I. Birth, the Virgin and the Great Mother

Birth, the Virgin and the Great Mother

"Through the spirit received from on high, the earth hatches the minerals in her womb as the mother her unborn child. This invisible spirit is like the reflection in a mirror, intangible, yet it is at the same time the root of all the substances necessary to the alchemical process or arising therefrom."

Basileus Valentinus (15th century) paraphrased by Jung (2005)

Titus Burckhardt draws a parallel between the materia prima and the Virgin Mary. Here lies a clue as to the archaic significance of the meaning of “virginity”, in relation to nature which was once perceived as divine, and thus possibly explains how Christian belief would eventually identify this perception with the ‘Mother of God’. This notion of spirit and matter combining as single entity, and signifying the potential for transformation of materials as well as the soul is a unifying conceptualisation.

La Vièrge Ouvrante

"Nature has neither core nor skin, She’s both at once, outside and in."

Johann Wolfgang von Göethe