Tag Archives: endurance

Chuck’s Place: Duration

Thunder above, wind below…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Today, I request of the I Ching*:  Guidance for ALL, now.

What is given is hexagram #32, Duration. The essence of duration is union, as an enduring condition.

The image of duration is built with thunder, the arousing, on top of wind, the gentle. Thunder and wind are a naturally paired set of influences.  With the sound of thunder comes the energy of wind. The human social analogy for duration is the enduring relationship of marriage.

Within the individual, duration is a state of being that is not worn down by hindrances. By embracing enduring meaning in one’s life, one becomes self-contained and self-renewing. This kind of meaning is found in aligning one’s will with one’s true spirit.

Thunder and wind are mobile occurrences, seemingly an unlikely pair to depict the qualities of duration. But this fluidity of coming and going implies a definite lack of rigidity or refusal to change. That which acts from duration changes with the changing times. What doesn’t change is one’s unswerving commitment to the inner truth of one’s being, that which guides all actions.

No particular moving line was emphasized, hence, all the lines of the hexagram carry guidance for specific challenges to the state of duration.

The first line: Seeking duration too hastily brings misfortune persistently. Relationships require time to achieve duration. Self-development requires perseverance over time. If we grasp too quickly things fall apart and we are saddened, or give up.

The second line: Regret disappears. The power of one’s will is greater than one’s material resource. However, in the time of duration one is able to regulate one’s inner strength, thus avoiding excess in action. This removes the cause for regret.

The third line: The inability to turn inward brings misfortune. If one remains at the mercy of moods aroused by outside events, one suffers inner turmoil and loses the innerly connection to that which provides duration.

The fourth line: No game in the field. If one persists in a course of action that is fruitless, one will only be disappointed. Here, will overpowers spirit and loses its duration.

The fifth line: Flexible reason, moderate emotion. Reason must be flexible and adjust to changing conditions. Emotion must remain moderate lest it burn up or remain overly attached to the moment. Best that reason lead to maintain duration.

The sixth line: Continued restlessness brings misfortune. To remain in persistent hurry or worry precludes inner composure. Turn inward, breathe in, breathe out. Let calm breathing lead to duration.

In this time of outer threat, find composure in that which provides duration. The power of duration will endure and safely bridge to coming stability, where that which lends duration within will also lead to duration without.

Duration,

Chuck

*Source: The I Ching, Wilhelm edition

Chuck’s Place: Endurance

Kundalini energy rising…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I would be neglectful indeed, in my duty as a licensed psychotherapist, were I not to validate the obvious current world predicament: walking the razor’s edge of latent collective psychosis. I would also be neglectful in my duty as a transpersonal psychotherapist were I not to share my vision of the multidimensional drama that veils our vision, just as the sands of the Sahara now blanket the world. Beyond the veil of ignorance coated by those desert sands lies the path of heart, the path of our redemption.

Psychosis, in modern psychological nomenclature, depicts a mental state where the ego, as the central governing force of the personality, sinks into the abyss of unconscious forces, as the personality becomes a rudderless ship taken over by the turbulent forces of nature. That violent nature, generally subdued by the matador, is overrun by the bull, the ultimate surge of a bull market, an inflation that refuses to yield to the axiom: what goes up must come down.

In earlier times, when modern psychology was expressed in spiritual terms, our current situation would be understood as the activation of the gods, what we now term the archetypes, competing with their enormous instinctual energies, in a game of chess with humans as their channeled pawns.

From a transpersonal perspective, the war we are in is ego vs archetype. When archetype possesses ego we risk psychosis. Ego’s challenge in such an onslaught, is to endure. To endure is to resist the enticing power and energy of the archetypes, the fine print of which is a truly Mephistophelian contract: total possession, loss of soul, slavery to the activated archetype.

Archetypes are spirit entities that program a species, the deeply subconscious patterns that rule instinctual life. They enjoyed total domination for millennia until the birth of human consciousness, an event that introduced the possibility of refusing or manipulating the emotional intensity and compulsion of instinct.

This power wrestled from the archetypes upset their balance and control over human life. Suppression and repression of instinct renders archetypes dormant but not dead. Jung wrote often, before the outbreak of WWII, that Wotan, the restless wanderer god of pagan origin, was stirring from the primordial depths, seizing control of the collective German psyche.

Inspiration from the archetypes seeks outlet in human life and is channeled, by human egos, in highly emotional spirited messages. The power and energy of these spirit forces are contagious, stirring frenzy in the masses. Their identifying mark is their disdain for reason, the human ego prison guard of instinctual energies. There is no reasoning with an archetype, instinct alone prevails.

Endurance is the capacity of the ego to weather the storms of passion without falling prey to possession. From a chakra perspective this is accomplished by containing the kundalini energy, the energy of the archetypes, forcing it to rise to the level of the heart chakra.

Pragmatically, this means refusing to engage the emotions of anger and sadness that feed the archetypes. Instead, go inward and exert calm over the excited kundalini emotion that begs outlet in excited action. Calm the autonomic nervous system with its typically unregulated dominance over the body. Send its energy through the breath to the cool respite of the heart chakra.

The heart chakra is the direct link to the Buddhic plane, the home of truth, love, and compassion. Kundalini at the level of the heart acquiesces to serve the High SOUL, as the true guide to right action. The pressure of world survival now is to rise to the level of action in conformance with true need over subjective want, it’s that simple.

All humans of all political persuasions are subject to this rising tide of kundalini energy seeking refuge in planetary survival. May the eyes of the masked and the unmasked meet in loving embrace.

From a transpersonal perspective, our current brush with psychosis is really our collective walking along the razor’s edge above the abyss, as we seek the solidity of higher ground.

Humanity is charged with raising the spiritual level of the planet beyond the blind control of the archetypes. The heart center is our destiny. May we endure this grueling transformation fueled with love for all. All for one, one for all.

With loving endurance,

Chuck