Heart of Gold

I saw an IG post this week (@megoneill10) with this line:

“I'm an energetic, magical person. And when something uncomfortable lands in my life I don't just survive it - I alchemize it.”

“Alchemize it”

The Alchemist 

“To change by alchemy : transmute”

That’s the definition of “alchemize.” 

“Alchemy” is defined as such: “a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life.” 

And also: “a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way.”

These past couple of years have involved me trying to impressively change my life. The impressively part isn’t the important bit. That’s not the goal. But I feel like if I make the changes I want to make then it will be noteworthy. 

Anyway, the whole process of improving my situation has led me back to bouldering and bouldering development. I’ve rearranged my life in such a way that it’s possible and desirable again. In that sense I am the alchemist. 

My life is really good right now. The changes have allowed me the mental and emotional space to approach bouldering as a discipline again. Specifically bouldering development. 

All those ages ago when I was prolifically developing pebble wrasslin’ around home I had begun to see it as an almost religious rite. I went to the stones to commune with the infinite. To celebrate being alive and awake to the world around me. I still had hope for the future laced through with a shrinking naïveté that I was normal and the built world was a good place with a few problems. 

I’ve taken some hard ground falls since then. I discovered I am neurodivergent. At 32 years old I made the discovery that I have ADHD. My academics struggles were almost finished at that point. It seemed too little, too late. And not early enough for me to factor it in to my career planning. Or life planning. So I became a Planner. What irony.

I failed in my first effort at a professional career. Ran tuck-tail home when the edges started to crumble. 

Then there was the marriage and the aftermath. It could have been worse, but it was not good. I managed to keep my house. I managed to keep my kids. I lost dignity. I lost years. I lost confidence. I lost my good health. I lost my energy and my passion. I stopped planning and keeping life lists. I lost my way. 

So I turned to the kind of alchemy I knew well: introspection. I went deep into the darkness of my own soul to find the answers. What I found didn’t shock me. 

I’m relearning my old patterns—the ones that served me well. I’m finding my space in the world again. I’m rediscovering old emotions and thought streams. I finally feel like the person I was before all the darkness; the person I thought had died. 

It turns out—it seems—as if he was just dormant, hiding within himself and protecting what was most important. So I have alchemized myself to turn a leaden heart back to gold. 

This blunt arete I’ve been working the last week is an apt candidate for the problem name of “The Alchemist.” I’ve borrowed it from the Paolo Coelho novel obviously, and it hit hard when I read it, but really it’s been the process I’ve been going through since July of 2024. 

That’s when I started making real changes in my life. I solo backpacked Rough Trail, and then went on to the Pine Mountain Trail. I changed relationships. I changed jobs. I went to Wyoming and solo climbed Cloud Peak and then bagged a slew of state highpoints on the way home. Then I went to New England and had the best road trip of my life. And I’m now with the person I should have always been with. That’s a whole story unto itself. 

All of those changes alone would constitute a successful transmutation from trash into gold. For me, the physical expression of all of this is to go out, visualize a line up the rock, and then make my body flow and conform with the canvas nature has provided. To commune with stone. To justify myself in the world. 

I have not sent this line yet. I know I can. I know I will. 

First photo showed original beta
In this one I was trying a more
straight-on approach