#▐┋ SOMETHING PRIMAL & WILD & UNKNOWABLE. / the woods.

[wintertimestoryteller]

Vermeil Adoration

Fierce Deity x Implied Deity Reader (can be Linked Universe or not) Drabble

Me, working on Act IIII and Act V of the LU Fairy Tale Collection: Alright so if we do this with slightly more sleep on us and figure a few things out for First I think it should be good to go-

Also Me: *remembers that because of the nature of the Fairy Tale Collection FD will be missing, is immediately assaulted with an idea, sighs, opening up a new WIP* You know what I'll come back to that, I can't not write for him if he's going to be left out.

For the FD Simps/lovers plus myself as I work on the Fairytale Collection, want to post two chapters at once and also crosspost on Ao3 plus life's been busy, apologies for the delay.

You were created from the breath of life itself.

You are the divinity found in the howling of winds cutting through the woods, the snarling of lightning down to the earth, attempting to touch something it may not have and scorch it so deeply new growth would flourish in a maddened frenzy, the sunlight kissing the ice tenderly though it may never do more than bring the crystalizing to shine, tears dripping knowingly from it's cold gaze as the water turns to rain, watering the land in it's unknowable grief in the closest way it could ever touch the sun in the sky. The joyful sound of wolves singing the moon's beauty with their howls, the birds merrily carrying the melody ever onwards so the sun may also partake of it, gleeful frolicking of fawns and foals discovering the world that the Golden Three left in their wake, the symphony of every animal and nature itself at it's finest.

You look at life itself and find divinity in everything.

So by the nature Farore so lovingly made sure you'd have, one would think you and the one hylians, hyruleans and beasts had dubbed 'The Fierce Deity' would never be able to coexist.

You've heard the one's watched over by your sister in divinity, ever watchful time herself with her diamond wings and gaze who pierced to the end of eternity itself with Nayru's patience whisper in primal terror and avarice drenched loathing about him to the trees in every corner of the land, heard beasts under the watch of death and rot himself curse his name to the winds and rain with as much ferocity and fury induced fear as the restless whispers of those denied existence, your brother in eternity with his shell of obsidian and the flames of Din's desire of consumption ever burning in his gaze daring not cross where the ivory and jade forged spirit passed. And of the horror and wonderment of your wild beings as they've hissed and howled and growled and screeched to the flowers and stones of nature.

A man like the hunt itself, divine without the vermeil breath of the primordial ones. The unrelenting slash of the blizzard gales in winter against any unfortunate to stand in their way, leaving the cold emptiness and silence behind, stealing the air from the lungs of living beings like the ocean for those unfortunate enough to fall with no sign of land. An ivory specter of death whom seemingly clawed himself from the void, an harbinger for the End with seemingly no rhyme or reason for those who he set his sights into, either to devour their divinity for himself or favor or bless.

A being like that should have been anathema to all you are and stand for. Or at least it's what anyone, including your divine sister and brother would reason.

Which is why you couldn't help but find it slightly comedic that the so called 'awful beast', capable of enacting such violence to consume divinity on a whim if tested. Was so very careful with you, head laid upon your lap in a rare moment of rest as you carefully weaved flowers into a crown.

You were curious, awfully so, like the foxes who roamed your woods in search of amusement and play, you just couldn't help yourself. You knew he was coming, how could you not, when the primal fear of living things echoed in the back of your mind, warning you as it warned animals of a bigger predator in the food chain? But you didn't run. Not in the face of narrowed, calculating pale eyes and alabaster hair and the scent of iron in the air, thick and old you couldn't mistake it for anything but blood and the marrow deep certainty of a lonsdaleite persistence.

Maybe you should of, in hindsight.

Instead you just blinked with evergreen curiosity, fascination bleeding from your lips before you could even think of stopping yourself, head tilted.

"My. Rumors are certainly exaggerated, you're beautiful."

The memory of his bewildered, flustered caution makes you smile a bit, as everything in between flowed naturally like spring petals on a breeze. You feel an armored hand on your cheek, so, so soft and careful, as if you were as fragile as a flower, and a calm, relaxed rumble of tourmaline lazy curiosity and aquamarine fondness, "Anything on your mind, my breath?"

You couldn't help your chuckle, emerald fondness running around the mosaic of your divinity as you gently run your hand through starlit hair, nuzzling the hand on your cheek and hoping to convey even half the warmth he gave you, "Reminiscing, worry not. Rest a bit more before you must go." You hear him sigh as you place the flower crown on his head, as pale as his hair, but as delicate as your sister in divinity's wings, threaded pthalo like the flame of his existence.

"... Must I? I was late this time, it's only proper I redeem myself for making you wait." He questions, reluctant and guilty in equal measure, fondness blooms over your lungs as you poke his nose, smiling bright, if dim as you answer him, "I'd dare not attempt to deny you your nature, I do not know what you hunt, what you're searching for. But it would be cruel to chain you."

The man many had dubbed 'Fierce Deity' nuzzles into your hand, nestling in close like a wolf over catch, you catch the hints of a frown on his face, "It's hardly chaining when I wish to stay, is it?"

Your breath almost is trapped in your lungs, but you shake yourself out of it, chuckling as you brush your lips over his markings, crimson affection as the carmine and lapis lazuli of his Hunt. The cheek of this man, for that's what you all are in the end, divinity or not, "Maybe not, though for all you rest here with me you still itch to run and hunt. Do you not, my dear warrior?"

The silence is only broken by the whispers of the leaves of the woods carried by the wind and the curious chirping of birds, his unwavering moonlit gaze giving away nothing. And it tells you enough.

You smile, brushing your noses together, spring breeze playful and sun warm, "If you're that worried, then just come back earlier, if you can. I'll have something new for you to look at, and I'll always wait. We have time."

In a flash, you find your positions reversed, your back and hair to the flowers and your wonderful, ever mischievous hunter above you, you yelp and you can't help but laugh before the sound is stolen by his lips. And he cradles your cheeky gently, so very kindly, and when he leans back he looks at you as if you're the first glimpse of water for a man in the desert, or the way a wolf longingly looks at the moon, and it cracks the phosphophylite of your soul and fills it with the gilded gold of emerald love, "... Thank you. I will not keep you waiting long again. I shall remain for now, though. The call can wait."

I love you. I want to stay with you.

"I know." Your hands gently thread through his hair, gleeful as you notice the rare curve of a smile as his cap lays abandoned in the glass, but your flower crown remains, "Be safe, when you do go. I'd be lovely if something happened."

I love you too.

He shakes his head, giving you an unimpressed look, "I cannot be harmed in any way that matters."

You fondly roll your eyes, pressing your index and middle finger to your lips, then touching it lightly against his own, he all but freezes. You refuse to allow him to distract you with admittedly charming affection, and you take the opportunity to tug him into your arms, shifting your positions so you can utilize him as a pillow, safer than you ever felt in your many eons of existence, more comfortable than the stars painting the canvas of the sky with their dance, "Promise me you'll be safe, and you can claim what's yours once you're back. For now I tire of your stubbornness."

You feel his chest rumble, maybe a laugh, maybe a purr or a growl, but he holds you close, steady and lovelier than even the world the goddesses created. "As you wish, my dearest blossom."

You both fall asleep to the songs of nature, you know he'll hunt again, you know he'll be gone soon like late night mist. But for now, a promise for an eternity of this, like how the mortals speak of, is enough.

[mercurygray]

I'm late, I'm late, I'm so so so very late. It was @captainkilly /@underragingwaves's birthday earlier this week and I wanted to write something to mark the occasion. Happy birthday, friend. I hope the year ahead is good to you.

One Norman field, Easy Company was finding, was very much the same as another.

The one they'd picked to camp in for the night had little to distinguish it from the rest - a few trees along the border of the now-sunken lane, and a large, strange hillock that somehow seemed out of place, the walls of the field reorienting themselves around it. But it was quiet, when they'd laid down to rest, and for a little while, the war felt far away. No guns were firing. The sky was full of stars.

But when Billie closed her eyes and fell asleep, head pillowed on her elbow, her dreams were loud.

There was noise, so much noise, screaming and shouting and the sound of metal on metal and wood on bone, and she was in the midst of this vast, heaving crowd of people, pushing and shoving this way and that, body heavy with the weight of unfamiliar things, an axe, a shield, soft boots that had a hard time finding purchase on the soft ground.

What sort of war was this?

Because this was war - there was no mistake about that. There was no crack of gunfire here, no artillery recoil shaking the earth - but her hands knew what they were doing, her arm remembered what it was like to raise the shield and let it absorb a blow, shouting and screaming encouragement with the rest. She could smell the mud, the same as she had that day at Carentan, the cool, deep smell of churned earth and rain and broken leaves, the tang of sweat, the coppery scent of blood and broken bones.

The mass of people broke, and her legs remembered how to run.

She was in all of this, somehow, in it but not of it, flickering in and out of this...this person who was here, fighting, shoving and hitting back, giving chase to the men who'd thrown themselves against the army she was standing with.

Someone ran up to grapple with her, the man’s face hidden by his helmet. She raised her arm to parry his blows, axe meeting shield meeting sword meeting axe. Her mouth opened to scream, as if the shouting would give her extra strength, and finally the edge of her weapon sank into the soft flesh of his thigh, and he dropped to his knees.

This woman didn’t give a second thought to slitting his throat.

Blood spurted up, splashed her face, but she didn’t care. Her heart was pounding and the enemy had fled, and they were victorious. Somewhere to her left someone let out a primal yell, as if to chase the remaining soldiers away, and suddenly from all around her others took it up, screaming with pride in a thing well done. We are alive. We are alive, and you are dead.

What place is this? Billie wondered to herself, torn between joy and fear, knowing and unknowing. Where am I now?

Someone spoke - a word? A name? Her name? She turned towards the speaker, and the Billie who wasn't Billie clasped his shoulder before he pulled her close, their foreheads touching, blood mingling with blood, smiling together, breathing together. She felt her heart grow warm, felt her body responding to his touch. This is my love. My lover? Her lover?

And then he looked up, and his eyes caught hers, dark and wild, and she found she recognized his face, different now with long hair, braids, a bloodied face. Wait, I think...I think I know you. But from where?

He only grinned - a grin that somehow she knew so well, that haunted her, vexed her, pleased her, even. And then, just like that, she woke up. The rest of the camp was still mostly asleep, Randleman and Martin next to the fire, poking at embers.

What on earth?

Her heart was still pounding, and it was hard, in the moment, to try and burrow back into her blanket and her elbow and go back to sleep, wondering where else she’d go while she was sleeping.

The morning brought no answers - but Billie couldn’t help but look around the field where they’d been sleeping, trying to pull out landmarks from the dream. Had that been…here? There were the trees - taller and ancient now. And there was that - that hill. But that had not been in the dream.

"Hey, Molly," she asked, shrugging her pack onto her shoulders and pointing. "What did you say that was?"

Molly looked at the small green hill. "A barrow - a Viking burial mound. It's probably someone of importance, to have moved all that dirt to cover it. To show that they were a person of rank, and substance."

"There were Vikings here?"

Molly nodded. "Came to attack Paris in the...eight hundreds or so. A lot of them. Brought their boats straight up the river. I'm sure there's all kinds of sites like this around here, if we looked for them. If we opened it up, we'd probably find… things that were important to them - their weapons, their favorite tools, their festival clothes. The Vikings used to put them up all over. They were doing a dig in England before the war started - a place called Sutton Hoo. There’s a whole series of these things there - barrows, I mean."

"But why? Build it, I mean."

Molly smiled. "Same reason we've got Graves Registration. To show the dead how well they thought of them - in case they came back to this world."

"Like, as a ghost?"

"Sure. Or a dream, maybe.” Billie felt cold. “They believed strongly in dreams – it was how the gods and their ancestors could come and give advice."

Billie paused and ran her hand over the side of the grass, stroking it as one might a dog, wondering, somehow, if it would wake up, reach out to consume her. A dream. And what were you trying to tell me, friend?

[elodieunderglass]

So I had the strangest dream this weekend and nobody understands me so I need to share it with you because you might. Press J to skip this post if you can't deal, I will accept this.

In my dream I was standing on the back deck of a rural cabin that overlooked a beautiful Vermont/Scottish Highlands landscape of unspoiled wilderness. It was a crisp, perfect autumn morning. I held a cup of cooling coffee in my hands as I leaned against the railing and scanned the perfect rolling hills in the midground, behind which the great patterned mountains with their snowcaps marched on until they blended with the horizon: #aesthetic

As I gazed at a distant meadow clearing in the trees, a pair of brightly coloured humanoid creatures emerged from the woods and began to dance for each other. It was an esoteric, beautiful mating dance, a strange combination of instinct and choreography. I felt awe washing over me. I marvelled. I felt a deep sense of wonder and peace as I observed this vanishingly rare encounter that I had never thought to observe in person. These animals were instantly recognisable but had never been studied in the wild. I felt incredibly humbled and privileged to witness this behaviour - I knew that I was the first human witness to observe this behaviour - and I reached for my phone, wondering if I should film it, so it could join the scholarly record, where it NEEDED to be. This could change everything. But then I held back - something told me "no," to let the creatures have their privacy.

Ok, I can't go any further without telling you that they were Teletubbies.

A red one and a yellow one. I know. I know. Stay with me here.

The cryptids melted back into the woods. My subconscious drew a discreet veil over the rest of their mating ritual, but I knew instinctively that this had been a dance of courtship. I was busy pondering the implications, because they were critical. You see, although the creatures were instantly recognisable as Teletubbies, as I had studied them, even at a distance, I had an incredible realisation.

They were adult Teletubbies.

This realisation dawned on me and in my dream I understood it fully. The ones that we know of - the captive ones that we have seen on television - are juveniles. In fact, they are the equivalent of toddlers. When you see the adults this becomes obvious. The garbled speech and silly movements of the four captive Teletubbies we know are the babbles of babyhood, a private primal toddler-language brewed up between sentient beings who have never encountered an adult of their own kind.

The adult Teletubbies have more branching, complex antlers and shaggy coats. They are less brightly coloured. They are terrifyingly large. Their strangely human faces, emerging from the thick fur, are unquestionably adult; remote, serene, reproachful. Their television screens are glitchy, esoteric and unknowable. They are cryptids whose public exploitation has undermined their rarity and their strange, alien dignity.

In my dream my feelings of awe and peace turned to great sadness at the fate of the captive toddler Teletubbies. I realised that I had to be the scientist who brought this discovery to the world and raised awareness of their plight. And I also questioned: are Teletubbies like axolotls? Do they exhibit neoteny? (Axolotls, the cute aquarium pets with flaring gills, are actually juveniles of an amphibious species - if given the right conditions they'll grow up into land-dwelling black newts. But they can breed in their aquatic juvenile form, and most spend their whole lives in this form. Deprived of their wild potential, will the Teletubbies ever mature? Or are they merely experiencing a long childhood, natural for a species that is unimaginably long-lived?)

So in my dream my husband came out onto the back deck and I began to share these discoveries with him and before I could even bring up the axolotls he just said "what the fucking fuck" and went away again.

I woke up disgruntled and unable to capture the feeling of peace and sadness. I then tried to explain this to my husband in the waking world, and he said "what the fucking fuck" and walked away before I even got to the explanation of the Teletubbies being toddlers, which just goes to show that you never know someone as well as you think you do.

Anyway I'm sure you guys will join me in this knowledge. And also I've googled it and apparently the Teletubbies reboot features infant Teletubbies, so clearly they are getting more from somewhere and the time to question this is NOW

[chuchoose]

ive started reading the online mtg stories can you guess my favourite character #01

“You? hunt me? a Vine Walker of the Henge?” 

Hunt was a strong word. The red cloaked traveler bit her tongue. She didn’t even know this one’s name, let alone that he had been tailing her, but it seemed her reputation (and her mission) proceeded her. It was bad enough she had been taken unawares, and worse that the dolt had announced himself, thereby demonstrating how ridiculous his feat of stealth truly was for him, but that he had caught her here, of all places, was the worst of all. 

They stood a small clearing apart, circled by overhanging vegetation and thick trees. Before the fire mage stood the vine walker (of the Henge, apparently). A vine walker was a mage who manipulated the earth and foliage in their spells. Manipulated, she reminded herself. The fire mage twisted her face in disgust for the word. Manipulated.

“Then know death!” he howled. The vine walker must have taken her grimace as a challenge. True enough, the pyromancer thought, as the elementalist's face contorted itself into outrage and his eyes pulsed with the green glow of mana being channeled to and from the nature around him. 

“Come to me, Lady of the Land, and lend me your strength. By your might, we shall rebuff this intruder with impunity.” In answer, the land quaked beneath the feet of both mages. The pyromancer, in one smooth motion, flashed one hand over her face, materializing her smooth, obsidian black battle mask in a puff of brimstone and a flash of fire, while using her other to blast a plume of flame at her own feet, flinging herself to relative safety, as the ground she had moments before stood on cracked and balled itself into a fist emerging from below, as big as an old oak was wide, before it splayed out and slammed itself into the ground from where it had emerged as if to lift its lithe and lean body of roots and dirt from the edges of an otherwise serene pool.

The pyromancer stabilized herself in the air with a cacophony of minor explosions and a magically enhanced updraft as the writhing and vaguely humanoid shape of the elemental rose, towering before her as a gargantuan and uneven woman, its fists the size of boulders and its face, a featureless tangle of nature, but radiating enough wild and ill-sculpted mana that the pyromancer could make no mistake in its summoned intention. 

“Wild Mother!” the vine walker howled. “In the name of root and stone! By the strength of the Father!” The greenery that surrounded the clearing bloomed into bulbous pink blossoms that unfolded themselves into falling petals. With wide flourish, the vine walker swung his arm around in clumsy and angry arcs as the petals and leaves and grass and weeds that circled the clearing whirled within a twist of wind and mana into the shape of a long spear that formed in the elemental’s raised fist. The vine walker roared and the elemental lumbered forward with weapon poised to strike. “Destroy the heretic! Break this raze mage with all our rage!”

The pyromancer snarled. This is what she got for being ambushed in an enemy’s arena of choice, she thought. Watching the elementalist spin his arms in such a wild and ridiculous fashion for his spells only cemented her feelings for the mage further. The pyromancer hated these warlocks and deal makers and so-called wizards. They are all mere borrowers to her; only children trying to grasp at something greater that they can only hope to hold. She watched intently as the spear of solid mana hurtled ever closer in the Wild Mother’s thrust. The world to her was silent, drowned out by her focus and the perpetual chorus of explosions she had summoned to keep herself aloft, not that she cared for anything the vine walker would have to say if she could hear him. True magic belongs to those who live it, she knew. The ocean is not yours because you can cup a part of it in your hands. You are not the ocean because you drink of it. And you are especially not the ocean because you can scream and you claim it answers. 

If there were any onlookers, they would have sworn that the fire mage had met her end right then and there. As the tip of the spear looked to make its impact, the mage erupted in a bloom of flame. The spear of mana caught against the impact, and the elementalist let out a victorious whoop, thinking the strike had found true, before the jerk and stagger of the impeded spear’s thrust registered for him. In panic, he redoubled his investment of mana in the construct, as the fire mage knew his short-sighted panic would impel him, but the spear’s destruction had not been her goal. Know this: mana and magic cannot be broken so easily, but that is to say nothing by the mediums with which it is conducted. The wilderness and green within the sheath of mana went up in unnatural and voluminous smoke.

The fire mage knew she would have only moments to act. This was not a concern for her so much as it was her reminding herself how much time she had to do what she wanted to next. The smokescreen would not hinder the elemental, for it did not see, but moved with the ripples within the lines of ley and its weaves. No, the smoke was so the vine walker knew not what spell he would need to beg to his Wild Mother for next. Rather than allow him his insipid cries to the thing he bound and claims himself in service to, rather than have to navigate what insulting contrivance of magic he’d subject her to next, the fire mage knew that before the smoke cleared, she would only have to worry about the elemental’s devastating swings, and once that strength was answered, the vine walker would have little recourse left to him. 

All of those thoughts raced through the fire mage’s mind in that moment, that singular moment, when the constant booms of fire and force that kept the fire mage airborne were superseded by the pyromancer’s own primal rebel scream, even from behind her mask, as her body coursed with the mana that poured out from the very center of her being. Then, in a roar of explosions in overlapping clamour, the pyromancer shot out like a lightning bolt shrouded in cinder and smoke. The Wild Mother’s other arm swung wide in recovery and recompense of its first repelled blow and missed while the pyromancer raced and twisted around the elemental’s arm and spear in jagged and short lines of violent flight, then down its torso and up and around what should have been its neck. The vine walker looked on in horror as the fire mage emerged from the smoke screen and scorched a path into the sky above where the smoke trailed after her until it thinned into the barest of a thread-like wisp and she took it within her grasp and pulled with all the force her flight magic could afford. The elemental’s encircled arm jerked towards the sky, screeching in indecipherable rumblings of stone and protest as parts of its earthen form fell away from beneath the smoky binds cutting into its earthy flesh. The fire mage fumed, flared in a pulse of fire and mana, and then redoubled her efforts, but instead of flying further up, tugged down, as if using a pulley. In turn, the line of smoke zagged down with her and the elemental’s arm was drawn up as it struggled and thrashed and screamed in the unknowable language magic. The elemental’s great strength, a consequence of its mass more than the mana that moved it, unsurprising of something so large and strong created in the ways a mage-in-name-only would, had been frozen in a raised arm like it meant to surrender.

The pyromancer looked down at the elementalist below whose mouth hung agape. His precious Wild Mother squirmed and clawed at its arm sluggishly as if underwater, the elementalist having marshalled mana to make it move, but now it fought against the gravity of its own unwieldy size. With a triumphant smirk unseen from behind her mask, the fire mage lit a little flame at the end of a smug thumbs-up on her free hand. The elementalist shook his head pleadingly. The pyromancer made no show of noticing, so inordinately pleased with herself as she was, before holding the flame to the thread of smoke in the other. It burned down like a slow fuse. The Wild Mother could feel the vibrations of mana from the spark ripple through the air as the fuse inched closer and closer and the Wild Mother redoubled its struggles to free itself in vain while the elementalist only looked on dumbstruck. 

A tinge of regret twisted in the pyromancer’s chest as the elemental’s keening found a crack in her resolve. This is why you don’t dabble in life magic, she thought. Magic is already alive and these monsters twisted it into a form that could feel pain. For what? She cursed them all. She knew no answer of theirs could suffice.

Where the spark met the mana that made the elemental whole, the elemental’s limbs hissed and popped and fizzed before giving way to a cascade of explosions in the spark’s wake. The blasts chewed away chunks of earth and stone and wood, leaving the mana beneath bare and leaking free like a thick and oozing blood of luminous green. With each blast, the elementalist shrieked in pain as his control of the mana that made the elemental shattered and rippled through him as if each were a gut emptying punch. In moments, the whole elemental fell apart in a rain of dirt and charred vegetation. The vine walker lay motionless save the slight rise and fall of his chest with haggard breath.

The pyromancer released a satisfied sigh and descended in free fall, cushioning her landing with an updraft of hot air that rustled her cloak like a banner whipping in the wind. The elementalist looked up from the dirt, his face drenched in the cold sweat that followed the exhaustion of mana drain. The pyromancer leveled an outstretched palm at him like a cannon and conjured a roiling ball of flame in its center. 

“Do you see now, pretender?” the pyromancer spat. 

The elementalist shook his head weakly no, but the pyromancer cared not. She leaned in and held the fireball only inches away from his chest. The flame of her magic danced eerily across the perfect smoothness of her mask while the heat of it began to chew and smoke through the hemp and vine that made the elementalist’s garb.

“Whatever devils you made your pacts with -- whatever deals you struck so you could move the earth in our mothers’ forms -- I will burn it. From whatever spires or swamps your kin since claimed sanctum? I will cast you all out before I burn them down and you shortly after. Never again will you invoke a woman’s form for your weapons. Never again will you take our weapons and call them yours. Tell your mentors and your masters and what snivelling cowards you call your minions this when you see them next.” She pressed her hand into the vine walker’s chest and he screamed himself white before going quickly quiet. “This magic does not belong to you.”

[joelliberati]

Introduction to Alchemical Meditation

Meditation is an age-old human activity that is designed specifically to get beyond the illusions of social falsity and personal ego and contact the essence of Self. It is the art of focusing consciousness by directing your attention inward, without regard to the demands of the external world, in order to move beyond ego and achieve union with your spiritual core. In the Hermetic view, the creation of the universe took place through meditation – the focusing of the mind of God. “All things have come from this One Thing,” says the Emerald Tablet, “through the meditation of One Mind.” The source of that One Mind is the same for everyone, and it can be found in meditation. That is a profound idea. In fact, just saying that people could make contact with the divine through meditation and private prayer was enough for the medieval Church to burn several famous alchemists at the stake.

It should also be noted that alchemistic meditation is different from other forms, because it is often an active instead of a passive discipline. The alchemist’s meditation seeks to actually work with the transcendental powers beyond our everyday world to create something truly new. The object is not always to still the mind; sometimes alchemistic meditation requires us to fill our minds with chaotic and energies images and follow them back to their divine source. Each group of alchemical meditations has specific goals in mind, much the same as the desired results from the corresponding operation in laboratory work.

There are three basic types of alchemistic meditations that correspond to the three magisteriums (or accomplishments) in alchemy. As we learned in Module 1, these are the Lunar, Solar, and Stellar levels. They are the three accomplishments that made Hermes “Thrice Greatest” and correspond to the three levels of reality – the physical, the mental, and the spiritual.

Lunar Meditation is cultivating the stillness and the darkness within to discover the deeper essence we all possess. It is an introverted journey to the underworld of matter and body to seek out the light trapped there that is our essence. During lunar mediations, we plumb the depths of soul in a deeply relaxed state that seeks connection with unconscious or dormant powers. The ultimate goal is to retrieve those sparks of light buried in matter and bring them together in a holistic entity that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Solar Meditation is a more extroverted journey into the realm of light and consciousness. It is soaring with spirit towards the light Above. During solar meditation, we attempt to break the shackles of ego and cultural controls to seek higher consciousness. By exposing the self-deception in our thoughts and using mantras and other “gimmicks” to lull our everyday ego mind into submission, we purify and increase our personal consciousness

Stellar Meditation requires the merging of Lunar and Solar consciousness in the most powerful of all the alchemists’ tools. By retrieving the sparks of light trapped in our bodies and uniting them with the light of consciousness freed from egotistical or societal control, we create a brilliant beacon to the universe. Through stellar meditation, we connect with the source of all spiritual power, far beyond our primitive, anthropomorphic ideas of heaven or hell. During this kind of meditation, we attempt to merge with the One Mind of the universe to take on its Greater Identity. This state requires a truly free and purified consciousness, free of psychological, genetic, and social restraints to our being. The void created by this “death” of our worldly personality is automatically filled by a higher presence that becomes our true guide in alchemical transformation. It is at this level of mind that Hermes speaks directly to us.

The Dragons of Alchemy

The focus of most the alchemists’ meditations, whether they were seeking purification, insight, or spiritual power, all had to do with dragons. Alchemists both East and West believed in dragons, if not in the real sense then certainly as archetypal energies that are part of the very fabric of the universe. In fact, if you do not understand the nature of the Dragon, much of the advanced alchemical wisdom will be beyond your grasp.

In the Grail legends, Merlin takes a young King Arthur into the  dark woods to instruct him in natural magic. But the young man is terrified by the wild sounds, threatening growls, and glowing eyes that hide in the forest. “What are you afraid of?” Merlin says. “Shall I tell you what’s really out there? The Dragon – a beast of such power that if you were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance, it would burn you to cinders. Where is it? It is everywhere; it is everything! Its scales are in the bark of trees. Its roar is heard in the wind. And its forked tongue strikes like lightning. And there is only one thing you can do to survive the Dragon. Be still. Rest in the arms of the Dragon.”

The Dragon is a composite of the features of many animals and represents the chaotic matrix of creation of which the life force is part. Dragons derive their power from the primordial Black Hole from which all things sprung, the One Thing, the formless Tao, the unrelenting chaos of the First Matter. In modern physics, the Dragon is the unknowable quantum foam from which atomic particles are created, the underlying strings of pure, wild energy that become physical reality.

There are three steps in dealing with the dragons of alchemy, and the steps correspond to the Three Phases of alchemy. The first is called “Facing the Dragon,” and it occurs during the Black Phase (Nigredo) of alchemy. This difficult stage is the beginning of true transformation. An old alchemical saying states: Opponere Draconem est prehendere Vitam (“To face the Dragon is to seize life itself.”) Why is it so hard to face the dragon? Because we are afraid to. We want to live in the illusory but comfortable world of personal ego and civilization. The Dragon is the underlying chaos in our bodies, our lives, our culture, and the whole universe. Humans are afraid to face that fact. Individually, the most important step in facing the dragon is to acknowledge the darker side of reality, all the suffering and stupidity that is around us. Our great spiritual leaders, from simple shamans to Buddha and Christ, all began their spiritual journey by realizing how much chaos and suffering there is in the world.

Once you do face the Dragon, there is nothing to do but accept it and try to understand it. In dealing with the Dragon, you must not challenge it directly or it will ruthlessly destroy you. To gain control of the Dragon, you must go to its primal level to surrender yourself, while bringing with you a higher state of consciousness or awareness. So the second step in dealing with the dragons of alchemy is called “Surrendering to the Dragon.” That challenge begins during the White Phase (Albedo). During this stage of purification, we have to not only acknowledge the chaos in the world but also the chaos within ourselves. The Dragon is never all good or all bad; it is just all things in all ways. That means the darkest parts of you, all the habits of thought and body in which you are trapped, are part of the Dragon. And all the best parts too. You have to give into this process in which good and bad, positive and negative, health and sickness, life and death, heaven and earth, are poles of existence. The universe is not just about you or your comfort. There is a greater pattern, and the Dragon is what fulfills it. This idea is often expressed in the symbol of the Ouroborus, the Dragon (or Serpent) eating its own tail. It is also sometimes depicted as two dragons, a lighter colored one on top with wings and a darker colored one on the bottom with feet.

The last step in handling Dragons is the most difficult and dangerous. It is the act of “Unleashing the Dragon” and marks the Red Phase (Rubedo) of alchemy. If you are not pure of spirit and free of ego-fused thoughts and emotions (like greed and ambition or guilt and shame), you will be destroyed by the Dragon and all will be lost. But if you are free of falsity and devoid of ego, there is a chance the Dragon will allow you to transform into something completely new. Oddly, the real trick to unleashing the Dragon is not to confront it but to disappear before it notices you. The idea is not to hide from it, but to become transparent to it, like a completely empty cup waiting to be filled with this tremendous energy, which normally would wipe out any content or “Salt”.

This unleashing of the Dragon into our bodies and the world is the final goal of Great Work. The alchemists wanted to be masters of the life force, and they knew that the life force was carried and protected by dragons. In Taoist alchemy, advanced techniques of Unleashing the Dragon center on the microcosm of the body. Disciplines like Tai Chi and Chi Kung seek to allow the Dragon to live and circulate within us without our interference. To do this, we have to become transparent to the life force, so it moves without resistance or  control. This feeling of energetic “flow” is often experienced by athletes. The same experience occurs on mental and spiritual levels too and is felt as boundless creativity.

Visit The Alchemy Guild, for guided lessons with Master Alchemists where they will elaborate on how the Dragon is the real focus of all the operations of alchemy. They will show how the Dragon reacts to our presence and efforts at each stage, and how to avoid the pitfalls of ego and falsity that bring the fiery Dragon’s breath that will destroy us. No alchemist will ever achieve his or her goals by confronting the Dragon, by trying to slay it or chain it up. The only way is to face the Dragon, surrender to it, and unleashing its power by becoming part of it. If you become invisible to yourself, if you become the purest life force possible, the Dragon will embrace you, for the Dragon is attracted to and protects the pristine energy of the life force and destroys all salted imperfections, including your own ego. As Merlin advised: “Be still. Rest in the arms of the Dragon.”

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