So I read an article by Dr Dylan Hoffman on the Rebelle Society site earlier today. I'm still sitting at my desk in a state of burning grace. 

He called the article 'Having Faith in the Fire. The Art of Alchemical Transformation'. 

He had me at 'Fire'.

It's hard to explore the Alchemical without inquiring into fire. Fire sits at the heart of Alchemy. As Dr Hoffman puts it

'None of (their) processes or materials mattered at all without what the Alchemists called The Secret Fire, and this secret fire was Desire, the flame at work in the laboratory of the soul... fire does the work, fire is the process, fire is the medium, and fire finds the gold.

'Nothing happens without fire or without desire. Nothing melts. Nothing evaporates or circulates. Our habits stay solidified; our perspectives remain hardened and cold.'

Our perspectives remain hardened and cold. That's what I'd call a biggie.

If we believe that our Development - and in particular our Vertical Development - is predicated to a significant degree on the quality of our ability to identify and sit in the shoes of multiple perspectives outside of our own before generatively integrating them all in order to find a new way of better understanding ourselves, our context and our relationships - well, 'hardened and cold' probably isn't going to cut it!

'Our task', says Dr Hoffman, 'is to feel for the heat and follow the flame.' How's that for a coaching approach? I'm sitting here asking myself how I feel about being the guy who who can hold space while my client walks into the fire. 

The fire of Desire. The fire that captures curiosity. Draws and ignites longing and love. Burns through the mundane, stirs the heart, draws the attention. Generates hope and possibility.

In Hoffman's words 'the soul is always already working on us... drawing our attention to where transformation wants to happen. Our task is to feel for the heat and follow the flame.' 

Alchemical Coaching, to my understanding, offers and nurtures the spaciousness that encourages our clients to feel and follow. 

He asks 'What if everything is consumed, burned through, lost in the ashes of unquenchable longing? What if nothing remains — my identity, relationships, career, or plans for the future?'

Alchemical coaching, as I see it, offers our clients the perspectives of Lacan, Žižek, Dr Simon Western and others as doorways into a deeper understanding of their desire, and stands beside them as they look into the flames and align themselves closer and closer to what the flame cannot consume.

'That,' says Dr Hoffman, 'is what the alchemists were searching for. The alchemists had faith in the secret fire. They had faith that there is some place in us, some inner substrate, some substance of the soul that will not burn away.'

Ah now, holding space for our clients to find that substance of the soul - that feels like great Coaching to me.

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