Alchemical Resurgence | Spoken Word Poetry

Alchemical Resurgence is a poem that traces the journey of humankind; our obsession with materiality and technological development - to the extent that we have detached from the magic - the alchemy of life experience and the transformative quality it can imbue.

What does a world that embraces both science and magic, both intellect and intuition present for us?

Transcript

We humans have expanded vastly into new domains. We split the atom, Sent man to the moon, And sit on the cusp of a culture that has conquered all. A culture that from its dawn invested into tool making, Extending action beyond the modest human hand, Igniting fires, Yielding crops and mechanising man. And what seems so alien to us, So incredibly unfathomable, A thousand, A hundred, Only tens of years ago, Occupies normality. Autonomous machines, Informational access and an interwoven tapestry of digital physical seamlessness, Hyperconnectivity. But where does this leave us? How connected are we? It's been an alluring path towards power and precision, A rationalism concerning doing more and more easier and easier each time. And through this intense inclination, We've started to lose ourselves to a view of the world that values only in terms of material worth, Viewing our fellows as numbers, Dividing our people into categories, And judging our actions by what we've measurably achieved. So I ask myself, Where is the progress in this? Have we involved ourselves so deeply in improvement and effectiveness that our world now revolves so bleakly in monotonousness? Its depth, Its texture, Buried along with the traditions of mystery, The alchemical schools, The mystics and shamans, The rituals of ancient, Their scripts handling what we yearn for most, The refinement, The illumination of the psyche. Yet in this world of technical pursuits, The magic was quietly preserved deep in the jungles, In the imaginations of children, In the mysteries that have knocked on the doors of our dreams. And the truth is that it's right here, Present in our perception, A little faint, But arising to shake up the intellectual barriers we have adhered onto our lives to stir up, A little chaos from which new order can be synthesized. Let it happen now, For confusion is only the symptom of not knowing how to be, In the sensual, In the flowing, In the rhythm of the mystery. Try it now, Try it now with me. Listen not to the words, But to the undercurrent, The undercurrent that lives behind them, The smoothness and breaks in each line to the forces of each matter, Impulsive, Freed, Seamlessly proceeding. See it now, Let it sink into you and abandon, Abandon the intellect as your master, Let it be of service to your truth, To the magical past you once knew, To awaken, Break through and rupture the picture, Create the world anew.