Tag: dissolution

Cibation

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Yes, cry! Cry harder, baby!

Fundamentally, the stage of Dissolution involves a process of release. Here, we are to come to terms with and finally surrender to the rage and wrongs we came up against when as the fires of Calcination burned through our Egos. It is a time of grieving the harm done to us, by others as well as ourselves. It is a time for letting go of what once was, and what we wished for and never had.

With this in mind, we can turn to the process of Cibation as a tool for healing and working through our grief. In practical alchemy, Cibation is a technique in which water is added to the remaining ashes that have carried over from Calcination.

In psycho-spiritual alchemy, it involves a similar process, where we bring our most intense emotions (symbolized by water) to the areas which are still most blocked and resistant to change within us.

HOW TO PRACTICE

  1. Start by thinking of one of our most painful childhood memories, or any painful incident from our past that remains.
  2. CRY. Really. Get into it, feel the depths of your pain, and let it all out.
  3. Rinse.
  4. Repeat.

Your focus on this meditation should be on the pure emotional energy that comes up, rather than on the details of any particular incident. Keep in mind that, appearances to the contrary, it is often in your darkness where you are to find your greatest light. If you can fully move through your emotional pain and physically release your grief, you will free this energy up to be used in another place for better purposes.

Don’t be afraid to ugly-cry if necessary. It’s okay if your mascara runs all over your face—the more, the better. It is important that this not be only a mental exercise, or even just an emotional one, but a physical experience as well. According to the principles of somatic therapy, any trauma we experience is held as memory in our body, not just in our mind.

We can’t heal something until we feel our emotions physically in our body and complete the response which may have been inhibited in the original traumatic incident.

So go ahead. Cry harder, baby.

Bain Marie

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One method that can be utilized in the process of Dissolution is known as the “Bain Marie.” The name essentially means “Mary’s bath,” and is a reference to the woman who invented the process, Maria Prophetissa, a Jewish alchemist who is said to have lived sometime around 100 B.C.E.

She invented the “Bain Marie” for use in laboratory alchemy, where it was intended to wash the burned material left over from the Calcination phase. The basic concept is that of something like a double boiler, where the water in the central vessel is kept at a constant temperature through being submerged in another container of boiling water.

It is the larger, outside container which is subjected to the direct heat, allowing a more gentle, stable process to occur in the container in which the actual contents being washed are held.

The Bain Marie is also useful in psycho-spiritual alchemy, and in this instance, refers to a cleansing and calming meditation we can use after experiencing the difficult emotions associated with personal calcination.

How to practice

We begin by calming ourselves with several deep inhalations and exhalations of our breath. Then we can start to imagine ourselves in the warm, soothing waters of the Bain Marie. 

We may also choose to imagine ourselves in a warm ocean, held by the waters of the all-loving, compassionate Divine Mother.

As you breath in, imagine the warm water permeating your energy body that need to be cleansed, gently soothing difficulties as it washes away all impurities. 

As you exhale, you can imagine all of the pain and hardness inside of you melting away. 

You can repeat this process as many times as you need to until you feel yourself cleansed and soothed by the element of water.

You may decide to draw yourself a warm bath and perform this meditation while submerged in the water. You can also add salt to the bath, which is known to be both physically and energetically cleansing.

As you finish your meditation, you can imagine that all difficulties or negative energies have been captured in the water, and watch as it flows down the drain and out of your life forever.

Dissolution

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Dissolution -- The Second Phase of Alchemy

The second phase of alchemy, dissolution, comes after the fiery heat of calcination which incinerated the ideas we once had about who we are and our place in the world.

Once the ego has been suitably reduced to ashes, we then become ready to commence the dissolving process of the Great Work. 

In laboratory alchemy, this process involved adding water or some other kind of solvent to the ashy powder left over from the burning of calcination.

In terms of psychospiritual alchemy, we now come into contact with the waters of the unconscious. Here, it is as if we are drowned in all of our long-repressed emotions, swamped by our most painful memories, and shaken by the most terrifying of our latent fears and anxieties.

These previous unconscious elements are the deepest, most obscured parts of ourselves which we have worked hard to keep hidden from both others and ourselves for an entire lifetime. These repressed psychic contents are matters of profound consequence, and addressing them fully is a matter not to be taken lightly. 

We have seen that the previous phase of calcination tends to involve a kind of destructive fire which rages through our lives, consuming everything it touches as it burns.

However, it is in this next stage of dissolution where we begin our first steps toward conscious awareness of what is truly happening to us. 

It is during this phase when we must truly come to terms with our lives and all of the losses we have experienced. In dissolution, we start to deal with our real, lived experiences and our deeply felt sense of what it means to grieve, not merely as an intellectual exercise, but in our hearts and through our bodies. 

This process requires that we surrender to the often painful truth of our current realities. We must learn to let go of any grasping or clinging to what our ego has desired or has falsely believed to be true. 

In the stage of dissolution, we are being asked to surrender and come face to face with the contents of our own souls as they truly are.

Nigredo: The Black Phase of Alchemy

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Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo: The 3 Phases of Alchemy
Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo: The 3 Phases of Alchemy

Alchemists have generally divided the Great Work into three distinct phases, referred to by their color: the nigredo (black phase), albedo (white phase), and rubedo (red phase). 

In earlier times, some also spoke of the citrinitas (yellow phase) that was said to occur between the white and red phases. However, this term is less frequently used by the more contemporary alchemists of today.

The different colors of alchemy were based on actual, physical alterations in the appearance of the material worked on in laboratory experiments. These colors, however, are also evocative symbolically of the emotional tone which characterizes each phase of the work on a psycho-spiritual level. 

In laboratory work, the nigredo is a time when the prima materia begins to decompose or rot. On both the physical and psycho spiritual levels, it contains the lesser phases of Calcination and Dissolution within it. This is the time for the mortification of our very soul, and the time where our spirit most deeply feels the anguish of separation from truth.

The putrefactio is considered to be by far the longest and most difficult phase of the magnum opus. It is a time when we must let all the dross drop away. It is often known as the “dark night of the soul,” describing a time when we are forced to confront all that is dark and difficult within ourselves, and ultimately to let go of our attachment to our shadow, releasing the past. 

Here, we are being asked to let go of all within us and outside of us that is false, inauthentic, and not in full alignment with the truth of who we are. This is a truth as it exists on a soul level, far beyond the ego and its limited ideas or illusions about who we “should” be. 

It is a process made far more difficult by the resistance and defenses we put up against it. Many of us will resist for years, most often for much longer, remaining unwilling to accept that our lives, as we know them, are over. Few of us are quick to grasp the fact that there is new life waiting for us if we would only let go of the limited vision of existence we usually try so desperately to cling to.

It is only when we become willing to surrender that the alchemical process truly begins. Only when we are willing to die do we have the chance to one day be reborn.