Following on from our first conversation, Jen and I explore how culture skews us towards pathologically trying to fix ourselves, and the sighs of relief that come when we put down the glaring searchlights; coming into and tending to our inner houses with care and gentleness even amidst collapse, dismantling, mess, renovation, reconstruction, and expansion; the importance of “trusting the alchemy of your own house” such that it becomes a safe and unconditionally loving place to be; and the usefulness of understanding the dark night as a non-linear process of alchemical transformation.

In addition, we talk about Jen’s experience of chronic pain, and how being in a broken body – her spine held together with hardware – is a spiritual threshold, a portal into her inner world; how the forced descent into broken-bodiedness has been an initiation into a different kind of presence; and how the realities of physical pain and disabilities are often overlooked (or worse) in spiritual teachings and communities. We also touch into destruction in the service of creation; the “particular signature scent of healing and unfolding” that every human being has; and the pain, awe, and wonder of being in the space of “even this.”

Jen Peer Rich,PhD is an author, artist, and alchemist whose work explores healing, multiplicity, and the spiritual architecture of selves. Her debut memoir, The Alchemy of Being a House: A Memoir About The Body That Broke, The Voice That Barked, and The Home That Became Us, is the first in a series of intimate, genre-defying books tracing the nonlinear path of trauma integration and homecoming. With a background in ecological philosophy and decades of lived experience as a disabled, queer caregiver, Jen brings a rare blend of insight, humor, and radical compassion to her storytelling. 

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops for therapists and counsellors.

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Mentions

We refer to the seven stages of spiritual alchemy, which are: calcination (burning), dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, and coagulation.

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Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit