Citrino 2

The "citrino" is the final stage in the alchemical process of personal development in which one sees "the goldenness of life.

The stages, according to Robert Johnson's OWNING YOUR OWN SHADOW are 1) the nigredo -- when one feels the darkness and depression; 2) the albedo -- when onc sees brightness; 3) the rubedo -- when one discovers passion; and 4) the citrino -- when one appreciates the goldenness of life.

Having just moved very quickly from the nigredo to the citrino after re-reading Johnson's book last night, I want to share a few of his thoughts in these quotes:

"A mandorla is that almond-shaped segment that is made when two circles partly overlap."

"One makes a mandorla every time one says something that is true."

"We are all poets and healers when we use language correctly."

"Good talk restores unity to a fragmented world."

"Language, properly used, is a highly curative agency."

"You can give another person a precious gift if you will allow him to talk without contaminating his speech with your own material."

"Whenever you have a clash of opposites in your being and neither will give way to the other, you can be certain that God is present....if we can endure it, the conflict without resolution is a direct experience of God."

"The place where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise."

"The mandorla...asks conscious work of us, not self-indulgence."

"Our human situation divides us over and over again into ego-shadow opposition....The first reward for this is that we diminish the shadow we impose on others."

"The mandorla is not the place of neutrality or compromise; it is the place of the peacock's tail..."