Tag Archives: hexagram #12

Chuck:s Place: Being In The New Wholeness With Equanimity

Establish equanimity with heart…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The vast majority have chosen.  The energetic wave of competition has settled upon a new state of physical reality, a new configuration of All That Is. Victory and defeat are equal parts of life. When we can greet either outcome with equal serenity, we practice equanimity.

The Four Fold Way of native traditions counsels us to be open to outcome without attachment. If we linger too long in attachment, we are absent to the nuance and opportunity of oncoming time. If we linger too long in attachment, we bind our vital energy and resist union.

I am grateful that the outcome of the election is so definitive. At a collective level we cannot advance beyond the choice of the majority, it’s the law of democracy. We clearly must be where we are. We must live through the changes that will become manifest through the mandate given. The challenge is to suspend judgment and see what happens. The challenge is to meet each day with love and equanimity.

I referenced, in my last blog, the I Ching reading I threw before the election. I present it here in the spirit of equanimity. Hexagram #12, Standstill and Stagnation, depicts heaven and earth pulling away from each other  in complete opposite directions, with no possibility of union.

The ruler of this hexagram, the 9 in the 5th place, was highlighted in this reading. Wilhelm comments, “The time undergoes a change. The right man, able to restore order, has arrived. Hence “Good Fortune.” But such periods of transition are the very times in which we must fear and tremble. Success is assured only through greatest caution…” (I Ching, Wilhelm edition, p.55). The future, Hexagram #35, depicts a coming time of rapid, easy progress.

To acquiesce to the majority’s choice does not mean that one should surrender one’s values nor inner truth. All should tend the flame of their inner spirit as it speaks to them in their hearts. “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” (Mark 12:17) When we are in that alignment, our being will radiate right discernment and manifest necessary action.

The lesson of this election is Lincoln’s proverbial wisdom, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Many of us seek change in our lives but are haunted by blocking beliefs that make us a divided inner house. The subconscious mind requires a determined suggestion, empowered with strong emotion, to manifest the changes one seeks.

Just as at a collective level a majority is required to set the course, we are tasked inwardly with consciously arriving at a majority intention to engage the services of the subconscious mind. This will require some shadow work. We must discover and reconcile with our deeply hidden divided house within.

This might involve some soul retrieval work via recapitulation of past trauma that has given rise to energetic defenses that have created divisions within the self. The freed up energy from this release and reconciliation then becomes available to join in the call for unified change.

The golden rule for manifestation is ultimately inner unity upon what one emphasizes. What we emphasize, by way of thought, feeling and habit, will become our manifested reality. If we have cleared ourselves of the divisiveness of the repressed within, we do well to observe the thoughts, inner dialogue and mood states we habitually reinforce.

With awareness and intention we can release these energetic fixations to All That Is with the intention that the energy from these beliefs be recycled for the greater good. Furthermore, we can lay emphasis upon our truly desired intentions through conscious positive inner dialogue rather than continuing the undermining drone of habitually negative self statements.

With these efforts we will accrue the inner majority to influence the divine intelligence in our subconscious mind to manifest the changes we seek. May all arrive at this new wholeness with gratitude and AWE.

With gratitude and AWE,
Chuck

NOTE: After Jan edited and illustrated this blog, she spontaneously opened Activation of Energy by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to page 61, and read me this quote, which we found to be particularly meaningful for our times: “…the true cause of what is happening in the world today is to be found not in some collapse of former values but in the eruption, within mankind, of a flood of new being which, precisely because it is new, comes initially as something foreign and hostile to what we ourselves represent. What takes us by surprise in today’s events, what so upsets us and terrifies us—but what in fact we must look straight in the face of so that we can analyze its mechanism and its phases, and distinguish what good effects it has side by side with what evil effects—is, in my view, the implacable cosmic tide: it is this that, having first raised each one of us up to its own level, is now at work, beating in a new rhythm, to expel us from our own selves: it is the eternal ‘rise of the other’ within the human mass.”

Chuck’s Place: Guidance for Now

I actually started four blogs this week, none of which feels right at this moment. Finally, my ego turned to a higher power, the I Ching, and asked: “Guidance for the World, NOW?”

The Image: Caught between rising waters…

The result: Hexagram 29, The Abysmal or Danger. Moving lines in the 2nd, 4th and 6th places.

The future: Hexagram 12, Standstill.

Interpretation: A) The context of The Abysmal; B) The activated lines of The Abysmal; C) The future of Standstill.

A) The Abysmal is formed by the doubling of the trigram of water. The image is one of being caught in the rising water of a ravine, a dangerous, yet extraordinary position.

This week, I was standing in a dry ravine. Even in the absence of actual water its energetic current took me off balance, causing a fall into a bush that tore my face. Rather than interpret such an encounter as carelessness, I accepted it as a design of power. I clung not to victimhood nor self-pity, relegating it to a known world, but as an experience to be relished. I am open to life.

The current situation too begs objectivity, from all of us. It is not the consequence of a subjective attitude or foolishness. Do not blame the self. Do not tantrum with reason. The danger is real. And yet the danger is an encounter with power, a most educative experience. To survive and learn from the encounter one must get quiet and remain calm and observant. Be like water that fills the space thoroughly and then moves on. This is impeccability, the right attitude to escape destruction in an encounter with infinity.

B) Specifically, in line 2, instruction is given to not fight the dark forces. Don’t engage in direct conflict; it’s a trap and energy drain. Remain steady, be fully present and observant, in silence. Adapt until the right moment for movement arrives.

Line 4: The challenge is complex. Have great patience, study and wait. Be accepting of gradual change. Avoid impulsive action or attachment. Recognize that this is a learning situation of great consequence; view it from all angles. Water is thorough; it fills every nook and cranny before it moves on, and you can be safely carried on.

Line 6: Beware of getting caught in the prison of illusion. A master conjurer can ensnare one’s full attention, steal one’s energy and manipulate an outcome. Always stare down that conjurer within the self first. Sometimes the prison sentence of illusion is a lifetime. The greatest conjurer of all is the ego itself, who knows everything.

C) The future is Standstill. Do not devalue any moment in time; they are all equal. Treat standstill with reverence. In Standstill, Heaven above moves further away from Earth below. Their energies do not unite but further alienate from each other. Creative union is not possible in a time of stagnation.

Richard Wilhelm writes, in the Judgment of Standstill, “But the superior people do not allow themselves to be turned from their principles. If the possibility of exerting influence is closed to them, they nevertheless remain faithful to their principles and withdraw into seclusion.”

Here, ego and mystery separate. Rather than crown ego victorious or inadequate, recognize a time of lull as a necessary preparation for the next true encounter. Focus attention on doing the best you can, in all situations, to prepare for power’s next test.

Follow the path of heart inward, to the place of worth. Avoid being drawn into the egoic opportunism of the moment that seeks one-sided victory. Save the energy for when it counts, then act, decisively.

Be calm,

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Union

Front cover of Autobiography of a Yogi.
Front cover of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Almost every morning, as Jan channels the Soulbyte for the day, I go off and open a book at random to let the divine deliver its message to me.

The other day, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi to an interaction between Yogananda and his master Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda had just experienced a great physical healing, which he thanked his master for. Sri Yukteswar craftily worded his response to suggest that the healing was actually effected by a change in Yogananda’s own thought process. Yogananda anxiously sought to disavow this power and the next day awoke completely unable to physically get out of bed, restored to the comfort of the familiarity of his old weakness. Sri Yukteswar then instructed: “The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God…whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.”

Can we take ownership of that Divine Spark, that God within us all? Can we wisely direct our thoughts toward greater union within ourselves, within the world? Are we ready to take full ownership of our power?

On another recent morning, enveloped in a mood of despair and stagnation, as Jan channeled, I turned to the I Ching for guidance. Not surprisingly, hexagram #12, Stagnation, appeared. Here heaven and earth are flying further and further apart, deeply out of alignment with each other.

It’s hard now to not see the signs of this dissociation every day, whether it be beached whales, fish fleeing the too warm waters of Maine, children slaughtered at school, women brutally raped, and the stories go on and on. We are in a time of total disintegration as nature and spirit dissolve the world as we have known it and move toward a new position, rebalancing into a new and sustainable format.

The I Ching tells me (nine in the fourth place) that the time of stagnation is nearing the point of change into its opposite. And finally, nine at the top, that though this time of standstill does not last forever, it does not cease of its own accord either; the right leader is needed.

Here I am led back to my opening quote, stating that the spark of God resides in every person. Every person is and has the power of God within, and that power lies in the power of intent. But we must truly embrace that power and believe it to effect the change we seek. One danger, of course, is to misuse that power. This has been the mistake of our human race to date, to exploit our Godly power to our own advantage: narcissistic greed. That mistake has brought us to this edge of oblivion.

Yesterday morning, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi again, to this quote regarding how to use our power: “Don’t do what you like, then do everything you like.” The guidance is clear. Ego must first check its narcissistic impulse to act. This impulse is cut off from the needs of the interdependent whole, just as the I Ching suggests that the earth and the heavens are cut off from each other, each swirling in opposite directions away from unity and wholeness. It’s all about me, me, me. If we pause, we give ourselves the opportunity to realign, to become the interdependent whole that then is freed to act with abandon, offered the opportunity to achieve true unity based on right alignment, with ego serving the Spark of the Divine.

We are all responsible for the unity we seek... for returning the world to wholeness. - Art by Jan Ketchel
We are all responsible for the unity we seek… for returning the world to wholeness.
– Art by Jan Ketchel

Synchronistically, I turned on the news the other day to hear that two leaders have acted as real leaders, serving the interdependent needs of the whole, Cuomo and Obama. New York Governor Cuomo refused the interests of the fossil fuels industry to value Mother Earth and our true needs. NO FRACKING in New York. Bravo, Governor Cuomo! President Obama has established diplomatic ties with Cuba, ending a long divide. Bravo, President Obama!

Let us all be our own Godly leaders, exercising our own Spark of the Divine. Let us all have pure thoughts of greater union, of care of the true needs of the whole, of heaven and earth, of self and other.

Happy Holidays!
Chuck