Alchemy Love Quotes

The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship.

Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching.

Time is the alchemy that turns compassion into love...

I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and deeply spiritual, glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars.

Some people spend their whole lives seeking heaven, when all they needed to do was look about them, and embrace that which was already there.

I'm in love with you, Saeris Fane,” he whispered quietly into my hair. “And I'm already half-mad, anyway. What's a little complicated thrown into the mix?

A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other's individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension -- seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence. This means recognizing that we both have an important part to play in helping each other become more fully who we are....A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion.

Is it a weakness not being able to hate? Or is it preparation for what is inevitable, the ability only to love.

What can I tell you about the alchemy of twins? Twins are two bodies that dance to each other’s joy. Two minds that drown in each other’s despair. Two spirits that fly with each other’s love. Twins are two separate beings conjoined at the heart!

There is beauty all around us, and the light finds us when we realize, we are all part of that beauty and worth the cherishing. If we despise any, we journey to despise ourselves. See all as beautiful, even if they choose to see themselves through you, as being less than so. We have the power to see for each, and be the reflection of what they may yet see.

You touch me like I am everything you asked god for. Underneath your hands I become poetry. This is the alchemy that you do.

The alchemy that is friendship mixed with attraction is important. The alchemy that is two hearts, two minds, two lives, two particular laughs in silly melody is important. And, it is yet unknown, as you are, to me.

Two years away. To an Incarnate, it's nothing. But when you have people who care about you, who you're excited about, each day becomes significant.

Sometimes, reality is the illusion, and the truth only visible where our eyes can’t see.” - Lady Lalaigne

It’s the subtle shudder when you hear the other’s person’s name. The times when you think about their smile and find it impossible to keep a straight face. It’s those small, precious moments you wish they were with you, because nothing means anything until you share it with them. More than a passion and love alone, it’s that internal alchemy that makes them part of you.

So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy.

How could Margaret ever think he'd lose himself to alchemy when he has already hopelessly lost himself to her?

We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality. We sleep in a long reproachful dust against ourselves. We are full to the gorge with our own names for misery. Life, the pastures in which the night feeds and prunes the cud that nourishes us to despair. Life, the permission to know death. We were created that the earth might be made sensible of her inhuman taste; and love that the body might be so dear that even the earth should roar with it. Yes, we who are full to the gorge with misery should look well around, doubting everything seen, done, spoken, precisely because we have a word for it, and not its alchemy.

But are the twin souls destined to be together? Synchronicity is at work here to bring the two back together again. How entrancing to find the same magical alchemy still at work, just as it was at the first meeting – a recognition of a deep rooted love so entrenched and so accepted, it could only have been forged in other lifetimes together. And probably that is what love at first sight is, recognition of an ancient love.

...Moonlight possesses no alchemy to transmute good motives to base, but it does excite love magic...

As long as the belief is: we need suffering to grow, the world will be suffering and the belief will be limiting.

The alchemy of the soul is transforming pain into creative genius.

I wish we had loved Johnny more when he was alive. Of course we loved Johnny very much. Johnny knew that. Everybody knew it. Loving Johnny more. What does it mean, now? Parents all over the earth who lost sons in the war have felt this kind of question, and sought an answer. To me, it means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one's fellow human beings, of the earth. It means obliterating, in a curious but real way, the ideas of evil and hate and the enemy, and transmuting them, with the alchemy of suffering, into ideas of clarity and charity. It means caring more and more about other people, at home and abroad, all over the earth. It means caring more about God.

Transforming the visible into words, and words into images, we stumbled upon the four elements, and upon each others’ expression of Love, Joy, Suffering, Compassion, Curiosity, and most of all, Wonder towards the Forces of Nature. The poetry, photography, drawings, all, attempt to deeper explore the infinite game of Life… We invite you to do the same - dive into your Being and grow with us Inspired…

Shame upon you, O soul, for your overweening love of the world! If you do not believe in heaven or hell, at any rate you believe in death, which will snatch from you all worldly delights and cause you to feel the pangs of separation from them, which will be intenser just in proportion as you have attached yourself to them.

You know you are truly alive, when you care for every living thing. One day soon, it will be the norm to view others not as competition, but gifts to share this gorgeous planet with, and we will not be able to imagine the loss of but one.

No matter how busy we may believe we are, we have the wonderful opportunity presently of investing time with loved ones. For those are the great investments we will be glad we made, when time begins to slow and the ability to tend turns tender.

Perhaps it is only the light. Perhaps it is the power of the realms at work through me. Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if first we know were to look without flinching.

The way I feel about you doesn't come with a set of restrictions. There are no rules that say if you do this or you don't do that, I won't care anymore. This is just an aspect of who you are and I love you for the entirety of you, not for the different pieces I can pull out.

You can have and use all of the right ingredients, but if the alchemy isn’t right, it’ll be a disaster.

With you i feel safe. Content enough to know my whole world could be crashing down and you'd still be my home.

Did you hear that?” he said. “What?” “That smoking hot blonde said I was pretty.” “Gods alive, Carrion. Do not tell me you have a thing for Danya. She’s fucking awful.” “Eh.” He shot me a rakish grin. “I love a girl with a sharp tongue and a bad attitude. Kinda makes my dick hard.

The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That's when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.

There are many paths leading to One. These herbs carry within their fragile essence a secret of Life, Universe, Creation, and the secrets of Enlightenment. We all carry the Truth within, and every drop of water, every flower, every man intuitively knows it, no matter what the path we choose to follow is.

THE ALCHEMY OF LOVE You come to us from another world From beyond the stars and void of space. Transcendent, Pure, Of unimaginable beauty, Bringing with you the essence of love You transform all who are touched by you. Mundane concerns, troubles, and sorrows dissolve in your presence, Bringing joy to ruler and ruled To peasant and king You bewilder us with your grace. All evils transform into goodness. You are the master alchemist. You light the fire of love in earth and sky in heart and soul of every being. Through your love existence and nonexistence merge. All opposites unite. All that is profane becomes sacred again.

The greatest book in the world, the Mahabharata, tells us we all have to live and die by our karmic cycle. Thus works the perfect reward-and-punishment, cause-and-effect, code of the universe. We live out in our present life what we wrote out in our last. But the great moral thriller also orders us to rage against karma and its despotic dictates. It teaches us to subvert it. To change it. It tells us we also write out our next lives as we live out our present. The Mahabharata is not a work of religious instruction. It is much greater. It is a work of art. It understands men will always fall in the shifting chasm between the tug of the moral and the lure of the immoral. It is in this shifting space of uncertitude that men become men. Not animals, not gods. It understands truth is relative. That it is defined by context and motive. It encourages the noblest of men - Yudhishtra, Arjuna, Lord Krishna himself - to lie, so that a greater truth may be served. It understands the world is powered by desire. And that desire is an unknowable thing. Desire conjures death, destruction, distress. But also creates love, beauty, art. It is our greatest undoing. And the only reason for all doing. And doing is life. Doing is karma. Thus it forgives even those who desire intemperately. It forgives Duryodhana. The man who desires without pause. The man who precipitates the war to end all wars. It grants him paradise and the admiration of the gods. In the desiring and the doing this most reviled of men fulfils the mandate of man. You must know the world before you are done with it. You must act on desire before you renounce it. There can be no merit in forgoing the not known. The greatest book in the world rescues volition from religion and gives it back to man. Religion is the disciplinarian fantasy of a schoolmaster. The Mahabharata is the joyous song of life of a maestro. In its tales within tales it takes religion for a spin and skins it inside out. Leaves it puzzling over its own poisoned follicles. It gives men the chance to be splendid. Doubt-ridden architects of some small part of their lives. Duryodhanas who can win even as they lose.

The Kiss. It seemed like more than a kiss. It felt more like alchemy.

Lessons echo until you let go.

Please, for the love of the gods, don't say anything. Just let me have my fantasy. Just for tonight.

I love a girl with a sharp tongue and a bad attitude. Kinda makes my dick hard.

The Secret of Enlightenment is not in Perfection but in Completeness. Everything that is below the Abyss carries the imperfection within. After the Infinite establishes Divine Order, the Life of Duality as we know it on Earth begins. It is Yin and Yang in its Manifestation, and only through the two meeting, marrying, merging, they both reach God.’ Ama Alchemy of Love by Nuit Quote

Every time love touches my heart, I am changed. And each time the identity I had thought to be mine and to be my last, dissolves like raindrops into the ground, ready to nourish the new I have found.

The noblest relationship is marriage, that is, love. Its nobility resides in its altruism, the desire to serve another beyond all the pleasures of the relationship; and in its refusal ever to regard the other as a thing, an object, a utilizability. Sex is an exchange of pleasures, of needs; love is a giving without return. It is this giving without return, this helping without reward, this surplus of pure good, that identifies the uniqueness of man as well as the true nature of the true marriage. This is the quintessence the great alchemy of sex is for.

Human beings are a cocktail of masculinity and feminity. To believe that we are meant to emulate one pole at the expense of the other, and that our sex alone should tether us to a caricatured extreme, is scientifically false and destructive. ... We are alchemy, not static elements.

The spectrum of possibilities is vast and our souls long to incorporate as many as they can... We are in a constant process of learning how to think, behave, or act understanding the manifestations of Tao, the manifestation of Qi within us.

Love is not the greatest glue between two people. Sex is.

I was still madly in love with her when I left her but the desire had died, and not all the years of sharing and caring and discovering and journeying could keep me from fleeing.

We are the teachers and saviors; the light bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers. Without us humanity would lose its way in the dark.

Love is the seed of happiness, and love to God is fostered and developed by worship.

On the surface of Life, you walk, talk, act, play but you live only when truly in contact with your Souls, you live only when truly sad, only when truly happy. Sadness and happiness are different faces of the same coin, different ways of understanding the same truth. The sadness though, also brings the self-destruction, it tortures minds, carrying diseases and sometimes darkness.

More and more obstacles seem to be other people's issues that form in the way of a hand to block one, to take notice of them? Sometimes noticing ahead of time, and taking the time to notice them, makes the hand part of an arm that embraces you. The obstacles become bridges for both to cross over, even if in opposite directions.

The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes--courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.--can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. Nature has no compassion. It is, in the words of William Blake, "a creation that groans, living on the death; where fish and bird and beast and tree and metal and stone live by devouring." Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.

Self-development is a way of Life. Our Self-Development never ends. We are never too young or too old for personal growth. We have an amazing potential to reach our highest potential, to have truly inspiring careers and loving relationships. Unfortunately, often we walk through our lives asleep, we let our habits rule us, and find it difficult to change our beliefs. Recognizing the power of our Mind and the power of our Soul, learning the art of Concentration and Love, we are learning to Live with the Flow, not against it. It is in our nature to learn and grow. For happiness we need to learn to Love, we need to learn to Concentrate and we should keep the flow and energy of inspiration within our lives.

Mindfulness works with continuous awareness of body, breath; feelings, thoughts, intentions. Our state of mind, our positive or negative attitude towards the world, is closely related to our experiences of happiness or suffering. Mindfulness is awareness of everything that is happening in the moment of 'Now'. Mindfulness is a self development technique that will change the focus of our mind towards happiness. Mindfulness is continuous undisturbed awareness of the present moment. Fully aware of here, and now, we pay attention to what is happening right in front of us, we set aside our mental and emotional baggage. To be mindful we have to re-train our mind.

There is no greater code for courtship than walking. Learning to keep in step; the opportunity to express little concerns -- alarm, caution, the touch on the elbow; the blood running in the veins; the sense of movement and shared goal; the sense of just being two amid the swirl; and above all the ability to talk expansively in the open air without the anxiety of each other's gaze and close scrutiny. Those who wish to find love should learn to walk.

Goddess alchemy is learning to see through this dimension into the next and welcome in what you are seeking. Healers, priestesses, and brujas of African descent have used magic for access to healing, protection, and joy since time began.

Within the earth’s womb each metal grows slowly developing and transforming into its perfection, its highest manifestation – gold. Nature and God are striving towards perfection, everything moves towards One. Just as human strive to become fully conscious, so all the metals strive to reach their purest state – gold.

Materialized in a female body, with a life of an ordinary person, through centuries, She ascends to meet the ones that are ready for Her, that call Her, that have a wish to understand. She is the personification of the Universal Mother. She lives Love and Clarity and She dies at Will, when She decides that it is time to go. Her name is Ama.

The thing is, you're beautiful. Yes, you… In your wild, mundane glory. Your daily life hides from you the possibilities of why you’re here And who you are. But never forget that every breath you take is actual alchemy. With your eyes you record visions of this place. With your fingertips you read the bumps in life, Sending messages back from whence you came. You’re a soul traveler, An explorer. You make this place home for now; Trying on the costumes, Playing out your roles. Every so often, take off your masks. Drop your robes. See yourself reflected in the very mirror of your life. And remember… When you leave this stage, The only thing you will wonder is, “Did I love brilliantly?

Emotion is energy in motion. When you move energy, you create effect. If you move enough energy, you create matter. Matter is energy conglomerated. Moved around. Shoved together. If you manipulate energy long enough in a certain way, you get matter. Every Master understands this law. It is the alchemy of the universe. It is the secret of all life.

The physicality and speed of the music, the sheer free abandon of the crown and the band joining together pulsing as one. Something awakened in me. I realized music could jar people out of their comfort zone, challenge them as to the very meaning of their existence. All the times in my life I'd wanted to disrupt things, to shake things up, and I now saw it being done in the healthiest way. Real alchemy. I fell in love with punk rock.

Reality is based on your perception of the truth. Think about that statement for a bit, it will blow your mind, and blow the lid of what you perceive to be real and what is an illusion. You are here to live YOUR life, YOUR way and on YOUR terms, not for the people you work for, not the people in the media, and not to live in the little box that society may have placed you in. You are a unique individual, with talents, with drive, with passion, with ambition, with love, with laughter, with a soul that could melt the hardest of hearts, and with a mind as creative as Da Vinci. You chose this life for a reason, and it certainly wasn't to live a reality created by others. Is this the time to stand up, and say I can live my own reality, create what I want for my own life, have the things I want in life without guilt, knowing that you deserve anything you want and are prepared to put the time and effort into getting? What if there was a way to bend your reality, a way to use your mind consciously to get what YOU want in life, become wealthy, feel comfortable in your own skin, meet the perfect man or woman, become more spontaneous, feel free, love, be open, be honest, be heartfelt, be grateful, be the one, love life, live, feel it, breathe it.... Welcome to Mind Alchemy Is this the time to Bend Your Reality?

Wit now would be to insult the night, nature itself, the jasmine scent, the moonlight; one glimpse of the heavens and their infinite spaces reveals the absurdity of our artifices. What scares me is that the alchemy we share may fail to distil true love, the real, the rare, wasting its time on fanciful pastimes while our sophistication destroys our dreams.

Because it is a process of alchemy: it transforms a vast manifestation of spiritual energy, which is love, into a physical gesture

Love's alchemical power is nevermore clear than in the moments when we least expect it to grace our lives; for love transforms, love transcends, love awakens.

That odd alchemy of married love - passion, betrayal, fury, kindness, and companionship - lay there exposed between them.

Language is the alchemy of transforming a thought into a word, and the word into a new reality.

This is the love of God, an alchemy that can turn enemies into children.

That was it, the most ordinary of miracles. How, by some strange alchemy, two people can meet and know that no power can keep them apart. It was incredible no matter who it happened to.

Her name, said the Oracle, will this time be Ama, a female that sleeps in every one of us, Yin of Creation, a wisdom guide that with her purity extinguishes thirst for spiritual longings. She is the one that stands on a crescent moon with stars in her hair, pouring water from jars of her soul into lakes of emotions, awakening compassion for humankind and its Chaos, nourishing Earth and Her constant renewal.

In an attempt to deeper explore the infinite game of Life, we explore: • Earth that is fixed, rigid, static and quiet, and symbolizes your world of senses; • Water that is the primordial Chaos, is fluidity and flexibility, and symbolizes your subconscious mind; Intuition is a deeper perception. Without clear evidence or proof, intuition perceives the subtle inner relationships and underlying processes creatively, and imaginatively. • Fire that is boundless and invisible, and is a parching heat that consumes all, or within its highest manifestation, becomes the expression of Divine Love. It is a symbol of your emotions, and • Air that has no shape and is incapable of any fixed form. It symbolizes your world of thoughts. It is a rational, systematic process, it is our intellectual comprehension of things. All elements are bound by: • Soul that stands at the center of the four elements as an Essence, an Observer, Consciousness coming forth to experience the magic of Life.

Newton was haunted by insanity. He spent hours trying to find hidden messages in the Bible, and wrote over a million words on religion and the occult. He pursued the medieval art of alchemy, obsessively searching for the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that alchemists believed had magical properties and could even help humans achieve immortality. At the age of fifty, Newton became fully psychotic and spent a year in an insane asylum.

Him with his whole heart. The saint Fudhail said to a certain man, "If anyone asks you whether you love God, keep silent; for if you say, 'I do not love Him,' you are an infidel; and if you say, 'I do,' your deeds contradict you." The

A certain saint said, "During one space of thirty years I performed my night-devotions with great difficulty, but during a second space of thirty years they became a delight." When love to God is complete no joy is equal to the joy of worship. The

Poetry contains few words but tells much. Its beauty is that by being condensed it is rich in meaning and open to various interpretations. Unlike prose, there is no boundary to poetry. There is nothing concrete or black and white. Poetry is mutable; it is transformative. Poetry is the alchemy of hearts. And what cannot be said in prose can sometimes be only said through poetry.

How they became friends was no great mystery, but now they remained so, braided together beyond their shared college quarters, this transcended the usual alchemy of optimism and obligation that kept friendships intact, kept people from fading into other categories: old friend, college friend, just someone I once knew. None of the four would ever be just anything to the others...

Most changes in perception are gradual: we grow to hate or love an idea, a person, or a place over a period of time. I had certainly nursed a hatred of Nora Jansen over many years, placing much of the blame for my situation on her. This was not one of those instances. Sometimes, rarely, the way we see something is subject to alchemy. My emotions changed so rapidly, and I felt so strongly all the things I had in common with these two women, there was no way not to take immediate notice and stock of what was happening. Our troubled history was suddenly matched by our more immediate shared experience as prisoners on an exhausting journey. We huddled together

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices ; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou think ? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long. If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay." She's all states, and all princes I ; Nothing else is ; Princes do but play us ; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus ; Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Ophelia was scared, viscerally scared, that he might have grown fond of her. She felt incapable of loving him in return. She certainly didn’t know much on the subject of feelings, but for that alchemy to work, then a man and a woman need to enjoy a minimum amount of affinity?

She said to herself: 'Is not the gown the natural raiment of extremity? What nation, what religion, what ghost, what dream has not worn it—infants, angels, priests, the dead; why—should not the doctor, in the grave dilemma of his alchemy, wear his dress?' She thought: 'He dresses to lie beside himself, who is so constructed that love, for him, can be only something special; in a room that giving back evidence of his occupancy, is as mauled as the last agony.

You must learn to bend to open windows, my friend. That is why artists and dancers are closest to God. They clench their chests every day to salute the Creator, while opening up portals to the universe. The artist mediates and prays as he/she creates, knowing somewhere, deep down --- creativity is the highest transmission of love.

He still loved her, loved her more for her wrinkles because they could not defeat his need for her. Or his love. His young lust had turned to love and then his love had aged back into lust. It was a circle. It was a miracle. It was the alchemy of flesh. They ate only what they caught from the sea - wahoo, barracuda, and mahi mahi, and they ate what they picked from the trees - papaya, banana, and coconut. Don't forget cerveza from the bodega. They did not run, they walked. They needed nothing but themselves. This was them: They were.

What strange alchemy was this, that the touch of lips should be so much more than the touch of fingers? It made no logical sense that simple contact between this specific area of skin should be so much more powerful than anything I’d yet experienced. It felt as if a new sun was bursting into being where our mouths met, and my whole body was filled to a shatter point with the brilliant light of it.

I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it. In spite of myself, I was conscious of a feeling of envy for those who did not suffer from such troubles, for the wealthy and the privileged; and this envy, I observed, was accompanied—still against my will—by a feeling of bitterness towards them, which, in turn, did not limit its aim to particular persons or situations, but, as if by an uncontrollable bias, tended to assume the general, abstract character of a whole conception of life. In fact, during those difficult days, I came very gradually to feel that my irritation and my intolerance of poverty were turning into a revolt against injustice, and not only against the injustice which struck at me personally but the injustice from which so many others like me suffered. I was quite aware of this almost imperceptible transformation of my subjective resentments into objective reflections and states of mind, owing to the bent of my thoughts which led always and irresistibly in the same direction: owing also to my conversation, which, without my intending it, alway harped upon the same subject. I also noticed in myself a growing sympathy for those political parties which proclaimed their struggle against the evils and infamies of the society to which, in the end I had attributed the troubles that beset me—a society which, as I thought, in reference to myself, allowed its best sons to languish and protected its worst ones. Usually, and in the simpler, less cultivated people, this process occurs without their knowing it, in the dark depths of consciousness where, by a kind of mysterious alchemy, egoism is transmuted into altruism, hatred into love, fear into courage; but to me, accustomed as I was to observing and studying myself, the whole thing was clear and visible, as though I were watching it happen in someone else; and yet I was aware the whole time that I was being swayed by material subjective factors, that I was transforming purely personal motives into universal reasons.

I was asked, "How can we change the world?" And I answered, "You will never be able to change the world by projecting ideal images to aspire for. The only way to change the world is to penetrate the grassroots, to penetrate at the groundbreaking level— to be a mason— to dig into the core where all the tar and lumpy mud is located and to work with that shit until you bring out something beautiful. We change the world by dressing wounds, by listening to forgotten voices of the lost, by getting our hands dirty. Nobody is going to be able to change the world by painting a lovely picture. You have to know how to make paint. Then teach the people how to use a paintbrush. Then teach the people how to make strokes, how to wash the paintbrush, and how to mount their own paintings onto the wall. Because the alchemy of the world, of humanity as a whole, is really just the collective alchemy of every individual. Take what is darkness and transmutate it into a shining thing. Changing the world is never about the changer; it is about the world.

This fear of dying would haunt me for the next forty years. It was an anguish that drove me to travel the world studying religions, magic, esotericism, alchemy, and the Kabbalah. It drove me to frequent initiatory groups, to meditate in the style of numerous schools, to seek out teachers, and in short wherever I went to search without limits for something that might console me in light of my transient existence. If I did not conquer death how could I live, create, love, prosper? I felt separated not only from the world but also from life. Those who thought they knew me only knew the makeup on a corpse. During those excruciating years, all the works I accomplished, as well as all my love affairs, were anesthetics to help me bear the anguish that gnawed at my soul. But in the depths of my being, in a hazy kind of way, I knew that this state of permanent agony was a disease that I had to cure by becoming my own therapist. At its heart, this was not about finding a magic potion to keep me from dying, but above all about learning to die with happiness.

Many of the Chinese medical texts dating back from 2,000 years ago lament the ills of 'modern times' and allude to the traditional 'good old days' another 3,000 years before that. A common theme in these texts is the decline in human health due to careless lifestyles and the deterioration in human relations due to lack of love: degenerative conditions that Taoist alchemy as well as psychoneuroimmunology would link as symptoms of the same syndrome. In his essay entitled 'Loving People' Chang San-feng, the thirteenth-century master, summed it up by saying: 'Therefore to those who want to know the way to deal with the world, I suggest, Love People.' This is a potent description for health and longevity that generates positive healing energy throughout the human system by stimulating the internal alchemy of psychoneuroimmunology.

There was magic. Some kind of alchemy. I don't remember the moment you transformed from a prop into a main character. No, that's not what happened. I don't remember when you shape- shifted from an elf into a Prince. No, that isn't it either. What I really mean is: I don't know if we were meant to fall into each other all along or if you were just in the right place at the right time. Yes, I found safety in your arms in the middle of a hurricane I chose to escape, and I still don't know how it would have turned out if someone else came to my door that day. Or if you never held me. Or if I never cried. Or if everything hadn't been so fairy tale. Until it wasn't. Do you see the magic now, now that it's too late? Do you still remember me? Do I still remember you? And what, in the end, have we learned? Is it really better to have loved and lost? Was it love for you? Who now is dying faster from the lonely?

Cyrus is quiet for a momenr. "But-" he beginds, then falls silent. It's the first crack I've seen in his composure. "But," he tries again, "she's special. To me." His words make me feel light, like ash floating away from a fire. Johann begins to laugh, bitterly, mirthlessly. "Don't tell me you love her," he spits. "You don't even know her. That's the most irrational thing I've ever heard. And no love can survive immortality." The room is quiet, filled only with the crackling of the fire, and suddenly I don't want to hear Cyrus's answer. What if he doesn't love me? What am I without him by my side? Some strange creature that no one believes exists, some freak of nature, some threat to the reassuring rhythms of normal life. Finally, Cyrus speaks. "All I know is that I'm drawn to her. You always told me there's no such thing as destiny, and I believed you. I still do. But she makes me wonder. I fI could love anyone forever, it would be her. When I'm with her, I feel complete.

An important part of our knowledge of God arises from the study and contemplation of our own bodies, which reveal to us the power, wisdom, and love of the Creator. His power, in that from a mere drop He has built up the wonderful frame of man; His wisdom is revealed in its intricacies and the mutual adaptability of its parts; and His love is shown by His not only supplying such organs as are absolutely necessary for existence, as the liver, the heart, and the brain, but those which are not absolutely necessary, as the hand, the foot, the tongue, and the eye. To these He has added, as ornaments, the blackness of the hair, the redness of lips, and the curve of the eyebrows.

I've been thinking about what it means to bear witness. The past ten years I've been bearing witness to death, bearing witness to women I love, and bearing witness to the [nuclear] testing going on in the Nevada desert. I've been bearing witness to bombing runs on the edge of the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge, bearing witness to the burning of yew trees and their healing secrets in slash piles in the Pacific Northwest and thinking this is not so unlike the burning of witches, who also held knowledge of heading within their bones. I've been bearing witness to traplines of coyotes being poisoned by the Animal Damage Control. And I've been bearing witness to beauty, beauty that strikes a chord so deep you can't stop the tears from flowing. At places as astonishing as Mono Lake, where I've stood knee-deep in salt-water to watch the fresh water of Lee Vining Creek flow over the top like water on vinegar....It's the space of angels. I've been bearing witness to dancing grouse on their leks up at Malheur in Oregon. Bearing witness to both the beauty and pain of our world is a task that I want to be part of. As a writer, this is my work. By bearing witness, the story that is told can provide a healing ground. Through the art of language, the art of story, alchemy can occur. And if we choose to turn our backs, we've walked away from what it means to be human.

In the silent whispers of the night, Where shadows dance and dreams take flight, There lies a yearning, deep and true, A hunger born of longing, infused. It sings within the soul's soft embrace, A melody of desire, a tender chase, A craving for a touch, gentle and kind, To soothe the restless heart, the troubled mind. Like petals seeking the sun's warm glow, Or rivers drawn to the ocean's flow, We ache for connection, for hands to meet, In an alchemy of passion, sweet. To feel the brush of fingertips light, To ignite the senses, to set alight The flame that burns within, intense, A symphony of longing, immense. So let us reach across the space, And in each other's arms find grace, For in the touch, we find release, And in each other, we find peace.

The deceitful character of the world comes out in the following ways. In the first place, it pretends that it will always remain with you, while, as a matter of fact, it is slipping away from you, moment by moment, and bidding you farewell, like a shadow which seems stationary, but is actually always moving. Again, the world presents itself under the guise of a radiant but immoral sorceress, pretends to be in love with you, fondles you, and then goes off to your enemies, leaving you to die of chagrin and despair. Jesus (upon whom be peace!) saw the world revealed in the form of an ugly old hag. He asked her how many husbands she had possessed; she replied that they were countless. He asked whether they had died or been divorced; she said that she had slain them all. "I marvel", he said, "at the fools who see, what you have done to others, and still desire you." This

I belong to myself. Always. Eternally. Without question. My own safe house. My own sheltered harbor. I am my own solid ground. I am the lighthouse beacon. I call the ships safely home from sea. I am the North Star and the compass. I am my own port in the wildest storm. I am the spell caster and the spell breaker. I am a witch of alchemy and transformation. I am the pages in the grimoire of knowledge, I am the source of all the magic ever known. I am the kiss that wakes us all from slumber. I am the white horse knight in shining armor. I am my own happily ever after fairytale godmother. I am my own rest stop on the longest journey of living. The final destination on every treasure map I will ever need. I am my own primary relationship, my own till death do us part. I am my own center and saving grace, my own best-kept secret. I am the lineage of wisdom itself, the home of my own belonging. I am my own. And my own. And always my own.

Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation. I’d written before some years ago that we often cause suffering in another so that we can then love them, as in, “You have suffered for me, so I can love you now.” The eventual shock of realizing the sacrifice made for you destroys the walls of self-righteousness and protection. The suffering sacrifice of another creates the willingness and capacity to do the same. Finally, love and respect (respect is part of the body of love) come from the recognition of something else already given up for them. Within the individual, you or me, a similar process takes place toward oneself. It is as if we know some- where that we are not worthy of our own love or respect until we have earned the right to it, and that is mainly through some kind of suffering. That suffering may be generic, as in a life lived in which tragedy after tragedy accumulate, or it may be specific, as in the constant sacrifice of other easier things for a being or vision. Or, perhaps more correctly, it is either consciously chosen or not.

It is not so much what people suffer that makes the world mysterious; it is rather how much they miss when they suffer. They seem to forget that even as children they made obstacles in their games in order to have something to overcome. Why, then, when they grow into man’s estate, should there not be prizes won by effort and struggle? Cannot the spirit of man rise with adversity as the bird rises against the resistance of the wind? Do not the game fish swim upstream? Must not the chisel cut away the marble to bring out the form? Must not the seed falling to the ground die before it can spring forth into life? Must not grapes be crushed that there may be wine to drink, and wheat ground that there may be bread to eat? Why then cannot pain be made redemption? Why under the alchemy of Divine Love cannot crosses be turned into crucifixes? Why cannot chastisements be regarded as penances? Why cannot we use a cross to become God-like? We cannot become like Him in His Power; we cannot become like Him in His Knowledge. There is only one way we can become like Him, and that is in the way He bore His sorrows and His Cross. And that way was with love. It is love that makes pain bearable.

A VALEDICTION: OF THE BOOK I'll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do To anger destiny, as she doth us; How I shall stay, though she eloign me thus, And how posterity shall know it too; How thine may out-endure Sibyl's glory, and obscure Her who from Pindar could allure, And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame, And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name. Study our manuscripts, those myriads Of letters, which have past 'twixt thee and me; Thence write our annals, and in them will be To all whom love's subliming fire invades, Rule and example found; There the faith of any ground No schismatic will dare to wound, That sees, how Love this grace to us affords, To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records. This book, as long-lived as the elements, Or as the world's form, this all-graved tome In cypher writ, or new made idiom; We for Love's clergy only are instruments; When this book is made thus, Should again the ravenous Vandals and Goths invade us, Learning were safe; in this our universe, Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse. Here Love's divines—since all divinity Is love or wonder—may find all they seek, Whether abstract spiritual love they like, Their souls exhaled with what they do not see; Or, loth so to amuse Faith's infirmity, they choose Something which they may see and use; For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit, Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it. Here more than in their books may lawyers find, Both by what titles mistresses are ours, And how prerogative these states devours, Transferred from Love himself, to womankind; Who, though from heart and eyes, They exact great subsidies, Forsake him who on them relies; And for the cause, honour, or conscience give; Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative. Here statesmen, (or of them, they which can read) May of their occupation find the grounds; Love, and their art, alike it deadly wounds, If to consider what 'tis, one proceed. In both they do excel Who the present govern well, Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell; In this thy book, such will there something see, As in the Bible some can find out alchemy. Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll study thee, As he removes far off, that great heights takes; How great love is, presence best trial makes, But absence tries how long this love will be; To take a latitude Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed At their brightest, but to conclude Of longitudes, what other way have we, But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be?

Your Eve was wise, John. She knew that Paradise would make her mad, if she were to live forever with Adam and know no other thing but strawberries and tigers and rivers of milk. She knew they would tire of these things, and each other. They would grow to hate every fruit, every stone, every creature they touched. Yet where could they go to find any new thing? It takes strength to live in Paradise and not collapse under the weight of it. It is every day a trial. And so Eve gave her lover the gift of time, time to the timeless, so that they could grasp at happiness. ... And this is what Queen Abir gave to us, her apple in the garden, her wisdom--without which we might all have leapt into the Rimal in a century. The rite bears her name still. For she knew the alchemy of demarcation far better than any clock, and decreed that every third century husbands and wives should separate, customs should shift and parchmenters become architects, architects farmers of geese and monkeys, Kings should become fishermen, and fishermen become players of scenes. Mothers and fathers should leave their children and go forth to get other sons and daughters, or to get none if that was their wish. On the roads of Pentexore folk might meet who were once famous lovers, or a mother and child of uncommon devotion--and they would laugh, and remember, but call each other by new names, and begin again as friends, or sisters, or lovers, or enemies. And some time hence all things would be tossed up into the air once more and land in some other pattern. If not for this, how fastened, how frozen we would be, bound to one self, forever a mother, forever a child. We anticipate this refurbishing of the world like children at a holiday. We never know what we will be, who we will love in our new, brave life, how deeply we will wish and yearn and hope for who knows what impossible thing! Well, we anticipate it. There is fear too, and grief. There is shaking, and a worry deep in the bone. Only the Oinokha remains herself for all time--that is her sacrifice for us. There is sadness in all this, of course--and poets with long elegant noses have sung ballads full of tears that break at one blow the hearts of a flock of passing crows! But even the most ardent lover or doting father has only two hundred years to wait until he may try again at the wheel of the world, and perhaps the wheel will return his wife or his son to him. Perhaps not. Wheels, and worlds, are cruel. Time to the timeless, apples to those who live without hunger. There is nothing so sweet and so bitter, nothing so fine and so sharp.

I have again been asked to explain how one can "become a Daoists..." with all of the sad things happening in our world today, Laozi and Zhuangzi give words of advice, tho not necessarily to become a Daoist priest or priestess... " So many foreigners who want to become “Religious Daoists” 道教的道师 （道士） do not realize that they must not only receive a transmission of a Lu 籙 register which identifies their Daoist school, and learn as well how to sing the ritual melodies, play the flute, stringed instruments, drums, and sacred dance steps, required to be an ordained and functioning Daoist priest or priestess. This process usually takes 10 years or more of daily discipleship and practice, to accomplish. There are 86 schools and genre of Daoist rituals listed in the Baiyun Guan Gazeteer, 白雲觀志, which was edited by Oyanagi Sensei, in Tokyo, 1928, and again in 1934, and re-published by Baiyun Guan in Beijing, available in their book shop to purchase. Some of the schools, such as the Quanzhen Longmen 全真龙门orders, allow their rituals and Lu registers to be learned by a number of worthy disciples or monks; others, such as the Zhengyi, Qingwei, Pole Star, and Shangqing 正一，清微，北极，上请 registers may only be taught in their fullness to one son and/or one disciple, each generation. Each of the schools also have an identifying poem, from 20 or 40 character in length, or in the case of monastic orders (who pass on the registers to many disciples), longer poems up to 100 characters, which identify the generation of transmission from master to disciple. The Daoist who receives a Lu register (給籙元科, pronounced "Ji Lu Yuanke"), must use the character from the poem given to him by his or her master, when composing biao 表 memorials, shuwen 梳文 rescripts, and other documents, sent to the spirits of the 3 realms (heaven, earth, water /underworld). The rituals and documents are ineffective unless the correct characters and talismanic signature are used. The registers are not given to those who simply practice martial artists, Chinese medicine, and especially never shown to scholars. The punishment for revealing them to the unworthy is quite severe, for those who take payment for Lu transmission, or teaching how to perform the Jinlu Jiao and Huanglu Zhai 金籙醮，黃籙齋 科儀 keyi rituals, music, drum, sacred dance steps. Tang dynasty Tangwen 唐文 pronunciation must also be used when addressing the highest Daoist spirits, i.e., the 3 Pure Ones and 5 Emperors 三请五帝. In order to learn the rituals and receive a Lu transmission, it requires at least 10 years of daily practice with a master, by taking part in the Jiao and Zhai rituals, as an acolyte, cantor, or procession leader. Note that a proper use of Daoist ritual also includes learning Inner Alchemy, ie inner contemplative Daoist meditation, the visualization of spirits, where to implant them in the body, and how to summon them forth during ritual. The woman Daoist master Wei Huacun’s Huangting Neijing, 黃庭內經 to learn the esoteric names of the internalized Daoist spirits. Readers must be warned never to go to Longhu Shan, where a huge sum is charged to foreigners ($5000 to $9000) to receive a falsified document, called a "license" to be a Daoist! The first steps to true Daoist practice, Daoist Master Zhuang insisted to his disciples, is to read and follow the Laozi Daode Jing and the Zhuangzi Neipian, on a daily basis. Laozi Ch 66, "the ocean is the greatest of all creatures because it is the lowest", and Ch 67, "my 3 most precious things: compassion for all, frugal living for myself, respect all others and never put anyone down" are the basis for all Daoist practice. The words of Zhuangzi, Ch 7, are also deeply meaningful: "Yin and Yang were 2 little children who loved to play inside Hundun (ie Taiji, gestating Dao). They felt sorry because Hundun did not have eyes, or eats, or other senses. So everyday they drilled one hole, ie 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, one mouth; and on the 7th day, Hundun died.