ALCHEMY’S EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE

 

Alchemists spent lifetimes

Trying to change Lead into Gold

But maybe merely metaphorical

For changing their own

Psychology and Spirituality

 

Through Fire and Heat

Reduce by breaking down

Old patterns of belief

This is called CALCINATION

Bringing about a Revelation

 

Dissolve the solution

So like a descent into

Unconscious and emotional turmoil

This is called DISSOLUTION

First steps creating a new Evolution

 

Now the pieces are chaotically apart

Analyzing each lets us understand

All those aspects of ourselves

Initiating a move toward SEPARATION

A welcome purification of Chelation

 

As components reunite

Like a magnetic pull

Forming a skeletal structure

The looked-for CONJUNCTION

Is integration on the edge of Function

 

 

Next is transformation

As the self begins to grow

Only to appear as a new birth

A perfect period of FERMENTATION

A ripening of Propagation

 

Heat and condensation

Refines one’s character

Shedding unwanted impurities

A complete DISTILLATION

The future’s Illustration?

 

Finally, a state of wholeness

The Lead into Gold

The seventh stage of spiritual enlightenment

A complete COAGULATION

A single cluster, an Aggregation

 

The Philosopher’s Stone is inside us

The mystical Alchemical Zone…

 

© 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Alchemy’s Transmutation Circle Amulet

 

BAXTALO POGACHA LUNARELA REVISED

(Bread Harvest, Lammas)

 

For August 1, 2025

 

In days of old

Farmers and field hands

Scythed their way across fields

In failing light

Deities on clouds

Or today, flying drones

Would see what appears to be

Between the waving grain

Miniature Grim Reapers

Robes and coats flapping

Moon glinting off the

Sharpened tools

Harvesting the grain before fall

Romani working alongside

Land-owning farmers

And dogmatic villagers

Yet, grain was the equalizer for all

In this country, said my Gran

August 1^st was called Lammas

Although we just called it

Pogacha for bread

And Lunarela for Harvest

Luna means moon, I’d said

In my childish, show-offish way

Yes, but the important thing

Is to fill up your bags

With flour

Because nothing is more important

Than bread

But we need Vitamin C

I said

Having just read

Some whaling ship story about

Scurvy and limes

And protein like eggs and fish

Bread! Gran interrupted

All that you mention is true

But they are like decorations

On a Christmas tree

The Bread is the tree

Central to all our recipes

Bread fills the soul and the belly

Bread can be decorated

Like a tree

With meat or egg or jelly

Roll it around fresh blueberry

So today, we celebrate

By baking Pogacha

As for me, you see,

I am now older than Gran was then

But once again

I am baking Pogacha

From Whole Wheat

With Bananas and Walnuts

The combination promotes Dopamine

A neurotransmitter that manages

Parkinson’s symptoms

Bread as a med plus delicious too!

And I say

Thank you for the bread today

But most of all

May there be no one hungry

On this Earth…

Baxtalo Pogacha Lunarela!

 

© 2023, 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Banana Walnut bread from scratch