Women on Fire an Alchemy View or is it Art

Women on Fire
an Alchemy View
or is it Art

Like Water for Chocolate
a book in 1989 by Laura Esquivel
became a movie in 1992 by Alfonso Arau

link to the movie...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103994/
Original Title: "Como Agua para Chocolate"

"title refers to a colloquial phrase used by the Spanish that means an extremity of feeling.
It refers to a boiling point in terms of anger, passion and sexuality."

link to the book...
http://www.amazon.com/Like-Water-Chocolate-Installments-Romances/dp/038542017X



book cover in the USA


link to her other books...
http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Esquivel/e/B000AQ0UHC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
(I think I'd like to read "Between Two Fires: Intimate Writings on Live, Love, Food & Flavor" a book of hers from 2001)

link to a book of essays about her fictions...
http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Esquivels-Mexican-Fictions-Chocolate/dp/1845194101
(edited by Elizabeth Moore Willingham...if you really/Really want to know more...as I've seen the price of this book from $44 up to $69?!)

link about the author...
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/8751-like-water-for-chocolate-esquivel?start=1
(from Lit Lovers...adapted from Wikipedia - am not sure why it dates the movie at 1994 when have read 1992, but then in other references in 1993...maybe something to do with in Spanish then in translated/subtitled...)

link to a bio about the author...
http://www.biography.com/people/laura-esquivel-185854

link to Wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Water_for_Chocolate

link to SparkNotes...
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/likewater/

link to Sunday Observer about Como Agua para Chocolate...
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2010/05/23/mon20.asp




author photo from articlea:
Boom & Beyond by Claudia Anderson

one more link to what Encyclopedia has to say about the novelist...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3433700032.html

Note: there is a younger TV girl named the same as the author only a different middle name so ignore all mentions of her if you can...

lastly the link to the recipes - because every chapter in Like Water for Chocolate begins with a recipe
http://www.kitchenlink.com/mf/15/1226
(taking note that even tho all the chapters are named after the months of the calendar, I'm told they don't necessarily follow the months of the year in the events in the chapters)

Christmas Rolls
Quail in RosePetal Sauce *a famous scene in the movie
Turkey Mole with Almonds & Sesame Seeds
Northern Style Chorizo
Champandongo
Chocolate & Three Kings Day Bread
Three Kings Day Bread
Cream Fritters


and here in 2013 on April 7, a Sunday
a lecture by the CG Jung Society of Lafayette
the speaker: Charlene Henry

a Jungian Psychotherapist
with a MSW, LCSW & currently a Diploma Candidate
at the Centre for Research & Study in Depth Psychology
according to CG Jung & Marie Louise Von Franz
in Zurich, Switzerland

link to the Research & Training Center for Depth Psychology according to C.G. Jung & Marie-Louise Von Franz...
http://www.centre-dp.org/index.php?id=2&L=2

link to C.G. (Carl Gustav) Jung Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
(I think I may want to know more about Emma Jung, his wife, as she was a psychoanalyst & author...link to her Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Jung )

link to the CG Jung Society of Lafayette...
http://cgjunglafayettela.org/?page_id=2

link to another Jung talk by Charlene Henry on this same subject at Chapman Univ last year...
http://www.junginoc.org/2012-12-02.htm
(note: consider the drawing of the book cover Like Water for Chocolate on this webpage, different than any other I've seen so far)

link to a different talk at the CG Jung Society of Baton Rouge - on Synchronicity the CG Jung Society of New Orleans...
http://www.jungneworleans.org/images/BRFall08.pdf
(her talk entitled: "The Spindle, The Shuttle and The Needle: An Interpretation of the Tale by the Brothers Grimm")

regarding the Alchemy View

image from carl-jung.net webpage under Jung & Alchemy...
http://www.carl-jung.net/alchemy.html
(note: Charlene Henry in her lecture also used this same image among her many during her multi-media presentation of Like Water for Chocolate: An Alchemy View)

link to an Alchemy Website...
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/index.html

link to Wiki - Alchemy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

link to a blog & more about Alchemy but especially the imagery used...
http://taicarmen.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/alchemy-an-allegorical-map-to-consciousness-transmutation/
(or as well Google Image Alchemy & see what all comes up... the 2nd image in this blog used was also one in Charlene Henry's lecture/multi-media presentation of Like Water for Chocolate: An Alchemy View)



Contemporary Artists influenced by Alchemy...
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/contemp_artists.html


Handout from the speaker - Charlene Henry - An Alchemy View - Like Water for Chocolate...

Alchemical Terms

Chaos - the state of confusion & disorder
Prima materia - is the basic material that arises out of the chaos & upon which the work is done
Opus - the work & the processes of alchemy
Laboratory - the place or setting where the work is done
Vas or Vessel - container which holds the prima material & in which the work is done
Elements - basics of all mater (system used from Green times thru the Renaissance)
All matter is a combination of these: Earth, Air, Fire, Water

Properties of Elements - cold, hot, wet, dry

Earth (cold, dry)
Air (hot, moist)
Fire (hot, dry)
Water (cold, moist)

*Hellenic Physics - there is a drawing of this, a square within a diamond shape & each triangle of each corner is the element & between them the properties...(see below)

States of Alchemy -

Nigredo (black) - the darkest phase
Albedo (white) - the purified stage
Rubedo (red) - the stage of adding blood & feeling
[my note: she excluded (yellow) Citrinitus...perhaps because it didn't pertain to this story]

Alchemical Operations - are the processes that prima materia goes thru
each operation had a specific function that can be looked at both materially & psychologically
they do not appear or occur in any particular order

1) Calcination - assoc w/fire
    M (material aspect) drying or burning things to ash
    P (psychological aspect) taking all emotions out of complexes

2) Solutio - assoc w/water
    M dissolving material to its undifferentiated form
    P a softening or dissolving of rigid patterns & ideas

3) Coagulatio - assoc w/earth
     M taking a fixed form or shape - ex: water becomes ice
      P something becomes concretized & attached to our egos (we get it & it becomes a part of us)

4) Sublimatio - assoc w/air
    M material turns into gaseous form
     P to move from concrete to symbolic way of seeing

5) Mortificatio - assoc w/rotting & death
     M decomposition of matter
     P dealing w/the shadow & evil, the death of the egocentric ego, precedes new life

6) Separatio - to divide or pull apart
     M dividing material into its component parts (H2O - oxygen, hydrogen)
      P discrimination, awareness of opposites - I - Other

7) Coniunctio - wholly new 3rd substance
     P a creative resolution of conflict thru the transcendent function
        a untion of the conscious & the unconscious

     Lesser Coniunctio - joining of 2 things that are not ready to be united
     this leads to mortificatio "back to the drawing board"
    
   Greater Coniunctio - the goal of the work
     out of the 2 comes something new which is the 3rd

Fire - 4 degrees of fire used:
1) Intense, powerful - Calcinatio (Aries)
2) Gentle - Solutio (Cancer)
3) Medium - Sublimatio (Libra)
4) Constant & Lukewarm - Putrefaction/aspects of Mortificatio (Capricorn) 

Basic Principles...at play - paradoxical & multi-faceted, they cross over

1) Salt - related to the body because it is a solid (Paracelsus)
    as soul it prevades all things (Jung)

2) Sulphur - "with its property of greasy, oily combustibility it mediates in the position of the soul"
   (Paracelsus/The Hermetic Museum p 28)
   as spirit it ignites (Jung)

3) Mercury - the fluid principle w/a tendency towards spirit the volatile intellect (Paracelsus)
    as body it is the prima material & "the stone" (Jung)



*
link to the full wiki where I found the drawing for the Hellenic Physics...
http://www.thefullwiki.org/Classical_element




(my note: find it interesting that there is mention this was made with the qualities of the Mediterranean climate by the Greeks, so perhaps in other areas there may not be these qualities to the elements)

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a total aside re: women on fire...

Girl on Fire - Alicia Keys
http://youtu.be/J91ti_MpdHA

Fire Woman - The Cult
http://youtu.be/qavSfl1jATU


Women on Fire book
Women on Fire retreat
Women on Fire organization

The Girl on Fire
Hunger Games - Katniss Everdeen - that red dress aflame at her hem, after the chariot entrance w/flames behind her head...

YouTube by Hunger Gamz of the scene in the red dress...
http://youtu.be/S2sXXG3tTaI






woman holding fire sculpture from Burning Man 2009 - photograph - DeClan McCullagh...
http://www.mccullagh.org/photo/1ds3-3/woman-holding-fire-sculpture
(but who made this sculpture??)



link to someone else who went to Burning Man 2009 & took a photo of the Woman Holding Fire, but again no credit to the artist/s who made her...
http://ablogawayfromhome.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html