Alchemists & Architects

Two aspects of a soul-infused life

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Quick Announcement before we dive in... 

My good friend, Jeff Goins (Creator of The Ghost) and I are co-hosting a free, live call this month about what it means to intentionally become a ghost in your life—to withdraw from the pressures and demands of the world to find a deeper truth. This is an open call to everyone (paid and free subs alike). The details are at the end of this letter. I hope you can join us.

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In a not too distant life, I worked in the entertainment industry. For over a decade I managed creative professionals, mostly best-selling authors, and helped them release their work into the wild.

The business of creativity is uniquely rooted in the unforgiving realities of a marketplace that eats its young, regularly ignores the most talented and deserving, and operates with ever-changing rules.

At the beginning, I knew nothing, which turned out to be an advantage because I saw everything with beginner’s eyes.

Being a writer also gave me an edge. I understood and spoke the language of writers and poets who were trying to pry magic from the ethers and bring it to the world. I knew intimately the great despair and addictive drive of the artist.

I also spoke the language of business because I had spent ten years in investment management before becoming a brand manager.

These twin abilities—to think like a maker and a marketer, and keep a foot in each world—made me unique. They also earned me a pair of nicknames, which a client gave me one day: the Alchemist and the Architect.

The Alchemist, she said, was that aspect of me that could imagine what could be. The Architect was the one who knew how to actually bring what could be into being through action.

Over the years, I’ve realized that not only do these two aspects coexist within me, but they exist in you, too. In fact, they exist in all of us. They are inborn. To be alive is to be a creator, which requires both seeing and being. Dreaming and doing. Life itself is a dance in harmonizing these two aspects of ourselves.

The Alchemist

The Alchemist is a seer. In eastern philosophy, the Alchemist is aligned to the yin energy. Unbound and unbothered by human limitations like physics, logic, or what has been done before, they see realities nested within realities, and call those things that are not as though they were.

For them, life is not about probabilities, which rely on predictable math and the language of constraint and limitation. Instead, they speak of possibilities, the native tongue of the imaginative and the infinite.

Perhaps most importantly, the Alchemist part of us lives playfully in harmony with the flow of life. In doing so, like a child they are able to draw inspiration from anywhere and everywhere as if absorbing it from the atmosphere itself.

The Architect

The Architect, on the other hand, is a pragmatist who deals almost entirely in probabilities and seeks to structure a stable, often predictable, future. They’re interested in the geometry of life, organizing principles, and the reliability of physics to hold the center.

The Architect is the yang energy of creation, the initiator and builder. It is the mind in action, which gives form to the formless. They are a translator and organizer able to discern patterns, connect dots, and harness the lightning that Alchemists call down from heaven so it can be usefully directed.

Both/And

It’s easy to believe that you only embody one aspect, the Alchemist or the Architect, but not both. To be human is to be both. It’s impossible not to be both because you are always imagining and then bringing those things into being through your choices.

It’s also easy to believe that one aspect is better than the other, but don’t romanticize either because creation comes from the vital polarity of the two. The Alchemist without structure rarely brings anything to completion. And the most intelligent mind will never unlock its potential, or build anything, without the vital driving force of inspiration.

When you learn to recognize and harmonize these two aspects of yourself in the unique way they mix and mingle through your life, the inevitable result is a soul infused life—a life open to inspiration and committed (and compelled) to conscious creation.

You learn to follow your intuition and the mysterious patterns the energy of desire carves through our lives. That flow of inspiration, of in-spirited ideas, activities, and imagination can then find structure through that part of us which can architect ways to channel the inspiration into useful ways.

It's not enough to have ideas or inspirations or spirit breathed ideas if you're not able to apply organizing principles to them and give them form in the world.

This is the play of life, the dance between the two aspects of us, which are constantly in flux and flow. Say yes to both, and give them free rein to express in, as, and through your life. If you learn more toward one than the other, follow that intuition. But, see how you might develop its partner because the willingness and ability to harmonize the two inevitably leads to a joyful living.

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P.S. My good friend, Jeff Goins (Creator of

The Ghost

) and I are co-hosting a live call this month about what it means to intentionally become a ghost in your life—to withdraw from the pressures and demands of the world to find a deeper truth.

This is an open call to everyone (paid and free subs alike). The details are below. I’ll send a reminder beforehand, but please save all this info.

• Date & Time: November 21, 2023 at 3:30 Central Time (find your local time here).

• Location: Zoom (recording will be available to paid subs only). Make sure you save this link and show up on time. You can also dial in (here’s a list of local numbers to use).

• URL (this is the link above, but if it’s easier to copy and paste, you can do that): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81229756377?pwd=TzlaZlM4VGRKRXhldndxL0VZU3R4QT09

• Meeting ID: 812 2975 6377

• Passcode: ghost

P.P.S. Here is a wonderful poem from Jeff on the power of disappearing, and a dare to see who you might really be.

Dare to Disappear