alchemical

To make dal feels like an alchemical feat, watching the pebbly lentils turn creamy, starchy and golden with turmeric.

Wearing a black tank top, with her hair in long blond waves, Shakira spoke happily and volubly about an album that, for her, was “alchemical.”

Some actors come to embody a national cinema through an alchemical combination of demeanor and film choices.

“Making this body of work has been an alchemical process.”

From another, it is a locus of myth and mystery, a site of alchemical transformation from which all humanity springs.