Spiritual Alchemy

The light this morning is delicious, streaming in our windows and igniting everything from dust motes to dog hair with a sort of transcendent luminescence. There's an alchemical quality to morning sunlight, especially after a long winter, that turns everything it touches to gold while at the same time intensifying all colors; it brings to mind this lovely passage from Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism:

"The proper art of the Spiritual Alchemist... is the production of the spiritual and only valid tincture or Philosopher's Stone; the mystic seed of transcendental life which should invade, tinge, and wholly transmute the imperfect self into spiritual gold... the Concealed Stone of Many Colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it... it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune."