December 10, 2024 • 64 mins
Alchemy of the Heart: Embracing Transformation with Tiffany Lazic
In this enlightening episode of Practically Magick, host Courtney Pearl welcomes Tiffany Lazic, a mystic, psychotherapist, and author, to explore the profound world of alchemy and spiritual transformation. Together, they delve into the ancient roots and modern interpretations of alchemy, revealing its essence as a spiritual science of transformation. Tiffany shares insights into the historical context of alchemy, tracing its origins back to Egypt and highlighting its evolution through the ages.
The conversation takes listeners on a journey through the mystical and symbolic aspects of alchemy, emphasizing its role in personal and spiritual growth. Courtney and Tiffany discuss the process of turning lead into gold as a metaphor for transforming one's inner self, shedding light on the importance of embracing both light and shadow in the pursuit of self-discovery and healing.
Listeners are invited to explore the concept of the philosopher's stone, a symbol of ultimate transformation and enlightenment. Tiffany shares her perspective on the relationship between mind, body, spirit, and emotions, offering a holistic approach to understanding and navigating life's challenges. The episode also touches on the significance of emotions as conduits of information and the role of shame in hindering personal growth.
Through engaging storytelling and thoughtful reflections, Courtney and Tiffany guide listeners towards finding their own light and letting it shine. They highlight the importance of living from the heart, embracing the interplay of spirit and matter, and recognizing the indestructible essence within each individual.
00:00 Courtney Pearl welcomes Tiffany Lazic to Practic Magic
03:21 Pulling a card from the Celtic Tarot Christopher Hughes deck
03:48 Our card today is the seven of Shields. And I know this card is associated with prosperity
07:59 So did you have something you wanted to share with us in your divination tools
08:49 Alchemy is the spiritual science of transformation
16:20 You referenced the Emerald Tablet alchemy for personal transformation
25:58 Gwydion says alchemy leads to the truth of yourself
31:10 There are many emotions that are informed by shame. Emotions are not good or bad
37:53 Alchemy is a spiritual science because it has steps for addressing shame
40:31 When the mind and the heart are working together, there's this place
44:16 So I'm wondering. I pulled this other card from the sky deck
51:00 Chris, all healing is grieving, you say in your new book
56:44 Tiffany talks about alchemy and the Emerald Tablet
59:52 Tiffany talks about alchemy in both of her books
For those curious about alchemical transformation and seeking to deepen their understanding of spiritual growth, Tiffany offers various courses through Soul Alchemist Academy. Explore her teachings and embark on your own alchemical journey by visiting her website at https://tiffanylazic.com/. To connect with Courtney and access additional resources, visit her website at prism-healing.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:30):
Hello, welcome to Practically Magic.
I am your host, Courtney Pearl,your Celtic folk witch and healer.
And I am joined today by TiffanyLazic, author, mystic, registered
psychotherapist, spiritual director,certified heavening techniques
practitioner, specializing in spiritualpsychotherapy and Author of The Great
(00:56):
Work, Self Knowledge and HealingThrough the Wheel of the Year, The
Noble Art, From Shadow to EssenceThrough the Wheel of the Year, and
exciting upcoming book from Thuelen,Psychopomps and the Soul, Traversing
Death and Life for Healing and Wholeness.
That's a mouthful!
Thank you and welcome, Tiffany.
(01:18):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
I know.
They're all a bit of amouthful, aren't they?
It's great to have that list.
In fact, I usually list off all of mytitles and I'm like, you know what,
I just Celtic Folk Witch is fine.
Let's just stick with that for now.
But you deserve all the accoladesfor that list, and you're here today.
(01:41):
We met, so I'll just kind of brieflytalk about, um, when I joined the Sacred
Sites Pilgrimage for the Sisterhood ofAvalon before I was in the Sisterhood.
Me and my aunt, um, it was actually herthat had been following the Sisterhood
for a while and she messaged me andsaid, do you want to go on this trip?
(02:02):
And I was like, this soundsexactly like what I'm looking for.
Absolutely.
I want to go.
Um, never been out of the countrybefore, just studying kind of,
you know, spirituality on my own.
And then, Uh, getting to go tothe land of my ancestors was
absolutely life changing for me.
And that's where I got to meet you!
(02:23):
You were with us briefly on that.
Yeah.
Discussing before we hitrecord how she had recently,
at that point, moved to Wales.
And was like, I remember how excited youwere to say, and I'm from here, Wales.
And I was like, and it was that tripthat from the very first day, from the
(02:44):
day that we went to Wales, and we spentone day there, I was like, something
about this place is absolute magic.
Yeah.
it's almost like I get to reach throughthe internet, through the interwebs and
be connected to whales for just a shortperiod of time while you're here with me.
Yeah.
The energy is all here.
(03:05):
Just right out the window.
There's mountains, there's sea,there's sheep just right there.
I know I'm fangirling a little bitabout seeing you and I'm fangirling
about whales a little bit today.
I'm just a little bit like all the things.
So we usually start our episodes onPractically Magic pulling a card and
(03:26):
I'm going to pull one from the branchesof the Celtic Tarot, Christopher
Hughes deck, um, which I actuallyonly recently got a few months ago.
I'm so excited.
Love
love it.
Mmm.
the storytelling in the cards.
(03:48):
So I'm going to pull a card forus today, maybe you and me, maybe
a little bit for our listeners.
Whoever is listening maybe needsto hear what this card has to say.
To offer our card todayis the seven of shields.
I'm going to show it on thecamera for those who are watching
(04:10):
Seven of shields.
It's kind of got that shadow of people
Mmm.
the almost like spiritual
mystical
Mmm.
the background.
Um, this is when Math and Gwydion are
summoning and felling theirmagic to create Thudaiwed in the
(04:34):
cauldron, um, so that she will bea wife to Thu in, in the mythology.
I won't go all into the story,but you know, stay tuned for
my other storytelling episodes.
Uh, but I do notice too that on thiscard there is like snow on the ground and
snow in the background, And I know thiscard is kind of associated with, um, um,
(04:58):
prosperity and even like in projects orbusiness being able to, um, manifest or
bring forth what it is that you've workedreally hard for, put a lot of effort into.
So they put all the ingredientsin and they're going to make
this, this woman out of flowers.
And It also kind of serves as sort ofa warning of like, be careful what you
(05:21):
wish for, or be careful what you'rebringing out because, uh, it's, it's
probably going to take on a life of itsown, make its own choices as well, right?
It feels very, if I canjump in a little bit, is it,
These do.
very, it feels alchemical, Thetwo magicians over the cauldron,
(05:45):
my
put the ingredients in, you know,they're, they're doing the work.
It's very different than, um, causeI know that the seven of shields is
equivalent to the seven of pentacles,which, which usually has a sense of
sort of assessment, like stepping backand, okay, so I've done a lot of work
and now I need to step back and seewhat needs to stay, what needs to go.
(06:07):
But, but with this one, it'sthere, they're like putting
the, they put the ingredients inand they're using their skill.
to create the alchemicaltransformation, which is going to
turn these flowers into this woman.
So it, I'm, I'm not sure that there couldbe a more perfect card for this episode.
(06:33):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and that's usually how it works, right?
I mean, you just pull what isexactly right for that moment.
I know for me.
This is really kind of, um, perfect forthings that have been happening in my
life the last week, where there's a lotof things I've been kind of struggling
(06:54):
with and contemplating and, um, there'scertain groups in my community that I've
been a part of that I've been tryingto, uh, decide how much I really want
to put my investment into or maybe stepback, pull back and say, that's not
where I want my energy to be right now.
And so, Just in the last few days,actually, I came up with these, like,
(07:19):
epiphany moments where I'm like Ohmy gosh, I see how my involvement in
these things can actually improve it.
That I could be part of it andit could become something really,
um, I'm really enthusiastic about.
So that's interesting.
(07:39):
Taking like, again, like thatlead into gold kind of a thing.
two things come together, neither.
Leaves Unchanged, as well.
Wow.
Excellent.
(08:00):
So did you have something youwanted to share with us in,
um, in your divination tools?
Whatever
thinking, well, should I do it nowor should I leave it for the end?
But, um, yeah.
you want.
You know what?
I almost kind of wanted, yeah,let's, let's leave it till the end.
Cause I love that youhave, um, Moth and Gwydion.
(08:21):
It feels like they've kind ofstepped in and they've set, um,
They've set the laboratory, likethere, there's the cauldron.
It's bubbling away.
It's got the ingredients.
It's, it's in the processof transformation.
So maybe if we have a bit of a chatand, um, and then I'll pull, I'll
pull one at the end and see what ithas to say about the whole process.
(08:45):
see what comes out atthe end of the bubbling.
What?
and I just have to say my experiencewith alchemy before diving into it.
I, I'm not even sure why it brought it wasbrought to my mind as I was, Um, thinking
of what are some topics I'd like to coverthis season in Practically Magic and what
(09:09):
are some things I want to talk about.
Um, and I know my aunt who came withme on that pilgrimage, she had taken
some of your courses on alchemy andshe kind of shared with me some of
her notes or some things that she waslearning when she was visiting me.
And I thought, Oh, this is interesting.
I don't actually know anything about this.
And I, I had read the alchemist.
(09:32):
I don't know how many people listeningmaybe are familiar with the book, the
story, The Alchemist, and, um, I readthat, and, uh, the only other thing that
I know about it is the, uh, DiscoveryWitches series that's, or book, it started
out as a book, but it's a TV series.
(09:53):
And, you know, they're looking for Ashmolesomething something, uh, that has a spell
written into it, whatever, and they'relike, it's from, she's studying alchemy.
And I'm like, what isshe studying exactly?
What is, what is this?
And I'm thinking, is it literal?
Is it literally like people really weretrying to, you know, turn lead into gold?
(10:15):
Or are we talking about somethingmore spiritual or philosophy?
Is it science?
Is it?
So help us, for those of us who, you know,maybe went into it completely ignorant
and like, what are we talking about here?
What would you say to someoneyour definition of alchemy?
Oh my goodness.
So, um, so the, the, what is it?
(10:41):
The short form, the blurb,the, uh, the little meme.
The soundbite
yes.
alchemy is that it is the spiritualscience of transformation.
And we do tend to focus on thetransformation of lead to gold.
(11:06):
Um, but interestingly, it actually hasits roots, um, I don't even think that's
where, I'm not even sure, to tell youthe truth, where that became the focus.
Perhaps more sort of Dark Ages,Medieval, is when the focus of lead
into gold, but, but previous to that.
(11:27):
Again, the, the, the genesis of alchemy,as with so many of these things, is
lost to the mists of time, but as faras we can, uh, somewhat get our feet on
solid ground, it, it goes back to Egypt.
And the Egyptians were not so muchconcerned, as far as, as I understand,
(11:49):
with turning lead into gold.
What they were concerned with was,um, uh, ensuring that the body would
continue, uh, in the afterlife, thathow do we turn matter into something
which has, uh, spiritual constancy.
(12:14):
So, um, so the term it's alchemyitself, the word itself, means Egypt.
In Arabic, al kam meansthe black, the black land.
Egypt was the black land becauseof the banks of the Nile, which
(12:34):
flooded, right, with the inundation.
So alchemy, like, embeddedin it, means Egypt.
okay,
So,
a lot more.
Yeah, that makes sense.
(12:54):
And actually in the story of thealchemist, you know, in the, it
tells it kind of like as a journey,as a story of this young boy.
And, um, I think that was kind ofthe author's way of presenting this
idea when the Englishman comes to thealchemist in the oasis in the desert,
um, looking for all the answers.
(13:15):
He's brought all these books, he'sstudied his whole life, they've, you
know, they've got their, um burnersand their lab materials and he goes, he
finally gets there after all this journeyand he's talking to the alchemist and
he goes, how do I turn lead into gold?
Or like, teach me what alchemyis or teach me what you know.
(13:38):
And the alchemist says,well, have you tried?
Nice!
So the Englishman's back in his tentwith his little burner and he's just
like, and, and the boy in the storywho's actually learning alchemy, the
actual, you know, transformation partof it, Walks past his tent as he's over
there hunched over his burner tryingto like do his science and he's like
(14:05):
what you know What's he doing?
I don't know.
I think that was the point of the storywhere it was like did some people get lost
on the idea that like Looking for treasureand gold was not in a literal sense Um,
Yeah, well, interestingly, it's so,so the Egyptians were, oh, so much,
(14:27):
the Egyptians were the first, as faras I understand, who, who, um, started
to master, uh, metallurgy, right?
So, so they were working with techniques,were working with, um, like gold and
silver and copper and, um, metals.
So, so there was a sense of, ofnot so much, um, transmuting, um,
(14:50):
lead into gold, but, but how doyou work with these substances?
Um, what is it like bronzeis, is bronze like copper and
tin and it becomes stronger.
So you, you put things together, youtake things apart, you put things
together and they become stronger.
So there's an aspect perhapsof the lead into gold, which.
(15:11):
comes a little bit out of that.
Also, aromatherapy is, which again has,has working with essential oils, has
its roots in, in ancient Egypt as well.
And that's a form of, of alchemy.
You distill and youdistill and you distill.
What is it?
It takes like
gonna stress
thousand rose petals to getone drop of essential oil.
(15:37):
That's an alchemical process.
How do you take somethingand, and you distill it down
to its purest, purest form?
It's essential form.
It's essence form.
So there's the metallurgy part of it.
(15:59):
There's the plant part of it.
Um, there's a, I never pronounce it right.
I think it's called, Spigirics orsomething like that, which is like
making, um, herbal tinctures, whichis again an alchemical process.
Um, again, distilling it down intosomething which is a healing tincture.
(16:20):
Um, and getting back to the sort offirst point that I was making, which
was, um, embalming the Egyptians.
Um, for them with the, with theembalming of the pharaohs was an
alchemical process because what theydid was they took out, um, what is it?
The heart, the liver, the stomach.
(16:43):
Oh, something else.
There were like four p.
The lungs, uh, the four parts thatwere taken out, put in the Coptic jars,
and then different things were put in.
So you, you separate.
And then you put back togetherand, and in that process, what has
(17:05):
been put back together has beenchanged into something which is a
purer form than what it was before.
So you do that continually, you'removing closer and closer and closer to
essence, you're moving closer to spirit.
So, there certainly was That sense ofworking with it in the natural world.
(17:31):
There's a term of um, which I mean youread about alchemy for three seconds and
you're gonna trip across the name Hermes
Mm hmm.
which means the thrice great Hermes,
um, and There's some aspects of thatwhich are reflect as there, there might
(17:54):
have been three sort of, um, iterationsof, of this Hermes pic of to, um, the
Pharaoh, um, Akan, um, and then thisguy who is a contemporary of, of Jesus.
Fascinating, fascinatingto, uh, to explore Bina,
Mm hmm.
(18:14):
who, you know, healed thesick, raised the dead.
Um, but he was working withthe Emerald Tablet, which are
the teachings of, of alchemy.
So there's that aspect, which could be theHermes Trismegistus, but it's also this
sense of, of this, this teacher of alchemyis thrice great because he knows, um,
(18:45):
The teachings of, um,
you know, philosophy, andof astrology, um, and of, of
theurgy, of, of, um, ritual.
So, how you bring these, all ofthese energies are about how do you
(19:06):
bring spirit and matter together.
Mm hmm.
that the heavens and the earth arein direct reflection to each other.
The above and the below are indirect connection with each other.
And so how do you start to workwith the, um, you know, the, The
(19:28):
Pharaoh who walks on Earth, who isembalmed, becomes spiritualized and
and immortalized in the other world.
And so there's always thisrelationship between the above and
the below of Spirit and matter andthe relationship between the two.
And so
(19:51):
one of the things, and that waswhen I say it's the spiritual
science of transformation.
It's how do you work on matter ina way to move it perhaps a closer
reflection to its true spiritual nature.
Um, and that there, there aretechniques for doing this.
(20:16):
So how is all of that?
So there's, there's a fewdifferent directions to go.
Yeah, that's perfect.
I mean, just in outlying, um, when Iasked you about like, if I want to start
reading up on this to kind of get anidea of what, what we're talking about
today, you referenced the Emerald Tablet,Alchemy for Personal Transformation,
and I'll put this in my blog notes.
(20:38):
Um, with the episode as well, along withyour, um, books and courses, but I, I
began to, you know, read it and, um,talks about the history of Balinus and,
um, Hermes and the three forms of Hermesand, uh, yeah, really fascinating to
come in the comparisons of the stories ofJesus and the stories of Balinus and how
(21:02):
many, how much comparison there is there.
And I think to myself, all of these,um, ascended masters that you read
about, all of these people that haveachieved a sort of enlightenment, which
I think is an alchemical transformation.
Um,
Absolutely.
yeah, it's, it's so interestinghow I see this thread through all
(21:25):
of these teachings that maybe, youknow, maybe called different things
or given different associations.
with healing or with, uh, withthe ego versus the higher self.
Um, but a lot of them will go throughthese transformations and they, you
know, release all worldly possessions.
(21:47):
They spend much of theirtime in meditation.
They might, uh, travel and teach and it'salmost like a complete shedding of the ego
to be walking around on the earth in this.
Transcended form.
Um, when I read that, I'm oftenlike, oh my gosh, I could do that.
(22:10):
I could, I could just leave everythingand walk around and I just want to
be, I want to be in a Zen state.
I want to be in a state of mind where I'mtransformed into this enlightened being.
And then my kid loses hissock and I'm back in my ego.
Just like that.
(22:30):
And so it begs the question,are there, are there.
They're people like meant to,born to serve that purpose, or is
it something that we can achievemaybe in moments of our lives?
What do you think
about
that?
I do think that, um, that the progressof history also plays a part, and how
(22:55):
I would have walked through the world,um, 3, 000 years ago is a little bit
different than, than how I walk throughthe world now, and so, you know, looking
at some of these ascended masters, youknow, through the lens of geography
and history, is also important because,um, we're living in different times.
(23:15):
And so the way in which we reflect,I do believe that it's possible to,
um, to attain the Philosopher's Stone.
That really is, you know, ultimatelywhere, um, uh, alchemy, um, sort of got
to, there's all of these different waysthat it reflected, but the way that it was
(23:36):
sort of comes to us now is this, you know,we're seeking the philosopher's stone.
We are seeking that the goldwithin that it's also looking
at it like from coal to diamond.
What is the thing inside of me thatis immutable that that cannot be
destroyed no matter what circumstance.
(24:01):
And, and not that, yes, there can be amoment when all right, you know, the sock
kind of tipped the scales for a second,but um, but then I found my center again.
You know,
um, as well, uh, yeah, that's
what for me, because
(24:25):
Um,
career has been, and to a largedegree my entire life, because I
really started reading this stuffwhen I was probably way too young,
um, is, is psychology, psychotherapy.
I was reading transactional analysis whenI was like 10 years old, um, 12 years
(24:45):
old, because I was, you know, given.
Teeny for teens.
Um, so, so this.
Seeking self has alwaysbeen a part of, of what?
The ways that we lose ourselves.
I remember reading like, Sarah T.
Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
You know, which is, welose ourselves to shadow.
(25:06):
We lose ourselves to pain.
We lose ourselves to addiction.
We lose ourselves to awhole bunch of things.
Mm hmm.
that is lead.
That is lead.
So,
this alchemical transmutationis the way in which life will
(25:32):
crack us upon the shores.
When we are in lead, we willbe cracked open by something.
And that is the dark night of the soul.
That is the first stage of alchemy.
It is calcination.
It is the tower in the tarot.
It is feeling like the rug has beenpulled out from under my feet and the
(25:55):
walls have come crashing down aroundme and I don't know where to go next.
And alchemy says, Oh, Iknow what the next step is.
And not only that, I knowwhere all the steps lead.
Where they lead is tothe philosopher's stone.
(26:16):
It is to the truth of yourself.
That has always been there.
It got lost under the lead,but it's always been there.
This is what's beautiful.
It's not turning somethinginto something else.
It's not, it's, it's within it.
It's already there.
Yeah.
within.
You know, the, the truth of who you are,the essence of who you are, the, you are
(26:40):
not the you that, that, that, that, that,that, that, Got irritated about a sock.
That's not who you are.
That's just somethingthat happened in a moment.
The truth of who you are is thesoul that, that shines through.
And, and once you know that youcan come back to it so quickly.
(27:01):
And I believe that ispossible in the world today.
You don't have to be in a monasteryor walk the desert or let go of
all your worldly goods to do it.
Because ultimately I think, Alchemy saysthat stuff, it doesn't matter anyways
whether you have it or you don't have it.
I mean it, it can make life a littlemore comfortable to be able to go into
(27:25):
your home and go into your bed at nightthan to try to find a tree in the desert.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
doesn't inform who you are.
It's your essence thatinforms who you are.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I think it was really powerful inreading about how much, um, and a lot
(27:47):
of people are more and more familiarwith the phrase, as above, so below,
Right.
um, and the balance.
It talks about, like, the yin and theyang, and the, um, I have this Gaia deck
that shows balance, or the yin yang,
yeah.
the light, the dark, and together.
(28:10):
yes, but this is what Ifind so interesting is that
it's not the above and the below.
When I said when two things come together,both of them are forever changed.
It's not the above and the below.
It's the heart thatlies between them both.
(28:30):
Alchemy, the philosopher's stone,is the intelligence of the heart.
It's the middle.
In the yin yang, it's the linethat touches both of them.
Okay, I love that and I, and I love how,um, it was describing it's, um, it said
(28:52):
as above so below, but as below so above.
It's, it's that sometimes people miss.
That it's the together,like it's the both, right?
I think sometimes people are so, alot of times in the healing world
and some of the healing work thatI do, um, people call themselves
(29:16):
lightworkers or they'll say, I, you know,
not sure how I'm describingthis exactly, but, uh, you know,
turning towards the lights.
What I think sometimes gets missed orwhat needs to be addressed is that it's.
There's not a good and a bad about anyof it, that there's not a, um, light is
(29:38):
good, shadows are bad, or, and that'swhy I love the, the, the metaphor or
the, the address of it being led, becausewhen I talk to children about their
emotional energy and how it feels in theirbody, I'll say there's heavy feelings.
There's feelings that can feel heavyand transmuting them into light
(30:01):
feelings makes you feel better.
But there isn't such a thing as agood feeling or a bad feeling or an
emotional energy that's good or bad.
Um, and helping kind of change thementality about that, uh, which I like.
And, um, and I like when, when theytalk about, um, I heard somebody
(30:22):
talking about it and they said, asabove, so below, as within, so without.
That our environment and then withintheir reflections of each other as well.
right.
And, and getting back to, uh,math and, um, and Gideon, they
are reflections of each other,
but if we change what's within, thenwe impact what's without as well.
(30:48):
Right.
I can't necessarily changewhat's out there, but I can work
what's in here and, and what I.
What I find is that it's not that,um, it's not that I'm changing
what's out there, but I certainlychange my perspective to what's out
there, which changes how I respondto what's out there, um, which
then will change what's out there.
(31:10):
There is, with, um, one of the things,I've been talking about this a lot, I
actually just came out of a class whereI was teaching about it, that, um,
very much what you were saying, they'renot, emotions are not good or bad.
However, there are emotionsthat are informed by shame, and
(31:32):
shame is led, that we all carry.
Shame is inadequacy, insecurity, notbeing good enough, not being lovable,
that there's something wrong with us,that we're flawed, that, you know, we're
a mistake, like, that is shame, and shameis epidemic, everybody has it, um, And
(31:53):
we don't really talk about it, but whatis being transmuted is, is our shame.
We cannot come from a place of essencewhen we are carrying this sense of
inadequacy and, and not being good enough.
And so,
(32:14):
and we can't even listen to our, ouremotions can be tainted by shame.
Yes.
angry, then this is where, um, so I'veactually, I not, I don't, not really
using the, the lightworker language.
I, I S I've started using thelanguage of being a wonder worker.
(32:34):
That, that, the, uh, as a wonderworker, it is seeing this interplay
the weave of the light and the dark,like the wheel of the year, right?
There's, Winter is nobetter or worse than summer.
They just are.
As long as there's no overlayof shame, there cannot be shame.
(32:58):
The shame that tells us there'ssomething wrong with me, that I'm
separate, different, not unique,and that wonderful shining diamond,
but that I'm flawed and rejectable.
That's the thing which is dangerous.
And the philosopher's stone is,when I say the thing in us that can
never be changed, it's that I ama reflection of spirit on earth.
(33:22):
You know, that I am as above spirit,as below spirit, and the matter that
is made up of the energy of all.
So, that's that immutability.
There's no shame.
There's no separation.
You know, we're all part of the all.
Yes, and you know, it's making me realizefor those of listeners who've listened
(33:47):
to other episodes, we've talked abouthow shame holds in the body and it
being the lowest frequency of emotionalenergy that you can have in your body.
Um, but that it can show up in so manyphysical ways when you're holding shame.
For me, for a lot of people,digestive issues, um, skin
(34:10):
picking, having skin issues.
When I started doing IPT processing,that's the energy, uh, healing
modality that I use with clientsis that I, I'm realizing that that
process doing sessions with clientsis sort of an alchemical process.
We are, we're taking apart.
(34:31):
energy, we're taking it apartso that we can, it's, it's that
process of keep transmuting it.
Or, uh, I can't remember the wordthat you use, but when you're, you're
boiling it down and you're boilingit down into the essence of it.
That's what I think that IPT processdoes or had had done for me, for sure.
(34:57):
I did 20 or 30 processes duringthe year that I was going to
school, learning how to do it.
And.
I can tell you, you cut right throughthe shame, right into the heart of like,
what are the things keeping you stuckin those thoughts, in those emotions,
in that energy that you can just keeptaking apart and keep taking apart and
(35:21):
keep taking apart until you come downto the very essence of who you are.
And that, that is alchemy.
That is exactly alchemy.
The one thing that, um, that I'vestarted to reflect and it's just
sort of a nuance of language.
But again, I've beenworking a number of years.
I find it's, it's, it canbe an important distinction.
(35:43):
I, I don't, I don't callshame an emotion anymore.
Oh, okay.
I refer to shame as a reflectionof the relationship to self.
Okay.
will either be in shameor I will be in essence.
(36:07):
And if I am in shame, then my entireemotional spectrum is going to
be reflected through that shame.
So, um,
my anger is rage.
My,
my sadness is despair.
(36:29):
My, my hurt is helplessness.
It's, it's Everything is coming from thislens of, of inadequacy and disempowerment.
So I can't even listen to what the emotionis saying because all I hear is the shame.
Ah, yes.
(36:50):
When I am in essence, like that's when,that's really when I'm able to hear,
like there's no good or bad emotions.
There are uncomfortable ones.
There are ones that may be a little morechallenging in what they have to say, but.
But they're not reflectiveof, of my worth.
Shame is always amessage about your worth.
(37:12):
Yes.
Yes.
emotions are giving us informationabout the world, which is really
important for me because then I can usethose emotions to tell me, you know,
how I need to respond to the world.
Shame is never telling meanything about the world.
It is only telling mesomething about myself.
Yeah.
(37:32):
Oh, it's almost like glasses you put on.
If you were using visual sense,it would be like, I see everything
through the lens of the shame,
that's right.
like complete, um, helplessnessand I don't have any power.
I don't have any control.
Um, and you can't truly seethings for the way that they are.
(37:53):
You can't see truth.
Yeah.
And so alchemy, I would say alchemyis, it's a spiritual science because it
has steps, it's got protocols as well,for addressing shame so that you're
able to uncover and like to reveal.
(38:17):
To oneself, the um, thePhilosopher's Stone, the essence,
the truth of, of who you are.
So any of these, there's, there's a lotof different ways of doing it, but yet
they're alchemical processes becausethey're bringing you to that place.
Nice,
yeah,
it's profound, profound work.
(38:38):
And what I would say, just as alittle thing, there was a time
when this is what science was.
But it wasn't until the Middle Ageswhen, you know, the rise, where
science and religion had to separate.
So one of the things that Ifind fascinating, Isaac Newton,
(39:02):
right, who is the father ofphysics, he was an alchemist.
He wrote so many alchemical texts, but hewas told that You reject those or else.
So he rejected.
So, astronomy, astrology became astronomy.
(39:28):
Alchemy became chemistry.
uh huh,
Everything lost its spiritual componentand it just became hard science.
interesting, that's fascinating,
Isn't it?
because, I mean, I will just put itout there for those listening and
wondering why, why would that happen?
(39:51):
Um, think about, uh, political powerand about how, um, it would really serve
the powers of man and, and authorityfigures of the time to have people
separated from that message, from that,um, looking at the world in that way.
(40:13):
Well, and that's it.
That is the key word.
Separation.
Mm hmm.
am separated from spirit unlessI go through this route, right?
So, so, when I'm separated from spirit,that's when shame gets in there.
And I found this really fascinatingtoo, that so many different contexts,
(40:36):
uh, of other spiritual endeavors.
I mean, whether you look at like differentplaces around the world, all have kind
of their own language for the same idea.
Um, when I first kind of starteddeviating from the, uh, let's
say dogma of my own upbringing.
(40:58):
I started looking into the GnosticGospels of Mary Magdalene and that,
and talking about the new, or theheart, heart, um, what do they call it?
Mind of the heart, heart of the mind?
Can't remember how they, heh, hearts.
Um, but, uh, they, it, I kind of drewit as a triangle with a, with the eye
(41:21):
in the middle of the, like, between thethings, between the mind, body, and soul.
So you have When the mind and theheart are working together, there's
this, this place where they meet,and that's the heart, the um,
is,
That the spirit,
you.
yeah, and this is the thing that I findreally, really, really fascinating.
(41:43):
You know, what we You know, certainlyearly on in my career and realizing
that, you know, sort of the holisticapproach is mind, body, spirit.
It's my body, spirit,it's mind, body, spirit.
And where I was coming from asa psychotherapist, I'm like,
(42:24):
energy that is the conduitbetween me and the world.
That is my information highway.
Yeah.
I don't know if you can tell,but when like, I think of like,
okay, this is like a highway.
These are like glasses.
I mean, that just helpsme understand the context.
(42:47):
And I always teach, you know, whetherI'm teaching the kids or when I'm
teaching a, um, one of my courses, Iuse color as the energy of emotions.
And I'll say it's, and it'semotion, energy in motion.
So you're, you're getting, um, yeah,you're in contact, which is why I, you
know, Absolutely agree with you that shameshouldn't even be classified in that.
(43:11):
It's almost like the lens inwhich we see those emotions
It is the lens.
And that's fantastic.
I can't, I'm so excited about this.
I'm like, Yes, that makesmore sense to me and,
and how we think of
changes everything.
It changes.
It changes the dynamic.
Yeah, absolutely.
(43:31):
Yeah.
because in an IPT process whenI'm working with a client, um, we
will move emotions at like energy.
I'll say, pull that out in a colorand let's look at what it looks like.
And that gives us information.
But I will say, okay, now in all ofthose emotions, all of those things
that you maybe were experiencing atthis point in time, what was the belief?
(43:54):
Right.
What belief?
You have, and that is the shame.
That's the, and it's almostalways one of three things.
I think or feel I'm not good enough.
I think or feel I'm not worthy.
Or I think or feel I'm not lovable.
And those are all of thethings that you just said.
So,
They're all shame.
They're shame.
(44:14):
yeah.
And it's, um, so I'm wondering,I pulled this other card from the
sky deck, uh, earlier when I waskind of looking at just imagery.
And this one came up, which doeshave some Egyptian symbols in this.
It's the hidden path.
Um, uh, right.
And I, and I see like the disc of the sun.
(44:36):
uh,
And the I, and I'm,
press.
and I'm wondering is this kind of the,in the alchemical transformation when
you're, when you're going to reveal the,the self, the philosopher's stone, it
sort of opens up that path or purpose.
(44:57):
So when you're in a state of confusion,um, you know, when the dark night
of the soul happens and you'rein a state of confusion, I always
tell clients, confusion is hard.
That's a really painful place tobe, but it's actually a really
positive step because you need theconfusion to be open to something new.
(45:19):
Mm hmm.
And do you feel like that sort ofreveals then your path forward?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There is um,
You know, one of the wisdoms Ifind that certainly comes out of
an alchemical approach is that
(45:43):
we are not meant to be directedby what our minds think.
We are meant to be directed bywhat draws the heart forward.
And the mind What is meantto be in service to that?
(46:05):
The mind, like, what does, it'snot just, you know, what do I
want, but what does call my heart?
And it's not my brain's job to say,well that doesn't make any sense, well
that's never gonna happen, well you don'thave the, you know, you can't do, like,
because that separates us again, right?
(46:27):
That can create shame.
But to say, okay, what, howcan we move forward with that?
What, how can I be of service to that?
How can I support that?
And there, there's going toneed to be some discernment.
this is where the I and the heart,
(46:49):
or, um, sorry, the sun, the sun andthe I in that card are on either side.
I You know, that, that thereis this, you know, what is the
light that draws me forward?
What is the discernment?
What, how can I, sort of, bringmy mind to help me see the path?
(47:10):
But what's in the center of that?
What rests in the heart?
That's the Ankh.
That, that is the symbolof ever lasting life.
And part of recognizing that.
When we live from the heart, whenwe live from essence, you know,
(47:33):
we may be here for a short time,we may be here for a long time.
The truth is, we are indestructible.
We will be matter, andthen we will be spirit.
For some people they believethen we will be matter again.
And that's the thing, it's not.
(47:55):
where we're getting to,that is the important thing.
It's, it's how, how we engage from a placeof, of heart in all of those moments.
And I think that's where that'sthat sort of hidden path is that
I'm always where I need to be.
I'm always exactly where I needto be, whether I'm here for
(48:16):
another week or another 20 years.
It's, this is the moment that counts.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Which
that, for me, that iswhat wonder work is about.
Where I can, I can payattention to the human.
I can pay attention to the spirit.
(48:38):
And I see that they are alwaysin dialogue with each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very helpful to know that that'spossible, and especially when, um, you
go through moments of life, like thedark night of the soul, or, um, what
(48:59):
I sometimes refer to as mini deaths.
Mini deaths of life.
throughout your life, like where you'regoing, a part of me has had to die in
order for a rebirth to occur and to, um,
Yeah.
allow for my body and spiritto befriend each other again.
(49:22):
That when it feels like they're atwar, at odds, there's a separation
or that, that there needs to be areconciliation for this rebirth.
Yeah.
It's, it's interesting, becauseyou were talking about confusion.
And, um, And I, I recognize it's,it's a not uncommon experience for
(49:46):
many, many, many people to have.
Again, increasingly, I am coming to aplace where my sense is confusion doesn't
happen when we drop into our bodies.
Our bodies are never confused.
Hmm.
It's when our heads are trying tohave authority over our bodies.
(50:10):
that we get
Sure.
It's that battle between, um, headand heart that leads to confusion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So who, who are youlistening to and who's, who
has the authority?
Yeah.
And again, this bringsus to the chariot card.
It's not saying that, Oh, what Iwant is the only thing that matters.
(50:33):
Both of the horses have gotto be pulling the chariot
One Direction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause it can sometimesfeel like they're just not.
That can be, can be a moment in aday, it can be a period of time, and
(50:54):
Recognizing that that happens to us all
Yeah.
is important too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, fascinating.
I think this is, uh, full circle.
What is it, is there anythingelse that in, in work with alchemy
or in the healing, um, spiritualtransformation seekers out there,
(51:17):
anything else you would have them know?
A final thought thatwe haven't touched on.
Well, there was something that you saidabout healing and um, Again, there's,
there's certain things, even, even I wouldsay, So the, the book that I have that's
coming out in, in May, I, I do put a lotof this, I don't talk about alchemy per
(51:40):
se, but everything in there really isabout this, this process of coming back
to truth in essence, and, um, and And verymuch through a grieving process as well.
I talk about death, I talk about the booksof the dead, I talk about psychopomps.
Psychopomps to me are the oneswho are the ones who know how to
navigate this whole in betweenspace because that's what they do.
(52:01):
They traverse the liminal.
Um, but what I've come to reallyrecognize is that all healing is grieving.
We need to know how to grieve.
Because in healing, I have togrieve the me that I am no longer.
(52:28):
Yeah.
into wholeness, I need to grieve thethings that created the fragmentation.
All healing is grieving, andwe don't know how to grieve.
Oh, Maru
I am so excited.
I decided to do an episode of this podcaston death and grieving specifically,
(52:54):
but I'm waiting for your book.
And I'm also watching the series thatChristopher Hughes did, um, On the
Gidda Chris.
Yes.
Mi Maru Gira See?
400 something days on Duolingoand I still can't do it.
(53:17):
What?
I'll work on it.
I'll practice for the next one.
But I, I do want to prepare for I am,um, uh, I'm married into a family that
is no Stranger to death and grief andyet almost as an observant person on
(53:38):
the outside of it, just seeing howcultures do grief differently and how
even some, some where certain peoplehave had to grieve and have experienced
a lot of death in, in the family.
Maybe even still don't know how to grievebecause culturally we haven't been taught
(53:59):
or shown how or, or what it even is.
And it's such a different kind ofsuffering and pain than that of,
um, of maybe confusion or emotion,emotional suffering that we can have.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I am going to do that.
(54:21):
Stay tuned, audience, for that.
I'm going to dive more into that,
for sure.
there's so much there.
There is, there's so much.
One thing, and I, I know that weprobably could talk all night.
I, I will say that, and this isanother, it's where aspects of the
alchemical journey, you know, may, um.
(54:44):
flow over into, um, a little bitof the grail mysteries, which is
a whole other thing to talk about.
Um, it's a little bit perhaps ofwhere, you know, we really have, um,
in our, our culture, we focus so muchon the head and the cognitive and
the evidence based, like all of that.
(55:05):
And again, there's a place for that,but it's not all there is that when
somebody is grieving, we have a tendency.
To go in with, okay, well, like, theseare the stages, and this is what to look
for, and this is what you need to say.
And what we don't sayis, what do you need?
(55:27):
How can I be of service?
You know, we don't reach with the heart.
We try to come in with the answers.
Instead of just saying, I'm here.
Mm hmm.
You know, and I thinkagain, coming back to
To alchemy.
(55:48):
The heart.
Nose.
That's the boy.
Going like, oh, there's the crazyEnglishman with all his things.
Where you just need to be present.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that's the lessonthat ultimately the Englishman
will, will learn in the story.
It doesn't, it doesn't touch backin with the Englishman in the story.
(56:10):
I don't find out what happensto him, but the alchemist says
something like, he will get there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, he's working on his part, andeven in just the effort of physically
working on the, um, the, the medals, andhe's going to get what he needs to get.
Right.
Right.
(56:33):
Right.
Do you
Just as we
all do.
In our roundabout ways.
We do.
It's all our individual journey, right?
Yes.
Alright, are you ready?
I, I have here, um, thePhilosopher's Stones.
Can you see that there?
(56:54):
Um, which I absolutely adore.
I believe they're, they're out of print.
They're impossible to find.
But, so it's a little bag of stones.
Yes!
Oh!
(57:19):
Oh, yeah!
The circle with this, um, okay,for those who aren't watching on
YouTube, the circle with the dot in
with a dot.
So that is the symbol for gold.
Mm hmm.
(57:39):
So this whole journey culminates,right, from lead to gold, and
we have attained the gold.
We've stirred and stirredand stirred and stirred.
From our Gwydion and math in thecauldron symbol at the beginning
(57:59):
until now, we've stirred up a lot,and we've learned a lot about, um,
For those who were like me, justgoing, What even is this alchemy thing?
What do people keep talking about?
Is it literal science, or are weAnd yes, it is a little bit of both.
It's a little bit of all things.
And, um, I mean, we could only touchon what we had time to touch on today.
(58:20):
So, uh,
I will
talk about the stages and, youknow, the science part of it.
Like, these are the things,emotionally even, to look at, you know.
So, there's, yeah.
But it gives a doorway in.
And, and I love this.
It's like, the message is, findyour light and let it shine.
(58:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm gonna keepreading the Emerald Tablet.
I'm gonna read your book when itcomes in and give people a little
bit more of the, of what comes fromstudying the Emerald Tablet and the
principles or the rubrics there.
So we can touch back on it infuture episodes, but thank you so
(59:06):
much for this time you spent withus and to kind of give us a really
good idea of what we're looking at.
Um, and just for anybody wanting tofind out more of what Tiffany has
going on, she offers many coursesthrough Soul Alchemist Academy.
(59:28):
including Empowerment Path,the Enlightenment Path, and
the Liminal Path, and two,
two year long programs.
I'm very personally interestedin these, by the way.
So the Great Work Weekly Study Group,coming back after a two year hiatus.
Yay!
Yeah.
(59:48):
Yeah.
So for those of you who are jumpingon, this is a great time to do it.
Um, yeah, uh,
can you
on alchemy in that as well because,so part of what I've done in both the
great work and the noble art is I havelooked at the wheel of the year and I
see the wheel of the year is a reflectionof the entire alchemical process.
(01:00:13):
So, so that journey through whetheryou're doing it through the books or
whether I am excited to do these weeklythings to just help people be on a track.
Um, whole journey is an alchemical.
It's a year long alchemical journey,
Fantastic.
That is something I, uh, I'm veryinterested in because I've been working
(01:00:38):
with clients on, um, like Jenna's book,the, the abalone and cycles of healing
right?
and have been able to kindof partner it with those.
All of those cycles IPT process.
So when a client comes to me forthat, um, we're going through an
entire process in an hour and a half.
(01:01:00):
Then if they do like a course, which isthe full moon, the month, we get to do
the mythic moons, all of those cycles.
And I'm sure the alchemical process you'retalking about throughout the year, I
mean, it probably all falls right in line.
It's probably the same process
in, in different ways.
focus, different language,you know, slightly different.
(01:01:23):
The truth is, is I startedwriting the great work.
Then I found Avalon Within.
I was like, okay, well forget that.
So I shelved it.
Um, and it was Jenna who was like,Would you just write your book?
Because it's a different system.
And that's just the thing.
(01:01:43):
We need all of it.
I mean, so many things resonatewith so many different people in
different times of their life and Yeah.
And I think we tend to do that sometimeswhere you think like, Oh, they compete
with each other, but really they all
They enhance.
together like this giant web of,I don't know, beauty, information,
(01:02:04):
And it's funny because Ihave found with, with Jenna.
So, so then we went off.
We wrote.
You know, we didn't even know each otherwriting books, and then we covered it up.
Oh, darn.
Again, very similar themes, buttotally different books, right?
So.
guys in wavelength and you're just,you're downloading the same things at
(01:02:27):
the same time, and it just means you aremeant to be connected and that's great.
So can you let us know how we can findyou and those courses when we want to
be, uh, In the loop of what you've got
So, both of those now, they're,um, my website, which is www.
(01:02:47):
tiffanylazik.
com.
Um, I do have those courses.
Well, the, the, um, oneof them is group therapy.
So it's a year long, um, process ofgroup therapy, which I do in alignment
with the cycle of the seasons,which was a bit of an experiment
two years ago, but it's so powerful.
(01:03:09):
Having done it for a whole year,the changes have been remarkable.
So that's under Psychotherapy, butunder the Academy, there's a place
that says Additional Courses orOther Courses, and that's where the
Great Work Weekly Study group is.
(01:03:30):
good.
And I will post links to thaton the blog for this, for the
show notes, for this, this
Awesome.
So anybody listening right nowwho's like, How do I find this?
I will get the link and I'llput it on that, um, blog post.
So you can find that on prism healing.
com, my website.
And at the top there'sa tab that says blog.
(01:03:52):
My blog is all the episodesof Practically Magic there.
So, come and find me, go find Tiffany.
We'll provide you with all the thingsyou need to become an alchemist.
And Achieve your own transformation.
And let your light shine.
Yes.
So go make magic, witches and wizards.
(01:04:14):
We'll see you next time.
Hello, welcome to Practically Magic.
I am your host, Courtney Pearl,your Celtic folk witch and healer.
And I am joined today by TiffanyLazic, author, mystic, registered
psychotherapist, spiritual director,certified heavening techniques
practitioner, specializing in spiritualpsychotherapy and Author of The Great
(00:56):
Work, Self Knowledge and HealingThrough the Wheel of the Year, The
Noble Art, From Shadow to EssenceThrough the Wheel of the Year, and
exciting upcoming book from Thuelen,Psychopomps and the Soul, Traversing
Death and Life for Healing and Wholeness.
That's a mouthful!
Thank you and welcome, Tiffany.
(01:18):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
I know.
They're all a bit of amouthful, aren't they?
It's great to have that list.
In fact, I usually list off all of mytitles and I'm like, you know what,
I just Celtic Folk Witch is fine.
Let's just stick with that for now.
But you deserve all the accoladesfor that list, and you're here today.
(01:41):
We met, so I'll just kind of brieflytalk about, um, when I joined the Sacred
Sites Pilgrimage for the Sisterhood ofAvalon before I was in the Sisterhood.
Me and my aunt, um, it was actually herthat had been following the Sisterhood
for a while and she messaged me andsaid, do you want to go on this trip?
(02:02):
And I was like, this soundsexactly like what I'm looking for.
Absolutely.
I want to go.
Um, never been out of the countrybefore, just studying kind of,
you know, spirituality on my own.
And then, Uh, getting to go tothe land of my ancestors was
absolutely life changing for me.
And that's where I got to meet you!
(02:23):
You were with us briefly on that.
Yeah.
Discussing before we hitrecord how she had recently,
at that point, moved to Wales.
And was like, I remember how excited youwere to say, and I'm from here, Wales.
And I was like, and it was that tripthat from the very first day, from the
(02:44):
day that we went to Wales, and we spentone day there, I was like, something
about this place is absolute magic.
Yeah.
it's almost like I get to reach throughthe internet, through the interwebs and
be connected to whales for just a shortperiod of time while you're here with me.
Yeah.
The energy is all here.
(03:05):
Just right out the window.
There's mountains, there's sea,there's sheep just right there.
I know I'm fangirling a little bitabout seeing you and I'm fangirling
about whales a little bit today.
I'm just a little bit like all the things.
So we usually start our episodes onPractically Magic pulling a card and
(03:26):
I'm going to pull one from the branchesof the Celtic Tarot, Christopher
Hughes deck, um, which I actuallyonly recently got a few months ago.
I'm so excited.
Love
love it.
Mmm.
the storytelling in the cards.
(03:48):
So I'm going to pull a card forus today, maybe you and me, maybe
a little bit for our listeners.
Whoever is listening maybe needsto hear what this card has to say.
To offer our card todayis the seven of shields.
I'm going to show it on thecamera for those who are watching
(04:10):
Seven of shields.
It's kind of got that shadow of people
Mmm.
the almost like spiritual
mystical
Mmm.
the background.
Um, this is when Math and Gwydion are
summoning and felling theirmagic to create Thudaiwed in the
(04:34):
cauldron, um, so that she will bea wife to Thu in, in the mythology.
I won't go all into the story,but you know, stay tuned for
my other storytelling episodes.
Uh, but I do notice too that on thiscard there is like snow on the ground and
snow in the background, And I know thiscard is kind of associated with, um, um,
(04:58):
prosperity and even like in projects orbusiness being able to, um, manifest or
bring forth what it is that you've workedreally hard for, put a lot of effort into.
So they put all the ingredientsin and they're going to make
this, this woman out of flowers.
And It also kind of serves as sort ofa warning of like, be careful what you
(05:21):
wish for, or be careful what you'rebringing out because, uh, it's, it's
probably going to take on a life of itsown, make its own choices as well, right?
It feels very, if I canjump in a little bit, is it,
These do.
very, it feels alchemical, Thetwo magicians over the cauldron,
(05:45):
my
put the ingredients in, you know,they're, they're doing the work.
It's very different than, um, causeI know that the seven of shields is
equivalent to the seven of pentacles,which, which usually has a sense of
sort of assessment, like stepping backand, okay, so I've done a lot of work
and now I need to step back and seewhat needs to stay, what needs to go.
(06:07):
But, but with this one, it'sthere, they're like putting
the, they put the ingredients inand they're using their skill.
to create the alchemicaltransformation, which is going to
turn these flowers into this woman.
So it, I'm, I'm not sure that there couldbe a more perfect card for this episode.
(06:33):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and that's usually how it works, right?
I mean, you just pull what isexactly right for that moment.
I know for me.
This is really kind of, um, perfect forthings that have been happening in my
life the last week, where there's a lotof things I've been kind of struggling
(06:54):
with and contemplating and, um, there'scertain groups in my community that I've
been a part of that I've been tryingto, uh, decide how much I really want
to put my investment into or maybe stepback, pull back and say, that's not
where I want my energy to be right now.
And so, Just in the last few days,actually, I came up with these, like,
(07:19):
epiphany moments where I'm like Ohmy gosh, I see how my involvement in
these things can actually improve it.
That I could be part of it andit could become something really,
um, I'm really enthusiastic about.
So that's interesting.
(07:39):
Taking like, again, like thatlead into gold kind of a thing.
two things come together, neither.
Leaves Unchanged, as well.
Wow.
Excellent.
(08:00):
So did you have something youwanted to share with us in,
um, in your divination tools?
Whatever
thinking, well, should I do it nowor should I leave it for the end?
But, um, yeah.
you want.
You know what?
I almost kind of wanted, yeah,let's, let's leave it till the end.
Cause I love that youhave, um, Moth and Gwydion.
(08:21):
It feels like they've kind ofstepped in and they've set, um,
They've set the laboratory, likethere, there's the cauldron.
It's bubbling away.
It's got the ingredients.
It's, it's in the processof transformation.
So maybe if we have a bit of a chatand, um, and then I'll pull, I'll
pull one at the end and see what ithas to say about the whole process.
(08:45):
see what comes out atthe end of the bubbling.
What?
and I just have to say my experiencewith alchemy before diving into it.
I, I'm not even sure why it brought it wasbrought to my mind as I was, Um, thinking
of what are some topics I'd like to coverthis season in Practically Magic and what
(09:09):
are some things I want to talk about.
Um, and I know my aunt who came withme on that pilgrimage, she had taken
some of your courses on alchemy andshe kind of shared with me some of
her notes or some things that she waslearning when she was visiting me.
And I thought, Oh, this is interesting.
I don't actually know anything about this.
And I, I had read the alchemist.
(09:32):
I don't know how many people listeningmaybe are familiar with the book, the
story, The Alchemist, and, um, I readthat, and, uh, the only other thing that
I know about it is the, uh, DiscoveryWitches series that's, or book, it started
out as a book, but it's a TV series.
(09:53):
And, you know, they're looking for Ashmolesomething something, uh, that has a spell
written into it, whatever, and they'relike, it's from, she's studying alchemy.
And I'm like, what isshe studying exactly?
What is, what is this?
And I'm thinking, is it literal?
Is it literally like people really weretrying to, you know, turn lead into gold?
(10:15):
Or are we talking about somethingmore spiritual or philosophy?
Is it science?
Is it?
So help us, for those of us who, you know,maybe went into it completely ignorant
and like, what are we talking about here?
What would you say to someoneyour definition of alchemy?
Oh my goodness.
So, um, so the, the, what is it?
(10:41):
The short form, the blurb,the, uh, the little meme.
The soundbite
yes.
alchemy is that it is the spiritualscience of transformation.
And we do tend to focus on thetransformation of lead to gold.
(11:06):
Um, but interestingly, it actually hasits roots, um, I don't even think that's
where, I'm not even sure, to tell youthe truth, where that became the focus.
Perhaps more sort of Dark Ages,Medieval, is when the focus of lead
into gold, but, but previous to that.
(11:27):
Again, the, the, the genesis of alchemy,as with so many of these things, is
lost to the mists of time, but as faras we can, uh, somewhat get our feet on
solid ground, it, it goes back to Egypt.
And the Egyptians were not so muchconcerned, as far as, as I understand,
(11:49):
with turning lead into gold.
What they were concerned with was,um, uh, ensuring that the body would
continue, uh, in the afterlife, thathow do we turn matter into something
which has, uh, spiritual constancy.
(12:14):
So, um, so the term it's alchemyitself, the word itself, means Egypt.
In Arabic, al kam meansthe black, the black land.
Egypt was the black land becauseof the banks of the Nile, which
(12:34):
flooded, right, with the inundation.
So alchemy, like, embeddedin it, means Egypt.
okay,
So,
a lot more.
Yeah, that makes sense.
(12:54):
And actually in the story of thealchemist, you know, in the, it
tells it kind of like as a journey,as a story of this young boy.
And, um, I think that was kind ofthe author's way of presenting this
idea when the Englishman comes to thealchemist in the oasis in the desert,
um, looking for all the answers.
(13:15):
He's brought all these books, he'sstudied his whole life, they've, you
know, they've got their, um burnersand their lab materials and he goes, he
finally gets there after all this journeyand he's talking to the alchemist and
he goes, how do I turn lead into gold?
Or like, teach me what alchemyis or teach me what you know.
(13:38):
And the alchemist says,well, have you tried?
Nice!
So the Englishman's back in his tentwith his little burner and he's just
like, and, and the boy in the storywho's actually learning alchemy, the
actual, you know, transformation partof it, Walks past his tent as he's over
there hunched over his burner tryingto like do his science and he's like
(14:05):
what you know What's he doing?
I don't know.
I think that was the point of the storywhere it was like did some people get lost
on the idea that like Looking for treasureand gold was not in a literal sense Um,
Yeah, well, interestingly, it's so,so the Egyptians were, oh, so much,
(14:27):
the Egyptians were the first, as faras I understand, who, who, um, started
to master, uh, metallurgy, right?
So, so they were working with techniques,were working with, um, like gold and
silver and copper and, um, metals.
So, so there was a sense of, ofnot so much, um, transmuting, um,
(14:50):
lead into gold, but, but how doyou work with these substances?
Um, what is it like bronzeis, is bronze like copper and
tin and it becomes stronger.
So you, you put things together, youtake things apart, you put things
together and they become stronger.
So there's an aspect perhapsof the lead into gold, which.
(15:11):
comes a little bit out of that.
Also, aromatherapy is, which again has,has working with essential oils, has
its roots in, in ancient Egypt as well.
And that's a form of, of alchemy.
You distill and youdistill and you distill.
What is it?
It takes like
gonna stress
thousand rose petals to getone drop of essential oil.
(15:37):
That's an alchemical process.
How do you take somethingand, and you distill it down
to its purest, purest form?
It's essential form.
It's essence form.
So there's the metallurgy part of it.
(15:59):
There's the plant part of it.
Um, there's a, I never pronounce it right.
I think it's called, Spigirics orsomething like that, which is like
making, um, herbal tinctures, whichis again an alchemical process.
Um, again, distilling it down intosomething which is a healing tincture.
(16:20):
Um, and getting back to the sort offirst point that I was making, which
was, um, embalming the Egyptians.
Um, for them with the, with theembalming of the pharaohs was an
alchemical process because what theydid was they took out, um, what is it?
The heart, the liver, the stomach.
(16:43):
Oh, something else.
There were like four p.
The lungs, uh, the four parts thatwere taken out, put in the Coptic jars,
and then different things were put in.
So you, you separate.
And then you put back togetherand, and in that process, what has
(17:05):
been put back together has beenchanged into something which is a
purer form than what it was before.
So you do that continually, you'removing closer and closer and closer to
essence, you're moving closer to spirit.
So, there certainly was That sense ofworking with it in the natural world.
(17:31):
There's a term of um, which I mean youread about alchemy for three seconds and
you're gonna trip across the name Hermes
Mm hmm.
which means the thrice great Hermes,
um, and There's some aspects of thatwhich are reflect as there, there might
(17:54):
have been three sort of, um, iterationsof, of this Hermes pic of to, um, the
Pharaoh, um, Akan, um, and then thisguy who is a contemporary of, of Jesus.
Fascinating, fascinatingto, uh, to explore Bina,
Mm hmm.
(18:14):
who, you know, healed thesick, raised the dead.
Um, but he was working withthe Emerald Tablet, which are
the teachings of, of alchemy.
So there's that aspect, which could be theHermes Trismegistus, but it's also this
sense of, of this, this teacher of alchemyis thrice great because he knows, um,
(18:45):
The teachings of, um,
you know, philosophy, andof astrology, um, and of, of
theurgy, of, of, um, ritual.
So, how you bring these, all ofthese energies are about how do you
(19:06):
bring spirit and matter together.
Mm hmm.
that the heavens and the earth arein direct reflection to each other.
The above and the below are indirect connection with each other.
And so how do you start to workwith the, um, you know, the, The
(19:28):
Pharaoh who walks on Earth, who isembalmed, becomes spiritualized and
and immortalized in the other world.
And so there's always thisrelationship between the above and
the below of Spirit and matter andthe relationship between the two.
And so
(19:51):
one of the things, and that waswhen I say it's the spiritual
science of transformation.
It's how do you work on matter ina way to move it perhaps a closer
reflection to its true spiritual nature.
Um, and that there, there aretechniques for doing this.
(20:16):
So how is all of that?
So there's, there's a fewdifferent directions to go.
Yeah, that's perfect.
I mean, just in outlying, um, when Iasked you about like, if I want to start
reading up on this to kind of get anidea of what, what we're talking about
today, you referenced the Emerald Tablet,Alchemy for Personal Transformation,
and I'll put this in my blog notes.
(20:38):
Um, with the episode as well, along withyour, um, books and courses, but I, I
began to, you know, read it and, um,talks about the history of Balinus and,
um, Hermes and the three forms of Hermesand, uh, yeah, really fascinating to
come in the comparisons of the stories ofJesus and the stories of Balinus and how
(21:02):
many, how much comparison there is there.
And I think to myself, all of these,um, ascended masters that you read
about, all of these people that haveachieved a sort of enlightenment, which
I think is an alchemical transformation.
Um,
Absolutely.
yeah, it's, it's so interestinghow I see this thread through all
(21:25):
of these teachings that maybe, youknow, maybe called different things
or given different associations.
with healing or with, uh, withthe ego versus the higher self.
Um, but a lot of them will go throughthese transformations and they, you
know, release all worldly possessions.
(21:47):
They spend much of theirtime in meditation.
They might, uh, travel and teach and it'salmost like a complete shedding of the ego
to be walking around on the earth in this.
Transcended form.
Um, when I read that, I'm oftenlike, oh my gosh, I could do that.
(22:10):
I could, I could just leave everythingand walk around and I just want to
be, I want to be in a Zen state.
I want to be in a state of mind where I'mtransformed into this enlightened being.
And then my kid loses hissock and I'm back in my ego.
Just like that.
(22:30):
And so it begs the question,are there, are there.
They're people like meant to,born to serve that purpose, or is
it something that we can achievemaybe in moments of our lives?
What do you think
about
that?
I do think that, um, that the progressof history also plays a part, and how
(22:55):
I would have walked through the world,um, 3, 000 years ago is a little bit
different than, than how I walk throughthe world now, and so, you know, looking
at some of these ascended masters, youknow, through the lens of geography
and history, is also important because,um, we're living in different times.
(23:15):
And so the way in which we reflect,I do believe that it's possible to,
um, to attain the Philosopher's Stone.
That really is, you know, ultimatelywhere, um, uh, alchemy, um, sort of got
to, there's all of these different waysthat it reflected, but the way that it was
(23:36):
sort of comes to us now is this, you know,we're seeking the philosopher's stone.
We are seeking that the goldwithin that it's also looking
at it like from coal to diamond.
What is the thing inside of me thatis immutable that that cannot be
destroyed no matter what circumstance.
(24:01):
And, and not that, yes, there can be amoment when all right, you know, the sock
kind of tipped the scales for a second,but um, but then I found my center again.
You know,
um, as well, uh, yeah, that's
what for me, because
(24:25):
Um,
career has been, and to a largedegree my entire life, because I
really started reading this stuffwhen I was probably way too young,
um, is, is psychology, psychotherapy.
I was reading transactional analysis whenI was like 10 years old, um, 12 years
(24:45):
old, because I was, you know, given.
Teeny for teens.
Um, so, so this.
Seeking self has alwaysbeen a part of, of what?
The ways that we lose ourselves.
I remember reading like, Sarah T.
Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
You know, which is, welose ourselves to shadow.
(25:06):
We lose ourselves to pain.
We lose ourselves to addiction.
We lose ourselves to awhole bunch of things.
Mm hmm.
that is lead.
That is lead.
So,
this alchemical transmutationis the way in which life will
(25:32):
crack us upon the shores.
When we are in lead, we willbe cracked open by something.
And that is the dark night of the soul.
That is the first stage of alchemy.
It is calcination.
It is the tower in the tarot.
It is feeling like the rug has beenpulled out from under my feet and the
(25:55):
walls have come crashing down aroundme and I don't know where to go next.
And alchemy says, Oh, Iknow what the next step is.
And not only that, I knowwhere all the steps lead.
Where they lead is tothe philosopher's stone.
(26:16):
It is to the truth of yourself.
That has always been there.
It got lost under the lead,but it's always been there.
This is what's beautiful.
It's not turning somethinginto something else.
It's not, it's, it's within it.
It's already there.
Yeah.
within.
You know, the, the truth of who you are,the essence of who you are, the, you are
(26:40):
not the you that, that, that, that, that,that, that, Got irritated about a sock.
That's not who you are.
That's just somethingthat happened in a moment.
The truth of who you are is thesoul that, that shines through.
And, and once you know that youcan come back to it so quickly.
(27:01):
And I believe that ispossible in the world today.
You don't have to be in a monasteryor walk the desert or let go of
all your worldly goods to do it.
Because ultimately I think, Alchemy saysthat stuff, it doesn't matter anyways
whether you have it or you don't have it.
I mean it, it can make life a littlemore comfortable to be able to go into
(27:25):
your home and go into your bed at nightthan to try to find a tree in the desert.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
doesn't inform who you are.
It's your essence thatinforms who you are.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I think it was really powerful inreading about how much, um, and a lot
(27:47):
of people are more and more familiarwith the phrase, as above, so below,
Right.
um, and the balance.
It talks about, like, the yin and theyang, and the, um, I have this Gaia deck
that shows balance, or the yin yang,
yeah.
the light, the dark, and together.
(28:10):
yes, but this is what Ifind so interesting is that
it's not the above and the below.
When I said when two things come together,both of them are forever changed.
It's not the above and the below.
It's the heart thatlies between them both.
(28:30):
Alchemy, the philosopher's stone,is the intelligence of the heart.
It's the middle.
In the yin yang, it's the linethat touches both of them.
Okay, I love that and I, and I love how,um, it was describing it's, um, it said
(28:52):
as above so below, but as below so above.
It's, it's that sometimes people miss.
That it's the together,like it's the both, right?
I think sometimes people are so, alot of times in the healing world
and some of the healing work thatI do, um, people call themselves
(29:16):
lightworkers or they'll say, I, you know,
not sure how I'm describingthis exactly, but, uh, you know,
turning towards the lights.
What I think sometimes gets missed orwhat needs to be addressed is that it's.
There's not a good and a bad about anyof it, that there's not a, um, light is
(29:38):
good, shadows are bad, or, and that'swhy I love the, the, the metaphor or
the, the address of it being led, becausewhen I talk to children about their
emotional energy and how it feels in theirbody, I'll say there's heavy feelings.
There's feelings that can feel heavyand transmuting them into light
(30:01):
feelings makes you feel better.
But there isn't such a thing as agood feeling or a bad feeling or an
emotional energy that's good or bad.
Um, and helping kind of change thementality about that, uh, which I like.
And, um, and I like when, when theytalk about, um, I heard somebody
(30:22):
talking about it and they said, asabove, so below, as within, so without.
That our environment and then withintheir reflections of each other as well.
right.
And, and getting back to, uh,math and, um, and Gideon, they
are reflections of each other,
but if we change what's within, thenwe impact what's without as well.
(30:48):
Right.
I can't necessarily changewhat's out there, but I can work
what's in here and, and what I.
What I find is that it's not that,um, it's not that I'm changing
what's out there, but I certainlychange my perspective to what's out
there, which changes how I respondto what's out there, um, which
then will change what's out there.
(31:10):
There is, with, um, one of the things,I've been talking about this a lot, I
actually just came out of a class whereI was teaching about it, that, um,
very much what you were saying, they'renot, emotions are not good or bad.
However, there are emotionsthat are informed by shame, and
(31:32):
shame is led, that we all carry.
Shame is inadequacy, insecurity, notbeing good enough, not being lovable,
that there's something wrong with us,that we're flawed, that, you know, we're
a mistake, like, that is shame, and shameis epidemic, everybody has it, um, And
(31:53):
we don't really talk about it, but whatis being transmuted is, is our shame.
We cannot come from a place of essencewhen we are carrying this sense of
inadequacy and, and not being good enough.
And so,
(32:14):
and we can't even listen to our, ouremotions can be tainted by shame.
Yes.
angry, then this is where, um, so I'veactually, I not, I don't, not really
using the, the lightworker language.
I, I S I've started using thelanguage of being a wonder worker.
(32:34):
That, that, the, uh, as a wonderworker, it is seeing this interplay
the weave of the light and the dark,like the wheel of the year, right?
There's, Winter is nobetter or worse than summer.
They just are.
As long as there's no overlayof shame, there cannot be shame.
(32:58):
The shame that tells us there'ssomething wrong with me, that I'm
separate, different, not unique,and that wonderful shining diamond,
but that I'm flawed and rejectable.
That's the thing which is dangerous.
And the philosopher's stone is,when I say the thing in us that can
never be changed, it's that I ama reflection of spirit on earth.
(33:22):
You know, that I am as above spirit,as below spirit, and the matter that
is made up of the energy of all.
So, that's that immutability.
There's no shame.
There's no separation.
You know, we're all part of the all.
Yes, and you know, it's making me realizefor those of listeners who've listened
(33:47):
to other episodes, we've talked abouthow shame holds in the body and it
being the lowest frequency of emotionalenergy that you can have in your body.
Um, but that it can show up in so manyphysical ways when you're holding shame.
For me, for a lot of people,digestive issues, um, skin
(34:10):
picking, having skin issues.
When I started doing IPT processing,that's the energy, uh, healing
modality that I use with clientsis that I, I'm realizing that that
process doing sessions with clientsis sort of an alchemical process.
We are, we're taking apart.
(34:31):
energy, we're taking it apartso that we can, it's, it's that
process of keep transmuting it.
Or, uh, I can't remember the wordthat you use, but when you're, you're
boiling it down and you're boilingit down into the essence of it.
That's what I think that IPT processdoes or had had done for me, for sure.
(34:57):
I did 20 or 30 processes duringthe year that I was going to
school, learning how to do it.
And.
I can tell you, you cut right throughthe shame, right into the heart of like,
what are the things keeping you stuckin those thoughts, in those emotions,
in that energy that you can just keeptaking apart and keep taking apart and
(35:21):
keep taking apart until you come downto the very essence of who you are.
And that, that is alchemy.
That is exactly alchemy.
The one thing that, um, that I'vestarted to reflect and it's just
sort of a nuance of language.
But again, I've beenworking a number of years.
I find it's, it's, it canbe an important distinction.
(35:43):
I, I don't, I don't callshame an emotion anymore.
Oh, okay.
I refer to shame as a reflectionof the relationship to self.
Okay.
will either be in shameor I will be in essence.
(36:07):
And if I am in shame, then my entireemotional spectrum is going to
be reflected through that shame.
So, um,
my anger is rage.
My,
my sadness is despair.
(36:29):
My, my hurt is helplessness.
It's, it's Everything is coming from thislens of, of inadequacy and disempowerment.
So I can't even listen to what the emotionis saying because all I hear is the shame.
Ah, yes.
(36:50):
When I am in essence, like that's when,that's really when I'm able to hear,
like there's no good or bad emotions.
There are uncomfortable ones.
There are ones that may be a little morechallenging in what they have to say, but.
But they're not reflectiveof, of my worth.
Shame is always amessage about your worth.
(37:12):
Yes.
Yes.
emotions are giving us informationabout the world, which is really
important for me because then I can usethose emotions to tell me, you know,
how I need to respond to the world.
Shame is never telling meanything about the world.
It is only telling mesomething about myself.
Yeah.
(37:32):
Oh, it's almost like glasses you put on.
If you were using visual sense,it would be like, I see everything
through the lens of the shame,
that's right.
like complete, um, helplessnessand I don't have any power.
I don't have any control.
Um, and you can't truly seethings for the way that they are.
(37:53):
You can't see truth.
Yeah.
And so alchemy, I would say alchemyis, it's a spiritual science because it
has steps, it's got protocols as well,for addressing shame so that you're
able to uncover and like to reveal.
(38:17):
To oneself, the um, thePhilosopher's Stone, the essence,
the truth of, of who you are.
So any of these, there's, there's a lotof different ways of doing it, but yet
they're alchemical processes becausethey're bringing you to that place.
Nice,
yeah,
it's profound, profound work.
(38:38):
And what I would say, just as alittle thing, there was a time
when this is what science was.
But it wasn't until the Middle Ageswhen, you know, the rise, where
science and religion had to separate.
So one of the things that Ifind fascinating, Isaac Newton,
(39:02):
right, who is the father ofphysics, he was an alchemist.
He wrote so many alchemical texts, but hewas told that You reject those or else.
So he rejected.
So, astronomy, astrology became astronomy.
(39:28):
Alchemy became chemistry.
uh huh,
Everything lost its spiritual componentand it just became hard science.
interesting, that's fascinating,
Isn't it?
because, I mean, I will just put itout there for those listening and
wondering why, why would that happen?
(39:51):
Um, think about, uh, political powerand about how, um, it would really serve
the powers of man and, and authorityfigures of the time to have people
separated from that message, from that,um, looking at the world in that way.
(40:13):
Well, and that's it.
That is the key word.
Separation.
Mm hmm.
am separated from spirit unlessI go through this route, right?
So, so, when I'm separated from spirit,that's when shame gets in there.
And I found this really fascinatingtoo, that so many different contexts,
(40:36):
uh, of other spiritual endeavors.
I mean, whether you look at like differentplaces around the world, all have kind
of their own language for the same idea.
Um, when I first kind of starteddeviating from the, uh, let's
say dogma of my own upbringing.
(40:58):
I started looking into the GnosticGospels of Mary Magdalene and that,
and talking about the new, or theheart, heart, um, what do they call it?
Mind of the heart, heart of the mind?
Can't remember how they, heh, hearts.
Um, but, uh, they, it, I kind of drewit as a triangle with a, with the eye
(41:21):
in the middle of the, like, between thethings, between the mind, body, and soul.
So you have When the mind and theheart are working together, there's
this, this place where they meet,and that's the heart, the um,
is,
That the spirit,
you.
yeah, and this is the thing that I findreally, really, really fascinating.
(41:43):
You know, what we You know, certainlyearly on in my career and realizing
that, you know, sort of the holisticapproach is mind, body, spirit.
It's my body, spirit,it's mind, body, spirit.
And where I was coming from asa psychotherapist, I'm like,
(42:24):
energy that is the conduitbetween me and the world.
That is my information highway.
Yeah.
I don't know if you can tell,but when like, I think of like,
okay, this is like a highway.
These are like glasses.
I mean, that just helpsme understand the context.
(42:47):
And I always teach, you know, whetherI'm teaching the kids or when I'm
teaching a, um, one of my courses, Iuse color as the energy of emotions.
And I'll say it's, and it'semotion, energy in motion.
So you're, you're getting, um, yeah,you're in contact, which is why I, you
know, Absolutely agree with you that shameshouldn't even be classified in that.
(43:11):
It's almost like the lens inwhich we see those emotions
It is the lens.
And that's fantastic.
I can't, I'm so excited about this.
I'm like, Yes, that makesmore sense to me and,
and how we think of
changes everything.
It changes.
It changes the dynamic.
Yeah, absolutely.
(43:31):
Yeah.
because in an IPT process whenI'm working with a client, um, we
will move emotions at like energy.
I'll say, pull that out in a colorand let's look at what it looks like.
And that gives us information.
But I will say, okay, now in all ofthose emotions, all of those things
that you maybe were experiencing atthis point in time, what was the belief?
(43:54):
Right.
What belief?
You have, and that is the shame.
That's the, and it's almostalways one of three things.
I think or feel I'm not good enough.
I think or feel I'm not worthy.
Or I think or feel I'm not lovable.
And those are all of thethings that you just said.
So,
They're all shame.
They're shame.
(44:14):
yeah.
And it's, um, so I'm wondering,I pulled this other card from the
sky deck, uh, earlier when I waskind of looking at just imagery.
And this one came up, which doeshave some Egyptian symbols in this.
It's the hidden path.
Um, uh, right.
And I, and I see like the disc of the sun.
(44:36):
uh,
And the I, and I'm,
press.
and I'm wondering is this kind of the,in the alchemical transformation when
you're, when you're going to reveal the,the self, the philosopher's stone, it
sort of opens up that path or purpose.
(44:57):
So when you're in a state of confusion,um, you know, when the dark night
of the soul happens and you'rein a state of confusion, I always
tell clients, confusion is hard.
That's a really painful place tobe, but it's actually a really
positive step because you need theconfusion to be open to something new.
(45:19):
Mm hmm.
And do you feel like that sort ofreveals then your path forward?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There is um,
You know, one of the wisdoms Ifind that certainly comes out of
an alchemical approach is that
(45:43):
we are not meant to be directedby what our minds think.
We are meant to be directed bywhat draws the heart forward.
And the mind What is meantto be in service to that?
(46:05):
The mind, like, what does, it'snot just, you know, what do I
want, but what does call my heart?
And it's not my brain's job to say,well that doesn't make any sense, well
that's never gonna happen, well you don'thave the, you know, you can't do, like,
because that separates us again, right?
(46:27):
That can create shame.
But to say, okay, what, howcan we move forward with that?
What, how can I be of service to that?
How can I support that?
And there, there's going toneed to be some discernment.
this is where the I and the heart,
(46:49):
or, um, sorry, the sun, the sun andthe I in that card are on either side.
I You know, that, that thereis this, you know, what is the
light that draws me forward?
What is the discernment?
What, how can I, sort of, bringmy mind to help me see the path?
(47:10):
But what's in the center of that?
What rests in the heart?
That's the Ankh.
That, that is the symbolof ever lasting life.
And part of recognizing that.
When we live from the heart, whenwe live from essence, you know,
(47:33):
we may be here for a short time,we may be here for a long time.
The truth is, we are indestructible.
We will be matter, andthen we will be spirit.
For some people they believethen we will be matter again.
And that's the thing, it's not.
(47:55):
where we're getting to,that is the important thing.
It's, it's how, how we engage from a placeof, of heart in all of those moments.
And I think that's where that'sthat sort of hidden path is that
I'm always where I need to be.
I'm always exactly where I needto be, whether I'm here for
(48:16):
another week or another 20 years.
It's, this is the moment that counts.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Which
that, for me, that iswhat wonder work is about.
Where I can, I can payattention to the human.
I can pay attention to the spirit.
(48:38):
And I see that they are alwaysin dialogue with each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very helpful to know that that'spossible, and especially when, um, you
go through moments of life, like thedark night of the soul, or, um, what
(48:59):
I sometimes refer to as mini deaths.
Mini deaths of life.
throughout your life, like where you'regoing, a part of me has had to die in
order for a rebirth to occur and to, um,
Yeah.
allow for my body and spiritto befriend each other again.
(49:22):
That when it feels like they're atwar, at odds, there's a separation
or that, that there needs to be areconciliation for this rebirth.
Yeah.
It's, it's interesting, becauseyou were talking about confusion.
And, um, And I, I recognize it's,it's a not uncommon experience for
(49:46):
many, many, many people to have.
Again, increasingly, I am coming to aplace where my sense is confusion doesn't
happen when we drop into our bodies.
Our bodies are never confused.
Hmm.
It's when our heads are trying tohave authority over our bodies.
(50:10):
that we get
Sure.
It's that battle between, um, headand heart that leads to confusion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So who, who are youlistening to and who's, who
has the authority?
Yeah.
And again, this bringsus to the chariot card.
It's not saying that, Oh, what Iwant is the only thing that matters.
(50:33):
Both of the horses have gotto be pulling the chariot
One Direction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause it can sometimesfeel like they're just not.
That can be, can be a moment in aday, it can be a period of time, and
(50:54):
Recognizing that that happens to us all
Yeah.
is important too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, fascinating.
I think this is, uh, full circle.
What is it, is there anythingelse that in, in work with alchemy
or in the healing, um, spiritualtransformation seekers out there,
(51:17):
anything else you would have them know?
A final thought thatwe haven't touched on.
Well, there was something that you saidabout healing and um, Again, there's,
there's certain things, even, even I wouldsay, So the, the book that I have that's
coming out in, in May, I, I do put a lotof this, I don't talk about alchemy per
(51:40):
se, but everything in there really isabout this, this process of coming back
to truth in essence, and, um, and And verymuch through a grieving process as well.
I talk about death, I talk about the booksof the dead, I talk about psychopomps.
Psychopomps to me are the oneswho are the ones who know how to
navigate this whole in betweenspace because that's what they do.
(52:01):
They traverse the liminal.
Um, but what I've come to reallyrecognize is that all healing is grieving.
We need to know how to grieve.
Because in healing, I have togrieve the me that I am no longer.
(52:28):
Yeah.
into wholeness, I need to grieve thethings that created the fragmentation.
All healing is grieving, andwe don't know how to grieve.
Oh, Maru
I am so excited.
I decided to do an episode of this podcaston death and grieving specifically,
(52:54):
but I'm waiting for your book.
And I'm also watching the series thatChristopher Hughes did, um, On the
Gidda Chris.
Yes.
Mi Maru Gira See?
400 something days on Duolingoand I still can't do it.
(53:17):
What?
I'll work on it.
I'll practice for the next one.
But I, I do want to prepare for I am,um, uh, I'm married into a family that
is no Stranger to death and grief andyet almost as an observant person on
(53:38):
the outside of it, just seeing howcultures do grief differently and how
even some, some where certain peoplehave had to grieve and have experienced
a lot of death in, in the family.
Maybe even still don't know how to grievebecause culturally we haven't been taught
(53:59):
or shown how or, or what it even is.
And it's such a different kind ofsuffering and pain than that of,
um, of maybe confusion or emotion,emotional suffering that we can have.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I am going to do that.
(54:21):
Stay tuned, audience, for that.
I'm going to dive more into that,
for sure.
there's so much there.
There is, there's so much.
One thing, and I, I know that weprobably could talk all night.
I, I will say that, and this isanother, it's where aspects of the
alchemical journey, you know, may, um.
(54:44):
flow over into, um, a little bitof the grail mysteries, which is
a whole other thing to talk about.
Um, it's a little bit perhaps ofwhere, you know, we really have, um,
in our, our culture, we focus so muchon the head and the cognitive and
the evidence based, like all of that.
(55:05):
And again, there's a place for that,but it's not all there is that when
somebody is grieving, we have a tendency.
To go in with, okay, well, like, theseare the stages, and this is what to look
for, and this is what you need to say.
And what we don't sayis, what do you need?
(55:27):
How can I be of service?
You know, we don't reach with the heart.
We try to come in with the answers.
Instead of just saying, I'm here.
Mm hmm.
You know, and I thinkagain, coming back to
To alchemy.
(55:48):
The heart.
Nose.
That's the boy.
Going like, oh, there's the crazyEnglishman with all his things.
Where you just need to be present.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that's the lessonthat ultimately the Englishman
will, will learn in the story.
It doesn't, it doesn't touch backin with the Englishman in the story.
(56:10):
I don't find out what happensto him, but the alchemist says
something like, he will get there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, he's working on his part, andeven in just the effort of physically
working on the, um, the, the medals, andhe's going to get what he needs to get.
Right.
Right.
(56:33):
Right.
Do you
Just as we
all do.
In our roundabout ways.
We do.
It's all our individual journey, right?
Yes.
Alright, are you ready?
I, I have here, um, thePhilosopher's Stones.
Can you see that there?
(56:54):
Um, which I absolutely adore.
I believe they're, they're out of print.
They're impossible to find.
But, so it's a little bag of stones.
Yes!
Oh!
(57:19):
Oh, yeah!
The circle with this, um, okay,for those who aren't watching on
YouTube, the circle with the dot in
with a dot.
So that is the symbol for gold.
Mm hmm.
(57:39):
So this whole journey culminates,right, from lead to gold, and
we have attained the gold.
We've stirred and stirredand stirred and stirred.
From our Gwydion and math in thecauldron symbol at the beginning
(57:59):
until now, we've stirred up a lot,and we've learned a lot about, um,
For those who were like me, justgoing, What even is this alchemy thing?
What do people keep talking about?
Is it literal science, or are weAnd yes, it is a little bit of both.
It's a little bit of all things.
And, um, I mean, we could only touchon what we had time to touch on today.
(58:20):
So, uh,
I will
talk about the stages and, youknow, the science part of it.
Like, these are the things,emotionally even, to look at, you know.
So, there's, yeah.
But it gives a doorway in.
And, and I love this.
It's like, the message is, findyour light and let it shine.
(58:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm gonna keepreading the Emerald Tablet.
I'm gonna read your book when itcomes in and give people a little
bit more of the, of what comes fromstudying the Emerald Tablet and the
principles or the rubrics there.
So we can touch back on it infuture episodes, but thank you so
(59:06):
much for this time you spent withus and to kind of give us a really
good idea of what we're looking at.
Um, and just for anybody wanting tofind out more of what Tiffany has
going on, she offers many coursesthrough Soul Alchemist Academy.
(59:28):
including Empowerment Path,the Enlightenment Path, and
the Liminal Path, and two,
two year long programs.
I'm very personally interestedin these, by the way.
So the Great Work Weekly Study Group,coming back after a two year hiatus.
Yay!
Yeah.
(59:48):
Yeah.
So for those of you who are jumpingon, this is a great time to do it.
Um, yeah, uh,
can you
on alchemy in that as well because,so part of what I've done in both the
great work and the noble art is I havelooked at the wheel of the year and I
see the wheel of the year is a reflectionof the entire alchemical process.
(01:00:13):
So, so that journey through whetheryou're doing it through the books or
whether I am excited to do these weeklythings to just help people be on a track.
Um, whole journey is an alchemical.
It's a year long alchemical journey,
Fantastic.
That is something I, uh, I'm veryinterested in because I've been working
(01:00:38):
with clients on, um, like Jenna's book,the, the abalone and cycles of healing
right?
and have been able to kindof partner it with those.
All of those cycles IPT process.
So when a client comes to me forthat, um, we're going through an
entire process in an hour and a half.
(01:01:00):
Then if they do like a course, which isthe full moon, the month, we get to do
the mythic moons, all of those cycles.
And I'm sure the alchemical process you'retalking about throughout the year, I
mean, it probably all falls right in line.
It's probably the same process
in, in different ways.
focus, different language,you know, slightly different.
(01:01:23):
The truth is, is I startedwriting the great work.
Then I found Avalon Within.
I was like, okay, well forget that.
So I shelved it.
Um, and it was Jenna who was like,Would you just write your book?
Because it's a different system.
And that's just the thing.
(01:01:43):
We need all of it.
I mean, so many things resonatewith so many different people in
different times of their life and Yeah.
And I think we tend to do that sometimeswhere you think like, Oh, they compete
with each other, but really they all
They enhance.
together like this giant web of,I don't know, beauty, information,
(01:02:04):
And it's funny because Ihave found with, with Jenna.
So, so then we went off.
We wrote.
You know, we didn't even know each otherwriting books, and then we covered it up.
Oh, darn.
Again, very similar themes, buttotally different books, right?
So.
guys in wavelength and you're just,you're downloading the same things at
(01:02:27):
the same time, and it just means you aremeant to be connected and that's great.
So can you let us know how we can findyou and those courses when we want to
be, uh, In the loop of what you've got
So, both of those now, they're,um, my website, which is www.
(01:02:47):
tiffanylazik.
com.
Um, I do have those courses.
Well, the, the, um, oneof them is group therapy.
So it's a year long, um, process ofgroup therapy, which I do in alignment
with the cycle of the seasons,which was a bit of an experiment
two years ago, but it's so powerful.
(01:03:09):
Having done it for a whole year,the changes have been remarkable.
So that's under Psychotherapy, butunder the Academy, there's a place
that says Additional Courses orOther Courses, and that's where the
Great Work Weekly Study group is.
(01:03:30):
good.
And I will post links to thaton the blog for this, for the
show notes, for this, this
Awesome.
So anybody listening right nowwho's like, How do I find this?
I will get the link and I'llput it on that, um, blog post.
So you can find that on prism healing.
com, my website.
And at the top there'sa tab that says blog.
(01:03:52):
My blog is all the episodesof Practically Magic there.
So, come and find me, go find Tiffany.
We'll provide you with all the thingsyou need to become an alchemist.
And Achieve your own transformation.
And let your light shine.
Yes.
So go make magic, witches and wizards.
(01:04:14):
We'll see you next time.
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