Alchemy Rock

One afternoon last week, through intense breath and focused wind, I blended the outermost colors of this rock until the vibrant spots splattered thin to a subtle hue, and the gold-gushing center stretched wide and laid flat its iridescent, sparkling flecks. White-striped and cotton-candy-blue paper straw in hand, I blew with such force and elemental concentration that I felt no personal strain nor struggle——no trouble in reaching the outer limits of my lungs and inhaling through the slight light-headedness in my brain. The circulatory breathing became my sound.

Shwooooooooooo

Shwooooooooooooooo

With instinct and feeling as my guide, thought faded away. For a moment, I was the tunnel of wind, over and over, recharging like a wave pulled out into the ocean, again and again, only to uncover and rediscover what exists beneath the paint and beyond the mode of paintbrush in hand.

Close to the sliding door window, I leaned in for better light and happened to look out. Billowing toward me, as if the universe at large was holding a similar straw, blew in a squall of snow. I paused in awe, as just a moment before, the weather had been overcast and still. Dropping my half-drooped straw to my knee——the paper soggy with warmth and saliva——I took in a mysteriously expansive breath, releasing effortlessly as the comfortingly powerful sound multiplied my exhale infinitely and beyond.

All around me, really. That’s the power of this rock. As I hold it now, polished with a waterproof shine, I know that I am an alchemist . . . truly. I can’t always see it as obviously and directly as that snow-speckled gust of wind, but I can, no matter what, always feel it and tap into this power inside.

“Beyond the beauty of the external forms, there is more here: something that cannot be named, something ineffable, some deep, inner, holy essence . . . it only reveals itself to you when you are present.”  ~ Eckhart Tolle (Practicing the Power of Now)

I used black paint in this rock too——pure, untainted, space-made rings on top of some of the gold flecks, original purple-blue, and beneath the later gush of the galaxy-born sheen. I traced its path around the center, like an orbit——Saturn’s uniquely visible and seemingly detached aura beams. I wasn’t sure where I was going with the rock at that point, as my first layer of evening sky fell background to the over-riding ripple of black hoops, but choosing trust over fear, I flowed on, letting the rock become what it wanted to.

And to my amazement and universe-breath-connected wind, all elements blended beautifully, discovering their airborne reach and natural resting spot within the gravitational pull of this rock.

Heavy in my hand, I hold it now, holding the power of inner stillness and transformational trust. I hold the power that can be defined as my own, but it also breathes beyond me, in squall-made winds and space-blurred orbits.

This rock is not at all a summoning of the mind. This rock magnifies the inner-most core, allowing the unplanned to guide, the worry-free essence to lead, and the gold-flecked river to flow outward in all directions, as it does, strengthening trust in that center-born path.

This rock is a reminder that the path is not linear or even a mind-understandable path at all. Everything manifests and breathes from within, and always, on different levels too. Atara Schimmel, years ago, gifted me the white-striped and cotton-candy-blue straw that I used to make this rock, and I only met her because of the Project Positive People website I chose to manifest at the time.

“You could use this straw like an air brush,” she suggested, showing me how with a puff of her own breath.

The gusts of pressure not only spread the top layer of gold inspiringly wide, but it also uncovered the hidden flecks, still sparkling a layer or two deep, previously unwritten, only to be known now.

With the rock’s solidity in my hand, I hold onto these moments and all the knowingness within, that in turn, holds me to the full beingness of who I am. With this alchemy rock, there is no need to fear. The flow is beautiful, the bottom of my breath deepened and strong, and the golden center always revealed and shining through, transformation after transformation, inner trust after inner trust.