Gold Rush

Coyote has his nose to the ground, and he senses on all sides that people are tired.  Like a woman more than ready to give birth after a long pregnancy, people now just want to get on with the convention already.  It is time to put preparations into action.  In other words, time for coagulatio.

Coagulatio is a term from alchemy, which Jung studied intensively.  Jung was wise enough to see that in the medieval endeavor to turn common substances into gold, the procedures that alchemists were using on substances in their lab were actually projections of psychic processes that people use all the time in their lives and relationships.  By studying the symbolic nature of alchemy, we study ourselves.

Coagulatio means to incarnate something, to give it substance, give it flesh, and give it birth.  It is taking potentials and making them real.  It is taking essence and making it literal.  So far, almost everything involved with the convention has been essence.  Law enforcement has plans, delegates have plans, Obama has plans, and the protesters have plans.  These plans have undergone long alchemical procedures in the labs of the groups involved, being slowly formed out the essence of who the groups are, and what they want to do at the convention.  These essences and plans, though long in development, are still unborn.  Next week, however, the gestation is over, and we will see how each group incarnates itself, and what each group really looks like.  

And we will see where the gold is.  The whole point of alchemy was to transform the common into gold, to make our human lives shiny and precious.  Coyote wonders, where will we find the gold at the convention?  Will we see it in the police officer who tirelessly enforces the law with restraint and respect for dissent?  Will we discover gold in the protester who courageously speaks his vision for a better world, while still obeying the law?  Will we find it in the platform of the Democratic Party?  Will we see it in Obama's speech at Invesco?  Will we find gold deep in ourselves?  Coyote suspects the amount of gold born during the convention will truly surprise us all.

Unfortunately, however, not all alchemical procedures yield gold.  In the cauldron of the convention all essence will be born, but not all essence will shine.  Hatred and violence will surely be incarnated from souls resistant to alchemy, souls who do not see the need for their own transformation, souls whose only goal is to prove that someone else does not have the gold.  Their journey will remain common, not golden.  Their journey will only provide contrast for those who truly shine.

To be gold, or not to be gold.  That, Coyote reminds us, is the question.

CoyoteJ