alchemical relations
1.
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
Carl Jung
Recent studies have led me to the concept of alchemy. The traditional image is the wizard turning lead into gold, but the process itself is much broader than that. In her book Five Spirits, Lorie Eve Dechar uses the Chinese creation myth of Pan Gu to illustrate the alchemical process. The giant Pan Gu was growing inside an egg when eventually he became too large for it. He broke through the shell, and the light, ethereal material rose up and became the heavens, and the heavy, solid matter fell down and became the earth. Pan Gu stood so as not to be enclosed again, and his head held up the heavens, and his feet held down the earth. He remained this way for thousands of years as the two settled in place, and when he lay back down to die, his breath became the wind, his tears and sweat the waters, and the lice on his head became humanity.
Alchemy is the process of wholeness to wholeness. The egg is whole and complete on its own until a disrupting force divides it into complex parts: first the yin and yang of heaven and earth, then the increasing chaos and disorder of the formation of lands and physical features, and finally the wholeness of society. Just as with lead and gold, the two are fine and useful in their own right. But the process takes one whole and complete structure and reorganizes all its parts into a new, more elegantly complex, more efficient whole.
2.
Ted J. Kaptchuk, The Web that Has No Weaver:
‘While change is primarily internal, forms of being can influence other forms of being. Things “evoke” change in other things. For the Chinese, this kind of “causing” or “inductance,” however, is not because of an external compulsion. Things influence other things because they “connect” or “elicit” what is already a “disposition” in things. This ability for one thing to influence another is called in Chinese gan ying, which is usually translated as “resonance.” If Qi is the link, resonance is the method. […]
The Qi of the sun, rain, and soil resonate with the Qi of the seed to bring forth a plant that already contains the germ of the plant and qualities that the sun, rain, and soil touch. […] Resonance is the process “by which a thing, when stimulated, spontaneously responds according to the natural guidelines of the particular phases of vital energy engendered in itself and active in the situation.”* The Qi does not “cause” change; the Qi elicits the propensity of another Qi that shares a similar kind of “frequency.” Things “energize” each other. Through resonance, one Qi evokes another.
*quoting Harold D. Roth, “Psychology and Self-Cultivation in Early Taoist Thought”
3.
“Art and love are the same thing: it’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”
Chuck Klosterman
Self-aware people know that relationships are less about other people than they are about oneself. Relationships are mirrors. Typically we are drawn to people who embody something we feel we are lacking: someone we want to be, someone who provides something we want, or some comforting archetype that has heretofore been missing from our lives. Protectors, caregivers, stabilizers, disruptors — it’s not so different from seeking the “right” job or the “right” stuff, those objects which assume a role we otherwise could not, like a daring fashion accessory purchased with the promise of liberatory self-expression, but seldom worn in public. Sometimes the search for a partner is the earnest recognition that Klosterman described — the actual encounter of the resonating similar — but sometimes we are confronted with the aspirational instead: Is it possible that I could be this other? Could this partnership help me become more like them?
When commitments are made from this desire for completion through partnership, a sort of contract is formed: if you are that, then I am this. We exist as a network, a symbiotic pairing which creates and solidifies the identity of each person involved. Suddenly two people with their own lives become spouses, partners, the X one and the Y one — all manner of social labels which exist only to attach one thing to another. What is a spouse without their spouse? The entire reality is destroyed. A person loses their identity when they are detached from their other.
The desire for contract-style commitment, then, is primarily a desire for the security of self-identification: you stay that, and I’ll stay this. If I’m certain of who you are, then I’m certain of who I am. And as long as we keep being and doing those things, we’ll be able to fulfill this contract. The most obvious examples of this are modern Western marriage and the nuclear family, but it’s not so different in friendships, broader families, and colleagues. My friend is a mess, so I am the fixer. My colleague is a hardass, and I am the goofball. My sibling is X, therefore I am Y.
4.
The identity contract is not such a problem until time passes. People come in and out of our lives at certain times, fulfilling certain purposes, but the brain’s tendency toward simplicity and pattern recognition makes it challenging to adjust our relationship as people change. For example, we tend to revert to old habits and mannerisms around our siblings — we return to the first roles that we assumed in the family network. But when a partner evolves into a new phase of life, or a sibling adopts radically new beliefs, or a family member no longer wants to shoulder the old burdens put upon them, our reactions tend to have nothing to do with that person. The shockwaves of others’ evolution are not typically of sympathy and interest, but a groundlessness of one’s own identity: If you are different, then I am also different. Logistical tumult aside (dividing families, relocating, etc.), a partner’s evolution shakes us more deeply: if I no longer know who you are, then I no longer know myself.
An alchemical approach to relationships recognizes that change is inevitable. We meet one another at one point in our lives, and evolution from there is guaranteed. Lives intersect for a moment, each transforming the other in the process, and usually detach when the transformation is complete.
Entering relationships with a certainty of eventual dissolution need not be melancholic, but rather invites the questions: In this limited time we have, how can I facilitate your self-actualization? What are we meant to do and be together? And perhaps most importantly, Can I be fully and joyfully present to this brief gift of partnership?
There is grave danger in seeing other people only as catalysts for our own evolution. An alchemical view can take the same form as the self-identification trap: if I lock you in to my life for a while, then I can use you to become what I want. That’s not what I mean. As Ted Kaptchuk described Qi, resonance allows each person to fully express what is already inherent within them. One person does not act upon the other; in fact there is no directional movement of power at all. A shared “frequency” exists already, and the spark of meeting allows all parties the safety and freedom to be more of who they are, changes and inconsistencies included.
What a delight it could be, then, to watch a partner grow and evolve, knowing that it does not challenge who you are. Ways of being change as relationships do — we adjust our language, interactions, rhythms, roles. But if a relationship can be an action, a project instead of an entire identity, then we can see our cherished other with clarity, pure affection, and self-confidence. We can share love as a gift offering instead of a transaction. We can give love to someone because we like who they are, not because they make us a certain way. This requires figuring oneself out before offering oneself to another. Certainty is not necessary, only the commitment to continue the inner work. When we own the process of our own evolution and self-creation, we can welcome the influences of other resonant partners, rather than hoping that their presence figures it out for us.
