Alchemical Self-Actualization: Solutio
On the Nature of Water and Surrender — Alchemical Self-Actualization #2
Introduction
Water.
How familiar, how soothing. There’s something safe about the presence of water, like an ancient memory of being cocooned in the womb. Who has not found peace in simply sitting by the ocean, watching the tides move in and out, ebbing and flowing with the giant presence before you.
Given that all life was originally aquatic, it makes sense that our biological form carries memories and traces of this origin. A large percentage of the body is water after all, and it is one of the foundational basic needs that our survival relies on. Without access to clean water, death is only a few steps away.
To the alchemists, water was represented through the process of Solutio. Dissolving. To reduce a substance to its particles and wash it clean. This was so fundamental to alchemy that the phrase Solve et Coagula was their main motto. Dissolve then reform. Surrender to the oceanic bliss of the unconscious, and then rebuild the self that is found there. There is no better metaphor for deep inner work.
In this installment of Alchemical Self-Actualization, we will be looking at how we can utilize this alchemical element of water to facilitate the transmutation and integration of unconscious material. Water is powerful. Understanding this stage in the alchemical process is fundamental to transmuting your leaden states into gold. This is what allows you to be fluid, to embrace new ideas, and to release your hold on a narrow set of identification in order to discover the whole you were always meant to become.
Emotional Body
Following our discussion from the last installment in this series, let’s first cover the idea of levels of consciousness.
As consciousness evolves, it passes through various stages or levels of “degrees of integrated information.” It’s best to think of it not as “higher,” as higher and lower are relative and personal judgements, but rather as levels of information that are able to be integrated within a single scope.
The mind or mental level, situated at the top of our species' collective development (though far from the “top” of the most integrated levels of consciousness), is capable of perceiving and integrating quite a bit of information, which is why it is only at this level that we can begin self-analysis and integration. It gives us a discerning, dissociated perspective to be able to observe and organize our psyche. This process relates to the air element, which we will discuss in detail in a further installment.
Situated below the mental level is the emotional level. This is the domain of water. Here, consciousness is able to perceive and integrate less information than the mind, but carries with it a stronger intensity and feeling of embodiment. We feel our feelings (obviously). It’s much more visceral than the mind. When in the grip of an emotion, there is little else we can perceive alongside it. It surges through us, takes us over, like the undertow pulling us out to sea.
To best conceptualize these levels, it’s easiest to think of them as literal bodies. There has been much written and spoken throughout the ages about our “consciousness bodies.” One might recognize esoteric terms such as the “etheric” or “astral” body. Indeed, there is a whole discipline focused on being able to perceive these bodies as they exist in our aura. The topic is vast and I will cover it more in depth in a later article. For now, the imagery of a literal “emotional/water body” is conducive to activating the Solutio process.
Allowing yourself to feel your body not as a rigid image kept under tight control, but as a release into the natural fluidity of what it feels like to be embodied is the ultimate goal. Letting go of muscles that are chronically tense can at first bring a complete debilitation of the muscle, as in a weakening and failure to remain upright. This is to be welcomed. As chronically tensed muscles are relinquished and consciousness surrenders to the fluidity of a relaxed body, the body’s natural wisdom will kick in and activate muscles that are designed to support the body.
It is only when the body is completely relaxed that emotions can truly be felt in their entirety. Muscle tension is one of many ploys by the mind to restrict the intensity of feeling. We can only fully surrender to the dissolution process when we’ve relaxed the body and have given up our rigid defenses.
The emotional body (known esoterically as the astral body) is the level of consciousness where emotions are processed, understood, and filtered. It is interesting to note that the emotional body is directly connected to the transpersonal levels of which the Self or the soul live. There is almost a direct pipeline between this instinctual level and the intuitional level.
We can imagine this by describing peak experiences. When having an authentic peak experience, we are tapping into the fluid, interconnected nature of reality. We feel ourselves to be a part of a larger whole, a web of relation and bliss. Depending on the degree of egoic autonomy, there can be a dissolving of identity, or a realization of the nondual states of being separate and a part of the whole, simultaneously.
Either way, we are experiencing dissolution.
Bringing it back to our emotions, this experience feels very similar to surrendering to the emotional, astral level. There is a similar experience of dissolution as we allow the tidal waves of feeling to sweep away our identifications.
What is often troubling, however, is that it is too easy to confuse authentic transcendence with a sort of “blurring of the lines,” or regression into a more unconscious state.
When parts of ourselves are repressed into the unconscious, they have a tendency to then activate the imaginative function. Upon being overly stimulated by parts attempting to break through into consciousness, the imagination can become rampant.
This over-activation of the imagination is also what happens when these repressed parts are first contacted.
When someone begins digging into their unconscious pain, the parts that were so desperate for so long to be recognized will burst through in the only language they know—symbolism.
This surge of unconscious material feels very spiritual, and indeed it is. It is the first step in aligning the instinct with the intuition.
The key here is learning to integrate the detached, mental perspective with the emotional undercurrents that tune us into the physical self, into the real world. When we connect our feelings (particularly the unconscious, repressed feelings, usually burdened by trauma and undesirable beliefs) to the apparatus of the mind, then, and only then, can we discover the transpersonal domain and really feel into our soul.
When the mind is not consciously integrated as a part of the process, it threatens dissolution into a regressed consciousness that then masks as spiritually evolved awareness. In reality, it is a “blurring of the lines,” and an unconscious surrender to emotion. We’ll discuss the concept of conscious surrender later on.
Dissolution and the Nature of Water
Water moves, water is fluid. Water will expand and morph to fill the container it’s in.
In a previous article, I wrote about the nature of experience, and how we need certain identifications in order to give context to our self experience. By identifying with different aspects of the world, the natural state of self has something to form to—to inform it as to how it can exist. This is a necessary process in understanding who one is. Without this, we would be formless consciousness, perfectly aware and aligned, but lacking the wisdom that comes from seeing life in all its many faces.
This identification process is governed by the earth element of Coagulatio. Remember earlier when I said that the entire alchemical opus could be summarized as “Solve et Coagula?” Well, if the process of identification is the Coagula part, the process of disidentification is the Solve. In effect, we are dissolving our egoic attachments and returning to the nebulous pre-concretized self. The self before it learned to be anything other than pure awareness.
By doing so, we regain perspective. We loosen the grip we have on our beliefs. We reconnect with the source, just as water was the original source of life on Earth.
This release of identity, of constructed self is, as mentioned in the previous section, a regression into a more archaic form of consciousness. This is where it becomes increasingly difficult to parse out. While technically, the release into this state is a regression—since the self is not experienced as a separate entity, but rather as one with the whole—it is also the doorway into the truly transpersonal levels of enlightenment.
What differentiates these two states is the degree to which the person in question can hold the paradox of truth presented.
All great truths are paradoxical. That is the very nature of the world we live in. Things both are and aren’t; both dead and alive. When we experience divinity, we are experiencing the same state that a child first encounters. The first stage of consciousness is characterized by what is known as the participation mystique. This simply means that the person observing cannot distinguish themselves as being separate from the world around them.
Eventually, children begin to develop a stronger ego that can see them as being a separate entity. When we have a peak-experience, however, this separateness once again vanishes. There is the same level of enmeshment with the environment, this time with a high degree of conscious awareness at the same time. The individual is paradoxically separate and completely unified.
It is in this space where the realization of the divine takes place. One sees oneself for who they are and sees how they are part of the tapestry, the great current of lifeforce as it ebbs and flows in its evolutionary thread.
One witnesses the source.
Just as the source of all life is water, so too does the unconscious appear symbolically (and to the experiencer much more than merely symbolic) as a vast ocean.
In Aion, Jung writes extensively about Christ being a symbol for the Self. He explains this in context of the fish symbol that was widely used to describe Christ. Indeed, Christ was seen as the fish that was plucked from the depths of the ocean—or in other words, the Self that is discovered by facing the unconscious and discovering the totality of who one really is.
Water also has a cleansing attribute to it. In the Christian tradition, the water ritual of baptism is frequently used to usher in a rebirth of the consciousness in a dawning light of God. In a way, this is an acting out of the ancient alchemical process of Solutio. It establishes the intention of the individual to surrender to a level of consciousness that is larger than their own, to be submerged in the oceanic enormity of the divine over their own egoic drives.
This highlights another key feature of the Solutio process—that of surrender to an awareness larger than where one is currently operating from.
When we find we are stuck in life, we can usually look towards a belief or identification that is begrudgingly refusing to loosen its grip. This stubbornness can take many forms, all resulting in an egoic or narcissistic inflation. Our desire to be right, to be secure in who we are, takes precedence over any willingness to surrender our position, ultimately leading to being stuck.
There are many reasons for our reluctance, and I don’t intend to go too deep into them here. It’s better to look at why we hold so strongly to these beliefs that are getting us nowhere.
The unconscious is like the ocean, and the ocean is, frankly, terrifying. It is so immensely vast, deep, dark, and otherworldly. Any number of beasts could be lurking in the depths of darkness present there. The same is true of the unconscious. Complete surrender is surrender to the unknown. Anything could happen. Literally anything. So terrifying is our species' fear of uncertainty that we cling desperately to any illusion of control we can muster, even if it proves to be completely deranged.
This is why religion offers such a potent metaphor for many people. Christ, or the Buddha, or any divine messenger, represents (psychologically) the Self—the center of wholeness and unity within this abyssal pool of unknowns.
Whatever your beliefs around the Self, the soul, or any religious or spiritual motif are, what matters is the willingness to release. Routinely dumping out rotting grudges and narcissistic strangleholds opens the doorway for something much more unitive, holistic, and integrated to pour through your heart, mind, body, and soul.
Surrendering to Feelings
Now that we’ve established what the alchemy of water looks like, let us dive deeper (pun not intended) into how we can make use of this process in our lives and Self-Actualization journey.
For many who are on the inner path and who diligently seek answers to the mystery of their life, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is reconnecting with feelings—with the very essence of being alive. In the post-modern world we live in, the mind in its most distorted aspect rules with vengeance. No one is free from the mass dissociation we are all experiencing. Though we’ve never had more access to information, and are witnessing (or will in the very near future) massive upgrades in understanding, knowledge, and technology, we have lost our ability to feel.
The first step of Solutio is, therefore, to surrender to the “water-body.” I mean this in a literal sense. Through a maladaptive, habitual dismissal of the body, it is commonplace to experience consistent tension and straining throughout the body. Many do not notice how they have been clenching their jaw, or how the stiffness in their hips is not normal in any sense.
The first step of somatic embodiment is learning to routinely release muscle tensions, allowing the flow of sensation to move uninterrupted. The most common place for muscle tension is in the lower abdomen. Simply releasing the gut in this manner invokes a feeling of “falling,” almost like your intestines are about to fall out of your body! (I know it’s gross but it’s a common experience). If you’re used to over-tensing the body, the initial feelings of release will feel extremely anxiety inducing. Over time, however, the body finds a new homeostasis and maintains the correct amount of muscle tension it needs to function properly.
Muscle tension is incredibly important to look at, as it is the most direct way to inhibit the flow of emotional information in the body. When we are stiff, we are severely limited in what we can feel. A stiff body (a reflection of a stiff mind) is one that is too coagulated, its only remedy being that of dissolution.
Once you’ve established a strong sense of your emotional, water body, one that can be fluid and tension free, you can begin to focus on allowing adverse emotional states to exist within you.
This form of Solutio is life-changing.
Anxiety is usually felt in the solar-plexus region, swirling down and around the gut depending on the severity of it. Anxiety is never consciously activated. It is always thrust upon our experience without any warning. When it is, our reaction is often to “run” from it. To do anything to quell its clamoring. Some turn to drugs and alcohol, some numb with the phone. Some try to mentally override it, suppressing it even further through (usually unconscious) intensification of muscle tension. This only inevitably makes the anxiety worse.
As noted in the previous installment on Calcinatio, the various parts within us that are experiencing these adverse states simply want to be witnessed. They want to be validated in how they feel (much like all of us). The key here, then, is to surrender to what is coming through rather than running from or suppressing it.
Often the experience of anxiety is overwhelming because we do not know if we will survive its effects. There is an unconscious fear that this feeling could deride our entire sense of self, rendering us non-existent in its wake.
Luckily, no one in the history of humanity has ever vanished in existence because of their anxiety. At least, not from simply allowing themselves to feel their anxiety.
What If, instead of jumping away into the mind, or leaping into some external pacifier, we sat with the dissonant explosion and fell into it, surrendered to it.
Leading with the statement directed towards the inner dissonance: “you are safe to express yourself as you need to in my body, and I will take your message of distress seriously rather than try to silence you,” followed by a complete surrender into the experience of the anxiety.
Instead of running, we can track it, watch as it blooms from our stomach to our chest, and examine with curiosity how it spreads into our gut and affects our sensation in particular ways.
Through this complete surrender, we can discover that it will not dissolve the essence of our being. It will, if anything, prove to us that our capacity to feel a wider spectrum of emotions is much stronger than we consciously realized. In effect, it widens our window of tolerance for adverse emotional states.
With this awareness, we can more easily fall into a tangible sense of stability within the watery nature of the body-experience. We no longer fear the unknown of what the body has to offer. The other side of this is an increased sense of pleasure, as the body can now experience more of everything, good and bad.
Each time we surrender to and acknowledge the adverse states within us in this way, we strengthen our connection to our Self, proving that we are stronger than some turbulent undertow that tries to rock our experience every now and then.
Concluding Remarks
The symbolism of alchemy offers far more than a mere abstraction. It is an experience. A literal, tangible, visceral experience of consciousness through its many faces.
To understand the element of water is to understand emotions. It is to understand the reflection of the eternal oceanic source in the small pool of our ego. It is a bridge for us to learn to connect to the true experience of our bodies and its relationship to this fickle awareness we have.
Learning to surrender to the abyss of the unconscious and to the watery depths of the body is not easy. There is an inherent fear in releasing to the unknown. The mind—where our locus of awareness frequently appears to be located—loves to be in control. We dominate our body from our supposed “higher” awareness, attempting to control the scope of our feelings in order to not be overwhelmed and swept away.
But this is exactly what is keeping us from growing, from realizing the extent of who and what we really are. When we surrender to—not just our feelings—but our ability to feel, we move into a much stronger sense of self. The fact is, the egoic structure as we initially perceive it is inherently faulty. It is old technology that eventually weathers against the beaten storm of the unconscious. By consciously releasing this stronghold, we are able to step into an egoic identity that transcends this basic structure.
I like to imagine our primary ego identity as a wooden frame. Our known likes and dislikes are neatly ordered within this structure, and we have a solid sense of who we are within a set limit. Eventually though, this wears down, and the dilapidated structure succumbs to the pull of the unconscious undertow. When this happens, a new center is formed, one built with the oceanic tide of our body, emotions, and unconscious selves in mind. I like to picture it as a structure made of golden light, unable to break down like the previous wooden structure.
This impenetrable golden fortress—the ego aligned with the Self—is perfectly able to retain its integrity as the watery world of the psyche surges through it. No longer are we struck down by storms we weren't expecting, clinging to our wooden structure and holding it together with a desperate tension, lest it fall apart. Now we can simply allow the current to move through us, observing it as it does, but never being thrown into disrepair.
People, situations, our own emotions—all can be embraced with curiosity rather than shrouded with avoidance. We are able to remain open and not put up any walls to save our perceived, fragile self. The core of who you are is firmly established, unable to fall down to anything but your own doing. This is the true essence of empowerment.
So we can see that water is not just what makes up a majority of the planet and ourselves. It is an excellent teacher when observed and integrated into who and what this experience really is.
Other Installments in Alchemical Self-Actualization
Interested in 1-1 Mentorship? I offer an integrative and holistic mentorship that will help you explore and navigate your inner world and unconscious self. Click here to learn more.
If you liked this post, subscribe to Archetypical below!
If you know anyone who may like this post, please share it with them:
You can also support my work with a donation: