Mother Nature, the Great Alchemist, transmutes the world before our eyes. She does not transform things, she transmutes them. That is to say, it is not the appearance or character with which she is concerned; rather, it is the very nature and substance of a given thing that fascinate her. She plays with the substance and the nature of the universe, effortlessly creating her philosopher’s stone with which she conjures gold and concocts the elixir of life.
I have long believed that water is one of the great keys of
the universe, perhaps the greatest. I,
too, bow to the all-powerful sun, but it is the energy of the wave, which
continually reinvents itself, that may one day change our entire view of the
universe.
In the meantime, we have but to look at the ice around us to
see the magic at work. Water comes to us
in the form of gas and then liquid and then solid. Three states of matter: one substance. (He with ears, let him hear.) At boiling point, water transmutes to a
gas. At ambient temperature, water
transmutes back to a liquid. At freezing
temperature, water transmutes to a solid with an ordered crystalline hexagonal
structure that is considered a mineral.
When the ice melts, it absorbs a tremendous amount of energy as the
hydrogen bonds break. This energy is the
heat of fusion.
She’s toying with us.
Not only do the physical transmutations teach us the key to our own
physical possibilities, but the spirit within us calls for redemption. It is not just the light from the ultimate One
unmanifest that can redeem us, but it is the light hidden in the very matter
and forces around us that whispers the question over and over, “Can’t you see
the philosopher’s stone?”
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| The visible transmutation. |
