The Invisible Alchemy of Change

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Feb 24, 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to my new subscribers—I can’t believe there are now over 300 of you (!) I know it’s been a while since I wrote last. I’m still trying to nail a proper writing routine here in Bangalore; you’ll be the first to know once I do. In the meantime, thank you so much for being here with me, I appreciate every moment of time and energy you spend with my words.

At some point soon I plan to do an anniversary/milestone post about what I’ve learned from (over) a year of writing, so please stay tuned and subscribe if you haven’t already. But in the meantime, here are a few thoughts on the topic of change...

Recently I’ve been turning to the idea of change and how it happens. Having been through a big outward change in the past few months (relocation), I am pondering the degree to which it has transformed me inwardly—am I the same person here and now that I was there and then?1 How have I adapted to being in a new environment? Which patterns from my old environment have I carried over to this one, and how are they serving me now? What are the new patterns that I’m forming? Are they in line with my needs and responsive to reality?

There is an invisible process occuring inside each one of us all the time, a way in which we sense and mold ourselves to the world around us. In Laban movement, this is known as Shaping, and it happens relationally between Self and Other (the Other can be another person but also a place, or an idea).

Change is ongoing and ever-present, but sometimes it hits us harder and we wake up, momentarily, to all the messiness and the possibilities of the moment we’re in.

Any change in our outer circumstances calls forth an invitation to transform inwardly, since inner and outer worlds are reflectively aligned. Sometimes we take the invitation, and other times we don’t. When the change is too small, it’s easier to miss the signal and the opportunity passes us by. When it’s too big, it’s likelier to overwhelm us so that we default to re-enacting ‘same old me’. I credit a longterm meditation practice and refined somatic awareness with allowing me to engage in the tug-of-war between habitual and fresh responses. This in turn has meant I’ve been able to adapt and make myself anew several times in life.

are you alive enough to change?

When I was in school, we learned that there were seven signs of life that distinguished living things from dead things like machines. The acronym to remember them was MRSNERG—and the signs themselves were Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth.2

It is receptivity (or sensitivity in the acronym above) towards ourselves or our environment that allows us to change. In other words, we always change in relation to something. That something can be external—another person, a new job, a shift in life phase or physical location; or it can be internal—a vision, a dream, a sensation, an intuition or a belief we hold.

Change therefore reaffirms us as interconnected beings, part of a whole matrix of events and circumstances that are constantly happening around us and inviting us to join in their dance. When you accept the change, you reorient towards life; when you deny the change, you also deny your own aliveness.

change is cyclical, not linear

We live in a highly mechanised world, to the point that we often subconsciously act as if we were machines too. Many models and strategies in the wellness and coaching space are predicated on the philosophy that humans are a kind of sophisticated computer that need hacks and solutions, reprogramming and resetting. And when things go wrong, we can ‘fix’ ourselves by replacing, upgrading or deleting the parts that aren’t working. This philosophy is antithetical to our humanity, and to real growth, because we are organisms, not mechanisms.3

Over the past few months, I have begun to see the process of change through the lens of nature, because nature shows us how to change in a way that’s innate to living beings. Change in nature is cyclical, and includes both growth and its counterpart, decay—both of which are signs of the larger cycle of life. (Mechanisms decay but they don’t grow again afterwards; they lack the inherent self-healing and reparing capacity of living beings).

When we forget that we are organisms, we may try to follow linear models of change or ‘flatline’ our experience to make it as homogenous and predictable as possible. But like all forms of the natural world, we belong and thrive in and as a circle, not a straight line. (If you want to be a line, be a spiraling one instead.) We are the wave that rises, crests and falls, and the plant that grows, matures and decays. To the untrusting and untrained eye, the circular or cyclical way looks frightening—primarily because we miss the crucial connection between decay and growth, death and life, dissolution and creation. Without this understanding, the circle is incomplete, and the dark half of it feels insurmountable.

half moon photo — *how do you know that the light will return?* | Tiago Fioreze

It has been enormously refreshing to discard the baggage of other people’s ideas and look to living beings all around me for inspiration and direction. What can I learn from the way the trees stand in my garden, or how seedlings sprout here but not there? What do I receive when I watch the kites of this city freewheeling overhead every afternoon, or when I see the stars spinning through the sky at night? Asking such questions means trusting my own perceptions; reaffirming, viscerally, that something is speaking to me and telling me important things all the time, if I pay attention.

In this post, I will share some ideas from the natural world that have supported me through the big changes of the past few months, and that I plan to keep close even as my life settles down, because after all, change is with us all the time. My main takeaway has been that true growth happens organically, invisibly and cyclically, in conditions that are supportive.

low-angle photography of white and brown eagle — *the brahminy kite, a native of this region* | Nidheesh Kavalan

adaptation and its shadow

We humans, like our animal ancestors, are masters of adaptation. Even those of us that don’t recognize this capacity within ourselves, somehow manage to respond to changing circumstances all the time. Our nervous systems are designed to do this, in order to keep us alive. (Here, again, the connection betweeen change and life.)

However, this effect goes both ways: when circumstances change, we can adapt towards growth and flourishing, but we can also adapt by becoming smaller or limiting ourselves through fear, avoidance or denial. The former we could call growth, the latter maladaptation—adjustments that we make (usually subconsciously) that may be instinctive or helpful in the moment, but that don’t support our long-term or ultimate potential.

It’s hard to see the ways in which we maladapt without an outside reference point, like another person who reacts or thinks differently to us, or another place that we go to that shifts our response. I can’t yet tell if I’m maldapting to living in India, but moving here has given me the hindsight to see many ways in which I maladapted to life in Singapore.

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is a teaching metaphor about the peacock, who represents the ideal of the bodhisattva, or awakening being. Peacocks are considered special because they are the natural predators of snakes, and impervious to any venom they may ingest while they hunt. It is believed that the iridescent colours of the peacock’s feathers come from an internal alchemical process that digests and transmutes the snake’s poison into beauty. Therefore, the peacock’s power is to not only accept what others cannot, but to transform it into magnificence. Peacock feathers are therefore used in shaktipat or spiritual transmission ceremonies, to symbolise the passing of this alchemical power and knowledge from teacher to student.

blue and green peacock — *who could be unmoved by such perfection?* | Hans Veth

I’ve been remembering the peacock as a guide through the hardship of the past few months. All of the losses, the setbacks, the fear and worry, the loneliness and the uncertainty—that’s the poison that life is offering me. If I can turn towards it and take it in, I begin the invisible alchemy of turning it into something wise and beautiful.

I say invisible because I know that I’m not in charge of this transformation. It’s happening to me, and for me, and with my participation and (frankly reluctant) consent—but it’s not under my control. It takes place underneath the surface of my skin, in the unseen caverns of my mind, like seeds germinating under the surface of the earth. For what feels like a long time, nothing seems to be happening. And then, suddenly, one day, a tiny green sliver emerges from the dark, and I know my life is beginning again.

Sometimes I know that I can’t take in the poison that is being offered, or that I can’t alchemize it in this moment, or without help. I also know that some of it is lingering in me, creating invisible maladaptations that will themselves, one day, rise out of the dark and demand to be healed. Part of this process is being gentle with myself, not requiring constant perfection (so hard for an idealist like me).

The other day I found the tiniest jackfruit I’ve ever seen on the ground in our garden. It must’ve been half the size of my thumb, a miniature marvel that was simultaneously, in reality, a failure on the part of the tree. What use is a fruit of that size, except to bring me a moment’s awe, to coax a soft smile out of a hardened body? I’m now practising seeing my own frailty, and the letdowns of life, in the same vein. Maybe they aren’t useful in the way I’d like them to be, but they are valuable in some way nonetheless.

my usual offering of tree photos, with the jackfruit tree from my garden at top-left/first

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let life nourish you

I want to close by pointing out two more things that have nourished me recently. These are part of the ‘supportive conditions’ I mentioned above, as prerequisites for (cyclical) change.

The first is friendship. I have no words to express my appreciation and gratitude for the close ones in my life, who have been there for me in various ways, usually from afar, throughout the past few months of tumult and disorganization. I can only hope to return the favour one day.

Seek [your friend] always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
—Kahlil Gibran, On Friendship, from The Prophet
[full passage here]

The second has been consciously inquiring into what I desire, and then following the scent-trail that emerges. So far this has led me to some fascinating and magical places, including:

multiple beautiful parks and a lake, photos of which you have already seen in previous posts. I’m still trying to map out a decent walking/running route around my home, so that’s a work-(or a desire)-in-progress.
bookstores! with honorary mention to streetside book carts, which always catch my eye
numerous roof terraces, gardens and nurseries
some sweet Asian restaurants for when I’m feeling homesick
and several museums and concerts that have touched my soul

I’ve also been fortunate to connect with people (both online and offline) who are teaching me about things I want to learn, such as Urdu, Arabic calligraphy, flute, the nervous system and Alexander Technique. There is no way I would be experiencing such abundance had I not taken the time and space to connect with what I want and honoured its pull. I’m fortunate that I’ve landed in a place with so much to offer my questing heart.

Desire is the sunlight for us humans, the thing that draws us out of our seed-shells, out of the deep, dark earth and towards the light of the outside world. It’s our innate powerhouse for growth and change; without it, we become brittle and flat, easily overwhelmed by the functional demands of life. I wrote in detail about desire and its potency here, but living this way has really driven it home to me. We shape the world we experience by choosing to orient towards and seek out the things we love within it.

Yet we shy away from truly knowing our desires because it’s so uncomfortable to reconcile where we are now with where we want to be. It’s awkward and painful to recognize our own potential and how we’re falling short of it, or to see it reflected in the form of someone we admire and realise we have no idea how to be that way. I still struggle to enjoy the process of growth, because it’s messy and ugly and most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing. Then I remember my miniature jackfruit and am reassured that not knowing, getting it wrong and feeling like a failure are all part of my maturation.

Ultimately, there is something propelling me onward that I have chosen to trust (there’s that word again), and fortunately, I am committed and resourced enough to keep reaching for it. And, at the same time, because of the inherent wisdom of the cyclical approach, I also know when to sit back, rest and let things come to me for a while.

conclusion

When we look to the natural world for guidance, we not only remember ourselves as part of creation, but we cultivate the crucial quality of trust, needed now more than ever. From within the darkness of the night, or of winter, it is only trust (and past experience) that tells us that light will come, and growth will happen. Nature is visible proof all around us that out of nothing, something is born. This is the alchemy of being alive. Somewhere along this path we also end up trusting our instincts and intuition more and more, which makes life so much easier to bear.

I hope these ideas give you inspiration and a helpful framework to navigate changes you’re going through. Feel free to share your responses with me in the comments, as usual.

The Wise Body