Personal Alchemy

Taken symbolically, alchemy is about turning the lower, primitive aspects of the self into a purified state; to illuminate the darkness with a sense of value or meaning, making conscious what is unconscious. This becoming whole is the process Jung called individuation, which is what we’re doing with dreamwork and belonging.

The archetypal qualities of the Alchemist reveal her to be a mistress of transformation: she’s not afraid to burn things back to the bare bones to expose what lies beneath. She’s both a visionary and a catalyst for the irreversible changes she conjures into being; in effect, she reimagines, and so recreates, the world.

Through psychospiritual adventure, the adolescent comes to know what she was born to do, what gift she possesses to bring to the world, what sacred quality lives in her heart, and how she might arrive at her own unique way of loving and belonging.

When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guide, suggest, and urge vibrant life in the inner and outer worlds. When women are close to this nature, the fact

This is the work I am calling female shamanism, a gradual mastery of oneself, and a healing or recovery from the chronic dis-ease of our time. Once a woman has done the work of re-membering herself, she is much more able to change the world effectively.