I've been away for some time.  My apologies to those of you who have reached out to me and to whom I owe a reply.    We are in the deepening autumn where I live, and preparations needed to be made for the dark half of the year.  I heat with wood, so there is the chopping, stacking, etc.  I grow most of my food, ergo the harvest.  I am well, thankfully, and grateful to be alive, and sorry to have been away so long. Of particular interest to me now - since this is a reflective time of year - is the concept of the Great Work.   I'm sure a few of my readers have heard of it.  It is a concept referenced in hermetic texts and hermeticism in general, and is symbolic of the transmutation of base metals into gold.  You can read more here .    However, modern hermetic movements (and likelly all of them, even historical ones) are concerned with the Great Work as it applies to humans directly: meaning, transmuting base nature into a loftier nature entirely.   And it is this application of