The Alchemy of Tears

Tears precede moments of great transformation - an essay decoding the symbolism of tears and the alchemical power they hold for humanity

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A single tear has the potential to contain the intensity of condensation drawn from the wellspring of human emotions, ranging from euphoria, pleasure, joy, rage, frustration, grief, despair and pain, just to name a few. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in the emotional spectrum, it could be distilled down into a single, salty, watery droplet that overflows our tear ducts, sprung from our lacrimal glands.

A scene from the Mexican novel by Laura Esquivel turned movie; Como Agua Para Chocolate, where the protagonist, Tita, mourns for her forbidden love for Pedro, her tears are seen rolling down her cheeks, falling into the wedding cake batter that she is preparing for her sister’s impending wedding to Pedro. Later at her sister’s wedding, intense feelings surge through every mouthful of wedding cake consumed by the wedding party. They all collectively feel the depths of Tita’s sorrow, for her unrequited love and everyone at the wedding begins to sob uncontrollably for their own loss of love in their lives. Such is the power of tears.

I watched Como Agua Para Chocolate circa 1998, as part of my high school Spanish Literature study of magical realism. However, despite watching it that one time, it permanently etched in my memory the power of emotions portrayed cinematically through Tita’s character. In fact, I have a mind to revisit that movie and review it with this new lens of feminine alchemy, so stay tuned for a future decode of that story.

Speaking of movies, it does not take much to set off the waterworks within me, I even have a banned list of movies I’ll never watch a second time; Marley and Me and Eight Below immediately come to mind! The mirror neurons are strong in me, as simply seeing someone cry or a suffering animal is sometimes enough to get me watery eyed. One time, I even crymaxed! I’ve never been able to replicate the intensity of that orgasm, but it left me strangely sobbing, not in a sad way, yet it still felt like it came from a very, deep place inside me. It felt like a valve had been released and every emotion erupted through that single orgasm.

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Above photo I took of Laura Evans circa 2015, in which I made glitter tears from glue gun droplets.

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Crying is a universal human experience, not limited by age or sex, although biology seems to back up the fact that women far outcry the men. We are conceived in a salty, amniotic fluid and emerge upon the inundation of the womb. We are born crying, only to come full circle in death, buried under the tears of our loved ones. Although a human baby’s lacrimal glands don’t develop the ability to produce tears until at least two weeks old, one can perhaps still argue that crying was humanity’s first form of communication. Evolutionarily speaking, crying was no doubt instrumental to the survival of a baby crying out of discomfort, thirst or hunger, when it’s language skills were not yet developed. That evolutionary neural programming to protect and nurture a crying baby was the key. Later I mention the miracle of weeping statues, but the real miracle is the “let down reflex” phenomena in lactating mothers, at the sight and sound of a crying baby. Subsequently, we will learn how the hormones, namely oxytocin and prolactin, responsible for signalling the milk ducts to produce milk, are also contained in our tears.

Esoterically, water symbolises emotions as personified by the astrological water signs and the Suit of Cups in the Tarot system. We bleed, we sweat, we spit, we cry and we ejaculate. These are just some of the secretions which act as containers for our emotions condensed into liquid form. In my first substack post, I introduced the notion of the SECRETions of feminine alchemy via the tale of Rapunzel, in which I only briefly rushed the alchemy of the tears at the end, which left me with even more questions.

Why is crying so prolific in myths and folktales? Is there a deeper meaning contained in the symbology? Does crying represent our deepest emotions expressed? Is that the secret to transmuting the e-motion (the energy in motion)? Are tears the vehicle to expel such emotions? Or are tears the residue of an alchemical process within our bodies?

Just as there is a taxonomy of tears, one also discovers it’s symbolism is multivalent. When we begin to comb through popular mythology, fairytales, poetry, literature, songs and even modern day movies, one starts to notice certain repeating patterns or motifs surrounding the meaning and purpose of tears. More than often, we come to the realisation that tears precede moments of great transformation, not only in myth, but in our personal lives too! This is the alchemy of transmutation and the power of transformation held within tears.

Photo by Courtney Cantu on Unsplash

Tears of Resurrection

Tears are often associated with nourishment, fertility and rebirth. We’ve seen already how a baby’s tears can procure milk from a mother’s breasts, but this symbol of sustenance can also be found in the agricultural fertility rituals of prehistoric times. Tears, a metaphor for rain falling from the heavens, can bring back life. I refer to these as the tears of resurrection.

The goddess Isis weeps over the assembled remains of Osiris and it’s her tears that are attributed as the life giving elixir responsible for his rebirth. Similarly, we find semblance in the even older Mesopotamian tales of Inanna and Dumuzi, Ishtar and Tammuz, and likewise Anat and Ba’al. Much later we see something comparable happen in the Biblical stories of Jesus weeping after speaking to Lazarus grieving sisters, Martha and Mary. Furthermore, in the account of Mary Magdalene weeping upon her visit of Jesus tomb, only to find that he too was resurrected. The act of weeping seems to be a powerful precursor in the act of bringing the dead back to life in all these stories. Are these stories relating an actual resurrection after physical death, or as a modern day psychoanalyst would interpret, as a spiritual death of the ego and reawakening of the soul? Most scholars argue that such myths are rooted in metaphoric language that relate to primordial seasonal rituals, in which the death of the god represents the crops harvested in the autumn, while the tears are indicative of the renewal that comes with the spring rains. Just as Aphrodite’s tears transformed into flowers as they fell, emblematic of vegetal growth. Perhaps Psalms like 126:5-6 echo this belief of early agricultural society, in the sustenance provided by the irrigation of tears.

Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
⁶ Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.

This theme of rebirth as a magical quality of tears seems to be transferred across to modern day pop culture in stories like Pinocchio’s tears reviving Geppetto, or the Tin Man’s tears awakening Dorothy, Toto and Cowardly Lion from their poisoned poppy slumber or in Tangled, the Disney’s version of Rapunzel, where her tears bring Flynn/ Eugene back to life after Mother Gothel stabbed him to death. Perhaps after a good, long, hard cry through the blurry, soaked lashes, it is like a metaphorical new dawn, bringing not just clarity but an awakening within.

TEARS - the word itself conjures up the image of being torn open by deep emotions, that dissolve the barrier between the inner and outer landscapes. Crying creates the opening for new buds of life to sprout forth from. Tears primary component is water, in fact they are 98% water, water being the universal solvent. A solvent acts like a binding agent, just as tears can sometimes represent the dissolution phase of alchemy, communal crying is a shared emotional experience that can forge strong emotional bonds.

Close up of the statue of Nuestra Señora de la Victoria (Bollullos del Condado), Spain.

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The Taxonomy of Tears

Science tells us that not all tears are equal and that in fact, there are three types of human tears: (1) Basal tears which help keep our eyes lubricated critical for its health; (2) Reflex tears (think onion tears) are our eyes natural response to purging an irritant or foreign object and the third kind which is unique to the human species is psychogenic, commonly referred to as “emotional tears”. We will circle back on the chemistry of psychogenic tears, but in the meantime, I’d like to introduce another classification of tears based on my observance of their currency as follows: Heroic Tears, Holy Tears, Decorative Tears and Crocodile Tears.

Heroic Tears

“Boys don’t cry!” is the biggest myth there is in modern day society. Although high testosterone has been observed to inhibit crying, before puberty, boys and girls have the same levels of the prolactin hormone, which promotes emotional outbursts of tears. The studies even reflect similar frequency of crying between the pre pubescent sexes. As we will see, the act of crying is heavily dictated by societal and religious norms of the time. Even despite men’s hormonal setbacks, we still find prolific testimony in ancient times that men often publicly cried, not as a sign of weakness, but of strength. The pages of the Bible are saturated with stories of men crying in prayer or before battles. In fact, the shortest sentence in the King James version of the Bible is “Jesus wept”. Comparably, the Greek heroic epic The Odyssey, is stained with weeping of all sorts including Odysseus himself over the ten year expanse of his homeward bound journey. Even as far east as Japan in the medieval ages, the warrior epic “Tales of Heiki”contains copious amounts of crying, including the hero Ho-o bursting into tears and choking on his sobs. Crying before battle perhaps honoured and acknowledged the gravity of the situation they were about to encounter and the tears served to charge the intensity of the desire to hold onto life even more than ever. It would appear that culturally imposed prohibition on male crying is a fairly recent phenomena, the creation of the “macho man”, a stoic archetype that avoids any display of emotion, let alone crying, seems to have come into play in the mid twentieth century.

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love”

Washington Irving

The Rosa Mystica courtesy of Wikipedia

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Holy Tears

There is a certain currency to tears and none is more obvious than in religious tribute. All religions seem to equate the act of crying as a purification of the soul, as a second baptism and the gift of tears as symbolic of redemption, repentance and conversion as so clearly illustrated in religious mythology and the origin stories of many Catholic Saints. Contained within many prayers is the act of crying in order to petition for god’s salvation. We also find crying deeply regulated within many religious rituals of lamentation, often arising from a belief that crying can lead to a mystical experience. We find examples in the Jewish Seder ceremony, the Wailing Wall, the Weeping Sufis, death wails, keening and professional criers who cry like a banshee to the zagharit performances (the Middle Eastern form of ululation). Even the statues are prone to crying, as we find numerous cases within the Catholic diaspora. I even had an experience as a pre-teen during one of my visits to Venezuela to spend time with extended family. On one such trip in the mid 90’s, my cousin took me to a home that was hosting the statue of the Rosa Mystica that arrived in Venezuela from Montichiari, Italy, which resulted in what was called a glitter phenomenon, whereby devotees would find mysterious glitter specimens on their hands. I remember having a few green glitter particles and someone sticky taped the glitter onto a prayer bookmark I received, while my cousin had silver glitter. From memory they were the tiniest pieces of glitter I’ve ever seen and I remember at the time contemplating what the difference in colours meant. I’ve since lost that bookmark, perhaps in my move to Australia.

Another custom that has fascinated me is the myth of the lachrymatory bottles which resurfaced during the Victorian Era. The premise of the custom was to catch the tears of a grieving person in a bottle and once evaporated marked the end of the mourning period.

Victorian era glass “tear catcher”

Psalm 56:8 “You number my wanderings: Put my tears into your bottle; Are they not in your book?”

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Decorative Tears

In fairy and folk tales alike, tears are often described as liquid gold, amber or pearls, indicating an even greater value as an agent for transformation. It was the Roman poet, Virgil who is credited as introducing the notion of lacrimaeque decorae (decorative tears) that lend a mark of beauty to a lover or even a seductive sad allure. Perhaps this seductive sadness plays upon the damsel in distress psychological syndrome. Little did Virgil know back then what science has discovered recently, that the scent of a woman’s tears actually diminishes a man’s sexual arousal as it decreases testosterone which coincidentally also reduces aggression. We have the example of Snow White using her tears against the Woodcutter, which spares her life.

Tears are no doubt powerful conduits of emotional expression, part of a broader language code it seems, as evident through the study of water by many pioneering scientists and researchers like Dr Gerald H. Pollack, Masura Emoto, Veda Austin , and Rose-Lynn Fisher’s Topography of Tears as they attempt to bridge the gap in our understanding of this universal substance, which also comprises a large part of our human form and consciousness.

Crocodile Tears

Perhaps more common than not, is the perception that tears signify sadness, a vulnerable authenticity that evokes empathy and trust. But not all tears are sincere. Crocodiles shed tears not because they feel guilt to eat you, but due to the compression of their locked jaw on prey, it literally squeezes tears from their tear ducts. As the Roman stateman, Cato is credited as saying “When a woman weeps she weaves snares”. A slanderous quote no doubt but that does not negate the fact that tears are sometimes wielded like weapons, tactically used for persuasion and manipulation. Even many of the weeping statues were guilty of being hoaxes upon further investigation by the Vatican.

Glittery tears on Tamara of Tamblyns, photo by me

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The Whore Moans: The science of crying is all in the release of hormones

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Now to put the chemistry in the alchemy of tears. Tears have the ability to transmute stress and toxins, distilled into the clarity of perception. Tears can be a catalyst for deep transformation and personal awakening, as they act to dissolve and coalesce the inner and outer worlds.

“Tears… The secretions of the lacrimal gland containing oils, salts, proteins and stress hormones. The tears of joy and those of sorrow, have different chemical compositions”

The History Man to Dr Dementus in the movie, Furiousa - A Mad Max Saga

Secretions are intrinsically part of feminine alchemy, as we literally find ions in our bodily fluids, with tears as no exception. These ions can be either positively or negatively charged molecules, such as sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium, calcium etc, all of which are vital in regulating the release of hormones and other biological processes essential for homeostasis.

Let’s return to look closer at one such bodily fluid - the psychogenic (emotional) tears. These tears contain higher levels of hormones, antibodies, neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. Hormones such as estrogen, prolactin, progesterone, oxytocin, adrenocorticotropic hormone (regulates cortisol production) and leucine enkephalin (a natural painkiller) can all be found in tears. Spiritually, it is often thought that crying is a cathartic process, purging the body of dis-ease and toxins. We often feel relieved after crying, like a pressure valve being released. Now we have the science to explain how crying can effectively relieve stress via the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), otherwise known for the rest and digest response. Our heart rate and breathing slows down, while digestion increases, helping us to self sooth, dull pain and even promote sleep (perhaps more out of the sheer exhaustion that can result from excessive crying). Emotional crying also triggers the brain to release the feel good hormone oxytocin and endorphins. Sobbing particularly naturally forces us to take shorter breaths of cool air in rapid succession, thereby helping to regulate the brain and core body temperature to improve our mood. High levels of manganese is also released in tears which can help perk up our mood, as this mineral has been linked to increased anxiety, aggression and irritability.

Aristotle may have been onto something when he declared “Woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears”. It’s true that women are biologically more susceptible to tears, due to higher levels of the hormones, namely prolactin, estrogen and progesterone, all of which peak premenstrually, during pregnancy and postpartum. How much we cry is also relative to our societal freedoms and often these studies are relying on men to report or rather admit if they’ve cried and the frequency of it. Unfortunately, cultural and religious beliefs placed upon both men and women, can condition a type of self conscious behaviour and even embarrassment in the act of crying whether privately or publicly. In today’s world, we are switched on and emotionally bombarded 24/7, which ultimately pulls at our heart strings and dumps on us, on top of what we may already be carrying from our family and friendships. There is a gift in a good cry, as alchemically it burns away any calcification of our heart, dissolved and distilled into each tear drop.

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea”

Isak Dinesen

Ultimately, there is power in our tears, not just to evoke empathy and deep emotional bonds with others, but there is also medicine literally contained within the tears, that is self regulating and always accessible, at just the right dosage. All one has to do is surrender to it, by listening to the body, for the body intuitively knows what’s best for you in the moment.

So, when was the last time you allowed yourself a good cry?

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Thank you for reading, if you got this far! I appreciate you and hope you took away something from this.

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Bibliographical References

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What are tears made of

Why do women cry more than men

The benefits of tears for mental and physical wellbeing

Is Crying Good for You?

The Currency of Tears

The Chemistry of Tears

Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears