Episode 17 - Failing Yields the More Interesting Fruit - with special guest Eliza Swann

Welcome to Crystal Ballers, a podcast celebrating the audacity to create our future now, with your hosts Natasha Levinger (she/her) and Britten LaRue (she/her).

This week, Natasha & Britten are thrilled to welcome special guest, Eliza Swann aka Emerald (she/they).  Eliza is an alchemist, teacher, poet, author of The Anatomy of the Aura and the upcoming 2026 release The Alchemical Imagination, and found of Emerald School, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring alchemy as a living, transdisciplinary practice for contemporary artists, thinkers, and seekers.

In this episode:

• Eliza used to run an art school for witches called Golden Dome
• Recently opened Emerald School, which uses Eliza's own teachings, centered around alchemy
• Eliza's definition of alchemy
• Alchemy gets you in touch with the world's soul as a facet of your own soul
• How Eliza recognized when it was time to let go of the Golden Dome
• Alchemy teaches you about balance
• The role of grief in alchemy
• Alchemy is fundamentally about failure
• This year scientists accidentally created gold while trying to replicate the Big Bang
• What can arise while trying to achieve the unachievable
• A redefinition of failure altogether
• How capitalism frames so many endings as failures
• "A good death bring a village together; a bad death tears a village apart."
• Practicing science without tending to soul and spirit will cause harm
• Some products of the combination of scientific inquiry and religious initiation
• Ceremony called The Opening of the Mouth by Gnostic mystic Zosimos
• The lineage of alchemy from ancient Egypt to western chemistry to the mysticism revival to Carl Jung and beyond
• Alchemy is for artists
• Astrology is a sister science of alchemy
• Alchemical heritage is heavy with women, queer, and non-binary practitioners
• The principal deity of European alchemy is non-binary
• Alchemy is a very gender queer art and it is not shy about it
• Current attempts by men to dominate and de-queer the space
• Disrupting the binary is part of the ethic of alchemy
• Eliza is preventing burnout today by gardening and slowing down
• The realization of how deeply unhealthy institutional education can be
• How dragons helped usher Eliza into teaching alchemy
• Leaning into trust, benefit of the doubt, forgiveness as a vital antidote against cruelty
• Poisons and antidotes grow together on the forest floor
• Trusting even when it feels risky
• Eliza's book of sonnets called "The Green Mary"
• Poetry shows you how powerful you are
• Watching her journey to finding her wife through her own poetry
• And more

Plus...

• Spots are open for Awakening, Natasha's one-on-one mentor program.
• Mystics Making Money is Britten's new course and registration is now open! Learn more or sign up here.
• If you like this podcast, please leave a 5-star review and tell your friends about us!

 

Eliza/Emerald's Info:

• Eliza's website: elizaswann.com
• Emerald School website: emerald.school