To make asem
Carefully purify lead with pitch and bitumen, or tin as well; mix cadmia and litharge in equal parts with the lead. Stir till the mixture becomes solid. It can be used like natural asem.
[Reduction in the furnace must here also be assumed. The soft white alloy so obtained must have been a cheap and poor substitute for electrum or silver.]

the theatre of terrestrial astronomy

I will speak first of the inventors and restorers of the Art;
secondly, of the mutual conversion of elements, and how through the predominance of one element the substance of metals is generated;
thirdly, I will shew the affinity and homogeneity of metals, procreated in the bowels of the earth, their sympathies and antipathies, according to the purity and impurity of their Sulphur and Mercury; and that as metals consist of Sulphur and Mercury, they can furnish us with the first matter of the Elixir;
4thly, the preparation of Mercurial water;
5thly, the conversion of prepared Mercury into Mercurial earth;
6thly, the exaltation of Mercurial water;
7thly, the solution of gold by Mercurial water;
8thly, the preparation of the water or Moon of the Sages;
9thly, the conjunction of sun and moon;
10thly, the blackness, or Raven's Head, by means of which the solution and copulation of Sun and Moon do both take place;
11thly, the peacock's tail;
12thly, the white Tincture;
13thly, the perfect red Elixir.

colours to be observed in the operation of the great work

This is contained in Aurifontina Chymica: or, a collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers, for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) Mercury. Which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest, for the benefit of Mankind in general. London, 1680.


YOU must expect to have it exceeding Black, within 40 days after you have put your Composition into the Glass over the Fire; if it be not black, proceed no further, for it is unrecoverable: it must be as black as the Ravens Head, and must continue a long time, and not utterly to lose it during five months.
If it be Orange colour, or half Red, within some small time after you have begun your Work, without doubt your Fire is too hot; for these are tokens that you have burnt the Radical humour and vivacity of the Stone.
Know ye not, that you may have Black or anything mixed or compounded together with moisture: But you must have Black which must come and proceed of Perfect Metalline Bodies, by a real Putrefaction, and to continue a long time.
As for the colours of Blew and Yellow, they signifie that the Solution and Putrefaction is not yet perfectly finished, and that the colours of our Mercury are not yet well mingled with the rest.
The Black aforesaid is an evident sign, that in the beginning the Matter and Composition doth begin to purge it self, and to dissolve into small Powder, less than the Motes in the Sun; or a glutinous Water, which feeling the heat, will ascend and descend in the Glass: at length it will thicken and congeal, and become like Pitch, exceeding Black; in the end it will become a Body, and Earth, which some call Terra foetida; for then by reason of the perfect Putrefaction, it will have a scent or stink like unto Graves newly opened, wherein the Bodies are not thorowly consumed. Hermes doth call it Terra foliis, but the proper name is Leton, which must be blanched and made white.
This blackness doth manifest a Conjunction of the Male and Female, or rather of the four Elements.
Orange colour then doth shew that the Body hath not yet had sufficient digestion, and that the humidity (whereof the colours of Black, Blew, and Azure do come) is but half overcome by the dryness.
When dryness doth predominate, then all will be white Powder: It first beginneth to whiten round about the outward sides of the Glass; the Ludus Philosophorum doth say, that the first sign of perfect whiteness, is the appearing of a little hoary circle passing upon the Head, shewing it self round about the Matter on the outward sides of the Glass, in a kind of Citrine colour.

(from alchemywebsite.com)

alchemical processes

Calcination
Dissolution
Separation
Conjunction
Fermentation
Distillation
Coagulation

I asked Philosophy how I should,
Have of her the thing I would,
She answered me, when I was able,
To make the Water malleable,
Or else the way, if I could find,
To measure out a yard of wind:
Then shall you have your own desire,
When you can weigh an ounce of Fire,
Unless you can do these three,
Content yourself, you will not get me.

rock salt

Rock salt,
polished-bronze.
Your colors are black and silver, gold and mica-schist.

You are very old,
and description of you must be succinct.

You have become too sharp
in my heart (black-lit).

When I breathe in
you entangle my thoughts.
When I exhale, you lodge yourself
like sharp pebbles in the soft parts of my heart.

I am sad like a storm
brooding over trees,
fuming soft like clouds,
(releasing rain over fields).

You have covered your mouth onto mine,
like a death-lid,
faint taste of blood-metal in the rain.

I asked to be struck,
Thorough-core,
Lit-match
(now I am filled with sparks).

I remember only through shininess and dark—
through opals, and grey glittering gems,
Glance-lit.

You are Shapeshifter:
Dark smoke--
Written-on--
Polished stone.

I am embers ground,
Shavings curled in the fire:
Black sand then glass--
rock-peeled--
stone-schist--
(black alchemist).

(elg 2010)

prostrate by steps

prostrate by steps
(mount meru measured by your body)

we are on the same journey
(etching over of an older one)
that is slowly coming into focus, like ink spreading,
like black blood smoke feathered into water
pooled.

I hear your quietness,
my love,
but instead of
such folded reticence as you seem to give,
(dark reverance)
lies the very shape of surrender.

the loudest sounds
are your heartbeats,
(each-time, quietest-close, in-breath)
like scudded black fruits
on wet ground, apples fallen under their tree,
contraction and retraction of breath,
crabapples rotting in the rain,
(coldest air of before-morning),
under-breathing.

there is a spider-system of deep wells
and hidden passageways just under your house, (set so lightly on the earth):
black channels spread like webs,
wet reservoir unseen,
waiting for you to fall through.

(elg 2010)