I’m reading Jan’s blog and call her regarding typos. She tells me of energetic oddities: faxes won’t go through, computer glitches and, finally, as we talk, a loud noise, a smell. She discovers the true culprit, a motor that has burnt out. And then, to boot, she opens the door to the motor to be met by a swarm of bees!
These might be typical reactions to these events: What am I doing wrong? Why is this happening to me? Why am I being punished? Notice how immediately the mind—the foreign installation, as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico call it—drops its veil over reality and introduces its self-absorbed interpretation.
For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico this reflexive tendency to insert the self in all interpretations of events is the greatest blockage to seeing things as they really are and to opening to our fullest potential. How can we hope to fulfill ourselves when our vital energy is mired in self-absorbed fixation? This fixation manifests as worry, fear, guilt, blame, and self-doubt. A typical response would likely be a plan to change the self in some way, to improve our, assumed, “negative karma.”
The ancient Chinese sages had a different take on the happenings of natural phenomena. From their perspective, things that occurred together—things that intersected at a particular moment in time—shared some meaning in common. Not that one caused the other, but that each reflected the other. Events that occur together are acausally related, what Jung termed synchronicities. From this perspective, rather than taking events personally, the ancient Chinese sages read the energy of the moment, which became a guide to decision making, cutting out self-absorbed judgment.
Thus, a fax not going through suggests it’s not the right time to communicate something, or that it requires a different method. Or that outside energy was blocking willful intent. Perhaps it signals a time of retreat and patient waiting, not time to force one’s way across the river. These reflections on energetic configurations are beautifully summarized and outlined in the Chinese I Ching or Book of Changes.
Sometimes occurrences are signs showing us that we are approaching things at a time not energetically suited to our intent. If, instead, we read such a sign as a proposal for corrective action—as an opportunity for energetic realignment, such as patient waiting—we spare ourselves the labyrinth of judgment. Remember, it’s not personal. Just read the signs.
Jan references the archetypal imperative of the cicada’s seventeen year journey in her blog this week, a poignant exposition of nature’s hardwired programming. Our human species has toyed with its own archetypal imperative, seeking to escape from our boring repetition of the same old same old. So far have we strayed from our natural roots that we scurry about daily, reinventing the wheel of survival, while eons of inherited wisdom lies fallow at the intuitive core of our beings.
I sit on my deck as I write, the vibratory energy of infinity flowing into my ears and coursing through my veins. The sound of the cicadas lifts me into my energy body. If I allowed myself, and fully followed the call, I think I could leave now. I know the sound of the cicadas from my earliest youth, from my first encounter with infinity when I was certain that I would disintegrate if I didn’t find a casing to hold myself together. I remember my young boy self settling on the structure of a race car traveling at great speed, navigating the racecourse with me at the wheel and in control. Today, the call of infinity makes me calm and joyous.
So, what about 17, the limited cycle impervious to change? If you add 1 and 7 together you get 8—the symbol of infinity! 17 may signal limitation, but it houses infinity.
I am reminded here of the hexagram of Limitation in the I Ching that cautions us humans to respect the limitations of our own life cycle. We are beings who are going to die! At least in our human form! This archetypal program of living and dying is not likely to change anytime soon. The I Ching counsels that if we are wise, we will accept our limited time, acquiesce to our mortality. It is through acquiescence to our mortality that we, in fact, open the door to infinity. If we live the illusion that we have forever, we never take life seriously enough—in fact, we get caught in the spins of toying with the archetypes—creating some new fountains of youth for our eternal carcasses. In accepting limitation, we protect our energy and direct it toward our true task of fulfilling our lives as fully conscious beings, preparing to lift off into infinity with the cicadas in full awareness when it’s our time to leave.
Even with broken wing, the journey is the same… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In her message on Monday, Jeanne spoke of birth being the hardest challenge. From there we are provided our own archetypal wings to complete our human journey. Like the cicadas, many of us are bruised at the starting gate and our subsequent journey must first detour to find and repair our lost wings. But, even then, the archetypes of the dream world and synchronous waking world are provided to guide the way. Jeanne’s guidance was to keep it simple; follow the direct knowledge of the archetypes. So difficult to hear sometimes, in a world that generates new guide books for profit each day.
As I finish writing my blog, my attention is drawn back to 17 again, to the vibrant and stirring song of the cicadas that drowns out even the loudest of manmade motors. Keep it simple, I think, how perfect that guidance is. Keeping it simple is listening to the knowing voice within, following its program, deepening the preparations to take that final journey in infinity with eager, joyful abandon.
Today we post Chuck’s blog. Jan’s blog will appear on Friday this week.
Will spring ever come? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
As I write, millions of Hindus celebrate the festival of Kumbh Mela at the mythical river Ganges. The Tibetans have just celebrated their New Year, the year of the water snake, on the day the Pope resigned. Fat Tuesday, the height of Carnival, lands on the day of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Today, Ash Wednesday, ushers in Lent, forty days of sacrifice—carne denied—before nature ushers in the Rite of Spring.
The juxtaposition of these human traditions built upon the deepest cycle of nature—the end of winter—reveals the exceptional tumult and uncertainty of our time. Will spring ever come, will life survive this most tenuous time of year? A Pope resigning, an unheard of event, is a strong testament to our time of fragility and rapid change, and the need for new governance to lead us forward. The King is dead, long life the King!
On Monday of this week, I turned to the I Ching for reflection on the extraordinary synchronicities of these archetypal events. I offer its guidance as I received it: I threw hexagram #64, Before Completion, with moving lines in the first, second, and fifth places. The resulting future of this hexagram is hexagram #25, Innocence.
Before Completion is the time of very early spring, the time we are in now. The image is that of the fox crossing the semi-frozen surface of a lake. How wisely will that fox cross so as to not accidentally fall through a crack in the ice?
Hexagram #64 is the final hexagram in the I Ching, the Book of Changes. It ushers in the beginning of a new cycle, the time of year we are in now. It is the time of new governance that we are now in as well. It’s the time of planetary transition, at the deepest level, that we are also now in. The question is, as the earth enters its new cycle, how wise will we humans be as we cross the thin ice? How well will we fare?
The two elements that comprise hexagram #64 are fire above and water below. These elements are opposites and they are moving away from each other. Something must happen to bring these elements into a harmonious relationship. Our human country and human world suffer this same opposition now, a great division. Will we find a way to reconciliation and the fostering of new life?
The first moving line states that the fox is too hasty; it gets wet. The I Ching suggests that we are quite vulnerable to get it wrong; to move too hastily is to form a less than perfect union. Restraint is suggested to avoid failure and humiliation.
In the second line, the fox exercises its brakes and does not cross the thin ice. Patience, to accrue the inner strength that together with firm intent will provide the right vehicle to cross the lake, is the guidance here.
The six in the fifth place is the ruler of the hexagram. Victory is achieved. Steadfastness leads to a superior personality that crosses the ice successfully. And with this, the potent, medicinal, nourishing sprouts of spring break through the surface to support new life.
The hexagram of Innocence guides the practice outlined in these moving lines. The essence of innocence is the alignment of ego with spirit self. When ego acts in the service of spirit it is restored to its innocence. This is not a return to the unconscious innocence of the Garden. This is evolved innocence, consciousness that acquiesces to the truth of the spirit.
Last night we witnessed opposition—fire and water, Democrat and Republican—as presented in hexagram #64 in real time, as the archetypal drama of excess, sacrifice, death and the hope for new life played out before us. Mardi Gras closed on the heels of death, Ash Wednesday, as Guy Fawkes—the giant straw man, in the guise of Christopher Dorner—was burned in the arms of Big Bear, CA. The TV networks struggled to decide which reality to display as President Obama simultaneously, in his State of the Union address, spoke of a realignment of governance to face the truths of a planet in peril. He spoke of global warming, energy that doesn’t pollute, and greed tempered to provide a fair wage. These are the sacrifices spoken about in the I Ching under innocence, where the ego—the governing body of the self and of humankind—acquiesces to the truth of the spirit. And Obama stood there before the opposites of fire and water to bring these two opposing forces into fruitful alignment and the hope of a new spring and sustainable life.
Will we take the advice of the I Ching, so in alignment with now? Do we have the humility of a Pope who retires his ego, recognizing that he can no longer hear the spirit and properly serve the people? Can we of the human race surrender our collective ego as the fathering principle of this planet, and acquiesce to the truth of spirit as our Rite of Spring? With a hopeful outlook, the Book of Changes comes to a close and simultaneously enters a new cycle of life. Let’s see what happens.
In the temple of calm enthusiasm with the big Buddha at The Buddhist Association of the United States in Carmel, New York.
We are in the time of enthusiasm—I Ching hexagram #16—where thunder, the arousing, awakens the receptive earth below. The leader awakens enthusiasm in those he leads. Obama rouses the populace to enthusiastically support change, an end to needless greed.
Guidance suggests that enthusiasm move along the line of least resistance, that is, movement based on truth and nature, as expressed in the Tao, and not on the cogitation of delusional ideas. In their hearts the people know the truth and can accept change in accord with it. In contrast, the people resist change that does not flow with the truth of the heart. We ask our leaders to lead in the truth, not in the delusion. We must ask the same of ourselves, as we lead ourselves through the decisions of our daily lives, always, but most especially in this time of enthusiasm.
From where do we receive our enthusiasm, our impetus to right action? We are baited constantly by enthusiastic offers of energetic spice, promising contentment and fulfillment: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, another cup of coffee, another romantic hit online, another glass of wine. When we take the bait and attach, we enter the tunnels of excitement and receive energetic spikes, the bounty of the entity gods, but nothing lasting.
The I Ching counsels retreating to the temple in the time of enthusiasm, offering prayer and music to the ancestors and the gods. In this manner, we experience sacred communion with God. With this connection we intuit the direction to be followed, as the arousing is felt from the true source, the SELF, God, the Atman in all of us.
The sacred temple of our time is found in our own practice—be it meditation, sacred music or dance, or perhaps even Facebook—as we traverse the path that eventually takes us to the bridge leading to our infinite selves. From this infinite place we see, we know, right action. We can rest and rejuvenate in the bliss of this calm unattached energy, energy that informs right action along the least line of resistance; action in harmony with and originating from the Tao.
Beware deluded enthusiasm, recognizable in erratic bipolar spikes of energy and restlessness. True enthusiasm comes in calm energy that finds the middle way.
The lake rests in calm repose. Suddenly and shockingly, thunder blindsides the stillness. Zeus ravages once again; the lake is disturbed and shown its destiny. The marrying maiden is delivered to the threshold of her husband’s door.
In the case of Kuei Mei, the I Ching’s hexagram #54—The Marrying Maiden—this is not an auspicious event. This is the marriage of woman as concubine, indeed a destiny of suffering.
Buddha discovered that LIFE itself is suffering. As beings born into this world we are all stamped as concubines, and we only fully grasp this notion as we understand that the circumstances of our births, the stamps of our destinies, require us to fully suffer those destinies. We cannot escape them. Even if we refuse them through denial, delusion or death, we cannot escape the controlling hands of our destinies. We cannot change the reality of what or who we are. Our challenge is to fully discover, become, and accept that which we are. And then we are free to truly dream it forward, that is, to choose.
Once we embrace our destiny we are free to dream it into new worlds of possibility and fulfillment, untethered to the destiny of our origins. But, until then we must suffer.
It was my stamp, my destiny, to repeatedly suffer the ravages of rape and alcoholic violence foisted upon my mother as I lay in frozen stillness, incubating in the embryonic pool of her womb. Like the calm lake in hexagram #54, I had to withstand the sudden thunder and lightning that came from outside, in the form of my abusive father. My destiny was PTSD, PTSD in oneness with my pregnant mother.
My choice, after decades of discovering my destiny—who I am—has been to dream that destiny forward, as a therapist discovering an evolutionary advance for PTSD, dreaming it forward as a gateway to infinity. Arrival at that gateway—being released from the confines of destiny—through deep inner work, leads to choice and real freedom.
All worlds are multifaceted...
The journey from destiny to choice is multifaceted. Most prominent is the facet of recapitulation. Every day we are triggered by our spirit to recapture the deepest truths of our destiny. We are asked by our own fears and stumblings in everyday life to wake up to where we’ve been and who we are, right down to the elemental essence of our conception. That joining of genes is the stamp of our individuality, the formative journey of our material beings, sending us off on our destinies. Just as I was stamped in my mother’s womb, so are we all.
Until we can feel and know all that we are, all that we’ve been through, we suffer the limitations of beings not ready to fully know ourselves. Of necessity we are held back from the full truth of our heritage and personal history and remain caught in revisionist lives. We remain blinded by false beliefs of who we are, struck by the glare of the thunder and lightning of our lives. We remain stuck in a concubine world.
In recapitulation, we gather up and recondition our parts, the fragments of our destined selves. We reclaim and rejoin with our true selves, experiencing revitalized energy as we recapitulate. Along the path we are challenged to face our victim status, i.e.: None of it was fair. None of it was okay. We didn’t deserve it. It’s not supposed to be this way. They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. All of this, and much more, is true. It must be acknowledged; yet, beyond that, the truth is that destiny is not fair. The world of the concubine is not fair. Destiny, however, is an experience seeker, a unique combination of energy—a “probe of awareness,” as the shamans would say—sent out in search of new experience.
Who are we? Victim or Fox?
Destiny has no morality. It just is. We awaken to our destiny and seek to make it pleasurable, meaningful, and fulfilling. That is our predilection, the stamp of our humanness. And so, as humans we naturally challenge ourselves to evolve our destinies beyond their victim, concubine, origins. To remain in the victim range is to limit ourselves to the concubine world, far from dreaming our destinies forward. But, the truth is, it’s a formidable task to release our destinies from the human judgment of victim. And, yes, “victim” is a human judgment, for destiny carries no such judgment. It simply is. It simply seeks to evolve, asking us to work with what we got in order to break away from the victim, concubine, world we find ourselves in everyday.
All judgments—though so humanly necessary, as we scrutinize and come to know ourselves and our world—are, ultimately, obstacles to full self-acceptance, as much of what we are, what we’ve done, and what we’ve been exposed to, is often truly unacceptable. To arrive at truth, we must release the human judgments of acceptability and unacceptability. We must fully open up to what is, and, most especially, to what was. Suspend judgment, Carlos Castaneda recommended, as the fundamental resource to discovering who we are and who we might fully become.
Destiny and choice, seeming opposites, are actually a pair of inseparable twins, though in this concubine world destiny births first, followed by choice. Allow the full birth of your own destiny, through recapitulation of the concubine world you now live in, and birth your choice.
