'Crux Crucible'
"This Is The Crux": Regarding Death
A few years ago I juxtaposed the words and concepts of the "crux" and the "crucible" to form a personal, alchemical symbol. In the light of recent readings and events, I have a renewed appreciation for and a deeper comprehension of the meaning of this symbolism. I had before associated this symbol with transformation and change. I now associate it with a complete transformation on the level of death and consequent rebirth. At the time I created the symbol, I had no inkling of the potential future significance this symbol would hold for me. I was merely playing with ideas when I put those two words together and conceived a visual image to correspond.
In life we face death in many forms. We see around us the obvious physical deaths of family, friends, pets, plants, and animals. We watch the yearly drama of cyclic seasonal death as summer gives way to fall and winter. In addition to these, death hides behind a mask when it takes on more subtle and symbolic forms. These forms would be the passing and withering of old attitudes, opinions, beliefs. At times we may experience and grieve the mortality of a love affair, or the wasting away of a lifestyle or mode of living to which we have become emotionally attached. I have gained an insight of how at each of these deaths, whether physical or spiritual, within us or outside our being, something new is born. As the old passes away, it leaves a cradle for the new.
This, for me, is the meaning of the 'Crux Crucible': It is the crossing of paths where transformation occurs and new directions are taken by the forms created from within the clay cup heated by the spiritual fire. As we confront death, and even as we embrace it's inevitability, we have the opportunity to innoculate ourselves to the fear of our own mortality. I say this because being touched and transformed by death on so many various levels throughout our lives gives us the requisite experiencial evidence to reassure us that death is not an end, but a new beginning. What exactly it is the beginning of, we may not know. To know would disperse the mystery and suspense which keeps death so interestingly vital. Death is the gravity which pulls us through life and weights our actions with significance. Crux Crucible is the process of a new awareness revealed and a purpose revised.
-L. R. Haynes, December 22, 2010.
