Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

In life we are asked to grow up. The physical aspect comes naturally, as does the mental maturation to a large degree.

The emotional growing up we need to do comes only partly naturally, the rest requiring self-confrontation.

We are asked to face up to our emotional immaturity and move beyond childish reactivity into constructive response to the people and situations that provoke us.

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

In a section of Alchemy of the Heart entitled Physically Trance Fixed, on page 29, Michael points out that newborns see the world differently from adults. They haven’t yet learned to make the world solid.

He comments:

Their world appears to them as constant energy in motion.

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

We all amass karma in life, which is simply cause and effect. But in Alchemy of the Heart Michael Brown asks a pertinent question:

Where is this good and bad karma stored? Where is the causal point of the unfolding consequences that determine the resonances of the physical, mental, and emotional components of our life experience?

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

If someone you are acquainted with is walking by and doesn't acknowledge you, do you tell yourself a story about the incident?

Many of us do, and for the obvious reason that we tend to think about things. Why didn’t they speak? Didn’t they see us? Have we done something to upset them?

We analyze and analyze, going over all the factors, until we come up with a convincing story. Now we have the person’s action pegged.

We all tell ourselves stories in our head at times, which often has the effect of entrapping us in drama.

We buy into our story, and this colors how we see the people and events we encounter each day. We no longer experience things as they really are, but through our particular colored lens.

In Alchemy of the Heart, Michael Brown doesn’t ask us to suppress our stories or stop telling them to ourselves. That’s almost impossible to do. Rather, he asks us to integrate the energy that’s involved.

Michael writes:

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

It doesn't take much to see that we've got a problem with many of our youth today. In the main, our teens don’t learn the ways of a mature person.

On page 2 of Alchemy, Michael Brown states:

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

Have you noticed how many people in our western societies have rings on various body parts? Many also have tattoos.

In one form or another, body piercing is popular today, especially with young people.

In Alchemy of the Heart, Michael Brown suggests this is significant. He comments:

The nature of our human experience is that we continue to do what we are supposed to do whether we are aware we are doing it or not.

Insight from Michael Brown’s Alchemy of the Heart

We might not generally be aware of this, but at some point in the past we all came from indigenous cultures.

At that time in our evolution, we were deeply embedded in nature, whose rhythms had a powerful effect on our everyday lives. We attuned ourselves to these rhythms instead of racing helter-skelter through our days as if nature didn’t have an affect on us any longer.