Ongoing Process

In my recent alchemical explorations, I’ve kept getting hung up on not being able to specify exactly what it was I was looking at.  For example, for the basic diagram of process of X → Y, what exactly are X and Y, and what exactly is the → process between them?  After crunching that for a while, I finally realized that they weren’t anything by themselves.  To be meaningful, they had to be placed in context.  Specifically, they have to be placed in dimensional context.

X and Y are objects of some variety, but to be meaningful an object must be described by its dimensions.  For example, a sphere is a two-dimensional surface evenly curved through a three-dimensional space.  But the ideas of surface and space are entirely relative to the current point of reference.  If we draw a circle on our sphere, we have then created a  new object which is a 1-D surface (a line) evenly curved through a 2-D space (the surface of the sphere).  Similarly, we could extrapolate that the 3-D space the sphere lives in is also a 3-D surface within a 4-D space, and so on.

So to make X → Y meaningful, we would have to describe the dimensionality of X and Y.  Then the specifics of what processes could possibly be occurring to those objects would also be defined by the dimensions in which they exist.  For example, we could speculate that one thing that could happen to two spheres is that they could intersect.  This process would create a quasi-shared expanding circle on their respective surfaces and a shared expanding interior space which is distinct from their respective interiors and their shared exterior.

The circle created upon their surfaces by this intersection would have an interesting quality.  Remember, here a circle is a 1-D surface in a 2-D space.  But it would only be the circle’s 1-D surface aspect that was shared between the spheres.  It would then have unique 2-D interiors and exteriors upon the surfaces of each sphere.  So the product of the process would be a curious new sort of object, which I’m not immediately sure how to describe.

All of this feels very much to me like it will have great application to the consideration of alchemical objects and their processes.  If we could describe the dimensionality of people, for example, we would have a model to describe  what happens with the various surfaces and spaces involved in their interactions (or whatever terms will turn out to be appropriate for those dimensions).

I think maybe it’s time to read up on some non-Euclidean geometry. 

I’ve hit upon an exciting connection on the alchemical front.  Upon looking out the window at the snow today, I though how water was transformed to ice.  Pondering that a bit, I realized that the four elements correspond directly to the four states of matter (listed in order of decreasing energy):

• Fire = Plasma
• Air = Gas
• Water = Liquid
• Earth = Solid

Further, we can see how the transformation of water is accomplished by the application of the quality of warmth (remember the elements are composed of combinations of qualities) to make steam (a gas) or coolness to make ice (a solid).  From there, I speculated that the other elements should be similarly transformed by the application of other qualities.  This is what I came up with:

• Fire (Dry / Warm, Plasma) | + Cool = Ash (Solid) | + Warm = Smoke (Gas)
• Air (Warm / Moist, Gas) | + Dry = Lightning (Plasma) | + Moist = Rain (Liquid)
• Water (Moist / Cool, Liquid) | + Warm = Steam (Gas) | + Cool = Ice (Solid)
• Earth (Cool / Dry, Solid) | + Moist = Mud (Liquid) | + Dry = Ember (Plasma)

This is all very preliminary, but this is the first apparent link I’ve found to actual, literal physical materials and processes!  It’s very exciting.  :)  This allows me to speculate on my very first alchemical process; combustion:

Earth (Moist / Cool, Liquid) + Fire (Dry / Warm, Plasma) = Ember (Cool / Dry / Dry, Plasma) → Fire (Dry / Warm, Plasma) → Smoke (Dry / Warm / Warm, Gas) → Air (Warm / Moist, Gas) → Ash (Dry / Warm / Cool, Solid)

Obviously, that’s very rough.  It raises a hundred questions about which substance goes where and when and how.  But I feel like maybe the basics are starting to take shape!  If I can sort out the specific dynamics of how the different qualities/elements/substances/states interact and transform, then I’ll be well on my way to an actual, practical alchemy that’s grounded in reality.

By Jove, I think he’s got it.  :)  (or starting to get it, at any rate!)

The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was the very first church I ever went to on purpose.  I only went a couple of times, but it was a major milestone on my early spiritual path.

This morning a man walked into the church during a children’s play and opened fire with a shotgun.  He killed one adult and injured seven more, six of which may or may not make it.

I really have no words.

We get hung up on our dualities.  We want something to be either this or that.  But what about this and that?  Or neither this nor that?  What about what is bigger than categories?  What about what Is?

Is holds union and division.  Is was neither ecstasy nor agony.  Is will be only death and only birth.  Is could have been either destruction or creation.  Is was never related to linear or cyclical.  Is needs to be explicitly literal and never metaphorical, except it doesn’t.  Is encompasses both freedom and fate.  Is used to be both personal or universal.  Is resembles material nor ethereal.  Is is and is isn’t.

I am interested in our dualities but I am also interested in Is.

The map requires the territory.  The medium loves the message.