Ep. 39 What the Fire Leaves Behind
Alchemy is a terrible but brilliant series of processes that burn, drown, rot, pressurize, and distill every extraneous thing out of the way so you can see what is there. What the fire leaves behind is who you really are. What the fire leaves behind is all the things about you that cannot be left behind. What remains when all else fades is how we know what’s ours to live in a new way.
Hello, dear listeners. Thank you for tuning in to the Falling Into Soul Podcast. I’m your host McCall Erickson, author of not one but now two books offering context and reassurance (but seriously no bs) for the more confusing and “out there” processes many of us find ourselves going through as modern day spiritual travelers. That’s right, my new book Down from the Mountain: On Being Human after Spiritual and Alchemical Initiation is now in global distribution.
This book is especially for you if:
- You’re on the far end of the awakening journey and might not even like the word awakening or journey.
- You’re no rooky. You’ve been through enough dark nights to put the abyss itself to shame.
- You’ve been through a ridiculous amount of death and rebirth cycles, but like, does it even matter? What’s the point of endless wash rinse repeat cycles, beating your head against the same old walls, getting the rug pulled out from under you every time you take a step?
- Perhaps you’re disillusioned with the whole Find Your Purpose and Create Your Best Life culture (Like seriously, is the spiritual healing and wellness industry just a pyramid scheme that shits most of us out the ass end of it? That's what it feels like to me.)
- This is a book for you if you’re tired of giving yourself to the inner work with so little outer yield, following dreams that don’t seem to be following you back, sacrificing yourself for love and the people and the things you value most but not really getting much back for it.
- Or maybe your body is calling you home through illness or pain that you can’t ignore. Or your relationships with other humans are uh… not great? or maybe non-existent? Perhaps your human parts are screaming loud and clear that it’s time to be a little less enlightened and somehow, even though you’ve transcended so much dense earthly-plane shit, come home even more to your physical body and life?
Do you recognize yourself in any of this?
If so, Down from the Mountain stands ready to accompany you through your next steps in becoming more human in a world that feels like it has no place for you. You can get your ebook or paper copy through the links in the show notes. And yes, rest assured, an audiobook is coming this summer.
Oh, and a HUGE thank you to everyone who preordered a copy of the book from my website. You boosted my morale in the finishing stages of publishing by doing so and I can’t thank you enough.
Okay. On to today’s episode:
When I first met my now partner, we were getting to know each other through Marco Polo because we lived in different time zones. For those who don’t know, Marco Polo is an app where you converse over video messages by sending video messages back and forth to each other. During one particular video soulversation I divulged to him the deepest darkest truths about myself at the time, which went something like this:
I’ve been on a path of inner healing and spiritual growth for decades now and I still don’t know what my purpose is. Like, I seriously don’t fit anywhere. I’ve walked away from every endeavor, place, relationship, and dream that ever mattered to me because my soul kept pulling me through to something else. But I don’t even know what that “something else” is. I’ve been mostly tears and ashes for the bulk of my adult life. I’ve traveled so extensively through alternate dimensions to gather fragmented pieces of my soul that I’ve barely been a person in this dimension in recent years, but I’m starting to flex my human muscles and build, ya know, some synovial fluid in my joints again. I have a terrible habit of throwing myself into the unknown just when I feel like I’m on to something known, and I love my freedom more than wealth and notoriety, so good luck to you if you really want to partner in life with me because I’m seriously the weirdest of the weird, the misfit of the misfits. I’m blissfully and annoyingly fucked.
I’m not sure what I expected him to say in response, but I was preparing myself for something a little more awkward. Like when you share something vulnerable about yourself with someone and they're just not getting it and you have to soothe yourself amid the familiar sting of being misunderstood and attenuate your energy the best you can.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, he sent a reply, totally unfazed by me divulging my weirdness to him and said, Oh. I see. So…you’re what the fire left behind.
I thought to myself…I’m sorry, what is happening? Is this human person actually understanding me and what I’m saying or is he just really good at faking it? And could he be more annoyingly poetic!? What the fire left behind? I mean, yes. That’s exactly what I feel like!
I let his words and knowing cut through any lingering insecurity I had about myself before responding. I sat there receiving the gift (something I’ve learned to do) and then I replied, saying only what a true writer would say: What the fire left behind is an amazing line. Can I have it? Like, can I use it for a song title or a book title one day?
Writers are shameless. I am shameless. Give me alllll the perfect and poetic words for things.
I am what the fire left behind…that line became a mantra and reference for me of, like an anchor for where I was on my journey at the time. It sat so deeply resonant and right with me. I held it close, walked around with it, carried it like a smooth stone in my pocket because I realized that yes, every false thing about me has been burned and cracked and sloughed away time and again to reveal some strange indestructible presence within.
There’s such an interesting and abiding sense of confidence and calm that comes with knowing you’ve been through some wicked alchemy, like some real shit ya know, but there’s something about you that the fire didn’t want, something the fire couldn’t or wouldn’t touch.
If you’ve been through the alchemical fire, you know it doesn’t fuck around. The fire can be ruthless. It blazes hot, taking what it wants (roles, beliefs, dreams, plans, loves, identities). Leaving so much destruction and loss in its wake. And this is true for any alchemical process, not just the fire, but the flood and the dark nights and the distillation. When you go through all those initiations and your heart is still beating and your lungs are still breathing and there’s something of you still remaining it’s like, huh!? What!? What is this thing that remains?
Because here’s the thing about alchemical transformation: it’s not really a transformation so much as a deconstruction and a liberation. Alchemy is not a process that changes who we are, it’s a process that reveals who we are. And the tricky part is this: will we be keen enough to recognize when the fire and other processes have done their job? This is about being able to recognize subtleties and timing here. Will we accept what the fire took away and what it left behind, what it didn’t touch or change about us and our lives? Will we have the courage to accept that no amount of alchemy can turn us into something we’re not. I mean, turning ourselves and our lives or anything into something it’s not is not the magic trick of alchemy.
I really want to point out this important threshold…where we as alchemists go from being initiated by the alchemical processes to having to live what the initiation has revealed in us and about us. When the core self is revealed and we’re strong enough to align with it permanently, which is known as coagulation in alchemy, then we must live that core self. Somehow. In a world that feels like it has no place for that core self. There’s only so much destruction that needs to happen before the indestructible parts of us begin to shine through. This is a tricky threshold. We can get so used to being initiated, so used to throwing ourselves into the fire, to being the poster child for dismemberment journeys and darkness and heartbreak and being torn to shreds and constantly reinventing ourselves that it can be hard to realize there’s another side to this, there actually is a turning point. There actually is a time when there’s been enough of that and we have to reckon with what the process has and hasn’t brought us instead of holding out for one more inner death journey to bring something different, to change what can’t be changed. At some point, enough is enough because alchemy isn’t only about being torn down and burned to the ground. It’s also about rising and growing from the rubble. It’s not only about dismantling. It’s also about building. It’s not just about dying. It's about living. Come what may.
I’ve witnessed more than a few people get caught here, almost like being addicted to the fire of alchemy, to how easy it is and how good it feels to just keep burning it all down, or just walking away, always wanting a clean slate or a fresh start and thinking that will do it. You know what? That is a spirit addiction. Fire is spirit. Spirit loves loss for the sake of loss, endings for the sake of endings because all that breathing room feels like freedom to the Spirit. But Spirit on its own doesn’t know how to root and when to root in. This is so important. Spirit energy on its own doesn't know how to root in to the human life. We need the soul in order to root in to our physical bodies and lives.
So yes, I am giving a warning here. There is a potential pitfall at this threshold after initiation is complete where we can get pulled into thinking more dismantling and burning shit to the ground and more sacrificing ourselves and trying one more healing modality or one more adjustment to ourselves is the answer, like one more thing is gonna change who we are… all in attempts to avoid that terrible and so important moment of having to take full root in ourselves and full root in our present lives as they are happening.
No amount of alchemy can change the true self and the true nature of life. No amount of fire can transform you into something you are not. No amount of envisioning and launching a new plan can change the inner soul vision that is trying to live through you.
So when you’ve been through enough alchemy to reveal and align with the true self, then what? What’s it like to root into the bedrock of your indestructible core and just live forward from there? This is where initiation delivers us: to this point where we have to LIVE…come what may. Where we GET to live. Come what may.
The other day I was hiking on a trail through the marshes by the ocean (I now live in the southeastern United States) and I came across a live oak tree called the Octopus Tree. If you’ve ever seen the live oaks of the south, you know they are a wonder to behold. This particular tree had been blown down by a hurricane many years ago, and as it laid there on its side, it starting taking root even deeper from it's side and started shooting new trunks and branches up toward the sky. Like it was laying down and rooting from the ground up to the sky. I feel like this is such a perfect metaphor for what I’m talking about. Alchemy blows us down, whips us around, leaves us for dead and we have to decide at some point to put down roots where we are. Once again, when we know in our bodies and cells that it’s time, when we have been thoroughly initiated, we have to start where we are and make a way to live what can't be changed about us, the truest expression of self.
This is terrifying and thrilling stuff. And it's always a little harder and disillusioning that most of us are bargaining for or expecting. I was always afraid that if I truly brought forth my innermost self, there would be no place for me in this world. So I kept looking for a place. Anywhere. Somewhere I could fit. I always used to say “Nowhere to go and no one to go with." I always felt like that. Wherever I looked I just did not fit. I didn't feel like I belonged. So I was always afraid if I was true to myself there would be nowhere to go. And my fears were not unfounded. They came true. Which was so painful and liberating because the thing I realized is, like oh yeah duh, when I am my true self, there actually IS no place for me in this world because I’m supposed to make the place by BEING my true self, by radiating my true self outwardly in all I do. There is no preexisting already carved out place for me somewhere else. It's right here because this is where I am. I carve space by being right here, being who I am right where I am. Expecting it to exist somewhere else? No. Expecting someone else to hand it to me? No. I carve the place for me by being me. Like the Octopus Tree, life has blown me sideways and this is not ideal, but this is where I am. There’s nowhere else for me to go or be. I will live right here. I will grow from here. I will come alive right here in whatever way I can.
This is where alchemy brings us. It doesn't bring us to a life that's already put together, like some shiny life that we just walk into that we belong to. No. We learn to belong to where we are as we are.
This brings me to these words I want to share by a Twitter friend @KavijiPoet. I swear this almost always happens for me. Whenever I’m working on a podcast episode, there’s something somewhere that comes across my path and it reflects my message. This is synchronicity at its finest and it never fails to delight me. So I was finishing up this episode and these words from Kaviji found me.
There, under the rubble of falseness
Beneath the construct of self
Taken to be real
In the ashes of the fire
There, in the emptiness
In the silence at the center
Is the jewel of jewels
That quietly radiates its innate
Beauty.
Mmm yes. This is the philosopher’s stone–the jewel of jewels within, laid bare by the processes of alchemy. What happens when everything has been worn away and we have surrendered all to radiate this indestructible glimmer within? How do we navigate the disappointment, joy, and magic that comes from being laid bare to the innate beauty within? How do we bear the beauty of our innermost selves, our unique, strange, weird, sacred magic? We certainly can’t control it. How do we dance with it, work with it, allow it, keep the ego out of the way of it, and even…train the ego to be in support of it?
This is exactly what I explore in my new book Down from the Mountain and hopefully in upcoming episodes of this podcast.
Thank you for being in this space with me and for walking your own unique paths. In closing, I want to challenge you to take stock of where you are in your own alchemical journey.
Are you still in the process of being initiated by the dark nights and distillation even though you think it should be freaking done already!? (See The Second Half of the Mountain wherein things get worse before they get worse even though you swear you got it all the last time you scraped rock bottom.)
Have you been initiated to the unbreakable core within, to what’s enduring and real and unchangeable about you and your life but you keep trying to get it to be something different before you start living? Are you teetering on that threshold?
Or are you definitely over the initiation processes of alchemy and you know it’s time to integrate or bust?
This is not really something anyone can tell you. You can't pay someone to intuit or decide this for you. This is something you know in your bones in your quiet moments alone. Where are you on your alchemical path? And what is the necessary next step for you to take? I'm not saying these are easy things to intuit or parse out. But I do find them to be very powerful inquires.
Alright, my friends. You can go to the link in my show notes to order your copy of Down from the Mountain on Kindle or paperback.
If you want to see a photo of the Octopus Tree, I’ll put a link in the show notes.
Until next time…