I've decided to chronicle my creation of a new Alchemy Door for myself, which is a blend of images, locations, and time. You could call this a new spin on the old "drug, set, setting" triangle - those 3 things that determine what your acid trip (or any drug experience) will look like. My drug is these images, these personalized alchemy cards... I'm not sure yet what to call them; hopefully this will be revealed. My mindset is "all in due time." I am attempting here to follow my own advice and go slowly, feeling into when to turn over the next card, and what their order represents, just as I would with a series of I-Ching readings. And finally, the setting is what my blog here is really about: Each new image becomes a blog post, and the accompanying photograph shows the image in some setting where I am during the time that it speaks to me. Just add a healthy dose of magical realism and archetypal interpretation, and we're off and running, somewhere between psychology and tarot.
A Word on the process of Reaping the Images
This was a phase I went through last winter, which involved a 4-month period while I was preparing to move to Portugal, when I would ask myself the same 7-question sequence weekly and find images to represent the questions and their answers as they evolved from week to week. Without a doubt, this was similar to a Vision Board, just slowed down and driven deeper by that methodical repetition week after week, which yielded somewhat of a spiral movement as I circled towards my impending move abroad. I will talk more about the specific questions in that contemplation process in a future blog (about two months from now!) but for now I will say that they generally corresponded to (1) defining my current situation, (2) observing and naming what I already know about that current situation, (3) a period of entering into the darkness and allowing something new to unfold, (4) receiving new, "unknown" information; (5) redefining my current situation; (6) identifying an ally; and (7) determining one action step to take immediately.
The result was a collection of about 16 images which would become my core touchstones for that process, winter into spring, and all the hidden twists and turns that defined my nomadic transition to living in Europe. As you might imagine, these images already hold great meaning for me due to their representative nature throughout those 4 months... Now, I am eager to revisit those images, allowing them to unfold unhurriedly beginning today, the first day of fall, 2019, using my intuition to guide me as to how to interact with each one and when to move onto the next one, and even by what process to select amongst them as to how to proceed. The initial process last winter and spring was rather random, in the sense that I would mostly select an image blindly each week from a whole pile of images I have collected over the years. But there were some moments where one came to me or jumped out at me, and I intend for this next go-around to be more intentional, letting myself pick from amongst the 16 for each next blog post.