The alchemists have a saying, ‘Tertium non data’: The third is not given. That is, the transformation from one element to another, from waste matter into best gold, is a process that cannot be documented. It is fully mysterious. No one really knows what effects the change. And so it is with the mind that moves from its prison to a vast plain without any movement at all. We can only guess at what happened.
— Jeanette Winterson, “Sexing the Cherry”
