Washing with Fire, Burning with Water
Regarding the affective soul, alchemists often mention that ‘we wash with our fire and burn with our water’ – which is very descriptive of the effects that result from the inclination of our desiring – which word (inclination) has, here, multiple meanings: in the sense of habit, direction and slope.
The phrase has two basic raedings:
1) in the first, water refers to downwardly (outwardly) directed desire (appetite) which burns in the sense that it is the source of pain and suffering. Fire, in contrast, refers to upwardly (inwardly) directed desire that washes in the sense of making clean/pure [during the black and white works].
2) in the second raeding, water and fire are one, and their action is one, due to bringing the focus of ALL desiring to The One, such that even when the sensorium observes external objects these only serve to remind one of The One. In this case water burns in the sense of purification of the superfluous from sensation and fire washes in the sense of a gentle cleansing since there is no scoria to burn [during the red work].
So, the following phrase has reference to the second raeding, which refers to the state or station of being in the world but not of it:
“He who can burn with water and wash with fire makes a heaven of earth and a precious earth of heaven.”
This creates an indissoluble union between the fixed and the volatile.
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al-kemi 
Dear Xiaoyao, It has been a while since I last quizzed you, but I really am in need of some ‘spiritual’ guidance and turn to this arena at such moments, rightly or wrongly.
Is there a way to gauge ones progress on a path, or indeed anything in the literature to suggest what a soul struggling against obsession, compulsion or heedlessness may do to reorient and measure themselves with/against ?
Thankyou for the your help in past correspondences, for what seemed at first to be criticism has been of far more use in hindsight, and indeed has shown me how far from the path I am / have been.
Thanks again, Otove
Dear Otove,
It is a pleasure to hear from you and you are always welcome.
Trust that however far we go on this road (which, as Bilbo says, goes ever on and on), trust, I say, that as soon as you turn around there is the door to your home, with warm hearth and welcome quiet, where one may enter in and be restored in peace and wholeness.
And yet, it is our nature that, having restored ourselves, we turn to the outside and stand at the windows, aching again for the road that carries us out into life where we search and struggle and live and help others and accept help on our own part.
But that door is ever there, when you stop and remember, and remembering, trust, and turn around, and enter.
Be Well,
Xiaoyao
As to “anything in the literature,” it is pretty much everywhere.
For example, the following passage says basically the same thing as my comment above:
Still awaiting this initial ‘turning around’ feeling, having read lots and practiced as much, this first experience is not forthcoming. I will keep trying none the less.
Thank you Xiaoyao,
Apologies for such a cursory reading of your initial reply, ‘it’ is clearly there staring me in the face. I will look much more carefully in future.
Hi Otove,
Sorry for the delay. There’s a kid in the neighborhood who knocks on my door then runs away; I had to catch him in time to teach him a lesson.
The “turning around” lies in your attention, it is not an experience you wait for or try for. It is not about what you do, but how you are.
How are you?
What is you? When are you? Where are you?
All of these are not so much questions to be asked as orientations to be experienced as you turn the light around and gently search within.
Gentle, relaxed, easy … but constant, like water wearing away stone. Search your body-mind for tensions, then relax them. The more you reach and grab for it, the more it runs the other way. The work you are doing is more about letting go of things — tensions, worries, assumptions, desires — and letting a reorientation occur. This is a very natural process that is not earth-shattering.