Alchemy Of The Heart Quotes

The Alchemy Scroll works on the heart,” he said. “It plants words as I plant stones. The Scroll-maker is my brother. He paints the mysteries of God while I, guided by the Mother, built the new Hall as a door to heaven,” he said.

We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness. We trust that the moon shall guide us. We are determining the future at this very moment. We know that the heart is the philosopher's stone. Our music is our alchemy.

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.

I wear my loneliness like a taffeta dress riding up my thigh, and you cannot help but want me. You think it's cruel how I break your heart, to write a poem. I think it's alchemy.

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!

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.

Why are we angry? We are angry because we had our heart broken.

In a non-traditional culture such as ours, dominated by technology, we value information far more than we do wisdom. But there is a difference between the two. Information involves the acquisition, organization, and dissemination of facts; a storing-up of physical data. But wisdom involves another equally crucial function: the emptying and quieting of the mind, the application of the heart, and the alchemy of reason and feeling.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen or diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world – all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their souls. … It is rewarding to watch patiently the silent happenings in the soul, and the most and the best happens when it is not regulated from outside and from above. I readily admit that I have such a great respect for what happens in the human soul that I would be afraid of disturbing and distorting the silent operation of nature by clumsy interference.” 

I know the difference between reality and fantasy. Those with sick fantasies who know and respect this difference are much less dangerous than those with no fantasies at all, but who can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

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 prosperity achieved through slavery had a way of blinding men’s hearts to the evil of their own hands.

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.

Roses surrounded the raven, thorns wrapping around its talons. Runes and archaic symbols stretched along my forearms: Romanian, Sumerian, Gaelic. An amalgamation of all those who had come before me. Marks of alchemy, of fire and water, of silver and wind. They had been carved into me by my father over a period of years, the raven being the last. All except for the one on my chest above my heart. That’d been mine. My choice. It wasn’t magic, but it’d been for me.

There was an old belief that in the embers Of all things their primordial form exists, And cunning alchemists Could re-create the rose with all its members From its own ashes, but without the bloom, Without the lost perfume Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower?

In the land of contrasts, the man who sees the similarities is king of his soul. In the land of similarities, the woman that recognizes the differences awaits her king to be crowned queen of his heart.

To her lover a beautiful woman is a delight; / To a monk she’s a distraction; / To a mosquito, a good meal. It makes the point well: how things seem depends on the lens or filter through which we look at them.

Turn from that road's beguiling ease; return to your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stair chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone to show you how your longing waits alone. What alchemy shines from under that shut door, spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart? ("The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart")

Know this: I, Mercurius, have here set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar, unless you heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God’s laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faint-heartedness, read no farther lest I prove fatal to you. For I am the watery venomous serpent who lies buried at the earth’s centre; I am the fiery dragon who flies through the air. I am the one thing necessary for the whole Opus. I am the spirit of metals, the fire which does not burn, the water which does not wet the hands. If you find the way to slay me you will find the philosophical mercury of the wise, even the White Stone beloved of the Philosophers. If you find the way to raise me up again, you will find the philosophical sulphur, that is, the Red Stone and Elixir of Life. Obey me and I will be your servant; free me and I will be your friend. Enslave me and I am a dangerous enemy; command me and I will make you mad; give me life and you will die.

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?

Because in our pain we must find each other – mirror to mirror the grace of our shared humanity, the stunningly broken beauty of our shared grief. And you can let your grief see my grief and let our tears mingle into some kind of healing alchemy, and you’ll know what i know. That we are never alone. I promise. You and me? We are never, ever alone.

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.

Any behavior we resort to in order to avoid feeling what we are really feeling in any given moment is an addiction.

He sits high in all the people's hearts, And that which would appear offense in us, His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

The first step to self-knowledge is to know that thou art composed of an outward shape, called the body, and an inward entity called the heart, or soul.

The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God. Someone

he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke–the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.

His copy was full of lofty echoes: Greek Tragedy; Damocle's sword; manna from heaven; the myth of Sisyphus; the last of the Mohicans; hydra-headed and Circe-voiced; experiments with truth; discovery of India; biblical resonance; the lessons of Vedanta; the centre does not hold; the road not taken; the mimic men; for whom the bell tolls; a hundred visions and revisions; the power and the glory; the heart of the matter; the heart of darkness; the agony and the ecstasy; sands of time; riddle of the Sphinx; test of tantalus; murmurs of mortality; Falstaffian figure; Dickensian darkness; ...

That’s the principle that governs all things,” he said. “In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.

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

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.

...We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter. We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us. We are determining the future at this very moment. We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone. Our music is our alchemy. We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever...

distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.

It has taken years and years, starting early in childhood, for the emotional brain to acquire its repertoire of habit. Schemas like perfectionism and deprivation become ingrained through innumerable repeated episodes. It naturally takes time to undo these emotional habits and to master a healthier response.

...We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter. We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us. We are determining the future at this very moment. We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone. Our music is our alchemy...

I searched his face, my heart working overtime. “You made it very clear that, as far as you were concerned, it was going to be a one-time thing,” I said slowly. “You made it very clear that you could hate me and still want to fuck me. And I'm not the type of person who keeps throwing herself at the things that hurt her. So no. I haven't brought it up. What would have been the point? Would you have made me a cup of tea and sat and listened while I tried to convince you how good we could be together?” He snorted dismissively.

We start to regulate an upsetting emotion the moment we become aware of it.

To discover the source of this alchemical love within is to uncover the deepest secrets of the soul. It is to unearth and align with the ultimate truth of who we are.

Therefore if a man has in his heart that love to God which the Law enjoins, it is perfectly lawful, nay, laudable in him to take part in exercises which promote it.

In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.” He

Nobody gets to tell you what to believe. Nobody gets to own your mind, your heart or your body. You own them. You get to decide.

Mindfulness gives us breathing space from this conditioning.

She pinned him to the bulkhead with a kiss that was pure alchemy, and his hands found their way down her tunic, down to her breeches, where he unhitched her weapons belt with as much gratuitous fondling of the areas not covered by it as he could manage. She took the belt from his hands and flung it against one of the stiffened canvas walls, where it struck with a clattering racket and slid to the floor. "If there is no way, make a way, Jean Tannen. Losers don't fuck in this particular cabin." He picked her up, making a seat for her from his crossed arms, and whirled her around so that her back was against the bulkhead and her feet were dangling. He kissed her breasts through her tunic, grinning at her reaction. He stopped to put his head against her chest; felt the rapid flutter of her heart against his left cheek.

Life will give you what you need once you will do something with it. It may not give you what you want so as to be as comfortable as you want, as Nature’s concern is need as it relates to evolution. In my humble opinion, Nature is too kind, but, as I say, the game is big, and the challenges and temptations absolute. And this is a fascinating aspect of the totality of beauty; it gives more than is only necessary. The generosity is mind- and heart boggling.

As we’ve seen, the task of changing a schema is two-fold: we have to unlearn the self-defeating old habit and replace it with a new, healthier one. That change is very different from mere intellectual understanding—it involves the emotional brain. It takes much persistent practice, cultivation of the ability to bring awareness to what had been unconscious behavior, and sustained effort to try out the new way of thinking and acting despite its initial awkwardness and relapses into old habit.

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.

Here is your schedule," she said, sliding a piece of paper to me. I picked it up and read it aloud. "Wildcrafting 100, Alchemy of Baking 100, Teamancy 100, Magical Weapons Training 200, Creatures of Wonderland, and History of Wonderland. What, no Quidditch?" "What's Quidditch?

What was essence? It referred to energy of life. [In Taoism, it is believed that the human life originates from this energy of life.] Spirit referred to light. Mind / thought referred to both the chest / heart area (middle “dan tian”, an acupoint on the body) and the third eye.13

I needed to pay attention, to be ready to step through and descend into it, whatever it was. It felt archetypal. Something in me was being slain in the fires of pain so that some new thing could be born. I knew it and went with it, and in the alchemy of my pain, like flowers whose seeds open only in the presence of fire, tendrils of something new began to sprout. Pain for me was a Trojan horse, penetrating the protective walls I’d erected around my heart, bearing within it hints of a future I might never have awakened to had I tried to numb myself with busyness.

God said unto Jesus, "O Jesus! When I see in My servants' hearts pure love for Myself unmixed with any selfish desire concerning this world or the next, I act as guardian over that love." Again, when people asked Jesus "What is the highest work of all?" he answered, "To love God and to be resigned to His will.

[Annie] Sprinkle is a many-gendered mother of the heart. And many-gendered mothers of the heart say: Just because you have enemies doea not mean you have to be paranoid. They insist, no matter the evidence marshaled against their insistence: There is nothing you can throw at me that I cannot metabolize, no thing impervious to my alchemy.

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.

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.

...We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter. We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us. We are determining the future at this very moment. We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone. Our music is our alchemy. We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever...

Our difficulties require our most compassionate attention. Just as lead can be transformed into gold in alchemy, when we place our leaden difficulties, whether of body, heart, or mind, into the center of our practice, they can become lightened for us, illuminated. This task is usually not what we want, but what we have to do. No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way. The

The Alchemy of Affection by Stewart Stafford The language of Aphrodite, Rendering words as liquid gold. To flood the heart's chambers, Setting them in gilded aurum bold. When this opulent heart beats, Minted blood in golden boughs flows, In possession of treasure most precious, Whose true worth none of us knows. Magnates and moguls may scheme to buy, The devotion that is never truly theirs, Count your kisses instead of fortunes, To bequeath to your loving, rightful heirs. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

Ah, it is a strange thing - Love's little fingers on the heart, making tenderness out of bitterness and changing weakness into strength! When once a woman's eyes, with understanding love, have looked into the very depths of a man's soul, he need seek no farther for the Philosopher's Stone. As if by magic, the love of the many comes with the love of one. One flash of the love-light makes the whole world new, one chord of Love's music changes all sound to song, and one touch of Love's hand so glorifies the earth that it needs no other alchemy to make it truly gold.

we have but an infantile perception of morals. There is more in the subject than mere conformity to a law of evolution. It is yet deeper than conformity to things of earth alone. It is more involved than we, as yet, perceive. Answer, first, why the heart thrills; explain wherefore some plaintive note goes wandering about the world, undying; make clear the rose’s subtle alchemy evolving its ruddy lamp in light and rain. In the essence of these facts lie the first principles of morals. “Oh,” thought Drouet, “how delicious is my conquest.” “Ah,” thought Carrie, with mournful misgivings, “what is it I have lost?

A knowledge of the human physique is considered essential in designing a chair, but a knowledge of human psychology is rarely considered useful, never mind a requirement, when someone is asked to design a pension scheme, a portable music player or a railway. Who is the Herman Miller of pensions, or the Steve Jobs of tax-return design? These people are starting to emerge – but it has been a painfully long wait. If there is a mystery at the heart of this book, it is why psychology has been so peculiarly uninfluential in business and in policy-making when, whether done well or badly, it makes a spectacular difference.

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.

People that can’t control their behavior have a problem with discipline. But lack of discipline over the body originates in a restless mind. The restless mind does not stop because it is not at peace. The mind cannot be at peace if the heart is in distress. A heart in distress is in search for love. The less love is in the heart, the more thoughts are in the mind, and as a consequence, the more troubled is life. We then look at what reflects back at us in the form of lack of love but it is just and always a reflection of what is and has been within us. Nevertheless, we can’t love the reflection expecting it to vanish into love; And, we can’t love ourselves when we are constantly vanishing into our reflection. We can only understand that both are the same; and, in loving both, none will remain as it was. In doing so, we lose our ego and our reputation but win love.

One of the greatest myths is that it’s hard to know how to lead a contented life. It’s actually quite straightforward, and the heart will take us there every time: Love. Serve. Explore your sense of purpose until you find a way to offer your gifts to others. Let the practice of compassion bring you peace. If we can love and serve others and ourselves against the backdrop of inner alchemy and the discernment it’s instilled in us, the doors of the Great Work will open for us. We can have the spiritual experiences we yearn for, and the wild moments that make our hearts sing, while leaving the world better off for those who come after us. Through acts of love and service, we continue aligning our levels of being and allowing our vibration to rise. Then one day we experience it: the bliss of the present moment and the undimming effulgence of a wide-open heart. There’s nothing like it, and it never gets old. If someone asks us how we got there, we can say, “There is this thing called ‘the Little Work.’ It’s a path as old as time, and it’s available to anyone who dares to take it on. How much do you want to be free?

there is no such thing as "magic" Daoism, "daojia" and "daojiao" had different meanings way back then, and now. The priginal term dao jia 道家was counterposed to rujia,儒家 the folks who swore by Confucius, and fajia 法家realists who (legalists), like modern day republicans equated money, weapons w political power. Daojia was the category for every one else, ie those who were neither.Confucian or Legalist. Daoism, “the way that never parted,” is a great river flowing thru all of China's history, fed by many streams. Many of the "modern" "western" people such as "sex hygiene" 房中 and other "Dao for $$$" folk (eg a multi-millionaire in Pacific Grove - 17 Mile Drive) have made fortunes by claiming to teach "Daoist Secrets", in a system that forbids taking recompense of any kind for receiving true Daoist teachings. So much more to say, the writings of the late Anna Seidel show how what we call "Dao Jiao" 道教(Dao teaching), which includes liturgy as well as inner alchemy meditation, derives from the Guweishu 古緯書, ie the ancient "wei" (parallel threads or "woof" thread), human compassion for each other and oneness with change in nature, as opposed to the "jing" 經 vertical (Confucian, political up-down) threads that support the Imperial governing power. Buddhism appears as sacred art painted on the surface of the Chinese cultural fabric, which is eventually accepted because it won the hearts of the people by praying for the deceased, something that was not a part of the original Buddhist teachings from India, but essential in China." [Saso FB Post May 4th 2015]

In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succor them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.

The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven; addiction is self-centred. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviours lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction. You may even devote your entire life to a passion, but if it’s truly a passion and not an addiction, you’ll do so with freedom, joy and a full assertion of your truest self and values. In addiction, there’s no joy, freedom or assertion. The addict lurks shame-faced in the shadowy corners of her own existence. I glimpse shame in the eyes of my addicted patients in the Downtown Eastside and, in their shame, I see mirrored my own. Addiction is passion’s dark simulacrum and, to the naïve observer, its perfect mimic. It resembles passion in its urgency and in the promise of fulfillment, but its gifts are illusory. It’s a black hole. The more you offer it, the more it demands. Unlike passion, its alchemy does not create new elements from old. It only degrades what it touches and turns it into something less, something cheaper. Am I happier after one of my self-indulgent sprees? Like a miser, in my mind I recount and catalogue my recent purchases — a furtive Scrooge, hunched over and rubbing his hands together with acquisitive glee, his heart growing ever colder. In the wake of a buying binge, I am not a satisfied man. Addiction is centrifugal. It sucks energy from you, creating a vacuum of inertia. A passion energizes you and enriches your relationships. It empowers you and gives strength to others. Passion creates; addiction consumes — first the self and then the others within its orbit.

Are his parents taking him to Coney Island because of the cartoon? she muses. Did the innocent little sugar-sucker beg and plead to go because that’s where the finale dumps its sad, angry but good-at-heart heroine when things are at their darkest? Deeply fucked up, but also deeply probable. No matter what you did, forty or fifty or a hundred years passed and everything became a narrative to be toyed with, masters of media alchemy splitting the truth’s nucleus into a ricocheting cascade reaction of diverging alternate realities.

Schema therapy gives us a clear map of destructive habits. It details the emotional contours of, say, the fear of abandonment, with its constant apprehension that a partner will leave us; or of feelings of vulnerability, such as the irrational fear that a minor setback at work means you will end up jobless and homeless.

Expect, at some point, to want to run away from all this. It’s a little like opening a can of worms, or maybe caterpillars—you may want to shove them all back inside. But as you walk this path, you will also have glimpses of feeling freer, of a more direct connection to your life and the people in it. And once the pull of that greater freedom and authenticity takes hold, it becomes harder to turn back. It’s as though an inner volcano has started to erupt, and despite the danger, we welcome the release. The pain of the truth still feels better than the pain of self-deception. As we settle into the process, at some point we tend to go through a natural grieving as we let go of old identities, familiar habits and ways of being. Eventually those caterpillars disperse, weaving themselves into protective cocoons while shedding their former identity. Unraveling the membranes of our schema patterns, we too begin to emerge from our cocoons, feeling lighter and more alive—as if, metaphorically, we were growing wings.

One of the primary purposes of suffering is not to weaken the heart of the feeble, but to strengthen the spirit of the brave.

But there were always a few faithful souls who kept alive the Flame, tending it carefully, and not allowing its light to become extinguished. And thanks to these staunch hearts, and fearless minds, we have the truth still with us. But it is not found in books, to any great extent. It has been passed along from Master to Student; from Initiate to Hierophant; from lip to ear. When it was written down at all, its meaning was veiled in terms of alchemy and astrology, so that only those possessing the key could read it aright.

The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That’s what I mean by action.” “Should I understand the Emerald Tablet?” the boy asked. “Perhaps, if you were in a laboratory of alchemy, this would be the right time to study the best way to understand the Emerald Tablet. But you are in the desert. So immerse yourself in it. The desert will give you an understanding of the world; in fact, anything on the face of the earth will do that. You don’t even have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation.” “How do I immerse myself in the desert?” “Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.” * * * They crossed the desert for another two days in silence. The alchemist had become much more cautious, because they were approaching the area where the most violent battles were being waged. As they moved along, the boy tried to listen to his heart. It was not easy to do; in earlier times, his heart had always been ready to tell its story, but lately that wasn’t true. There had been times when his heart spent hours telling of its sadness, and at other times it became so emotional over the desert sunrise that the boy had to hide his tears. His heart beat fastest when it spoke to the boy of treasure, and more slowly when the boy stared entranced at the endless horizons of the desert. But his heart was never quiet, even when the boy and the alchemist had fallen into silence. “Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked, when they had made camp that day. “Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.” “But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.” “Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.

That’s the principle that governs all things,” he said. “In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.” He also said that this was not just a human gift, that everything on the face of the earth had a soul, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal—or even just a simple thought. “Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive . . . and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.

The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That’s what I mean by action.” “Should I understand the Emerald Tablet?” the boy asked. “Perhaps, if you were in a laboratory of alchemy, this would be the right time to study the best way to understand the Emerald Tablet. But you are in the desert. So immerse yourself in it. The desert will give you an understanding of the world; in fact, anything on the face of the earth will do that. You don’t even have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation.” “How do I immerse myself in the desert?” “Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.

A divine soul to hold. A magical heart of bold. Love that is not yet told. Fairytales yet not told - Universal Alchemy

makes a useful distinction between this type of attraction, familiar to us all, which he calls a “heart connection,” and another type he calls a “soul connection.” Here is how he defines it: “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 a 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

We each have our unique ways of responding to life’s challenges, and we need to respect our own needs, temperament, and timing.

In any turmoil or with any problem, as Tulku Thondup says, “The greatest source of help and strength is our minds.

Change is ceaseless.

When we see our lives as only a small part of a greater web, our perspective changes dramatically.

When we examine the thoughts that empower a schema—like looking at a lab specimen under a microscope—their irrationality becomes fairly obvious.

When she caught herself in such moments, she’d talk back to her deprivation schema, saying, “I’m not depriving you if I don’t eat this ice cream.

The second way mindfulness disempowers schema thoughts has to do with the nature of attention itself.

an example of how relationships later in life can be reparative for the emotional wounds of a schema like abandonment

Feelings are held, but not held on to.

There goes that schema again!”—we can take steps to change what happens next.

But once we become aware that the sequence is starting, we can consciously and intentionally initiate a different, more constructive response.

Bringing mindfulness to the moment, she was able to step back enough to ask herself, “Do I want to make this real?” That gave her a chance to answer herself, “No”—and she would drop it.

Opening up a space in her mind gave her more choice in the moment.

When therapy was successful, two kinds of changes showed up in person after person: the schemas’ grip on their lives loosened, and the script changed for the better its typical outcome.

put the least effort into dealing with a disturbing feeling that will do the job.

A brief act of noticing the disturbing thoughts and feelings, just an acknowledgment, like an inner nod—rather than a mental conversation with them—can sometimes suffice.

simply noting the disturbance may be enough to dislodge it from the mind.

Loss of control lies at the core of the vulnerability pattern. The distinctive emotional signature of vulnerability is an exaggerated fear that some catastrophe is about to strike.

By mindfully monitoring your thoughts rather than letting them dictate how you behave, you will start to win emotional freedom from your fears.

Vulnerability

apply an antidote, a positive alternative to the mental habit of the afflictive emotion.

Strong emotions are messages from the unconscious.

we’ve sacrificed our potential in a bargain to preserve connection.

our emotional problems are seen as temporary and superficial. The emphasis is on what is right with us,