Fermentation

I first took this Alchemical quiz about four years ago.

The result, according to that quiz, was that I was then at the stage of Conjunction.
It was, I thought,a fairly accurate representation of the place I stood in at that time.

Rediscovering the Alchemy Lab last week, I re-took the test, and obtained the result of Fermentation, which is the next step in the Alchemical process.

According to the Emerald Tablet, during Fermentation, we raise consciousness from the darkness of the animal body through personal meditation and planetary evolution. "Separate the Earth from Fire," it tells us, "the subtle from the gross, gently and with great Ingenuity."

I find this to be a very accurate representation of my situation in Time and Space right now - for the last couple of months, in fact.

The four or five years preceding this have been characterised by a growing rapport with Death, to the point where I was wholly comfortable with my own passing; so much so, that I twice (once about 18 months ago, and once just last week) was aware of an imminent arrival of Death Herself (the Ultimate Woman) for the collection of...me, myself.

The intimation of my own death was so strong last week that I felt sure I was ready to go. But that was not how it fell out. Instead, it was a transition from the Dark Night that I was feeling, up ahead.

Held fast in the Earth for the last couple of years, slumbering lightly yet tossing and turning in the nightmare of the fight against the Wetiko culture, the product of my Conjunction was laid in the soil, thrashing out and raking it in fury every so often.
When the Death transition came, it was not a mortal passing, but a spiritual one - possibly because I have already experienced the Shamanic Dismemberment - and the start of the enlightenment of the Fermentation process has begun.

 It's still just a glimmer, but it ties into my feelings of having travelled backwards to a place of greater simplicity, of cleaner joy.

 It is the re-admission of the Above into the putrefied vessel of the Below which produces the golden seepage from the corpse.

 It is a wonderous scent from heaven and a flaming of many colours and varied visions. It is a re-establishment of healthier sleeping patterns (which had gone badly awry the last few years) and a re-awakening of appreciation of beauty above as well as below.

It is the Change which I felt coming and which I misinterpreted as my own personal End.
It is a re-imagining of the aspects of Soul.
It is a re-appreciation of the human, here among the animals of the Earth.

It is, in short, the bubbling, fizzing Fermentation of my Self.
Gently.