Art is capable of the total transformation of the world, and of life itself, and nothing less is really acceptable. ~Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Nearly twenty years ago a friend and I collaborated on a writing project on the topic of female alchemists. Our original intention was to include historical and quasi-historical women alchemists such as Maria Prophetissa and Peronelle Flamel. The deeper we dove into the topic of alchemy and alchemists, the more we realized the definition could and should apply to artists – to writers (Anais Nin), painters (Emily Carr), dancers and choreographers (Martha Graham) and even scientists (Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who bridged art and science. )
As these things often go, we never finished the project, one of the reasons, I think, being that it was a pretty obscure topic at that time and would have been a challenge to have published. But in a recent book by Mary Antonia Wood, entitled The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create, the author compares artists, not only to alchemists, but to shamans, magicians, witches, and therapists, and not only does she compare but she suggests artists are alchemists, etc. Wood even identifies some of the same alchemist artists as my co-author and I did.
There is overlap between all of the archetypes Wood mentions, or maybe in reality they are different facets or faces of one archetype. For Wood, this one archetype is that of the Artist. Alchemy was known as the Art in that it was understood as the quintessential art, the prototype of all arts, but maybe in their own way each vocation mentioned above is also representative of art in general. If we want to understand art on a deep level we can study alchemy and/or shamanism, etc., and we can learn more about each of them by studying the deeper nature of art. But more relevant than understanding them is being them. When we are truly creative, we also become an alchemist, and shaman, etc.
What this implies is heeding a call to a deeper relationship with and experience of Life. It involves finding our ‘way(s) in’ - portals to expansive realities, including what Jung called the Collective Unconscious, and connecting with the force of Life in matter, the earth, and Nature. This vocation involves going beyond our superficial concerns of life and listening to our soul, our deepest inner voice, and trusting and heeding it above all other ‘voices’. And thus we transform, growing and developing our soul. Furthermore, as our soul transforms, so does the Anima Mundi, World Soul. Creative endeavors are a means to the above. As alchemist poet, Mary Oliver, wrote, “Pay attention, Be astonished, Tell about it.”
Art is my vocation, particularly writing and painting. The focus of my writing has been Art and the creative process and their relationship to psychology (study of the soul). In other words, my creative process is about creative process. I am never sure if my life work is being creative or studying it, but no matter. The (alchemical) transformation which occurs through the process of ‘paying attention, being astonished, and telling about it’ is at the crux of it all for me, and my intention is to continue exploring and ‘telling about it’ here.