Thoughts create. How you think of yourself and your life creates your life and your world. How you perceive directly impacts you and your life. Life and death are equal parts good and bad, happy and sad, angel and devil, empty and full, light and dark. You can’t have one without the other, but in the light you can see and in the dark it is hard to see at all, though sometimes the light is as blinding as the dark and the dark as brilliant as the light. It all depends on how you decide to see it. Life, it’s all about now and how you want it to be. You are the creator and the destroyer, the giver and the taker, the challenge and the gift. It’s all about you and your grand creation, your own life!
The moon hangs out waiting for the sun to rise, two opposing forces sharing the same space, one bringing the light of day the other lighting the night. As different as they are they bring the same thing, the light of consciousness to human existence. Without the light you could not see what is really at work all around you in the world or fully know what is inside you either. Keep your light shining, especially within the self so that you may fully know the self and so that you may find your way always to what is good and fair, loving and kind. For though you contain the dark you also contain the light, two opposing forces within the self seeking each other’s company so that you may know all that you are. Seek the light even in the darkest of times.
“Man still hopes, in a primitive way, that not knowing, not naming, not seeing a danger would remove it.” (C. G. Jung in a letter to Cary Baynes in 1959)
Would that I could ignore all that threatens about us as we prepare to celebrate the ancient archetypal imperative to bring light and hope to the tree at the time of the Winter Solstice. Ignoring, however, does not remove the threat of the light going out. How then can we name the truth and preserve our little candle of hope? We must begin by knowing and naming what really is.
The great morass… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The drums of war are pounding. The tribes are choosing sides. Power is about to transfer. The period of stability and stalemate with all its matriarchal inclusiveness is about to be torn asunder. The burgeoning patriarchal energies of the collective unconscious, seeking advance domination and plunder, like an active volcano, are about to erupt.
Though at first glance it all appears to be in the hands of the patriarch, I would propose it is actually but an unconscious male couvade (sympathetic male labor pains) mimicking the action and intent of the dark side of the Great Mother as she reshapes her creation, planet Earth.
This, I believe, is the light of our salvation. Mother Nature, who reigns supreme, is both using and depotentiating her wayward son, the male patriarch. Violation of nature’s law can only be met with its natural corrective. Ultimately, Mother Nature has all the power, even over the consciouness she created but which has abused its privilege.
The destructive energies of the collective unconscious all ultimately issue from Mother Nature herself. Man deludes himself when thinking he owns these powers. Mother Nature delights in the delusions of this drunken frenzy of ego inflation unfolding before us. Destruction is painful and dangerous, yet all birth is dangerous and unkind to the mother’s body. That new and better life is the result is the light and hope frequently associated with a savior being born at this time of year.
That the savior is always the son of a virgin reveals that what issues forth is indeed of Mother Nature alone, parthenogenetically brought forth from her body, her appendage, without male fertilization. The “new man” will be of her determination alone, her concoction, better fashioned to serve her ultimate goal of new life, better suited to manage her creation.
And so, from the great morass of the coming time will emerge new life to lead us onward. We lend ourselves to this cause by staying connected to the truth and not exhausting ourselves in premature labor. As they say, let the games begin! Save your energy for when it will be truly needed for genuine transformation.
In the meantime, stay present and in awe of the majesty of life that continuously fills us with love and compassion.
The following guidance may not satisfy the anxiety, fears, and anger of the moment, but I am obliged to pass on what I received from my trusted guide of 45 years, the I Ching, when I asked the following question: What is the correct attitude in this coming time of darkness?
Out of the darkness the light will rise again… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The reading I received was hexagram #54, The Concubine, Making Do. Please be advised that though the hexagrams of the I Ching are archetypes, that is, configurations of energy that remain unchanging, the manifestations or actual representations of the archetypes change with succeeding generations. Thus, the anachronistic notion of a concubine in today’s world represents an unacceptable condition that one is forced to live with. Advice is offered in how best to survive it and have influence in a time of Making Do.
For better or worse, America married Donald Trump on November 8, 2016. The bride of Obama, the progressive populace, has been displaced and relegated to the lowly status of concubine. We all remain part of the same Union, but she/he, who until now enjoyed dominance in governance, must now come to know and be led by the other side. That other side has attained the legitimacy of the White House, and so it stands.
The I Ching does liken this national predicament to a family that houses both a legitimate wife and a concubine. Though both women live in the same home only one has legitimate power. We are at present a nation completely divided in half, but with only one half legitimately represented and in power. Hatred and blame will only further the divide. The overarching principle that is accentuated in hexagram #54 and is key to weathering through the divide is affection. As the I Ching states: “Affection as the essential principle of relatedness is of the greatest importance in all relationships in the world.” We must not forget this most important advice as we enter a new era where affection seems already greatly lacking.
The first moving line of hexagram #54, nine in the first place, offers special counsel stressing the correct decorum for one relegated to a lowly status while nonetheless finding a safe and meaningful place within the nation. The guidance is clear: withdraw modestly into the background, do not attempt to overstep bounds or usurp power that one is not entitled to.
In a second example offered by the I Ching, a man of lowly influence is friends with a prince and is taken into his confidence. This man remains tactfully in the background behind the ministers of state and though hampered by his status, as if he were lame, he is nonetheless able to accomplish something by quietly working behind the scenes.
The key to the guidance here is the checking of hubris, entitlement, and self-importance. If one can tactfully withdraw attention from oneself, one may indeed exert influence. In the shaman’s world this is the exercise of losing self-importance when under the dominance of a petty tyrant. By dropping self-importance, the ego, one is able to accomplish something that ultimately brings down the tyrant.
Nine in the fourth place of hexagram #54 offers additional special guidance, depicting a maiden who refuses an alternative arrangement to a legitimate marriage. Through her patient, virtuous waiting she is rewarded with a late but most fulfilling marriage. The guidance here is patience and containment. Remain inwardly true to your values and ideals though the tension of the time of waiting and the challenges presented over the next four years will be great. In patient acceptance of where things are, but inwardly remaining true to and keeping alit the true light in the heart, we will indeed be rewarded with a new dawn.
Finally, though the I Ching advises that for the present we must “make do” with a highly virulent and volatile predicament, in patience and containment, it stresses that the light will again be restored and reassert its guiding influence over the darkness that now descends upon us. Eventually, it teaches us, the right light will shine again, for the future of this hexagram is Spring: the return of the light.
The I Ching translates as, The Book of Changes, that is, all things must pass, nothing is forever.
The ocean has many waves. A powerful wave will wash ashore, but alas, soon comes another—ceaselessly. All waves have something to contribute.
The Obama wave has been an unprecedented wave of change. The Hillary and Bernie waves followed in its wake, but clearly the undertow of these waves have given way to the Trump wave, a very powerful conservative counterpoint to the unprecedented changes of the past eight years.
This is the yin and yang of life. When the power of what rules the earth becomes so great that it swallows the light of the heavens, that light becomes sparks of light in the belly of the earth.
Those sparks of light cannot be put out, but they must accept their humble position and keep the candlelight alive, shielded deep within the heart. That flame must be tended; it is the flame of the eternal and it resides within.
In a time of outer darkness, go inward and tend your inner flame, a flame which will never go out. Appreciate that the outer changes we are experiencing are part of nature too and must be respected and valued.
Those changes must happen, and in time the next wave will appear, and the flames tended now will coalesce into a collective light that will steady the course with unprecedented clarity.
No one is at fault here. We are all part of the same world. Sometimes consciousness takes the helm, sometimes nature’s imperative. We are finding our way to new balance. Hold loving kindness in your heart that we might hold together and embrace the wholeness of our mighty earth dream.
