow; Kristin Charlesworth, who helped me back to robedo; Keith Cashon, for coming from another planet than my own; Susan Mears (my agent and friend), for her immaculate timing; Liz Puttick (my editor and friend), for her praise and faith that I could do it; Caroline Waterlow, who showed me the prima materia ; Ted Partridge, for his wonderful golden lamp, and for being Ted; Stanley Messenger, for his timely distillation; Judy de la Hoyde, who arrived with warm earth and cakes; Catherine Leonard and Marion Shiel, for their Irish breezes; Frances Emmelaus, for her royalty and for lending me Mercurius; Bob Moore (in Denmark), for his outstanding teaching; Christopher Johnson, for his penetrating healing; Niels Bandholm, for his precious loan of Fabricius; Maggie Peters, for being there at every turn of the dream; Richard Wainwright, for meeting me in the Queens; Mary Kingsley, for reminding me of the adventure; Lindsay Clarke, for being the red lion; Anne Baring and Robert Bly, for their eloquent support; Elizabeth Hutchins, for her demonic editing eye; Helen Elwes for her painstaking excellence in the nick of time ...

Also, all my client-companions and workshop participants in the Chrysalis community who have again and again demonstrated alchemys relevance and reality to me through their process and their sharing; among them, especially Immaculate Manzi, Catherine Abbot, Emma Shackle and Sheila Ranger.

And above all to Lucy Lidell for her healing in Heaven and Earth, and for helping it come into actual form; and to Zanna Beswick, for showing me the end, and for her gift of gold in God on the way.

May we all go there, get there, be there in the heart place where we know we belong.

J.R.

ONE

BEGINNING

In a sense the secret of alchemy

is to imagine a world in which

it is possible to transmute

base metal to gold.

PATRICK HARPUR

lNTRODUCTION

Soror mystic a she raises her finger to her lips.

It may seem strange to begin by saying nothing, but the whole approach of this book is through feeling and imagination, and we have to be silent in order to feel. So I want to begin by offering you a short meditation exercise that is a key to the door of our subject:

Sit comfortably, read over what follows here and then lay it aside.

You will need some paper and a pen or pencil to write with.

Sitting quietly, just take a moment to be aware of your breathing, and as you breathe, slow down and deepen, breathing down into yourself.

Then begin to say the word ALCHEMY inwardly, and allow it to resonate. just keep repeating the word

What does it bring to mind?

How do you feel it in yourself, and where do you feel it

And, staying with the word, where is it taking you to in your body?

What does it feel like there? Can you sense or see anything? See if you can allow an image or a picture to come forward from that place to you, and trust what wants to come, whatever it is.

Give yourself a moment to hold the image in your awareness ... and then come back. Make a note of your image along with anything else that has come up for you during this exercise.

Your experience here is your key: your core feeling and connection.

We are going to be doing other exercises like this as this work proceeds. You might like to keep a journal as you read through this book, not only to record what happens for you with the exercises, but also to make this study your own, in your own writing.

So why is alchemy important? Why does the word have such power and depth? And what use is it to us now? Alchemy is a process that involves the transmutation of base metal or lead into gold, through a number of different stages that together make up the Work, or Great Work. It is both a literal or physical process and a metaphorical or inward one. It belongs to physical matter and to our feelings and imaginations. It belongs inside our bodies, and to experiences we cant immediately understand, and we can see it happening outside in the world as well. It is happening as we speak.