Alchemy of weight loss

Is it possible to use the principles of alchemy for weight loss?

After all, if any base material will do for transformation into gold, then my obese middle-aged body should do nicely.

But what I’ve learned about alchemy tells me that the actual transformation of the base material into gold can be done easily.

I just need a philosopher’s stone.

Well that sounds easy enough.

Where do I get a philosopher’s stone?

Ah, here we’re getting to the nub of the problem. I can’t buy a philosopher’s stone. I can’t borrow one from my neighbour. I have to make it myself.

Oh, and making that philosopher’s stone? All kinds of difficult.

Number one, because no instructions exist for making a philosopher’s stone. There are mysterious drawings. There are riddles. There are hermeticists that draw mysterious drawings and talk in riddles.

The thing about making a philosopher’s stone? It requires my effort. 

Much like the spiritual GPS of intuition, the map requires that I enter it before it interacts with me. The philospher’s stone will not create itself, or by following a step by step instruction manual that someone else put together. I have to discover it myself, using only clues and path markers left to me by other seekers.

One of my first alchemical clues instructs me to explore the relationship between things.

In relationship to the weight loss quest, I thought ”What is my relationship to heavy?”

My heaviness seems to come from problems avoided and problems that don’t have solutions.

I feel heavy-hearted. Weighed down. Burdened. Held back. Tied down and buttoned up. I have gravitas, the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I delay movement on these things because they feel so very heavy and the effort required to move them so very great.

I mistook these problems for me and internalized their weight. Because I don’t need to move the problems. I need to move myself in relation to the problems.

Then the weight dissolves.

But right now, the continuous delay of action, the cut off of an action aborted, has become like a calcified ball.

I have kidney stones of intent and action.

And they’re balling up the works.

Now, how to exchange kidney stones for a philosopher’s stone?

We ideally metabolize things, take things in, let them flow through.

I am hanging on to them and slowly poisoning myself.

So, to dissolve these balls of calcified action what options do I have?

I can start taking small actions. Choose movement over stasis more often. Learn to clear out my chakras. I can draw a clear separation between myself and these problems.

It will be like water dripping on a stone. It will over time wear the stone away. (Ooh. Note to self: drink more water.)

Eventually momentum will gather and things will move faster, easier, with less resistance and less weight. I will find the flow easier and stay in it longer.

Let me reframe my goal to lose weight.

I will learn to dissolve heaviness and discover lightness.

I will exchange gravity for levity.

As the bumper sticker says “Gravity sucks!”