Identity alchemy for the world-building artist.
I’m Aryn the Alchemist (they/them) and I’m an identity alchemist who helps artists traverse the metaphorical underworld and re-emerge as confident, powerful icons.
We don’t get to choose the circumstances we’re born into, but we do have the power to change the course of our destiny. My coaching method combines narrative astrology, character creation, shadow work, glamour magick and ancestral devotion to help you achieve the success you’ve always dreamed of.
You’re in the right place if you’re ready to:
꩜ Ditch perfectionism and people-pleasing paradigms that keep you small.
꩜ Traverse the underworld to examine the roots of your story.
꩜Take responsibility for your destiny and dreams.
꩜ Reframe creative blocks and avoidance as opportunities to know yourself better.
꩜ Alchemize your pain into beauty and art.
꩜ Mythologize your life and fulfill the prophecy of your wildest dreams.
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
*
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.
You’re the main character of your story. It’s time you start acting like it.
Client Testimonials
“I cried so hard listening to [my chart reading] the first couple of months I had trouble putting my thoughts into words. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately. I find it incredibly healing, to find more questions in the stars about me. I’ve especially responded to the symbols & characters, & have been processing them thru art. Chiron seems very important to me, as does Mars. I’m settling into a role as a dreamer, & learning how to mitigate earth structures, led by your reading. Thank you, thank you. It was beautiful, & perfect.”
— Flower
“You are such a fierce reader, Aryn. Besides what you do for me, what you do for everyone else is so in tune and just really [asks the question]: “How do we take this information and use it for our betterment?” and I love that about you.
— Deja
“Aryn is a wonderful astrologer who studies passionately and through their soul; they have changed the way I viewed astrology and how I use it in my own life. They study their client’s charts intently and shows up to their sessions completely prepared and with utmost professionalism. I felt no judgment when talking over even my deepest insecurities, which made my conversation with them purely empowering and invigorating. Aryn has shown me where astrology can take me in my journey and I carry the lessons they taught me in so many parts of my life.”
— Katie
“Aryn’s innate gift for astrology coincides beautifully with their poetic prose and divine talent with words. I have never spoken to someone who is so articulate in their knowledge and in such a personable way when it comes to astrology.”
— Niki
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
