Pelican, strange animal

Pelican, strange animal

The last stage of the alchemical work is rubedo

It is the fulfilment, the maturation, the definitive transformation

It is the point where nigredo and albedo embrace,

the black of shadow and the white of purification

merge into the red of blood, of life, of sacrifice

Rubedo is a mysterious territory,

a threshold where words begin to tremble,

definitions falter,

concepts dissolve

Little is spoken, little is contemplated

It has many symbols, the rubedo, let us take a strange one

the pelican

A bird that inhabits eastern Europe, south-western Asia, Africa,

and yet has inhabited even the most secret pages of the inner West for centuries

Bestiaries are not enough to understand it:

we rely on St Thomas Aquinas,

Doctor Angelicus,

tried to explain the Mystery with the logic of the soul

In his Eucharistic hymn he sings thus:

Pie pellicáne, Jesu Dómine,

Me immúndum munda tuo sánguine.

‘O pious pelican, Lord Jesus,

purify me, a sinner, with your blood.’

Thomas associates Christ with the pelican, and thus opens the door to an ancient legend, amplified by medieval literature

According to medieval bestiaries, in times of famine, the pelican kills its young in a fit of rage, but on the third day, repentant, it rips open its breast with its beak and with its own blood brings them back to life

It is the symbol of redemptive sacrifice, of death that generates life, of flesh that offers itself to transform the other

Dante knows this and it is no coincidence that, in Paradise, when speaking of John, he reverently writes

‘This is he who lay on the breast

of our pelican, and this was

from up the cross to the great elected office.’

(Paradise, XXV, 112-114)

Jesus is the pelican,

and John is the disciple who rests his head on the pierced heart,

already red with rubedo, already open to the gift

For centuries, the pelican has stood triumphant on illuminated manuscripts, pulpits and stained glass windows, ecclesiastical coats of arms, and astylar crosses, an esoteric and liturgical symbol of the faith that offers itself, of the flesh that is consumed for love.

The pelican is Christ himself, who embodies the ultimate version of rubedo

union of opposites,

material and spiritual,

earth and sky,

death and resurrection.

The rubedo is the gold hidden in the blood,

the light contained in the wound,

the point at which alchemy becomes Christology

The rubedo is Christ

It is the landing place of every alchemical process,

but also the new beginning.

Whoever reaches the rubedo,

does not go back,

and can no longer speak as before

He remains alone

But he is no longer alone

‘Similis factus sum pelican solitudinis:

factus sum sicut nycticorax in domicilio.’

(Psalm 102:7)

‘I am similar to the pelican of the desert,

like the owl of the ruins.’

Strange animal, the pelican, symbol of solitude and redemption, of care that is born from pain, of silence that knows how to give itself up to the last drop

Landing and new beginning of every alchemical process

One must be an initiate to find it a friend