The Alchemical Imagination 2024
9 Sessions
90 minutes every Sunday at 1pm EST from February 11th - April 7th, 2024
$120 - $250 sliding scale
Playbacks of each session are available for later viewing.
Over the course of the “Alchemical Imagination” we will use metaphors derived from ancient alchemy to elucidate deep structures in the creative imagination, using alchemical symbolism as a springboard to expand our own creative capacities. Together, we will look at alchemical texts and images from the healing practices of ancient China and India, the early chemical technologies of ancient Egyptian alchemists, the philosophies of the Islamic alchemists, the astrological symbol system of the Greeks, the Medieval magicians of Europe, C.G. Jung's discovery of alchemy as a basis for transpersonal psychology, and modern alchemical art and literature.
Participants will be prompted to produce an artwork related to alchemical processes each week: this can be writing, drawing, performance, contemplative practice - anything. At the end of seven weeks, we will show one another our work, and exhibit work online on the Golden Dome website in June of 2024.
In the end, we will have an understanding of how to apply methods of alchemical change-work to our creative processes so that we come into contact with our own “philosopher's stone.”
Participants will have access to a shared folder that contains texts and images from each session. This class is suitable for anyone with any type of creative practice who would like to learn to open it up both physically and metaphorically - you do not need to make artwork or present any artwork to participate.
"The Alchemical Imagination" is facilitated by Eliza Swann.
Eliza Swann is an interdisciplinary artist, intuitive, writer, educator, and community organizer based in New York. Eliza received a BA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA from Central St. Martins in London. Additionally, they have trained with a number of teachers in energy healing, Western Mystery traditions, Vedic cosmology and ancestral healing. Eliza has contributed critical writing to BOMB, Arthur, Contemporary Art Review LA, and Perfect Wave Magazines. Their book “The Anatomy of the Aura” was released by St. Martin’s Press in April 2020. Eliza is the founder of The Golden Dome School, a curatorial and educational platform that studies intersections of art, metaphysics and ecology.