Lately, I'm intrigued by the idea and process of "alchemy." Funk & Wagnall tell us, alchemy is a transformation, "a change in nature, form or quality." Michael Brown author of "Alchemy of the Heart: Transform Turmoil into Peace through Emotional Integration," says in order to make these changes and become a true "alchemist of the heart" we must first make the internal adjustments. This in effort to change our outward experience. I tend to agree with him.

So how to take charge of your own personal alchemy? For me, it's always been about making changes through rediscovering my relationship with mind, body and spirit. Brown takes this one step further and begins our journey by asking leading questions. The answers, as we understand them, will create the framework which can bring about an awareness within us. I'm sure he won't mind if I share these questions, here with you. He asks:

1.) What Am I?

2.) What Is God For Us?

3.) Where Am I Now? (p.11)

For me, It's easy to feel overwhelmed when thinking about the process of making a personal overhaul. Brown helps us all overcome this obstacle by creating a pathway for us to follow. For once we've identified what these questions mean to us, we can then embark on what he calls the "Pathway Of Awareness." As I understand it, the Pathway Of Awareness calls us to give up all of our preconceived notions about our outward experience. It leads us instead to discover within an already developed energetic pathway. Once we connect and understand how this pathway evolves for each one of us, we are well on our way to opening our hearts.

Where does this pathway come from? Brown tells us this pathway is within us from birth. It runs, as well, from the "emotional, to the mental to the physical." Therefore, it's important to break each of these ideas down to their least common denominators. To do this, Brown shows, we must recall our life's stories. To create alchemy we must allow our experience to be our greatest teacher.

Once we've reached a certain age of maturity then, we naturally begin to understand the stories that happen to us. In what Brown calls an "indigenous" type experience we can begin to integrate these story lines into our lives and will, as a result, soon reach a turning point. He explains some of the process in these words:

"As a species, we have trodden our way wearily through the world of manufacturing and have now arrived at the doorway to the consciousness of creativity. Whereas manufacture is the art of manipulating and adjusting the exterior, creativity is the art of mastering the interior...

Our current confusion arises out of standing with one foot in each of these worlds. We are still trying to do mentally and physically what only the heart can accomplish. We are still trying to do collectively what can only be accomplished individually.

We are still trying to feel better, when we are not being asked to get better at feeling. (p. 93)"

Brown continues his book to completion by walking us through the process of what it means to truly "feel." And in doing so teaches readers how they can become better at this art of feeling. In my opinion, if you invest the time and are willing to open your heart, soul and mind, you will find Brown's book full of beautiful parables. These are all life lessons that in the end will help you improve your daily experience. Taken as a whole: Alchemy of The Heart is a treatise on right living, and the art of transforming ourselves and others through this process.

Taken in short sips, however, each chapter also offers up a lesson of higher learning. This by the direct use of our thoughts to meet the intention and desired outcome of our life's journey. To conclude, Brown reminds us, the end result is not always as we expect, but it is what is right and what is true. Therefore, if you are searching for a life with greater meaning, Brown's ideas may just be the missing pieces, you've been looking for.

Laura M. Turne

When we allow our heart to work it's alchemy we can turn our pain into peace, grief into joy and anger into serenity.....such is the central message of this brilliantly conceived and written book by author Michael Brown.
But is it all too good to be true?

When I began this book my heart was heavy and sad....in eighteen months I had lost a lot of members of my family, my husband was in hospital, my knee was throbbing with the pain of pulled hamstrings and my daughter had just split with her partner. I had spent a restless, tearful night and was cross and tired and so low I could reach up to touch rock bottom!

This book arrived on my doorstep and I started to read it over breakfast......and elevenses and lunch.....Such is the structure of the book that you can just read and read as it carries you forward, exploring yourself and your actions and reactions to your world and life as it goes. It is in no way patronising and does not dwell on religion ( it was my fear that it might ) except to perhaps awaken the element of God within us all.

Changing my self and the way to release my own `alchemy' will take practise.....a lot of years of bad habits, mind sets....childhood training to be good!...have gone into me, but sitting here now as darkness approaches, I feel that I have spent a very useful day in reading this book, a day that has changed my life.

It will also change yours.

D. M. Milne

Alchemy of the Heart is about feeling – feeling everything to live peacefully. Author Michael Brown acknowledges the difficulty for most of us to feel, especially uncomfortable emotions. His “deliberately designed perceptual journey” explains what happens when we experience turmoil, pain, and unhappiness and offers insights into transforming all of these uncomfortable feelings into living an authentic life, one of peace and joy.

Our awareness , our essence as humans, is vibrational, he tells us, and communicates to the heart as emotions. “The Pathway to Awareness” is from vibrational (our essence) to emotional to mental to physical. The heart communicates feelings to the mind and the mind communicates these feelings, as thoughts, to the body. When we suppress our emotional content, he says, “we suppress our capacity to feel.” This capacity to feel is life, manifested through our mind and then our body. “It is the heart that feels,” Brown says. Heart awareness is “felt-perception,” the “ability to feel the consequences of our thoughts, words and deeds.” The quality of our experience is how we feel about what is happening. Brown asserts that this heart awareness is closed off “between the ages of seven and fourteen” and by the time we are adults, “functions primarily from thought-perception.”

The experience of life cannot be understood as our mind understands, Brown explains. The mental body is where we “establish our belief system,” where we create our “stories.” Experiencing life must be felt rather than understood. The emotional aspect of an experience is the causal point; the mental aspect is “the corridor from the emotional into the physical;” the physical is the point of manifestation. Fear, anger, and grief are “the dysfunctional resonances of the emotional body.” Addressing fear, which originates in the emotional body, is key to dealing with anger and grief, which manifest in the mental and physical bodies, respectively. Getting to “the heart of the matter” empowers us to fully experience life. According to Brown , “The Pathway to Awareness” is integrating our vibrational, emotional, mental, and physical aspects and is achieved through intimacy with all of them. This experience of intimacy “awakens us to what the experience of life really is.”

Michael BrownThroughout the book, Brown utilizes plays on words such as “real eyes” (realize) and “into-me-and-see (intimacy) as tools to help “see things in a different light and understand them at a deeper level.” This “vocabulary of the mind,” he says, impacts emotionally and creates an “opening of awareness.” Brown’s writing is often technical, though the book is assembled in short paragraphs, pages, and chapters. I found it preferable to read several pages and let it ‘sink in’ before reading on. I must admit that even when my mind didn’t quite understand something, I experienced feelings as I read. I connected on a vibrational level with this book.

Joy, Brown offers, is about “feeling everything” and allowing life to just be. It all comes from and returns to the heart. Alchemy of the Heart guides reader to feel all feelings and let them go in order to live in the present moment, from the heart. Allow this book to "inspire, challenge, trigger, and question" your own experience of life.

Donna Baker Church
Merlian News