I joined my friend Diego Ugarte who wanted to fire some of his ceramic pieces in his kiln that was located at his brother’s beach house in Callejones Beach, Santa Cruz, Guanacaste, a place near Guaitil; a well known area where to find ancient indigenous pottery from Costa Rica, to which I will refer later.

In this way –as an example- the presence of certain powder in the clay mixture, will allow the incandescent ceramic to be taken suddenly out of the kiln to get a second treatment without exploding due to the change of temperature, as it is likely to happen with “common” clay mixes.

I wrote the word “common” among parenthesis because it’s obvious that there is no such thing as a common standard for all human groups worldwide -specially regarding ceramists or metallurgists procedures- because what is considered common in an specific human group in any of these fields, has to do not only with the culture in which they are immersed, but also with the supply of materials that they use for their works, this last point directly related to the geo morphology where they come from, in this way, we find for each region -and therefore an specific culture- specific materials and procedures to work the ceramic or metallurgy in a particular way, that even though different between them, they all follow the same physical principals on which the transformation of matter due to fire’s action happens,  this takes us to a very interesting fact: different cultures have developed the same basic techniques for ceramics and metallurgy either because of historical parallelism took them to the same conclusion having no contact between them, either because the knowledge was transferred orally through out the ancient world.

I kept listening to Diego’s explanations getting sometimes lost among many scientific terms he used to explain the process in which clay is transformed by heat, how this was transformed sequentially as heat increased, from a soft moldy matter first into Cristobalite at 500 Celsius, critical point from where the matter transformation has no returning point, when reaching 700 Celsius that matter transforms into Mullite, a permanent stage from now on and that once cooled off, acquires a smooth texture and glass like resistance characteristic of all dish or cup we use daily. 

At a certain point, I started to relate all this technical words and physical concepts with the ancient art of alchemy, I told Diego this; he just stared at me for a few seconds and said: -You got to the point.

The ancient job –art or science we never know- of alchemy, took the main elements of Universe: Earth, Fire, Air and Water and mixed them with patience and rigor in order to develop slowly and tortuously the Christic matter, which sooner or latter will transform –with a huge amount of effort from the alchemist- into the primal egg, also known as the philosophical stone, the stone that could transform lead into gold, the stumble rock, stone that has mislead thousands of persons into confusion, and it is probable that this confusion was planted on purpose by the same alchemy masters in order to keep secret levels of knowledge that shouldn’t be given to any one on behalf of its own security.

We stayed   4 days 3 nights in this beautiful place, with paradise type of beaches and brilliant golden sunsets. I was able to view all the long process of ceramics at the fire kiln. I got great pictures from a howler monkey troop that live near the house. On the way to San José we pass near Guaitil.

Guaitil and San Vicente in Santa Cruz, Guanacaste, are the only two places where to find an ancient pre-Columbian pottery from Chorotega culture in Costa Rica.

At this remarkable geographical point we stopped to admire the ceramics that were shown at the side of the road, we visited the hand craft center El Pilón where Nury Marchena –co owner- gave us her greetings and shared with us part of her cultural legacy, talked about the expectations and frustrations around such a project for which they already established a cooperative, and were trying to build a web site in order to increase their sales.
Diego and Nury got into a deep conversation about pottery and its techniques, the materials they use, and how scarce they are because one man owns the only place they know where to get this material; a certain clay with “special” properties, and is now charging high prices for this clay.

Time went fast and we had to make a long trip back to San José, a little bit sad we said goodbye and started our voyage, during this time we chatted a bit of everything, but there were also moments of silence in which my mind started to fly like it always happens when I’m traveling; all the experiences lived during this trip were been recalled and mixed one to each other constantly.

My mind was loaded with emotions and images, floating around; these were diverse and contrasting; images of medieval alchemists blending into slender and solemn Chorotegas, Guanacaste plains in which Gothic Cathedrals were shining with diaphanous light contrasting with the intense gold of an agonizing summer sunset, next, the image was of the main chamber of Notre Dame de Paris  where luscious tropical colors exploded at the slow rhythm of ancient Chorotega priests who were following ancestral animistic rites, all of these images were mixed together due to the action of the alchemical process using the four primal elements of universe. In synthesis, with an almost febrile sensation my conclusion was, that from all sights, alchemy was present not only in esoteric knowledge, but was also present in the ceramists art from Chorotegas from Guatil, in the cermic from my friend Diego and other ceramists around the world, and beyond that, in the love that persons express to each other, especially lovers, who shall establishing a relationship replay the chance of mixing in the life’s crucible the primal elements of Universe, creating in this way a new life. I was again in front of the unrelenting evidence of mystery of life and death.