4-29: This thing about being alive and growing up and moving on and even supposedly getting old is that it’s founded on the fact everything constantly grows, transforms, and changes. There’s nothing static in our physical world, no matter how hard we try to hold onto things or make them last. Everything in nature goes through its own cycles—it may come around again but it will be changed.
The alchemists of yore experimented with much in nature, most notably base metals, to try to learn more about life’s secrets. They wanted to know how this seemingly magical process of growth, transformation, and change really works. Can we, as individual human beings, make use of that miraculous power too? they wondered.
Yes, as an alchemist, you can practice this magic for yourself! You can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. You can transform matter—you do it all the time, often without realizing it. You can turn trash into treasure, an accident into serendipity, sour lemons into delicious lemonade, heavy lead of sadness into shining gold of compassion. Cherish your power. You can discover the elixir that sets you free: it’s in your mind.