Alchemical Word of the Week

The Unio Mentalis

So … it didn’t feel right, celebrating July 4th, without at least punching my arm into the air a few times in protest of the absolutely insane religious/political gaslighting of my homeland/history/culture/timeline/ideals.

It takes a lot to make a good protest sign, and with my neurodivergent brain-style, I usually can’t decide anything till the last minute…so thank goodness for “the last minute,” when time and task come together to make the thing actually happen.

It helped, at the last minute, to remember that I am an alchemist of word and symbols, here to transmute difficult energies into positive change and healing experiences, both for myself and the collective. (Not a bad mission statement, right?) So I decided to reference my own artwork from my long-going project of alchemical phases. Can you see it? I just can’t stop putting things in bottles-although this one looks more like a bag. 😅

This brings us to the “Alchemical Word of the Week”…or words, in the case:

Unio Mentalis

“If we could get your subconscious mind to agree with your conscious mind about being happy, that's when your positive thoughts work.” —Bruce Lipton

"The unio mentalis, then, in psychological as well as alchemical language, means knowledge of one­self.” — Carl Jung

Unio mentalis is Latin for “mental union.”This is a specific part of the conjunction stage that connects the soul to the spirit that has been separated from the body. Though this happens without logic and understanding, we process our experience through the conscious mind. We like to know what’s going on. So when we speak of the divided mind, we might point to an inconsistency of conviction within us. The mind has a very loud voice, which like many self-important bullies, tends to get its way through manipulating patterns of emotional reaction, *not *from expressing any consistent wisdom.

As rich as our human minds are with ideas and opinions and imaginations, they are simply processors. If you feel yourself at odds with yourself, check in to what other voices might be influencing the mind, which like a radio antennae, has the ability to interpret everything on its radar: emotions, stories, sounds, And if you have a particularly active mind, your mind might be an all night radio talk show. Does that make anything it thinks about the truth or is it simply a reporter?

Remember the alchemist’s maxim: “solve et coagula” (separate and join together.) Sometimes the mind has to divide its focus between the logical and the imaginal. This is an integral part of the process. The goal is to bring two purified parts together, ultimately to create a bridge between two worlds: the black-and-white and the rainbow, action and dreaming, expression and reception. In this stage, the mind offers itself as its own bridge. The connector between soul and spirit. In this stage, all the brilliance (and confusion) of the mind is offered up in service of the whole.

Can you give your mind permission to step away and allow the soul and spirit to take over? Do you have practices that separate the mind from the greater story? Your thoughts can be helpful, but sometimes they protect you from moving into an individuated experience. When you can discriminate, giving soul and spirit the same respect you give your conscious thoughts, you are approaching the state of the unio mentalis.

Mentally Yours,

🧠 🤓 ❤️

Allison

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