“‘Transmuting Tree’ alludes to a quote from 17th century mystic Jane Lead “give way to that transmuting Tree which is the tree of faith. The root thereof is to be found within yourselves. This is its Springing day.” It also alludes to a spiritual alchemy. When the soul is enlivened by faith or mystical experience, it begins to change, to transmute. When the refining spiritual fire comes to the soul, represented here by the tree, the dross is cast aside. The fire penetrates deep into the tree, renewing and enlivening it, even down to the roots. The tree now begins to arise. This is the moment it transmutes …”
Marguerite Swann
As a tree, materia prima is one with the tree of the world, whose fruits are sun, moon, and planets. On the ‘tree’ of materia grow gold and silver, or all metals, or again the various phases of the alchemical work with their symbolical colours, black, white, and red, and sometimes also yellow, between white and red … The ‘tree’ can take on the form of a living creature for it is the inward form of man.
burckhardt, titus, alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, transl. William Stoddart, Penguin Books Inc, Baltimore and Maryland, 1971, p. 104.
In: The Alchemical Actor
Author:
Jane Gilmer
Jane Gilmer
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