Allison Adams

30x40: Oil on Canvas 2022 $2000

Oil on Canvas

12x24" each

2022

12x16” oil on canvas, 2022 $600

Pelican represents Sacrifice in old European symbolism. There was a myth that a starving mother pelican would pierce her breast and feed her young with her own blood. There is no science behind this but you can see old churches embellished with this symbol as a reminder of Christ's sacrifice. One of the early Imbolic vessels of alchemical experiment was called the Pelican after this symbol. Early chemists thought it looked a lot like the bird's neck reaching down into itself to bring forth more life from its own resource. This vessel allowed the elements inside to distill itself over and over by creating a circular flow within.

12x16” Oil on Board, 2022 $550

Citrinitas (the Yellowing) is a stage in classic alchemical process, when it bridges from the transcendent and separated Albedo (Whitened) stage toward the final Rubedo (Reddened) stage. The Peacock was chosen by the alchemists as a symbol for this stage, as its flash of sudden color and the illuminated eyes of its tail see the illusion of all that was understood before. Psychologically, the same happens with us, but now the imagination we've developed remains intact. And that's when we know we are finally moving toward the final stage of the process of any particular thing we might be going through

Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo

Raven, Swan, Phoenix

Blackening, Whitening, Reddening

Oil on canvas, 18x36” 2020 $1050

Bottled Up. (Demystifying Tears)

There are three different kinds of tears.

Basal Tears are a wash for our eyes

Reflex Tears fend off sensations like onions or smoke

Emotional tears are when emotions flood the system

All of them are important and made of salt-water.

Oil on canvas, 18x24" $900

5x7” acrylic on board, 2022 SOLD

✨I am not here to fix. I am here to create. ✨

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

5x7” Acrylic on Canvas 2022 $175

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

Friedrich Nietzsche

7x5” acrylic on board, 2023. $185

(10x8” prints $55)

7x5” Acrylic on Board, 2023. $185

(prints 10x8”: $55)

(Thoughts Become Things)

"Beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches."

James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

5x7” Acrylic on Canvas 2022 $175

“He lives most life whoever breathes most air.” ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browing

12x14” Acrylic on Paper, 2022 $350 (prints available)

Don't worry, it's just a stage. (All the world is a stage.😉

5x7 Acrylic on Board, 2022 $175

5x 7 acrylic on board, 2022, $175

“This is the first and principal benefit caused by this arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery.”

—St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

“We forget that the soul has its own ancestors.” — James Hillman

5x7: Acrylic on Board, 2023

$175

"I have always preferred the reflection of the life to life itself."

Francois Truffaut

5x7 acrylic on board, 2023 $180

"It's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." — Winston Churchill

5x7” Acrylic on Board. 2023

$175

5x7” acrylic on board, 2022, $175

5x 7 acrylic on board, 2022, $165

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” ~ William H. Gass

"The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea."

– Isak Dinesen

🛁🧿💙💦🌊

5x7” acrylic on canvas , 2022 $165

7x5” Acryclic on board, 2023. $185 (Print: $55)

"The process of dissociation is an elegant mechanism built into the human psychological system as a form of escape from (sometimes literally) going crazy. The problem with checking out so thoroughly is that it can leave us feeling dead inside, with little or no ability to feel our feelings in our bodies. The process of repair demands a re-association with the body, a commitment to dive into the body and feel today what we couldn’t feel yesterday because it was too dangerous."

—Alexandra Katehakis

“The principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos itself is self-organizing. Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbit; rivers make their way to the sea.”

— Steven Pressfield

7x5” Acrylic on Board, 2023. $175

"So important was the rose to alchemists of the Renaissance that dozens of manuscripts are called 'Rosarium,' Latin for Rose Garden, and all deal with the alchemical relationship between the King and Queen.

The White Queen represents the universal feminine essence of soul, the Red King represents the universal masculine essence of spirit."

— Dennis William Hauck

"The more gratefully we fix our minds on the Supreme when good things come to us, the more good things we will receive, and the more rapidly they will come; and the reason simply is that the mental attitude of gratitude draws the mind into closer touch with the source from which the blessings come.”

—Wallace P. Wattles

5x7 acrylic on board, 2022 $175

The Rebis (from the Latin res bina, meaning double matter) is the end product of the alchemical "great work." After one has gone through putrefaction and purification, separating opposing qualities, those qualities are united once more in what is sometimes described as the divine hermaphrodite—a reconciliation of spirit and matter, a being of both male and female qualities as indicated by the two heads within a single body.

(Wikipedia)

"Are you consuming or being consumed?"

The green lion eating the sun is an ancient metaphor for our consciousness being overwhelmed by frustrated desires. This can often fuel Depression. It's another stage on the way to the Gold. The sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) eats everything else away.

5x7” Acrylic on Canvas 2022 $175

5x7” acryla-gouache on Board $175, 2023

"The most outstanding qualities of (alchemical) salt are bitterness and wisdom.

Tears and sorrow and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering.

Where there is bitterness, wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is, there can be no bitterness. Salt, as the carrier of this fateful alternative, is co-ordinate with the nature of women."

—CJ Jung

Metamorphosis. Break down to come together. Decompose then recompose. Dissolve and congeal. Solve et coagula.

5x7” acrylic on board, 2023

$165

8x11 prints are $55

"Nature is the physician of diseases.”

—Hippocrates 🌱

7x5” acrylic on board, 2023. $175

12x16” acryla gouache on paper $350 (prints are available), 2022

The Portuguese call it saudade: a longing for something so indefinite as to be indefinable. It describes a wistfulness, an ache for a person or place or experience that once brought great pleasure. It is akin to nostalgia but, unlike nostalgia, one can feel saudade for something that’s never happened, and likely never will.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." —Jimmi Hendrix

5x7 Acrylic on Board, 2022 $165

"All things come into being by conflict of opposites." —Heraclitus

"The unifying of opposites is the eternal process." —Mary Parker Follett

5x7 Acrylic on Board, 2023 $175

Argentum/Silver was the reflective metal associated with the moon.

5x7” Acrylic on board, 2023

$165

“Who reminds you to breathe and to beat your heart? Something is there, taking care...”

— Mooji

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”—Albert Einstein

"This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence...a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related." —Plato

7x5” acrylic on board, 2023, $185

(10x8” prints $55)

"The word meditatio is used when a man has an inner dialogue with someone unseen. It may be with God, when he is invoked, or with himself, or with his good angel. When the alchemists speak of meditation they do not mean mere cognition but explicitly an inner dialogue and hence a living relationship to the answering voice of the other in ourselves."

Carl Jung

"One is confronted with the spiritual experience when one is absolutely human." —Carl Jung

7x5” acrylic on board, 2023 $185

5x7 oil on board, 2022 $165

5x7” Oil on Board, 2022 $165

"Beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches."

James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

"When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter....He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites."

—C.G. Jung

Ouroboros

"Life lives on life. This the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else."

—Joseph Campbell

Venus and Copper carry the same symbol. Copper was the metal of hand-mirrors in the middle ages.

5x7” acrylic on board, 2023

$175

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."

—Bob Marley

8x10” acrylic on board, $175

"Fixing is the culmination of alchemy, and if you can bring off this trick then you possess our stone, the philosopher's stone, the lapis, the Sophic Hydrolith of the Wise...There were hundreds of control words for naming the secret, difficult to attain."

Terrence McKenna

"Truth is the eternal struggle to wrest itself from untruth; not the achievement of correctness, but the process of dis-closure."

Martin Heidegger

(Aletheia is the ancient Greek word for truth, but that which becomes unconcealed, revealed.)

5x7” acrylic on board, 2023

$175

7x5: Acrylic on board, 2023 $175

(10x8” print $55)

"It is better we disintegrate in peace and not in pieces."

Nnamdi Azikiwe

New Phases, Multiplication, Regeneration

8x10 Prints available $55, 2023

“When a disastrous relationship occurs once, we may fool ourselves into believing it is chance; when it occurs twice, it has become a pattern, and a pattern is an unmistakable indication that the anima or animus is at work in the unconscious, propelling the helpless ego into relationships or situations which are baffling, painful, and frighteningly repetitive. Again, it is much wiser to look within oneself for the source of the pattern, rather than at the inherent failure of the opposite sex.” Liz Greene

5x7” Acrylic on Board, 2022 $175

"The Moth don't care if The Flame is real,

'Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal."

—Aimee Mann

To hope is to feel the presence of the inner sun. The inner sun is; the outer sun becomes. — Sri Chinmoy

Secrecy

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it."

Oscar Wilde

Catharsis: the purification or purgation of the emotions (especially pity and fear) primarily through art. In criticism, catharsis is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse “terror and pity” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions. His exact meaning has been the subject of critical debate over the centuries. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

"One love. One heart.

Let's get together and feel all right

As it was in the beginning

So shall it be in the end

Give thanks and praise to the Lord and we will feel all right

Let's get together and feel all right." ❤️ ☮️ 🌎

Bob Marley

"Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second."

Virginia Woolf

I fell into a burning ring of fire

I went down, down, down

And the flames went higher

And it burns, burns, burns

The ring of fire

—Johnny Cash

5x7” acrylic on board. $175

"In Medieval Europe the pelican was erroneously believed to feed her children with blood from her own pierced heart, an ancient belief that in times of famine the mother bird would sacrifice herself to feed her children or even to resurrect her dead young. No one knows quite how this belief came about but it’s possibly due to seeing the birds regurgitating food into the mouths of their young and tucking their bills into the feathers of their breast appearing to stab their heart. The pelican became a symbol for self-sacrifice and for the nurturing mother, as well as being associated with the Eucharist in Christian tradition. The “Pelican in Her Piety” (feeding her young) or the “Pelican Vulning” (wounding herself) is an image found on church facades, mozaics, murals and also used in European heraldry."

Mary MacGregor-Reid

"Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does."

—Margaret Atwood

"The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.

All things are connected like the blood that unites one family.

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.

Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

The earth is sacred and men and animals are but one part of it.

Treat the earth with respect so that it lasts for centuries to come and is a place of wonder and beauty for our children."

—Chief Seattle

"When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually, there is just one whole world."

- Shunryu Suzuki

"Fire is the voice of God, speaking in tongues. Fire is the liberator of water, slipping the earthly bonds. Fire is the memory of stone, being released to the heavens. Fire is the mother of the Earth, born of desire. Fire is the seducer of wind, dancing in abandon for its beloved. Fire is the illuminator, the protector, the destroyer, and the giver of all life."

—Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Quintessence

"The Quintessence is a thing that is spiritual, penetrating, tingeing, and incorruptible, which emerges from the four elements when they are bound together."

—Sir Isaac Newton

According to ancient and medieval science, aether, also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere.

Nigredo/Blackening

“When you see your matter going black, rejoice, you are at the beginning of the work.” — Rosarium Philosophorum

“There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.” ― Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Mixing other substances in the flask, the blackness of the matter eventually disappeared to make room for a whiteness called albedo. This sudden inversion of colors was a sign that the work was going in the right direction. Albedo was usually portrayed in the form of a White Eagle, Dove or Swan. It was also associated with silver, and the moon. The whitening was compared to the coming of dawn after a long night. This was a moment of rejoicing, of hope; it was a proof that darkness would not last forever." — Jo Hedeson

Rubedo

"In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn."

—Octavia Butler

The Cosmic Oven

5x7” oil on board, 2022, $175

"Your health is what you make of it. Everything you do and think either adds to the vitality, energy, and spirit you possess or takes away from it."

Ann Wigmore