Things have more range, more capacity to morph and transform, than we usually realize. This is the most essential idea in alchemy. How something shows up doesn’t mean a great deal. It might look like lead. It may seem dull, invaluable, difficult, or distorted. But it has the potential to become an array of other things—to transmute.
That means the alchemical approach toward anything is one of reverence, curiosity, and openness. We seek to understand why something is how it is and what it would take for it to become something different. No behavior or form is taken all that seriously because each is seen as transitory and one of an infinite array of possibilities.
When we relate to something in ourselves or in another in the most limited way, we make it more real, more solid. We see lead and affirm that it shall always be lead and only lead. So things, including ourselves, become not what they could be but what we think they are.
As our perception increases, we see more ways something can be. Some of what we sense that is not yet manifest may even feel more real than what is currently in expression. That’s because it’s closer to the essence or soul of the thing.
Alchemy is not denial. It’s not a kind of naive blindness, ignorance, or dismissal of what is. It’s the ability to create conditions by which things move into higher forms.
Something to think about: What do you sense may be more true about yourself than what is evident now? What has not shown up in your life yet that may be part of your strongest archetypal potential?