The completion of the alchemical opus is known as the rubedo, or reddening. It is the red of the setting sun and the Autumn harvest, when the hawthorn berries (“haws”) are fully ripe. These red pome-fruits are the medicine of liberation through knowledge of the self, discovered through direct and objective observation of the body and mind. To eat her fruit is to remember her rhythm in our heart, serpentine and sattvic, and with it we wind back to source, through vessels and capillaries opened and flowing with prana, as our consciousness is ripened to completion by the gold of the sun.  

As our stone we experience the final reconciliation of opposites that frees us from the endless pendulum swing. All of the traumas and conditioned responses we were carrying have been completely dissolved and are now reintegrated on a higher level, ready to be transformed into something new on a physical level. The stone is reddened by the process of fixation, having cooked out the last of its lunar moistnesss. Drying out through the use of intense heat—with attention and intention—we have finally attained the perfection and permanence of the philosopher’s stone. Inseparable from the cosmos, we become the hub of the wheel, the immovable center, forever fixed in the heart of the sun. This is the royal marriage, the Hierosgamos of the Red King and the White Queen merging into completion, beyond inner opposition.