- When we begin the endeavour, all is chaos; An undifferentiated oneness.
- The ‘alchemist’s’ initial step is to make ‘two from one’
- Polar opposites are discerned, sorted and separated
- To connect to, or be engulfed by, one of the opposites is to exclude awareness of the other
- The opposites attract and also repulse; To approach one, increases it’s attraction. They become huge ‘gravity sinks’, consuming all that stray too close.
- The ‘alchemist’ tasks himself with holding that most difficult ground; The buffeting ‘no-man’s land’ directly between. Here, the forces swirl and eddy, pulling and pushing; insisting upon a resolution.
- This ‘friction’ is a kind of ‘suffering’, but it is one that is accepted willingly.
- The ‘alchemist’ works to stay ‘here’, because this is the only place where ‘things’ can happen. Everywhere else is automatic process; Places where one thing just leads to another.
- The ‘alchemist’ eventually realises that his mind and body are two such poles. As he approaches that sweet spot that lies ‘in-between’, he begins to remember himself.
- His body becomes a crucible and testing ground. He stands and his skeletal structure strives towards the sky while his flesh sinks to earth
- Eventually a dark and foreboding shape looms. The wise ‘alchemist’ does not shrink in terror though. He has already experienced the shocking revelation that he is only a ‘half being’. How could his conscious mind ever apprehend something that it is not conscious of?
- The veil is lifted and the ‘alchemist’ becomes aware of the ‘main act’. To seek out and join with the rest of himself. This is the boundary land. The place between ‘the conscious’ and ‘unconscious’; The border between order and chaos. Strange and terrifying creatures guard this place. It is a shock to see what had been hidden, now ‘clothed and in the flesh’. And yet, all this is still only ‘us’.
- Does the dreamer die when the man wakes?
