The Becoming
In Poetic Alchemy
The Becoming is a poetry collection shaped by the ancient rhythm of alchemical transformation – through fire, water, air, and earth.
It didn’t begin as a study of alchemy, but with life unfolding as it does – in its harshness and softness, its unravelling and rebuilding.
Somewhere along the way, the pattern revealed itself – one the soul already knew, traced in old flasks, in dreams, in the psyche.
Blackening. Whitening. Yellowing. Reddening.
It mirrors the four stages of internal change:
Breaking, Aching, Healing, and Making.
Nigredo
The Blackening
'I tried to live multiple lives
so I nearly
didn’t live the one.
I thought I knew
how I fit together
before I came undone.'
Albedo
The Whitening
'I will never not be haunted
by the fact
that at some point
in some capacity
you were a real
tangible possibility.'
Citrinitas
The Yellowing
'You wanted to destroy my foundation
but you didn’t realise
I take my beauty with me wherever I go
and spread it in the wind
like wildflower seeds,
rising from the dirt.'
Rubedo
The Reddening
'When you look at something or someone
and your eyes water softly
for no reason,
know that you’ve found
a piece of your truth.
Follow.'
A map. A mirror.
This is a book for those who have known heartbreak, liminality, and the hunger for meaning – for those who sense that becoming isn’t linear, but cyclical.
Many misunderstand healing as the final destination, when in truth, it is one step in a sacred pattern. Healing is not the end point – it is a passage.
If we only seek to be healed, we risk missing the wild beauty of the ache, the fertile depth of the breaking, and the electric magic of creation.
These poems are arranged like seasons, elements, or the soul’s own weather. The book can be opened at any point, depending on where you are in your own cycle – and read as reflection, companion, or recognition.
The Becoming is an offering to anyone learning how to remake themselves – again and again – one sacred fragment at a time.
Evocative Imagery
The collection is accompanied with original photographs by the author, composed as visual emblems to accompany each phase of the journey.
It was important for the book to be illustrated with imagery created purposely with the material in mind. The process retraced the emotional and symbolic terrain of the transformation.
What blackens
also must lighten,
a spiral is also a line,
your Becoming
a cyclical process
with no fixed point in time.
In permanent night,
by permanent day,
with no aether between
all life slips away.
With dusk and dawn,
and embraced by all seasons –
chaos, destruction,
then healing, then reason.
What rots will also once bloom;
the healing, the making by fire,
from yellow to flourished maroon.