CELLULAR ASCENSION

Throughout human history, certain archetypal themes have been deeply embedded in our collective experience. These universal patterns—such as the dark night of the soul, rites of passage, the hero’s journey, and the cycle of death and rebirth—resonate through our spiritual traditions, mythologies, and stories. We see them reflected in our films and literature, and more importantly, we live them in our own lives. These timeless processes of transformation are what we often refer to as *alchemy*—the inner journey of growth, change, and renewal. Truly, we are nature, and in nature are divinely calculated seasons.

Out of darkness, light is born.
Like so many before me, I wandered through shadows, blind to the truth of who I was. Navigating the worldly maze as a flameless candle, without purpose or direction. As a youth, that darkness wrapped itself around me, pulling me into the numbing ignorance of drugs, alcohol, and the false embrace of negative influences. The world was solely a corrupt place, and to play the game felt meaningless. In 2013, at 19 years old, that path reached a breaking point—with an arrest that shattered the illusion and broke the spell of the dark agenda I was under.

In that moment of figuratively hitting rock bottom, something ancient activated within me. What followed was not despair, but a great spiritual awakening that cracked open my heart and revealed a world I had never seen. With new eyes and new ears, beauty was suddenly everywhere. Life, once dim and distant, became sacred. I began to walk a new path of redemption guided by something real and pure, what may be called the Holy Spirit.

During that time on bail, everything in my life began to shift. I let go of outside influences—media, people, and places that no longer served me—and turned inward. I spent time alone, in nature. My mind body and spirit began to change. I fasted, meditated, did yoga, and experienced my energy and the energy around me transform. My essence was rising to the surface. I experienced a cathartic rebirth.

I felt alone in this frequency—like no one else spoke the same inner language. But then I found music and art of a similar resonance. And eventually, I met Taino Chief Roman Redhawk Guaguaorix Perez and other great people in the native/ medicine community. In them, I found positive connection. I found my tribe so to speak, or they found me.

Through their guidance, I was formally introduced to the sacred ways of prayer and ceremony. Life became something deeper—rooted, beautiful, and full of meaning. Without these ways I don’t know where my life would be. I can say with certainty that only through this divine intervention am I alive and well today.

I believe deeply in restorative justice. In many cases, we don’t need a distant court system of presumptuous strangers to control, judge, or punish. As human beings, we have the capacity to self correct. Through genuine repentance, shared understanding, and community-led efforts, we can find healing. We can resolve conflict not through punishment, but through restoration. Peace is possible—when we choose to meet one another with compassion rather than condemnation.

But the beast that is the injustice system is cold, blind, and power hungry. It feeds on control and has no interest in truth. My pleas of innocence meant nothing. The facts were ignored. My repentance was shunned. There is no longer sense once a shark smells blood.

This was the cross I had to bear.

I was sentenced to 10 years and served 7 years and 8 months of incarceration. In an instant, I was torn from a life of nature, wellness, and peace, and thrown into a dungeon of metal, poison, and brutality.

Most prisoners had some family, friends, gangs; a circle of familiarity. I had no one. I walked alone in a wilderness of concrete and noise, and I had to learn to adapt. Working out became my sanctuary. Books were my way to connect to life outside. I built a small library—around 80 books—but when I was thrown into solitary, the books were taken.

In that silence, stripped of even my books, something new stirred. With nothing but time and my thoughts, I began to write. And from that darkness, the vision of Rey The Key was born.

I have many writings, songs, and artwork from this time away. My colored pencils were contraband, so it was a battle to even make art. They were often raided. But like a magnet, i would always find more. At one point in time, in a rare situation, i painted my cell. There was a sacred geometry mandala on the floor, symbols on the walls, a sun disk and wings over the door, and more.. the guards were at a loss. But that is where i came up with the name (Cell)ular Ascension.

I utilized a mixed media pad, pen, colored pencils, toothpaste for glue and a nail clipper as a blade. With these, I gave form to the past visions of my soul. Crystallized talismans of that holy energy. I drew the echoes of blessed things I had once touched but now longed for with a broken heart heavy in absence. Each creation was an offering—a prayer in line and color. I would mail them home for a time yet to arrive. A time that is now.

I was released on Easter Day of 2023, at 28 years old. It has been a process of detoxing, healing, and soul retrieving. Re-membering, ReConnecting, relearning.. Resurrecting, my true self. Through everything art has always been my refuge. I share with you these pieces of my self.. created in the heart of that infernal crucible. Where i was shaped by grace, refined by fire, and saved by creativity.

"Art is the alchemy of the soul, transmuting pain into beauty, confusion into clarity, and chaos into form."

“But the right way to wholeness is made up, unfortunately, of fateful detours and wrong turnings.”
C. Jung

“I had to go down into the depths of myself to find the light I carried all along."
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.  When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.”
Joseph Campbell

“Alchemy is really the secret tradition of the redemption of spirit from matter."
Terence McKenna

“There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.
To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.” C. Jung

“Nobody can fall so low unless he has a great depth. If such a thing can happen to a man, it challenges his best and highest on the other side; that is to say, this depth corresponds to a potential height, and the blackest darkness to a hidden light.” C. Jung

“Right at the beginning you meet the dragon, the chthonic spirit, the devil or, as the alchemists called it, the blackness, the nigredo, and this encounter produces suffering..."
C. Jung

"I.. surnamed the dragon; therefore am I shut up in a cave, that I may become ransomed by the kingly crown...A fiery sword inflicts great torments on me; death makes weak my flesh and bones...My soul and my spirit depart; a terrible poison, I am likened to the black raven, for that is the wages of sin; in dust and earth I lie, that out of Three may come One. O soul and spirit leave me not, that I may see again the light of day, and the hero of peace whom the whole world shall behold may arise from me..." Aurelia Occulta Philosophorum

What do you think of the essence of Hell? Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are..” C. Jung

“Nigredo is the dark state, and is considered the most difficult and negative operation of the alchemical process.  It is the shadow of the sun.  Putrefactio, and Mortificatio are two different aspects of the Nigredo.  Putreficatio means rotting, and Mortificatio means killing, hence it is associated with death.  Figures like the dismembered Osiris/ Horus (;Christ, Dionysus, Tammuz, Ishtar, Attis, Mithras, Odin +) usher in a rebirth. In all religions associated with agricultural renewal, the rotting and death comes first.  The dead king may be buried in the fields to promote fertility.“

“This dissolution of the darkness also dissolves the picture which we have made of ourselves.” C. Jung

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek"
Joseph Campbell

“Creativity is the alchemy of the spirit—taking the raw material of experience and turning it into something sacred."
Mystic proverb

"The alchemical operation is a living drama of the soul, a way of transforming the base into the noble.”
C. Jung