Hope for alchemy

Where does one re-start?

We were given, and were grateful for, a lot of cut flowers which have come and gone, but one of the few bulbs has journeyed through its spring, summer and autumn since.

Perhaps it is with the old reminder that the alchemists were right – not only is it possible to turn base metal into gold, in fact all gold has been created that way.  All that the alchemists missed was that the power of their chemistry sets and crucibles was only a fraction of what it takes to transform base metal within the furnace of the stars. 

And the discovery, fresh to me, that the music of the celestial spheres exists as well; at least part of the universe is tuned to B flat.  There are sound waves moving outwards through the gas around black holes’ event horizons, more than fifty octaves below Middle C.  Given the wavelength of a note doubles in each of those octaves, it is millions of miles across in that octave and so wouldn’t strike a neighbouring ear drum that often.