The Peacock’s Tail: Alchemy’s Burst of Colour Before the Light

You have been through a dark stretch. Lately it has started to shift, but not in a straight line. One day you feel hopeful, the next you are angry, the next you feel nothing at all, and then something makes you laugh for the first time in months. It can feel like you are going backwards.

The alchemists had an image for a time like this. They called it the cauda pavonis, the peacock’s tail.

Where the peacock’s tail sits

Most readers know the four stages of alchemy: black, white, yellow and red. The peacock’s tail is not one of the four. It is a moment the texts describe on the way out of the black.

Carl Jung sets out the possible routes from the blackening (the nigredo) to the whitening (the albedo). Here is the whole sentence, so you can see the peacock in its place:

Two things stand out. First, the peacock’s tail is one route among several, not a step every text includes. Second, the many colours do not replace the white. They lead to it: to “the one white colour that contains all colours”.

Not every alchemist put it in the same place

Jung is clear that alchemical writers rarely agreed on the exact order of the work (Jung, 1968, para. 333). The peacock’s tail shows this well.

One alchemist, Libavius, wrote a key to a picture of the whole process in his Alchymia of 1606. Jung reproduces it. At one point Libavius tells the artist what to paint:

Here the colours come later, in the coagulation, the stage where the work sets and holds together. So the idea that the peacock’s tail always comes straight after the black is too tidy. In some texts it marks the way out of the dark, in others a later turn of the work.

What the colours stood for

In Jung’s book, a picture of a peacock with its tail spread carries this caption:

Jung also ties the colours to Mercurius, the shifting spirit that, in his account, stands at the beginning and the end of the work (Jung, 1968, para. 404). Of Mercurius he writes:

So the peacock’s tail is not a pretty extra. In this reading the colours belong to the same thing that was black at the start. Nothing new has been added. What was dark is now showing everything it held.

What this can mean for you

This part is our reading, not a claim from the texts.

After a hard season, many people expect a clean switch from dark to light. Life rarely does that. Feelings come back mixed: relief and grief in the same afternoon, energy and then a crash, a good week followed by a bad day that seems to cancel it.

The peacock’s tail offers another way to see that mix. The colours are not a sign that you have failed to get out. In the image, they are part of how the black turns white. The white that follows is not empty. It is the colour that “contains all colours”.

It is also a warning not to stop too early. The peacock is striking, and it is easy to take a burst of good feeling for the finish. In Jung’s summary the colours lead on to the white. They are a passage, not the end.

If you are still deep in the dark part, read how long nigredo lasts. If things are starting to lift, read nigredo to albedo: when the dark starts to lift.

A two-minute practice

This one is ours, not the alchemists’.

1. Name today’s colours. Write down the feelings you have had today, even the ones that contradict each other. One word each.
2. Do not rank them. Leave the hopeful one and the heavy one side by side.
3. Ask one question. “What do all of these have in common?” Write one line, or nothing.

If nothing comes, leave it. The point is to see the whole tail, not to pick one feather.

How firm is this?

The historical part is firm: the passages above are quoted from Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy and the alchemical sources it reproduces. The meaning for your life is our reading. It is an idea to reflect on, not a tested treatment, and it makes no promise about how long anything takes. If low mood is heavy or will not lift, please talk to a qualified professional.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cauda pavonis in alchemy?

It is Latin for “peacock’s tail”: a display of many colours that some alchemical texts describe in the work. Jung lists it as one route from the blackening to the whitening, where the “many colours” lead to “the one white colour that contains all colours” (Jung, 1968, para. 334).

Is the peacock’s tail one of the stages of alchemy?

Not one of the four. The usual four are nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo. The peacock’s tail is a moment some texts describe, and they do not agree on where it falls. Libavius, for example, places it in the coagulation.

What does the peacock’s tail mean psychologically?

Our reading is that it pictures the mixed, changeable feelings that often come as a dark period starts to lift. In the image the colours are part of the passage to the white, not a sign that the work has failed.

Short films from this research — follow on TikTok.