Artist.
Writer.
Educator. Consultant.
I’m Aryn the Alchemist (they/them) and I’m an interdisciplinary artist, fiction writer, blossoming filmmaker and facilitation teacher for witches & occult educators. I write a Substack called Side Quests, a newsletter for the artist who loves to dilly dally.
If you’re a spiritual business owner and want to sharpen your facilitation skills and become the leading expert in your field, I recommend you check out my teacher training and facilitation consulting offerings.
My Lore
I call myself a guide to the underworld because I’ve been there many times. The first was when I was 14-years-old and hospitalized due to complications from an eating disorder. I was admitted into an in-patient treatment program and lived in a group home with other teens suffering from anorexia and bulimia. There, I met my best friend and lifelong creative collaborator, Kalaija Mallery.
When we were both discharged, we visited each other and would execute editorial-style photoshoots. We alchemized our trauma into art and transformed our relationships to our bodies through fashion photography. You can read more about this journey and see some of the images we created in my essay Eating Disorders and Editorials.
The second time I visited Queen Persephone and Hades was in the midst of my Saturn return. I quit a long-term relationship, quit my teaching career and moved into my own apartment. All within a span of two months.
It was another Tower moment where the high-achieving people-pleasing perfectionist paradigm crashed and burned. This time, it was impossible to repair. I couldn’t re-emerge to the land of the living without examining the parts of my story that made me feel small and powerless.
Confronting the ways we internalize victimhood is an uncomfortable, but necessary task. Sitting with our shadow gifts us a level of discernment and understanding of the self that cannot be easily manipulated. I help others navigate this liminal space through creativity, because I know first-hand how art can transmute our pain into purpose.
My Credentials
꩜ Bachelors of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Chapman University.
꩜ 2025 Lambda Literary YA Fiction Fellow in a cohort taught by Aiden Thomas.
꩜ Co-editor of Sinister Wisdom 128: Trans/Feminisms, a finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award from Publishing Triangle.
꩜ Co-host on Sol Connections Podcast, a podcast about enchanting relationships with the human, more-than-human & divine.
꩜ Five years of working as an English teacher for all grade levels, with a speciality in reading development.
꩜ Devotee to Hekate, Inanna, Loki and generations of glamorous grandmothers.
Featured Writing
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Featured Writing *
Punk Rock Intervention
"I wasn’t disassociating, letting life passively happen to me. When I was shoved, I pushed back. I danced and got the shit kicked out of me and laughed because I could feel myself reacting to other people’s bodies, responding to the boundaries of skin that bind and separate us. Mosh pits blur and stir the concept of barriers, as participants never abandon their physical autonomy even when they yield to the unpredictability of the pit."
The Zodiac Signs as 20th Century Art Movements
“The 12 archetypical signs of Zodiac reflect and deepen the unique characteristics of the avant-garde movements of the 20th century. “The language of art is image, symbol… a language of felt experience,” Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way. The Zodiac is a language too, of symbols, archetypes, associations. The astrologer wields self-expression just like a painter holds a brush or a sculptor molds tactile material. The foundation of both mediums is a desire to merge meaning with experience.”
Eating Disorders and Editorials: The Transformative Power of Fashion Photography
“Like most girls growing up in a society over-saturated with media representations of beauty, bodies, and the “ideal woman,” I questioned my worth and value in comparison to these images. They contributed to my distorted self-perception, serving as kindling to my eating disorder. Everyone finds their own healing process, but mine was reinventing theses images with my best friend Kalaija by staging our own photoshoots; a process that allowed us to be participants in a narrative that preferred us to be voyeurs.
Press Features
Chasing Wildness with Aryn the Alchemist & Bre Legan
Saturn Stories Pt. 2 is a radically honest conversation with Aryn the Alchemist and Bre Legan about their Saturn Returns in Pisces that took place from March 7, 2023 - May 24, 2025 with a final chapter from September 1, 2025 - February 13, 2026.
Creative Crush: Play like your soul depends on it
“To me, Aryn is the walking embodiment of what it means to live your creative truth out loud. Aryn’s heart touches everything they do. They seem to easily traverse between the serious and unserious, the heavy and the whimsical, in a way that makes me feel like actually, everything is going to be OK, because people like this exist in the world.”
Tarot and Astrology Workshops with Aryn the Alchemist
“Who needs ChatGPT when you have these ancient practices that have so many generative ideas? Astrology and tarot are so rich with symbols and stories and narratives.”
by Ben Slowey of Shepherd Express
Cultivating Creative Whimsy & Alchemizing Side Quests
Crybaby Mystic interviewed me about my creative coaching framework and how to cultivate your sense of whimsy in a world on fire.