The Quoteable I Ching

Beauty in the ruins (Hexagram 23)

2012-01-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

Now that I have cooled to you
Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,
Temples soothed by the sun to ruin
That sleep utterly.

~ William Carlos Williams,
from 'Postlude'

In the I Ching's sequence of its 64 principles, Hexagram 23, SPLITTING APART / DETERIORATION is placed between GRACE / BEAUTY and RETURN / RENEWAL. Beauty ascends, then withers, as Autumn follows Summer. Winter stills the earth ... and then Spring returns to breathe its green upon what has died ...
The nuclear hexagram (the inner operating principle) of H23 is H2, THE RECEPTIVE / PURE YIN, symbolized by the Element of Earth ... and the fact of the Earth that is our home. All things emerge from what lives beneath and around us; be assured that after the cooling, the utter sleep, Life will turn over and reveal a new emergence ...

'Postlude' in full is here.

Photos linked directly

to their sources.

Of course there's a Something (Hexagram / Principle 1, CREATION, EXISTENCE)

2012-01-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

KABOOM!

-- It came into being.

You, me, us, all of it --
Everything.

Something from nothing.

Something ... from Nothing

and here we all are.

Something emerged ... and Something

merged ...

and we who are human

in mind

grapple It,

battle It ...
though
the soles of our feet
know It is true:
we are here: Life
marks the spot.
When our kind could begin
to ponder this Something, we
called it, mostly,
God

We all name It
something ...
we are urged
from the soles
of our feet
to name It ...
to know from our
souls that It
is Why we are here.
KABOOM!
BEING explodes into being.
Hello, world!

Hexagram 14, GREAT POSSESSION

2012-01-19T21:31:00.000-08:00

To be alone, but to be pierced through with a kingly joy, now and then, as I believe I am, is a great possession indeed. As I sit here at this table ... I must report to you this sensation of some gold essence striking into me, blood deep.

~ Sebastian Berry, The Secret Scripture

Happy New Year from Hexagram 49 ...

2012-01-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Photo: Voyage: Self, by Johnny Picardo

Photo found at freq.uenci.es

You will find his weakness ... (Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

2011-12-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

you will find his weakness,

and shudder

as you arise

to greet

the fraughting pulse,

the small mammal

that terror is,

gentling

under your palm

before he can

clutch it again

to the cage he has made

of his heart,

cage pouring down

to its foundations

and into the Earth:

Alchemy of The Gentle

you will reach her skin

before she can

naught it again,

you will pour sweet balm

into the fissures,

and weep

over the wounds,

closing them over

with a kiss

from the eye of God.

Doorways open,

then disappear,

under the quieting hand.

Images created at the color of ...

Yin Wisdom says ...

2011-11-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

Receptivity is a superpower.

~ Rob Brezsny

The image is a still from the film Fantasia (1940)

"There's a lot less of me now, and that's fine ..." (Hexagram 41, DECREASE)

2011-10-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

I was walking with a friend not long ago, someone with whom I have much in common. Like me, she's in her 50s; she's lost a lot of weight and struggles to gain it back; she's experienced a lot of illness over the past few years, and has been divorced by her mate. Here we are, strolling in a park under the drying leaves, marvelling that we're still alive.

We stop dead in our tracks -- yes, I said 'dead' -- and gawk at each other. Then we double over laughing. Other park-goers -- especially the furtive young -- give us a wide berth. Two nutty eldering women ass-over-teakettle over some idiocy! What a sight!

Eventually we made our way back to verticality and wandered on, still sputtering.

"God, laughter's good for the heart!" my friend blurted out. "I mean, don't you feel warmer?"

I did. I was even sweating a little under my three layers.

My friend -- Joy, I'll call her -- swung her arms, batting me with her left. It was a spontaneous thing, this soaring of landlocked limbs. Joy jigged a little too, a wee highland tappity-tap. She tipped her head back and her happy mouth fell open. Suddenly she was six, a goofy little fool all pudged up in her scarves and sweaters.

Then she drew everything in ... She stilled herself and levelled her eyes with mine.

"There's a lot of less of me now, and that's fine," she said.

There was a certain ... gleam in her eye ... one I'd never seen.

She'd lost a lot -- her home, some friends, her health, her mate, all certainty. And here she was, dancing a gentle jig beside me. She dropped her head, raised her arms, and her feet two-stepped.

"I've lost so much ... and look what I've gained --"

Up went her head, and in to a circle she spun. A slow, quiet spin, as befits a skinny little thing who's prone to occasional faints because her blood pressure tends to plummet with nada notice.

Look what I've gained.

There was nothing, really, to see of gain -- nothing in that moment that was particular to her. We were outside, in a public space, sans tea, chocolate, shelter, warmth. We were out in the open with nothing to hold onto, a few feeble dollars in our pockets, under a belligerent sky.

I suddenly found it very easy to breathe.

The essence of Hexagram 2

2011-10-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

... allow yourself to receive

and be received ...

Pure clarity (Hexagram 20, CONTEMPLATION)

2011-10-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Photo: Vladimir Donkov

18 --> 19

2011-09-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

Hexagram 18: Woundedness. Inertia's decay. Rotting. RESTORE!

Changing Line (CL) 1 (changes to 26): The 'sins of the father' have the child in a rut. Clinging to old ways, old walls, old wills. GATHER YOURSELF!

CL3: (changes to 4): Bursting beyond! Slow down. Change in smaller steps.

CL6 (changes to 46): The fool transcends all generations, becoming a sage.

Hexagram 19: Spring approaches: Destiny. All seasons approach: Destiny. Inevitable coming of age, inexhaustible questing, Wisdom's aspiration.

(Paradoxically, this image above is an Autumn scene ... and my first glance at the highest trees on the ridge suggested Spring. Being in my 50s now, I cannot ignore my life's oncoming Autumn ... and Spring, as the sage knows, can also be a state of mind ...)

(All photos linked directly to their sources.)

Notes on Hexagram 21, BITING THROUGH ... 'cause I need this capacity right now!

2011-08-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Fire over Thunder: Stormy Weather! Cutting through Crap! Cleansing the Air!

I don't think there's anything in Creation that lightning can't cut through. That's the principle of BITING THROUGH; nothing is immune to the imperative of Light ... and sometimes we need a good crackling in order to perceive a truth and to act on it.

Immediate reform is urgently needed ... and nothing reforms like lightning! If your life has burned down to ash, who held the match to it? Who or what has struck you like a bolt from the Dragon's mouth? Or are you the source of lightning ... of Light?

Upon what actions -- and consequences -- will you clamp your teeth? What demands justice and swift, focused action? What do you want to strike through; set on fire; clear away like a raging storm?

There is huge power in lightning and thunder ... for both destruction and cleansing. Stormy human thoughts and relations sometimes need a bolt from the blue to knock away the obstructions of habit. There is a decisiveness called for here; whenever a storm strikes, we need to act quickly to ensure our safety and survival.

Remove the dirty clothing

of your pain and bitterness,

and your true nature will instantly appear.

~ Hua-Ching Ni, The Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth;

commentary for Hexagram 21

~ Photo by Bloviating Zeppelin: http://bit.ly/eSl38h

'The Intelligent Man' (Hexagram 14, GREAT POSSESSION)

2011-07-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

The intelligent man quickly realizes

The impotence of

Gold.

~ Hafiz ~

As long as we live, we are alight (Hexagram 36)

2011-07-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for the luminous ones who don't stop shining when the lights go out.

~Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun

Visionary art thanks to The Soul Connection

Work the 'small plot of land' that is you (Hexagram / Principle 9)

2011-06-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

Like one who farms for her own sustenance and survival, cultivate the 'land' of your life, one tender shoot at a time. From seed to harvest, from harvest to seed ... Cultivate your life with gentle, thorough attention.

Your life is the land, the livestock, the grain. How will you tend it?

Hexagram 9, often known as SMALL RESTRAINT and THE TAMING POWER OF THE SMALL, has had me stymied for thirty years -- It's the very last hexagram I've come to understand. (Do you have a hexagram or two that you just don't get, one whose meaning just eludes you -- one that gets under your skin and bugs you?)

If you think you can't be small and powerful, you've never been in bed with a mosquito.

There's the essence of Hexagram 9.

Small clouds are gathering rain; not yet ... not yet ... and yet, the rain will come.

That's the nature of Tao -- all things emerge, relate, and dissipate in their time; it is the nature of Nature. Rain will come, somewhere, sometime.

Rein in your horse. Tend to your land. Prepare for rain and remain calmly prepared, even as today the skies are fair.

Kurt Vonnegut: Quotes and hexagrams

2011-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

I'm on another Vonnegut kick. Every once in a while, I need his daffy wisdom and his piercing eye. Today, I jotted some of his words in my journal, and started to wonder what I Ching hexagrams (principles) might match up with them. Sorry for the spacing glitches -- Sometimes the html goes wonky and if I try to fix it, the mess gets worse ... So it goes.

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

(Hexagram 1, THE CREATIVE)

We'd all do well to start over again, preferably in kindergarten.
(Hexagram 4, YOUTHFUL INEXPERIENCE)

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart.
(Hexagram 12, ISOLATION / DISHARMONY)

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
(Hexagram 13, COMMUNITY)

Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail.
(Hexagram 15, MODESTY)

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.
(Hexagram 24, RETURN)

... power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

(Hexagram 34, GREAT POWER)

My father said, "When in doubt, castle."
(Hexagram 46, ASCENDING)

Peculiar travel arrangements are dancing lessons from God.
(Hexagram 56, TRAVELING)

Live by the harmless truths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
(Hexagram 61, INNER TRUTH)

So it goes.
(Hexagram 64, BEFORE THE END)

Paulo Coelho on Enthusiasm (Hexagram 16)

2011-06-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

When you put love and enthusiasm into your work, even if people don't see it, they realize that it is there, that you did this with all your body and soul.

~Paulo Coelho

~photo found at Caerberu

Hexagram 64: Anything is possible

2011-05-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

Good news.
But if you ask me what it is, I know not.
It is a track of feet in the snow.
It is a lantern showing a path.
It is a door set open.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Dandelion, dissolving (Hexagram 59)

2011-05-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

It is in the nature of all things that take form

to dissolve again.

~ Buddha

The exquisite image of Buddha and dandelion

can be found at the blog of Sathya Sai Baba

The shadow-side of Hexagram 14 -- GREAT POSSESSION

2011-04-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

~ Emerson

Three pennies ...

2011-04-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

I've just read for myself ... I need the sane and calming voice of the oracle today ...

I wonder if our divinations, like prayers, can be whittled down to "HELP!" or "Thank You" (I always underlie my howls for help with awareness of all that sustains me in spite of fear) ...

Then I smile, because the hexagram that emerged in my reading was 41, DECREASE. Oh no -- not more loss -- please --, I immediately thought. My gut clenched. Then I began to read ... I'd gone through five books and three websites; was noting, asterisking, saving ... slowly defusing and soothing the fear that had compressed to a nearly intolerable intensity in my chest. Wisdom always softens the edges ...

DECREASE always and only functions in relation with its opposite, INCREASE (Hexagram 42). As one thing decreases, another increases. The understanding and wise application of this natural law is our saving grace, and a caution. We must decrease or increase what is right -- not the fear and anger we tend to drive ourselves further into when we feel like the walls are closing in (as I felt earlier today); not what we persist in acquiring more of, when continued accumulation might bring devastation -- One of the oracle's cautionary images for H41 is that of a house being built -- with too heavy a roof. Too much above, not enough below: Collapse.

Where fortune smiles on a situation of DECREASE is that seeming loss is also, under the surface, a situation of INCREASE. We always have the wisdom of Life operating in and through us -- as long as we are alive, we are being sustained.

I've been studying the I Ching for 30 years now ... and this afternoon, after I awoke from a sleep studded with nightmares (daymares?) and feeling desolate and terrified for my future, I leapt for my coins. I don't know how many times I've cast the three pennies that I have used for every reading since my first ... The pennies, like me, are thinning (decrease) and becoming smooth, somehow softer on the surface and around their edges (increase). Their visages have faded -- yet appear burnished ... polished ... buffed. Laid low and reduced by countless rubs, shakes, tosses -- and occasional abscondments by my cats! -- yet so familiar to me, so at home in my hand. There's less to go around materially -- my pennies are subtly smaller ... and there is more serenity at knowing what matters most: right now, these coins and the wisdom I bow to as I release them ... The wisdom that I know will help me to restore myself and go on.

In retreat, more or less ...

2011-03-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks to imagination and imagery, I've been in a place like this for much of this winter ...

Dear readers,

Thank you for your visits, your words, your kind thoughts ... I haven't blogged much in the last few months -- too many fried circuits in my brain! As always, though, I'm holding the I Ching close ... Its wisdom reminds me of what's real, what's possible, what's passing and what matters ... I intend to come out of retreat by the beginning of May ... In the meantime, I post occasionally at A Post-Cynical Seer ... There's a link in the sidebar --

Be well, everyone, and be in peace ...

Jaliya

Hexagram hands: Hexagrams 1 - 8

2010-12-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

What if we imagined each hexagram (principle) of the I Ching as our hands and what they can do? -- I've done it and concocted a list ... I've limited myself to one descriptive word for each hexagram ...

1. Creating Hands

2. Bestowing Hands

3. Birthing Hands

4. Fool's Hands

5. Patient Hands

6. Combative Hands

7. Directive Hands

8. Enjoining Hands

(I will be creating eight posts of eight hexagrams each ...)

Note: all images are linked directly to their sources.

Peace and fleas (Hexagram 11, PEACE)

2010-11-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies…. The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries ... Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

~ Etty Hillesum

Letting it all go ... (Hexagram 41, DECREASE)

2010-11-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

ENOUGH
by Jeffrey Harrison

It's a gift, this cloudless November morning
warm enough for you to walk without a jacket
along your favorite path. The rhythmic shushing
of your feet through fallen leaves should be
enough to quiet the mind, so it surprises you
when you catch yourself telling off your boss
for a decade of accumulated injustices,
all the things you've never said circling inside you.

It's the rising wind that pulls you out of it,
and you look up to see a cloud of leaves
swirling in sunlight, flickering against the blue
and rising above the treetops, as if the whole day
were sighing, Let it go, let it go,
for this moment at least, let it all go.

I found the poem at Dragonfly's Poetry and Prolixity ... a gorgeous blog!

Three-Word Wednesday wordplay ... with hexagrams!

2010-10-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

This fragile, rampant

tremor

is my life ...

your life ...

Life itself ...

the quaking

within

that drives us

to dance!

The photo is at Michael Julian Berz' site, access2dance.com ... and it was the very first "hit" I received when I did an image search for "dance" and "joy" ...

Three Word Wednesday is a playground for writers ... Once a week, three words are posted for us to swing with ... This week's words are fragile, rampant, and tremor.
Go play!

... The wordplay I composed matches with Hexagram 16, ENTHUSIASM, which relates to our intrinsic sense of rhythm and the gifts we create from it:

The traditional metaphor of enthusiasm in the Book of Changes is music. The metaphor of music simultaneously captures the notions of delight, harmony, inspiration, and sympathy between people ... Music joins the spirits of many individuals into one great spirit ...

~ Jack M. Balkin, The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life ~

Emergent Chaos (Hexagram 3, Difficult Beginnings)

2010-10-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

My garden's a mess

So am I

What some call

a weed

my cat

partakes

as a

digestive aid

Let it grow

where it will.

To hell

with order! Blooming

is not

an orderly process

I am

pushing

my own

green

spine

of love

through

concrete

What the caged bird is really doing ... (Hexagram 47)

2010-10-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

~ John Webster (1580 - 1634)

A death and rebirth poem (Hexagrams 23 and 24)

2010-10-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Gestation, formation, blossoming, maturity, withering, dying, reformation as something or someone else ... So Life goes, in its endless circles and cycles.

I wrote this poem last August while visiting a dear friend's cabin in Shield Country -- my favourite land / water / sky in the world. There's nothing like a deep forest to remind us of Life's constant making, unmaking, and remaking ...

If I lie down in the grass,
kitty-corner to the forest edge
near your home, like a fraying
old blanket that's been loved,
sucked and teethed at the corners,
a prayer shawl chewed
with a predator's faith
in tearing flesh, a tassel torn
away and gnawed at
thread by musty thread and eventually
swallowed whole --
Will the seeds of future trees
nick the tatters of my
visceral self and weave
their seeking roots
among the gorged
and spent stamen of all
that I have been -- will I
be made anew, given
another chance, perhaps
as grass, or a lily
springing up
through your garden's
hem?

KABOOM (Hexagram 51, Shock)

2010-09-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Thunder above, thunder below: no rest

for the wicked,

the weary,

or anyone else.

All our sentience

uproars with

no help

or ground.

If we survive

the shocks,

the aftershocks,

the aftermaths blown

through being

by chaos,

sturdy ground

will heft us

once again

to our feet,

our knees, or

however high

we can rise

after being bolted,

blitzed, bombed

and broken -- every

storm

will

eventually

pass;

light

will balm

again

Use of Power (Hexagram 34)

2010-08-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.

~ William Shakespeare ~

Art: "Earth King" by LiQin Tan

Agnostic by default (?)

2010-08-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain used to say that he felt quite happy in responding "I don't know" to a question if, in fact, he didn't know what the answer was.

The longer I live, the more I'm amused by the salty old sage; Twain was a master of crazy wisdom. Whenever I admit an honest "I don't know", I feel a little more removed (from "hooks" and unnecessary drama), replenished, and at rest with the world ...

If I don't know something, I can always enquire into it. At my best, I approach the unknown with reverent curiosity (at my worst, with lazy or fearful deflection).

... Which brings us to the title I've given this post: Agnostic by default (?). I got to wondering tonight if Hexagram/Principle 64, NOT YET CROSSED, could be embodied by an archetype called The Agnostic.

(Where's the town of Uncertain? ... Find out here ...)

Hexagram 64 is the last principle of the King Wen sequence of hexagrams in the I Ching ... and it is a most ambiguous closing. All we can be sure of at this moment is that the next is yet to come ... In the wake of a completion, something new is already pending, already potentiating ... Anything is possible when nothing actually is ... yet.

Traditional I Ching commentaries envision a fox who wants to cross an ice-coated river. Will the fox behave as a young, untested creature who rushes ahead and perhaps falls through the ice, having ignored (out of experiential immaturity) any signs that the river ice is not solid enough to support its weight? Or will the fox behave as a wily veteran of many seasons and many rivers, navigating with caution, intricately sensing the sounds, smells, and movements of water, ice and air?

If the ice under the fox's feet is thin, it's because the ice itself is in a state of formation -- or deformation. The ice itself, like a nascent potential, is incomplete ... Is it firming up into form, or melting out of form? We can't know, in this moment of flux.

Instinct -- our body's innate wisdom -- applies a brake to action when uncertainty is the clarion call. We wait upon the bank of pre-potential when instinct tells us to "test the waters" with all of our senses -- our sensors. At our wisest, we honour a state of flux with the caution and calmness of a mature fox whose ears, nose and tail twitch the environs for directional hints and clues ... We wait out the natural chaos of transition before applying sure-footed action.

Within today, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, tomorrow is already walking ...

~ The fox-photo is by professional photographer Kevin Fleming, whose site, Wild Delmarva, is a trove of exquisite images that honour his home state of Delaware ... Kevin's work also graces the pages of National Geographic and several other publications ...

Making a fist = a sign of life (Hexagram 26, DETERMINATION)

2010-08-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

I love what happens to my mind whenever I see something in a new way. Today I found a poem at one of my fave wisdom sites, Alive On All Channels.

Making a Fist
Naomi Shihab Nye

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

... Making a fist ... We tend to perceive this action as one of defiance, rage, a punch to the gut. Great power, contained and knotted into that one fisted hand.

But fisted hands become cramped ... sweaty ... sore. They're hard, implacable, and capable of great injury -- both to others and ourselves. A fisted hand needs to open ... like a blooming flower ...

In Hexagram 26, the fisted hand can be likened to the great power of Heaven that is contained within a Mountain. Power is concentrated in that closed fist ... and the Oracle advises us to contain, and prepare to use, our power in moderation. Being able to make a fist does indicate life -- defiant, raging, insistent Life!

("Two fists" illusion from Illusion King -- a feast for the eyes, and for minds that like to puzzle ...)

What will we do with our fisted hands? What do we choose to see when we look down at our hand, closed and tight like a bud still becoming?

Soften the fist ... open and close ... Become used to your power; explore how this one simple action concentrates and releases your energy ... The same green life that soars up through the flower cascades through you ...

(This astounding photo is by Robert Buelteman ... Explore his site for more light-lush images ... Here's another take on his work ... Thank you, Robert ... This image is a perfect find to illustrate the power of that green fuse!)

Hexagram 55 as the principle of Poetry?

2010-08-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

This quotation, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, made me wonder ...

No man was ever yet a great poet,
without being at the same time a profound philosopher.
For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge,
human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.

... It's that line, For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge ...

... the blossom and the fragrance ... both soaring into fullness at a peak moment ... Are we present at the unfurling?

There isn't a lot of space to stand on at the top of a mountain if that's what's directly under your feet ... but there you are, at the peak; all that climbing accomplished ... and you are also standing on the mountain proper -- the entire structure is under your feet ... like all of language is a foundation from which great poems arise, shearing away the excess, the unneeded ... the superfluous.

I'm having some trouble articulating this idea; trying to define poetry (and in this case, using a mountain as a metaphor for Poetry as a principle) is a very agnostic experience ... I'm playing a hunch ...

But one image persists: the peak. The highest point; the pinnacle. What kind of people tend to climb mountains, and to habitate their peaks? ... Professional and extreme-sport climbers; ancient peoples who are wedded to these places of wild winds; hermits, mystics and monks ... People who live very lean lives, except for what they require to survive. And many of these people require spare and sacred lines of thought in what they read and study ... an economy of words; a taut, exacting line of prose or prayer -- and who's to say that a line in a mountaineer's survival manual can't be considered the pinnacle of words, a lifeline of words, when urgent direction is needed ...

In a way, great poems can be lifelines when urgent direction is needed, or a perspective requires a radical shift. Such poems can deliver, in one line (You, who are all the gardens / I have gazed at, longing ... ~ Rilke, addressing God), all that is needed for a lone mystic to remember, trigger, and sing through with the Holy.

One line ... one "peak" of words; that's all it can take to transport a reader from words on a page to the Real.

The principle of Poetry as I'm imagining it here is perhaps a singular clarity of thought: a "peak" thought ... Ah-ha! ... Yes! ... I've got it!! Poetry, in principle, is a gem of an idea; a brief, all-in-one thought. Epiphany. The height of possibly years of rumination, moodling, wondering, simmering.

Perhaps Poetry is an idea, honed to its peak. A zenith of words ...

Precisely my point, said the One

2010-07-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

I said to Love,

one day you are to me

a blown

blister

on the heel

of my heart.

next day, you

return

as the balm

that heals it.

I can't figure You out!

A contrast of children (Hexagram 38 -- DUALITY)

2010-06-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

There is no duality as stark as that of how we envision and remember ourselves as children ...

I have just found the two images below at a lovely blog called Art Inconnu, whose creator celebrates artists whose contributions have flown under the radar of public opinion and fanfare.

Eero Erik Nikolai Jarnefelt (1863 - 1937) was an artist of Finnish ancestry ... and these two paintings are masterly contrasts when placed together. Childhood: sweet meadow slumber or hellish, soul-snapping survival? For many, it is both ...

"Saimi in the meadow"

"Under the yoke"

Dear heart, how you stagger

under the twin weights

of whimsy

and

vassalage ~

We are creatures of contradiction ... (Hexagram / Principle 38)

2010-05-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of Mary Oliver's lesser known poems is "The Kookaburras"; it's in her 1990 volume, House of Light.

"The Kookaburras" stopped me cold when I first read it in the summer of 1991. It still does, though my perspective on my -- and our -- common human courage and cowardice has gentled. Each of us is "a coward and ... a god of flowers" ... We are intrinsically both at odds with this and in quiet complement with that ... Our perceptions of and beliefs about contrast inform so much of our behaviour ... I like this; I don't like that ... This is good; that is bad ... This is right; that is wrong ...

Where, I wonder, is the meeting place of courage, cowardice, choice, and consequence ...

THE KOOKABURRAS
~ Mary Oliver ~

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to come out of its cloud and lift its wings.
The kookaburras, kingfishers, pressed against the edge of
their cage, they asked me to open the door.
Years later I wake in the night and remember how I said to them,
no, and walked away.
They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs.
They didn't want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly
home to their river.
By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them.
As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers.
Nothing else has changed either.
Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap.
The sun shines on the latch of their cage.
I lie in the dark, my heart pounding.

(If you are lying

in your pale-hearted

dark ... remember

your wings ... Lift

the latch ... both

wings are needed

for flight ...

* Photo of kookaburra by Stefan Koeder

* The image of insomnia can be found here. Thank you, unnamed artist.

* Digital art: Yang / Yin by Robert Westerland.

Hexagram 56: JOURNEYING

2010-05-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

What do we know

as we travel? Only that

we are moving

Image found at LayoutSparks.com.

Spring! (Hexagram 24)

2010-05-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

the ever flowing end

result of Spring

new beauty, unbound

Photo by Stephan Amm.

There is a core truth ... (Hexagram 61)

2010-04-17T18:15:00.001-07:00

... that we all know; each of us has a truth that is woven into our bones, flows through every cell, and reminds us that the heart is more than a muscular pump ...

You may rest in the assurance
that there is one inner bastion,
the citadel of the spirit, which
is absolutely unassailable.

~ attributed to Jesus

It is wordless, this truth; we experience it rather than think it. It is not a truth that the mind can concoct ... but the mind can delve into it and try to fathom it ... Its depth rises, ever up into consciousness ... Know me, it says ...

... How do you know your core truth?

Why I love the I Ching

2010-04-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

The I Ching has been a peerless friend to me for nearly 29 years now; in fact, the first question I asked the oracle was about a friendship gone strange. Guess which hexagram arose? Of course: 13 -- which is often translated as FRIENDSHIP.

Once I tossed my coins in a terrible snit, spinning my cognitive wheels in a rut ten feet deep (and counting). "What the hell am I supposed to let go of!?" The wisecracking sage shot back: 59, DISPERSION. Unchanging. Just. Let. Go! I fell over laughing.

Recently I cast my coins with grave concern for someone I love who may be close to a live-or-die crossroads with addiction. I basically cried Help -- and the oracle responded with 33, RETREAT. Unchanging. My loved one is clinging for life to what likely will kill him ... and I've come to understand the harrowing liberation of faith when all that can be said and done has been said and done. I understand the flinging out of what we call prayer, and the erosion of heart that occurs when we must submit to fate. No promises; no guarantees -- except that something will change. Meanwhile, the helpless urge to love remains ... and there is the pain of it: the directive to stand back, or go down with a sinking ship.

I will sink too, one day; being alive guarantees eventual death. But how will I live -- today; right now? What will I do with my mind, my thoughts, my intent?

It's said that our two fundamental prayers are Help! and Thank You.

The I Ching is my altar of prayer ...

Paintings: "The Oracle" (top) and "Sharing Rays" (lower)
by Amanda Sage.

Amanda's creations are also featured here.

Easter ... Spring ... Resurrection (Hexagram 24)

2010-04-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

It's the tip of the turn

returning to Spring

the weeping tree, willow,

blooms first

The exquisite photo is from Paula's House of Toast,

a lovely, lucid oasis of musing, meaning, and prayer ...

I've been told that I'm a terrible follower ... (Hexagram 17)

2010-03-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

... by my husband, who's alpha-male gorgeous on a dance floor. He sweeps me up and moves me ... and I jam up the gears! I can't seem to help it -- I am simply a klutz at anything that remotely resembles dirty dancing. My man finds my clonking both irksome and hilarious; we look great at weddings until we try to dance to a demanding groove -- he flows, I jerk ... We eventually give up, sputtering over the joke. (Let me just say that I have thwonked a few noses while being twirled over the years.)

Give me a floor alone or with some free-dancing friends, and I can swirl like a dervish, but when I'm in a man's arms and the tunes are funky ... Don't fence me in!

Now slooow the music down, and let us rest in the sway ... and then I'll consent to being moved. Then, I will follow ... then, I will flow.

... How about you, dear reader? What's your habit à deux when you're being led -- and if you're the one who leads, what is your tone?

Hexagram / Principle #17 is all about following ... and leading. How do we follow; how do we lead? How do we teach; how do we learn?

How do we adapt outward from the middle of things (Hexagram 15), where not a lot is happening and all is calm, to an edge of excitement (Hexagram 16) that calls us to move or be moved?

Reader, what kind of dancer are you?

Invincible Spring (Hexagram 24, RETURN)

2010-03-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Death says,

Live; I am coming ...

Life says,

Live; I am here

Photo: Radu Carp, "Tenacity"

Remembering summer joy in deep winter (Hexagram 58)

2010-02-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

Why I Am Happy

Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.

And I know where it is.

~ William Stafford

... I know where it is, too. In the summer of 1995, I passed a marvelous week with six female friends and one beloved Lab named Bubba, up in the Ottawa area. One afternoon, we all trekked into a wood ... and to a "secret lake" that one woman knew by heart. The lake was small, its shore dotted only with one wee building -- a ranger's cabin. We found a perfect terrace of rock, shucked our clothes, and dove in. We swam, bobbed, laughed long into the open air, and lay about in the sun through that soft and drawling afternoon. Pure joy!

Some links about Hexagram / Principle 58, JOY ... here, here, here, here, and here.

The Love: first thoughts and a review to come

2010-02-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have been graciously invited to review a book called The Love: Of the Fifth Spiritual Paradigm. Published by The Oracle Institute, The Love is a compendium of wisdom that reminds me of Marilyn Ferguson's 1980 book, The Aquarian Conspiracy. At first glance, The Love could be The Aquarian Conspiracy for the 21st century.

My copy of the book arrived today, and a quick flip-through reveals references to Jerry Seinfeld, the Big Bang, Sisyphus, Sierra Leone, ancient Arabic poetry, seahorses, Joseph Campbell and a dog named Foxy. Authors, philosophers, sages and poets whose words grace these pages include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Susan McElroy, Aung San Sun Kyi, Rumi, and Bill McKibben.

From the introduction, a few phrases to whet your appetite:

Recently, the chasm has grown between those who are embracing Love and those who are not ... a few brave souls recognize that our current problems stem from spiritual confusion and stagnation...from a lack of Love ... Life is now being threatened on a global scale ... God is not sending a Messiah to save the righteous, or a Mahdi to destroy the sinners ... The truth is that we are responsible for what takes place on this planet.

How can we possibly be more response-able than to act with loving intention? Madeleine L'Engle, in her marvelous memoir A Circle of Quiet, recalls a conversation she shared with a 13-year-old girl named Cynthia:

"What about love?" I asked [Cynthia] as we were crossing the big meadow on the way home. "Can you prove anything about love?"

She held down an old strand of barbed wire for me. "I guess not."

"What is love?"

"A feeling."

"No," I said, "a feeling is something love is not." Cynthia didn't like this; neither do I, lots of the time.

"Why not?"

I asked her, "You love your parents, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Aren't there some days when all your feelings about them are bad? When you're furious with them, and all you feel is anger, or that they've been unfair?"

"Yes."

"But you still love them, don't you?"

"Yes."

... A friend of ours, Hugh Bishop of Mirfield, says in one of his books: "Love is not an emotion. It is a policy." These words have often helped me when all my feelings were unlovely. In a summer household as large as ours I often have to act on those words. I am slowly coming to understand with my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person.

The Love shows us what we are made of, what we're capable of, and what we can do with the power of practical, hands-on reverence for all that we are given. Love of earth, animals, family, community, learning, beauty and the arts, the self, freedom, and the Divine are explored -- and so are the different "flavours" of love that we can express, like romantic and unconditional love.

Larger cultural forces through history, especially religion, science, and philosophy, are examined ... and the authors of The Love come to wonder how close humanity may be to a pivotal paradigm shift in consciousness and species-wide change when

... the most fortunate people on the planet are fixated on money and infatuated by power (...) If people still cannot discern Truth, practice Love, or accept Light, what hope is there for the utopia described in all the holy books and foretold by all indigenous wisdom cultures?

There is hope, as long as we use it as a practical force and fuel it with all the reverence, humility and longing we can muster. We are love, in part -- and we can use that love to lay bare our hearts, and use our minds and hands for good.

Do pick up The Love. It'll be a lifetime read, and a holy book in its own right.

More to come!

WOW, WOW, WOW (Hexagram 28)

2010-02-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

The longer I'm in relation with the I Ching (nearly 29 years now), the more I'm blown away by its wisdom that's announced in a particular moment (through the coins, yarrow sticks, or other means) and instantly applies to one's whole picture. The oracle takes a snapshot ... and what develops is marvelous. I find, too, that the picture is always much larger than I've thought it is.

Case in point: a reading I just did about a huge decision I'm about to make. I basically asked of Life, "What do you think?"

Hexagram 28 -- GREATNESS IN EXCESS, OVERLOAD, TAKING A STAND, STRESS -- was the result ... with no changing lines. My first thought: "Yes, this is stressful ... and -- ! -- exciting! ... WOW -- it applies to everything ..."

Then the oracle began to speak ...

A charged time.

If something needs to be broken -- as in a habit; a condition of bondage; a rut -- let it break. Do your willing and grateful part to break what must be broken ... for only then can healing -- making whole what has been rent -- begin.

More soon ...

I found the photograph here ... Thanks to all people and powers who brought this image to my attention; it's perfect for this moment!

Hexagram 55 -- ZENITH; EPITOME

2010-01-25T23:18:00.000-08:00

To know that you are loved
that you, yourself, can love
surpasses any dreaming wish
disperses every fear ~

High noon:
a sliver
of glory

Illustration: "Poppies on Fire", by Guenter Burr

A divination about addiction ... and prayers

2010-01-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

Someone I deeply love is circling the drain, close to drowning in booze. I've known this person for decades ... I know his soul, his sweetness -- I used to call him "my John Lennon angel." He'd once had a vision of John Lennon with wings, singing "Imagine" ...

Yesterday I had to have the police called to his home. Long story short, no one who's geographically closer to him will (in some cases, any longer) offer help; it seems they've all thrown up their hands. Three or four people, including me, are still willing to respond to the crisis calls ... and yesterday was my last time. I can't do it any more. I'm done.

I won't go into why ... Anyone who's loved another with unrelenting addictions will understand.

I pray through the I Ching ... and last night I was sweating with prayers. I released my coins and received Hexagram 30, RADIANCE, changing through Line 5 to Hexagram 13, COMMUNITY.

I leapt to the changing line; as always, the oracle spoke to the issue's core. From various sources, the message is this:

Tears fall like heavy rain ... you realize that you must give up certain things ... Tears in torrents ... Lamentation ... True remorse for indulgences (!) and sincere resolve to change behavior ... "You have lost your central relation ... but the connection remains." ... Accept the necessity of adversity ... Grief and regret for past errors shows your genuine concern ... Cleansing grief ... Give way to sorrow, else the dam will burst ... you recognize all too clearly what you must leave behind (but) you undergo a genuine change of heart.

What this beloved breaking-down man doesn't know is that he's already connected and always has been. The RADIANCE of Hexagram 30 -- the element of Fire, doubled -- is that of interdependence and interbeing. Addiction tears at all bonds; it's a maddened creature, a killer.

Though this person I love doesn't know it, I'm standing in the fire with him. That's all I can do ... and it has to be enough. It is enough, now, for me ... a harrowing liberation. I recognize the fact of interbeing and its evolution into consicous relation. My friend seems to have lost his ability to perceive relation ... and may be dying of despair.

Please, if you pray in any manner, place yourself in the fire with my friend. Call him John.

My thanks and love to you.

Progress with ease, not greed, in the New Year (Hexagram 35, PROGRESS)

2010-01-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

"Don't try to gobble up the world," one of my teachers advised me. "Despite what you think, there's enough for all of us. Take your time."

Nearly 33 years have passed since my sage spoke those words. I add my own:

Slow it all down.

Slow it all down might be my mantra for 2010. The sun's daily arc across the sky shows me how it's done. "Steady on," say the powers that be, and our sun rises and sets every day, in its own intricate time.

The sun doesn't rush. Neither should we.

I won't, anymore. Something in me has simply become too depleted, too spent, for the lunatic busy-dom that our culture's become. My body's said Enough. You can't argue with the body. Break it; it dies. I'm done with breaking. I want to tend, and listen. I want to lope rather than lunge. I want to move, period. Move with moderation.

Like a stream ... or a sun. Arise and alight!

Some links for Hexagram 35: Visit the Tao Oracle site for an exquisite illustration of flowing progress ... Consider the gift of advancement at LiSe Heyboer's I Ching site ... A brief, elegant take on the hexagram ... A princely understanding of Progress ... My own blog's other pages about Hexagram 35.

May we all be home for Christmas ... (Hexagram 37, FAMILY)

2009-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

May we all have a haven
wherein we are held
and beheld

May we all hold
our own, yes

our very own
loves; may they
line us like living
fur. nuzzling.

May home be
who we are.

Solstice soon (Hexagram 24, RETURN)

2009-12-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

Light is deft, knowing all
our routes
of escape
into darkness
deeper than death. Winter
recalls our turn within;
Spring remains
as dawn

reminding us
that Light
insists on
life

being born
anew

from
sleep
and scattered
stars.

Light reveals
a day anew
somewhere
on the globe

every moment,
every day, and we
are roused
in turn,

to turn
and face
a dawn.

To let the Light
come in.

Healing happens ... (Hexagram 18, REPAIRING WOUNDS)

2009-12-03T08:56:00.001-08:00

One day several years ago, I was driving along and a thought-banner wove through my mind; it said, Everything is healing all the time.

OK, my body said, and sighed deeply into the light that streamed along in wisdom's wake ...

Thanks to dear Renee for the picture ... and to the unknown artist who created this exquisite image. Renee, I'm sending streams of weaving, healing light your way ...

"Light made from nothing" ... The feeling of "living" a hexagram

2009-12-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

Living a hexagram ... What could this mean?

I'm in retreat; have barely been online. A few weeks ago, there was a major crisis in my home (Hexagram 28) ... Danger certainly abounded, and great courage ("courage = "great heart") was needed to rise above the potential of drowning (Hexagram 29) ... A conscious choice to call in the qualities of Light and Synergy was needed (Hexagram 30) ... so was a choice to attract myself (Hexagram 31) to being strong, steady and fully present (Hexagram 32) ... and a retreat into singular focus on one pivotal concern (Hexagram 33) has been one result.

I often find, when I experience an event that centers all my attention, that there is a hexagram principle at the core of it. The 64-hexagram sequence always shows a way through ...

The exquisite photo, "Midnight Wader in Retreat", is by George Shiras III ... I found it here.

I have been a blob where this blog is concerned ...

2009-11-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

... but today I've had a scathingly brilliant idea. I want to offer an I Ching divination to the first person who can correctly identify the source of this quote:

I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier.

Hint:

The November decline ... Hexagram 41, DIMINISHMENT

2009-11-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

I'll tell you what love of this life is.
It's looking up
through trees newly bare of leaves
and seeing there the oldest road,
a broken line of white stars
stretching out across the sky.

It's thinking,
this could be enough.

~ Susan Elbe, from "Light Made From Nothing" ~

Photos found here and here.

Some links for Hexagram / Principle 41: here ... here ... here ... here.

A book for one of the I Ching's core principles, KINDNESS (aka Benevolence)

2009-10-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Kindness is as intrinsic to our nature as generosity is to our Earth ... and I'm definitely going to read a book that tells me that kindness is "potentially far more promiscuous than sexuality." Marcus Aurelius, after all, called kindness humanity's "greatest delight" ... It certainly has been mine.

"In every experience of true listening ...

2009-10-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

... there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. This is a moment of great risk and great courage, for it ushers us into a different way of being in the world. Over time, we may even cease to be people who listen and become people who are listening, people whose very being is shaped by the posture of listening. This is the posture of the servant, whose attentiveness is not a sign of cringing compliance but a mark of human life lived ever more fully in the Spirit of love.

~John S. Mogabgab~

Thanks, Jan!

Plaque found at Monastery Greetings.

An offbeat possibility for Hexagram 51, SHOCK

2009-10-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Art is not cosy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended.

Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

... Is this light ... lightning?

What explodes in an artist to shock beauty into being?

I see the contradiction between the image I've chosen for this entry, and the words ... "the light by which human things can be mended." As the oracle teaches, destruction and creation are two forever-bound aspects of the Yin/Yang, and of Life.

It took me more than seven years, after my mother's death, to begin composing a memoir in honour of her and our shared story. The shock of her death rendered my pen mute for all that time ... and then the story began to coalesce. I had to draw back and allow the telling to evolve in its own time.

Shock comes ... and salving eventually arrives in its wake. The forest, reduced to ash, will green again ...

Hexagram 37 -- INTIMATE BONDS

2009-10-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world’s full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sonnets to Orpheus”, II:13, trans. Stephen Mitchell)

Unmuffle yourself; come close to the hearth. Come into the circle of home.

In the deeps (Hexagram 29)

2009-09-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Questions that tap into our mortality, our pain, our selfishness, our basic needs, questions that arise from the immeasurable darkness, light, or mystery of our lives, require more than Answerization. They require our suffering, steadfastness, silent yearning, and deepest faith.

~David James Duncan ~

The essence of Hexagram 32, ENDURANCE

2009-09-17T16:53:00.001-07:00

I do.

I do ... one of the most potent word pairings in any language. The marital vow that declares a bond, a choice, a commitment.

Beyond the familiar context of a wedding, the words "I do" underscore any choice of action to which we bind ourselves.

I do ... I will ... I choose.

I commit.

Sculptures: "Vow" and "Forever", by Michael Wilkinson

Healing is ...

2009-09-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

... the Boss.

C'mon, rise up

with these hands

Art: "Praising Hands" by Susan Manzello

(On days like today, it's artists like these who help me go on. )

Rise up.

Bruce Springsteen photo found at Dummidumbwit's Weblog.

Oppression ... and its undoing. (Hexagram 47)

2009-09-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

Thoreau said it most succinctly:

"The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

We can be slaves to a regime -- to whatever institution it may be; we can lose our autonomy to an illness or injury; we can get hooked on a person, a belief, a substance, a rutted, mindless habit -- locked in and loaded up with whatever is ours -- not to claim, but to endure. Some poison is locked and loaded upon us -- aiming to kill.

And yet.

"... the wonder is that people who have been broken like sparrows caught by a cat's claw should find three strengths: the strength to go on living, the strength to continue their search for [Love], and the strength to reach out to others, to give and receive compassion." (Dame Julian of Norwich)

At the very least, many of us experience the endless-workday oppression of time; as Mary Rose O'Reilley wrote, "Time oppresses me. I crawl to God across the face of a clock." She was crawling until a brief conversation in a barn became a vocational immersion into sheep farming -- a complete change at every level of being into a wholly new way of living.

If there's a hell, it's in the cruelty we humans inflict on others, ourselves, and Creation. It's said that some First Nations people were asked by an anthropologist what they called America before its Caucasian colonization. Their reply: "Ours."

When we enslave ourselves, we're wed to a habit that houses a regime that wants to crush us.

Whatever we do to ourselves, we do to others ... Whatever we do to others, we do to ourselves ... and so it goes. Until.

Until we realize that we are like olives: only when we are crushed do we yield what is best in us.

This wisdom comes from the Talmud ... and I can only say that I hope it doesn't always take a crushing to yield the sweetest nectar -- !

Turns out it doesn't. Robert A. Johnson, a devoted student and scholar of Carl Jung, understood that "exhaustion is ... sometimes the best tool for enlightenment, as it gets the ego out of the way. It finally just wears down so that the divine can pour through." Sometimes exhaustion means, Enough of this now. Something new wants to be born through the ruptures that have carved into your life ...

The divine pours through an artist I've come to know online. Her name is Karin Bartimole, and she's known in her bones, through long illness, both crushing oppression and the outpouring of nectar from her wounds. She lays out her whole soul in her creations, roams the entire range of human experience. Sometimes, her offerings look like this:

... at other times, she soars:

... and often, she remains close to the center of things, holding to life, breath, and colour ...

Karin's blog has become a daily touchstone for me and for many other people. Her art is exquisite ... her character, perpetually generous and kind.

She models the renewal that is always possible -- and inevitable -- no matter our circumstances. (Think Nelson Mandela's 27 years in prison ... and then his ascendance to being Prime Minister of South Africa.) As Jack Balkin, author of The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life, writes in his commentary for Hexagram 47: "Periods of oppression and exhaustion contain the seeds of regeneration and renewal. At the very darkest moment the light is almost ready to shine again." If, as the oracle suggests, we persevere with devotion through mire and darkness, we will experience regeneration. An illness may not be cured; an imprisonment will not immediately end; an addiction will not magically dissolve. A mind that admits light, though, will conquer despair. If there is any boon to oppression, it comes through carving out a character that will survive any hardship; new light eventually laps at every horizon.

Top and bottom illustrations: artists unknown ... and thanked.
All other art by Karin Bartimole.

Gratitude, first of all ... (Hexagram/Principle 2 -- EARTH)

2009-09-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

~ Cicero ~

Gratitude ... first and always, for the Life that sustains us; for the Earth and Sun; for the elements that wed one another and feed, clothe, shelter and inspire us ...

Let all go ... (Hexagram / Principle 59, DISSIPATION)

2009-08-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

... Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of Clear Light.
So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling . . . Completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley

Art: Let Go, by Sarah Joncas

A sage speaks: our common extremes (Hexagram 38, CONTRADICTION)

2009-08-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

I recognize in all souls our common extremes of courage and brutality; love and contempt; our knack for colouring this black and that white; our penchant for extremes. What is sunlit at noon is in shadow by five.

There really is no “us and them” – it’s all “us”. I recognize in my own shadow the shuttered lids of a thousand eyes, all blinded by the same light; all scaling the world within and without for a feeling of home.

The heart of CONTEMPLATION (Hexagram 20)

2009-08-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

See what is real, what is here, what is now
See it with love

See into, through, and beyond
See all around

See you in relation
with all: this is
real: this is
We

A WOW! quote ... and a wander through discipline, wanting, and oneness

2009-08-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Discipline is remembering what you want.
~ David Campbell ~

Reader, what's your first response to those words? Go, jot them down, then come back and read ...

... My first response was a bursting-open heart chakra. Then my intuiting mind exploded with a YES!

Discipline is remembering what you want.

My body and being remembered in an instant. There were (and still are) no words for what those burstings of sensation could mean ... except for ... Life.

My body remembers such a wanting; my mind does not. Hmm ...

Wanting from the heart (for that is where we first respond from) ... wanting love and joy and quiet communion; wanting warmth. Wanting soft and hardy arms to embrace me until I want something else. Wanting like an infant, from the body, from the heart. Wanting and needing to give and receive touch, gaze, and coo. Wanting and needing that primary sustenance of blending in relation with other beings -- the wanting that comes from our recognition that we are inextricably bonded in relation with every other being that lives. This recognition of our place in relation can seem terrifying at first ... for through relation, we respond ... and if our sense of relation is based in the heart, then we can't help but respond ... and who doesn't know the exhaustion of too much response? Anyone familiar with burnout?

... and yet: the heart. The heart who will never cease to relate and respond. The heart who can only rest in relation. We are made and moulded for relation -- this is our soul's central purpose. Without relation, we die or go mad.

From the eighth Hexagram/Principle, UNION, evolves our full understanding that we exist in a state of inevitable and intrinsic relation with other beings. There's a startling realization, too -- that we are called by our hearts to respond in relation, to act in relation ...

To realize the principle of UNION is to accept our place in relation with all other beings ... to recognize that we are always at rest in our intrinsic UNION with others ... and to apprehend that when we act in relation with others, we will never exhaust ourselves.

I've been coming to realize this over the last 13 years or so ... through wrenching events like a divorce, my mother's death, several betrayals, and a chronic health crisis. I have also come to realize my intrinsic and rightful place in relation -- I matter to someone ... to several someones. I really do exist in relation with others. Our lives are intertwined -- we all are threads who strengthen one another through our bonds. We are weavers ... of one another.

May we all come to realize our interweaving ... Only through this, will we stop all our wars.

Amen.

Visionary art, "Creatrix", by Jack Haas ... His site is at http://www.jackhaas.net/

Thank you, dear readers ...

2009-08-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

... for your visits, your thoughts and kindness ... I'm in a process of discerning what to do with my understanding of the I Ching, after being its student for 28 years ... This blog is one fruition -- one of the forms that my study is evolving into. Your presence ... your comments ... your questions and intuitions all show me a confirmation that this work is good and worthwhile and meaningful ... I would like to release it, eventually, in book form ... and to offer readings / divinations / "seer-sittings" for people ... I have been cultivating a manner of reading for others, and feel ready to inch it out into the world ... Eventually I want to do this professionally -- make it one of my primary vocations (the others being writing, editing, and mentoring other writers).

To that end ... Reader, do you have a question you'd like to offer to the oracle, to the I Ching? The marvel of this wisdom tradition is that it doesn't predict anything; it doesn't give an interpreted answer. Rather, it reveals information about what principles, patterns, and possibilities may be underlying and influencing your situation. It invites contemplation, clarification, and further questions that can lead you into and through the heart of a matter ...

If you would like to receive a reading ... please email me at jaliyajuji@yahoo.ca ... Send me a few words or phrases that express the core of your question ... something essential that I can focus on clearly as I approach the oracle. I will send your response privately via email.

I hope this will give you a deeper sense of how universal, benevolent, lucid and applicable this wisdom tradition is to our common human concerns ...

Three quotations ... (Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

2009-08-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's rather embarrassing to have given one's entire life to pondering the human predicament and to find that in the end, one has little more to say than "Try to be a little kinder."

~ Aldous Huxley ~

My religion is kindness.

~ The Dalai Lama ~

Without tenderness, we are in hell.

~ Adrienne Rich ~

Ah, stress ... a riff on one of our forever companions (Principle 28: CRITICAL MASS)

2009-07-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I can't help but giggle when I encounter a person who claims to be free of stress. Stress is as natural and constant as gravity: it simply is. We've got "good stress" (eustress) and "bad stress" (distress); the middle ground between these extremes is simply stress. I've come to understand this, and in doing so, I am taking stress off my "things to worry about" list. Stress is simply one of the I Ching's 64 universal principles ... one of the Changes that is always working through and with us. How do we work through and with the principle of Stress?

Recognizing stress as one of Life's inevitables lessens its load on us ... I think, It's a given ... I've got to stop fighting it. To think, What's the use? is apt here; to give up this fight is an act of moderating our power into another, wiser use.

"What's the use?" ... I reframe the phrase, think about it differently.

What's the use ... of stress?

What's the use ... I'm not giving up here; I'm giving up this particular mistaken belief that all stress is always bad.

How to use stress? If it's a given, it's always present ... a force that acts on and through us. What can we do differently in relation to the fact of stress?

Humour is always an option:

You're on the phone with your wife and you're saying, "I'm just so disoriented," and she says, "That's because you're not going anywhere; you're just going."

~ Barry Lopez, in an interview ~

Think: hamster on a wheel; frog in a blender; driving pedal to the metal with the emergency brake on. Then see these pictures in your head as a cartoonist would ... and you're smiling, aren't you?

In the first year after my mother died, I often answered people's stock enquiry, How are you??, with "I feel like a frog in a blender, and the sucker's turned on to WHIP!" One of my friends laughed so hard at this that she nearly choked on the joke. She'd never heard the phrase before.

My beloved friend R often answers my How are yous with Hon -- It's too MUCH!! We double over and laugh ourselves witless.

As the sage said,

Sometimes there is nothing to do but have a good laugh!

Illustration credits: "aaah" by the comic-wizards at http://espressoanimation.com/; "Frog in a blender" by vikki-sixxx, via http://deviantart.com/.

Old habits die hard, don't they ... (Hexagram 39, OBSTRUCTION)

2009-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

(Isaak Newton)

A strong soul (Hexagram 34)

2009-07-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, a poem surges to the front of my mind in response to a cry from the deeps ... Folks who read my Post-Cynical Seer blog know that I've been living for a long time with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Both poetry and the I Ching are perennial sources of soul-food -- wisdom, comfort, imperatives to open the heart and the mind.

Last night I had a dream that is one in a recent series that is revealing an inner shift ... from conflict to resolution; from relational chaos to truce and peace. On my direst mornings, after a dream like this, I wonder briefly if I'm dying ... Is my soul making amends, releasing all bonds? Are the people I'm dreaming of in this new context also dreaming of me ... letting me go?

Then I shake my head, and rise ... and I understand that when an intention (such as making peace) is constant, it works in us and through us organically ... often via dreaming. Despite apparent chaos on the surface, the depths are making sense of things ...

This morning's poem "headline" was Marge Piercy's "For Strong Women." For the first time, I've chosen to "tweak" a poem -- translate it, in a way. This poem speaks of the imperative to love, no matter what ... and to the one essential power that we all contain: the power to love. I believe that the will to love is an evolved, cultivated will to survive ... and one way to consider the I Ching is as a compendium of 64 variations on the theme of Love as the primary creative power ...

Hexgram / Principle 34, GREAT POWER, is imaged as the elements Thunder over Heaven -- a conjoining of massive energies ... a great storming surge of force. What will we do with our power? Here is one possibility, based on my tweaking of Marge Piercy's poem:

We are strong who love
strongly and weep strongly and are strongly
terrified and have strong needs. We are strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
we are not strong as stones but as wolves
tending our young. Strength is not in us; we
enact it as wind fills a sail.
What comforts us is others loving
us equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.

The original passage:

A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.

Marge Piercy, "For Strong Women"

Link to the entire poem: http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/strongwomen.htm

A few links to Hexagram 34:

http://www.kufty.com/oracles/i-ching/will/wilhelm34.htm

http://www.yitoons.com/yicards/yicard34.jpg

http://www.compassionatedragon.com/hexa34.html

Hexagram / Principle 58 -- JOY

2009-07-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

I want to be like water,
to dance with each moment
without holding onto the past.

I want to be liquid and forgiving.

I want to put yielding into life
instead of judgment.

I want to curl around stones
instead of hurl them.

I want my movements to be
informed by oneness.

I want to be a living yes.

(Elsa Joy Bailey, from "The Lesson" ... Elsa's marvelous website: http://www.elsajoy.com/index.htm)

My prayer today (Hexagram 50, THE CAULDRON, and Hex. 48, THE WELL) ... and a response to Renee's question!

2009-07-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

Make me holy ...

There are only two hexagrams -- Principles, as I've come to understand them -- that picture human-made objects. Hexagram/Principle 48 is a well; H/P 50 is a cauldron.

I consider this, and recall that the I Ching has existed for at least 3,500 years, long predating any institutional religious tradition. I ponder that only two of the oracle's 64 hexagrams involve human creation and action ... and I realize a key to the oracle's wisdom.

A well and a cauldron. Both vessels; both designed to hold and contain something. Both of them crafted for practical use: one offers water, the other cooks a meal. Both nourish and sustain by their use -- their proper use.

We nourish and sustain ourselves with water and food; we grace our own souls by contemplating the gift of water in a well, and by honouring and practicing the sacred and very domestic art of alchemy -- what is cooking, after all, but combining various elements in their proper amounts to create something new from what already exists? ... So we craft something new and sustaining, be it a communal well, a stew or a soul ...

Imagine it ... that these objects crafted by the human hand were chosen by the sages who understood and translated into language universal, elemental variations on the theme of Tao. Vessels of nourishment and transformation were considered to be the two human designs that most aided the Elements in their nourishment, sustenance, and transformation of life.

The sages also recognized humankind's proper place in the containment, blending and use of natural elements...

((In the lineage of Tao, there are eight such Elements: Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Thunder, Mountain, Wind and Lake. Each Element in combination with one other results in the form of a hexagram, an idiogram, and a principle ...

Each of the eight Elements, when doubled with itself, creates one of the Oracle's core hexagrams:

Heaven doubled = Hexagram/Principle 1, THE CREATIVE / ENERGY / WAVE / YANG

Earth doubled = H/P 2, THE RECEPTIVE / FORM / PARTICLE / YIN

Water doubled = H/P 29, DANGER / DEPTHS / THE ABYSMAL / COURAGE

Fire doubled = H/P 30, THE CLINGING / FIRE / SYNERGY / INTERDEPENDENCE

Thunder doubled = H/P 51, SHOCK / ALARM / QUAKING / AWAKENING

Mountain doubled = H/P 52, MOUNTAIN / STILLNESS / MEDITATION / BOUNDERING

Wind doubled = H/P 57, THE GENTLE / PERMEATING / INFUSING / THE PENETRATING POWER OF WIND

Lake doubled = H/P 58, JOY / CALM, CLEAR DEEPS / DELIGHT / DRAWING CLOSE.))

... So vessels of nourishment and transformation were depicted as humans' most valuable contributions to the sustenance of life; not weapons of war. Even Hexagram/Principle #7, THE ARMY / DISIPLINE, depicts balanced, proper use of basic elements that are used and misused in humans' perpetual conflicts with one another -- here, of a large, governed, regulated group; of martial arts and practices ... The polarities of Hexagram/Principle #7 depicts what immoderate use of a mass of people (as in an army) can bring about ...

... So the proper understanding and application of a Principle guides its moderate use, and the Oracle, through each Principle and its variations (its changing lines) invite us to consider potential consequences of how we use the Elements and apply the Principles ...

Make me holy ...
Make me a vessel
to contain
Love
in all its forms
of water and food
tears and embrace
seeing-into and resting
the eyes
on the choice
of peace

May the fact of me
nourish
and dust
with mercy

every soul
whom I meet

(Photo of temple in autumn: from http://www.sacredjapan.com/
Photo of cauldron: from http://www.jelldragon.com/
Photo of man and kitty: "Contact", by Josephine Chervinska, via http://www.photo.net/)

Oh, phew ... Sweet relief for late-bloomers (Hexagram 53, GRADUAL DEVELOPING)

2009-07-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds.
(Carolus Linnaeus)

Think of ... Individuation
Cultivation
Unfolding
Organic Growth
Petal By Petal
Realizing Potential, One Breath At A Time ...

Evolution is a kaleidoscope, not a pyramid.
(Thomas Lewis, et. al, A General Theory of Love)

Photographs are from the exquisite Paula's House of Toast -- http://paulashouseoftoast.blogspot.com

The I Ching continually blows my mind ...

2009-06-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

Long story short: I recently began to hone a memoir that I have been struggling to write since my mother died over seven years ago. A sage and prominent writer recently offered himself as the author-in-residence at my local library ... and I gave him my manuscript to assess. He called it "beautifully written" ... and "raised to the level of art." I feel that my work has been smitten with grace ... that I have been both blessed, and called to honour my mother's memory through what I write. I feel humbled and responsible to hold the sacredness of my mother's life intact as I reveal some of our shared history ...

... and here is where the Oracle comes in. This morning, I apprehended a transformation that has been informing me for years ... suffusing my entire being ... remolding lifelong conflicts and misunderstandings into a serene, reconciled awareness of forgiveness and atonement --> at-one-ment. Every small story ... every moment ... has blended into a resting whole.

Oh! I love intuition.

I realized this morning a completion of a theme ... a circling of memory into meaning -- and that is the resting place. That is where the Oracle calls me to see this completion as a Hexagram, as a Principle.

I didn't cast my coins; instead, I remembered ... and found myself returning to the holiest places of my childhood. Most of those places were watery: lakeside summer camps; the Caribbean Sea; my grandfather's home -- and his swimming pool.

A few of those places were the homes of elders who nourished me ... the homes of my grandmother, whose warm vanilla pudding was always capped with banana slices ... and the blue-halled house of a nanny whose kitchen was scented with freshly baked cookies. Years ago, I wrote a poem about this place:

Memory

"...sweet wet flour," I read,

in a book about somebody's grandmother's kitchen,

and I'm in La-La's house, bracing

my little self against a knobby blue wall;

I'm a shadow, barely breathing,

knowing

that somewhere,

cookies lie in wait.

...Watery places and sources of nourishment ... I intuitively thought, "Water over Earth" -- Hexagram 8. UNION.

I grabbed my I Ching texts ... I searched out "Hexagram 8" online. I scribbed in my journal 'til my hand cramped.

"Things come together," the Oracle says of the 8th Hexgram. "Things are known as one."

What is the apprehension of a truth if not the blending and reconciling of seemingly disparate and paradoxical elements? ... after the long sieges of struggle to understand, to forgive, to lay to rest all conflict; to realize the decades-long discipline of discernment and soul-baring.

Water over Earth ... Imagine a bowl, of a size that you can cradle in both hands ... a beautiful bowl, filled with water ... pure and sacred, sun-kissed water ... filled with all that your soul has been to this moment ... all that you are. The light and the sea of you. All your gifts and blessings; all your curses and pain; all of your moments of being; all of your meanings and metaphors ... all of your living, in one holy place for you to gaze into ... the ocean of you, teeming with life ...

... You hold your whole life in your hands, and see that you, yourself, are whole ...

Goddess photo: by Millenium Twain, via http://phoenixqi.blogspot.com.

Is this a form of justice? ... Hexagram 21, JUSTICE

2009-06-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

... I've just found an index card in one of my ceaseless piles of paper; on the card, I wrote this:

Sometimes when another person gets angry at you, he's insisting on your goodness, your integrity.

To insist on another's goodness and integrity ... is that a way of doing justice to her character?

Hexagram 20, CONTEMPLATION, describes ways of seeing: seeing over/overseeing, and seeing into. A vast-ranging, yet intimate, eye is summoned to see what is real.

Hexagram 21, then, can teach us how to see through. Through initial appearances, through patterns and obvious details; through what appears to be -- through immediate perceptions and first impressions and instant, habitual judgements ... through illusion; through falsehood. A truth makes itself known, and commands to be acted upon. Perhaps seeing-through is a way to do justice to what is real ...

Some keywords for Hexagram 21:

Biting Through
Acting Decisively
Settling Disturbances
Setting All On Equal Footing
No Stone Unturned
Recourse To Law
Clearheaded
Acknowledging Reality
Rectifying Injustice
Penalties
Seeing Through Illusion
Gnawing Away At The Truth

JUSTICE acts on the heart of a matter. How we mete out justice -- how we act on a determined truth -- is pivotal, for what goes around, comes around. Will we punish or seek to understand? Be ferocious or merciful in our judgement; unequivocal yet lucid?

The Justice Tarot image is from Adam McLean's Alchemy Web Site -- http://www.alchemywebsite.com/

The light is always there ... (Hexagram 36)

2009-06-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

No matter what, the light is always there. It may be obscured, clouded, occluded, shrouded ... but it is there. Look up ... and the Sun flares on. Look within ... and the heart throbs on. No matter what, the light is always there ...

Photo credit: notsogoodphotography, via flickr.com

"I, May I Rest in Peace" (Hexagram 11)

2009-06-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

I, may I rest in peace – I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I'm still alive.
I don't want to wait like that pious man who
wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-
legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of
my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind:
battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces
always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.
Wars with the old weapons – sticks and stones,
blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons – machine
gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate.
I don't want to fulfill my parents' prophecy that life
is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.

From Open Closed Open, by Yehuda Amichai
Copyright © 2000 by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

A dream, and a reading ...

2009-05-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed one of those "big dreams" ... and awoke this morning with a ferocious urge to make sense of it ...

The dream: I'm with my friend F., who I used to work with. We're with her amazing family (her father, in particular, is a stellar person -- loving, gentle, all-seeing and all heart) at their home in the country (which is located in a place I lived during my early and mid-teenage years). F's sister is shot and killed by a man who has come from the woods ...

I'm outside, standing by a car, and see the murder ... Suddenly, my friend A. (with whom I also once worked, and with whom I share a deep love of music, cats, and chocolate) is standing behind me, hissing, GET AWAY! ... I'm on my belly, scuttling backward through grass at the edge of a forest ... I shimmy like a snake into the trees, and for an eternity, I am trying to find a way out of this forest ... Sometimes I'm on foot (or on my belly); sometimes in a car -- a huge sedan. My husband is now with me ... We encounter several groups of hikers and families -- One group of kids and adults is mudsliding, having a great time ... They invite my husband and I to join them, but my attention is fixed on getting out of this wood and to my parents ... Eventually G. and I emerge from the maze of trails and trees and I go to my parents ... I tell them about the murder, and how I evaded being killed ... I know the killer is still out there, and he wants my blood ... but for now, I am safe ...

This dream is one in a thematic series that I've had for years -- that of being pursued relentlessly by a killer. The dreams have evolved over the years -- I am an adult now; not alone; I am surrounded by allies, and am not overtaken ...

I awoke from this dream and scrabbled for my coins ... I received Hexagram 10, CONDUCT, with changing lines 3 and 5, moving to Hexagram 14, GREAT WEALTH. It seems that the reading tells me that I both make and unmake danger ... Whether intentionally or not, I tread on a tiger's tail just by being somewhere ... Being alive is full of both dangers and havens ...

I'm reminded by this dream of Dante's Divine Comedy, which begins with Virgil's admission that he is lost, wandering in a wood ...

In the middle of our journey of life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost ...

Friends, help me to make sense of this dream ...

Something's always hurting ... and something's always healing ... (Hexagram 18, WOUNDEDNESS)

2009-04-30T21:53:00.001-07:00

Over the Mountains

Maybe someone stumbles across that child

lost weeks ago, now chilled and unconscious but breathing.

Maybe a friendly wanderer saved the child

for awhile, but had to go on, and this is the end.

(The world we all came from reaches out; its trees

embrace; its rocks come down ready to cover

us again. Moss clings to the feet and climbs

carefully, protecting its own. It wants us back.)

Now people carry the child, warm him;

"Save him," they say. Then he stirs and opens his eyes.

He doesn't want what he sees. He closes his eyes.

The slow tide of the forest takes him away.

(This doesn't happen just once; it happens again and again,

to the lost, to searchers and parents, to you, to me.)

~ William Stafford

Spring -- Welcome! (Hexagram 24)

2009-04-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

(Art: "Offering," by Stephane de Bourgies, via http://allposters.com)

Now THIS is community! (Hexagram 13)

2009-04-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Wilfrid Pelletier, a Native American from an Ojibway community north of Lake Huron, says his people aren't into organization; there's no need for it "because the community is organic." Pelletier gives an illustration of how his unorganized people nevertheless get things done.

"Let's say the council hall in an Indian community needs a new roof ... It's been leaking here and there for quite a while and it's getting worse. And people have been talking about it. Nobody organizes a committee or appoints a project leader."

Nothing happens, in fact, until "one morning there's a guy up on the roof, tearing off the old shingles, and down on the ground there's several bundles of new, hand-split shakes -- probably not enough to do the whole job, but enough to make a good start. Then, after a while, another guy comes along and sees the first guy on the roof. So he comes over and he doesn't say, 'What are you doing up there?' because that's obvious, but he might say, 'How's it's look? Pretty rotten, I guess.' Something like that. Then he takes off, and pretty soon he's back with a hammer or a shingle hatchet and maybe some shingle nails or a couple of rolls of tarpaper. By afternoon, there's a whole crew working on that roof, a pile of materials building up there down the ground, kids taking the old shingles away -- taking them home for kindling -- dogs barking, women bringing cold lemonade and sandwiches. The whole community is involved and there's a lot of fun and laughter. Maybe two or three days that whole job is finished, and they all end up having a big party in the new council hall."

(John Briggs & F. David Peat, Seven Life Lessons of Chaos)

I love this story; it rushes up at me like a wave of friends intent on completing a circle. There is nothing like knowing that no matter who you are, you have a place; you're welcome somewhere. You're drawn into a circle; you find your place within it because there is a place for you within it ... and you do what you do; you give what you can give.

End result? ... Everyone receives.

Then you all sit back, down the lemonade, share in the feast, make some music and give some thanks, concoct the stories and dances that will be told about this day to the next generations, and laugh yourselves long into the night.

(Art: "Building a Wall," by Leland Bell, via http://www.redkettle.com/)

Pay attention to the small things ...

2009-04-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

(Michelangelo)

This quote knocked my socks off. What we sometimes call "trifles" are tipping points into completion.

Hexagram 62's core principle is CONSCIENTIOUSNESS; it augurs the tipping point of Hexagram 63, COMPLETION.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS follows Hexagram 61, INNER TRUTH.

A truth is realized and now must be detailed, refined, sculpted, set free.

Michelangelo again:

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Whatever "angels" we release to the world are, finally, hoven by meticulous craft over time ... especially as we come to completing them. We hover, hone in, magnify our vision and focus minutely on last-touch details.

Soon, our angels will fly ...

Photo of angel-cloud: "Graceful Wings," at http://www.solinavisions.com/

Mother Earth (Hexagram 2)

2009-04-08T11:15:00.001-07:00

Giving is a generative act. When you give of yourself, something new comes into being.

(Kent Nerburn)

The MERCY reading ...

2009-03-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I wrote that I would explore the question of what hexagram, at its core, might embody the principle of Mercy.

The oracle revealed Hexagram 11, PEACE, changing through Line 5 to Hexagram 5, PATIENCE.

Heaven opens its eyes on Earth
in the form of a peaceful
human being ...

Heaven lies in your patience; your patience
with all that you are.

The old war and frenzy:
Enough now; enough.
Lay down
all your arms,
save the two that lead
to your heart.

(Photo: Morteza Khorrami, "Heart to Heart", via http://photo.net/)

A question ...

2009-03-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

Which hexagram stands out in your understanding as embodying the principle of MERCY?

... I'm going to do a reading now with this question ... and will write later of the oracle's response ...

... The exquisite image above is called Consolation, created by Stacy Lee. The beauty of her work leaves me speechless ... http://stacyleeart.com/gallery/ ...

Hmm. (Hexagram 10, CONDUCT)

2009-03-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

I recently found a quotation that's stuck like Krazy-Glue (or would that be Sane-Glue?) to the front of my mind. Here it is ...

This act of choosing is the ultimate human act.

(George Grant)

To begin to realize our capacity for choice -- our ability to make choices -- is so refreshing ... and sometimes terrifying! There's no turning back -- except at great cost -- once we fathom how responsible we really are for what we do ... and for who we choose to be. (Gulp.)

... and then I sense another presence -- it's mercy. Now that's a surprise!

What a (seeming) paradox. Responsibility and mercy sharing a space in my head. Then I clue in to what responsibility really means: the ability to respond.

No praise; no blame. No lording-over. Oh phew.

Simply the ability to respond.

And then ... the choice. (Gulp.) The choice to respond. The choice to ... choose.

That's where this licence-plate thingee comes in. I searched Google Images for "choose, choice"; this was the first image that emerged:

Choose Choice. (Huh...?)

Choose ... choice. OK! There's a potentially maddening roundabout in that pairing of words ... so I'm just going to notice my response to it (the "Huh" ... perplexity ... curiosity ... ), and let it sit awhile.

Choose choice. How does that strike you?

WOW (Hexagram 19 -- THE BEGINNING OF INSIGHT, and Hexagram 56 -- THE RECOGNITION OF WISDOM)

2009-02-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

The search for truth proceeds, in metaphysics as in other areas, by perseverance in the face of self-doubt until skepticism is overwhelmed by evidence internal and external.

(Frank DeMarco: "In the spirit: Shirley MacLaine isn't the only one out on that limb", http://frankdemarco.wordpress.com/, August 1, 2008)

(Was there something in you when you were nineteen or so, that just wanted to push beyond the walls of the world you knew so far?)

***************

I wonder ... if Hexagram 19 is a precursor to Hexagram 56, THE TRAVELLER ... or if 56 is an evolution of 19 ... In my mind, the human "figure" or archetype for 19 is the Seeker or Explorer ... for 56, the Wanderer or Traveller ...

The Seeker is looking for something ... The Wanderer is simply ... looking ... and listening ... and moving on ...

19 = Curiosity as an urge to seek knowledge and truth ...

56 = Curiosity as a meandering, pattern-recognizing reception of wisdom ...

19 = Moving toward ... stepping up ... entering ... looking for ... going ahead -- very active focus and intent outward ... Looking for and examining evidence ... Meeting others while forging a self ...

56 = Moving around ... stepping along ... lingering ... looking into ... going within ... very active focus and intent inward ... Recognizing and integrating evidence ... Disengaging from others while realizing essential interbeing ...

"Yes, this is rest ...

2009-02-15T15:48:00.000-08:00

"... This is alive without the stampeding of the survivalist, sympathetic nervous system. This is parasympathetic ... This is being, not doing, and certainly not running. No tiger at the heels here. Just breathe. Just rest ... "

(Julie Meyer, aka fiveminds, at http://fiveminds.wordpress.com/)

Equipoise ... (Hexagram 15)

2009-02-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

Detachment must be cultivated against the longing to be perfectly open and receptive. It all comes back to poise, the poise of the soul when it is in true balance.

(May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude)

(Photo: Carola Lundmark, "Balance")

At the end of things ... (Hexagram 64)

2009-02-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

This is not the end of everything; it is the beginning of immense diversity. The universe keeps on creating new forms. Why should that trouble us? We may be perishable, but creativity and creation are not.

(Erica Jong, in her review of Diana Athill's memoir, Somewhere Towards the End ... Link to review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/books/review/Jong-t.html?_r=1&ref=books)

Photo: "Creation," by Spencer Jimmie Lee

2009-02-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

Come in,

come in

to the light

of this dawn.

Come in,

come in

to the dawn

of a day

when you know

you belong

you know

you belong.

(Photo: Antanas Strazdas, "Morning mist in the fog", via photo.net)

Oh my

2009-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

I just drew today's hexagram ... and received 30 -- THE CLINGING. First thought:

OK. I'll cling to God ... whatever God may be.

I like that ... whatever God may be.

Maybe there's a God; maybe there's not. I've given up trying to find out.

I say to my nattering intellect, Enough now.

The rest of me remembers ...

... skinny dipping in a Muskoka lake when I was six ...

... briefly having the Caribbean sea as my backyard when I was threeish ...

... chipmunks!!

... I remember a counselor at the camp my parents sent me off to for two months the summer I was six. It was my first time and I was lost. Supposedly being a "difficult child," I was monitored closely. But I fell in love with a chipmunk, and a girl named Heather who was my cabin "cow" ["cow" being a camp endearment for counselors]. One of my cabinmates was my best friend Dorothy and one night we had a huge thunderstorm and anyone who knows Muskoka -- especially around Gravenhurst -- or Georgian Bay can attest to these holy, harrowing rollers. They build up the lake and then they arrive. KABOOM!

Heather was about eighteen and had long, cocoa hair, and six little girls who were totally crushed on her. Why?

She was kind.

... So one night, the sky detonated over our heads. We screamed and squealed and bunted up to Heather on one cot, knocking her over and grabbing whatever we could. She eventually -- and somehow gently -- declawed herself of six panicked children, sat us all around her in a squishy warm clump, then sat on Dorothy's bed and said, Listen. Shh.

Then she gave that universal storyteller's sign: Come close.

She told us about storms. And she told us that thunder was the angels bowling in heaven ...

... and one night when I was a naughty thing and wouldn't stop giggling, she brought me, my sleeping bag and pillow out to the porch, tucked me in, and sat with me. I don't remember what she said, but it had to do with being quiet ... For all I knew, she used the word hush and stayed right there 'til I slept.

What I do remember is waking to Heather and another counselor ascending the cabin steps to the tune of a wavering flashlight. I had a vivid, alert sense of proximity, like a forest creature ... a chipmunk, or a fawn ... and could be silent and still as a stone. My eyes were open a slit. Heather whispered -- I swear -- "Behold ... she's asleep."

To my six-year-old self, Heather was an angel. She was kind; she was gentle; she was fun. That night, as I pretended to sleep on, she lifted me up and carried me back to bed. She laid me down on my creaky little cot, and padded away with her friend.

... Remember what the Dalai Lama said? ... "My religion is kindness."

***************

... Somehow I think that Hexagram 30 speaks to our inevitable interdependence ... our recognition of it, and our actions within it ...

We cling; we bond; we have to. Relation, and responsibility -- meaning here, the ability to respond -- keep us sane.

Kindness is so simple ... so quiet ... so radiant.

... So is God, in so many ways ... n'est-ce pas?

May PEACE be your essence ... (Hexagram 11)

2009-01-30T07:35:00.000-08:00

(Thank you ... Bless you, Karin ...)
Link: http://aviewbeyondwords.blogspot.com/

Wondering about Hexagram 41 (DECREASING)

2009-01-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, drew on St. Paul's directive to "put away childish things." Obama spoke to the adult in all of us -- despite the festive ambience of the day. "Humanity, it's time to grow up," was a theme ...

I got to thinking about the 41st Hexagram, DECREASING. Implications of this hexagram include a distillation of something to its essence -- although 41 doesn't imply the thorough stripping away of Hexagram 23 or the pervasive sense of loss of Hexagram 18. Hex. 41 seems to augur a more gradual and subtle diminishment -- a time of frugality, careful weeding, conscious reduction, and "Less is more."

The question that sacrifice asks is: "What are you willing to give up to ensure your own unfolding, and the unfolding of what is holy in your life?"

Gregg Levoy, Callings

Image: by Sulamith Wulfing

For Barack, Michelle ... and all of us (Hexagram 45, GATHERING)

2009-01-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

(Helen Keller)

Hexagram 64 -- ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

2009-01-12T00:20:00.000-08:00

The surprises keep things interesting. You can't predict how a sunset will flare over the horizon, how swimming in the sea under a warm blue sky will feel.

(Randal Gage)

The next is yet to come ...

Hexagram 06 -- CONFLICT

2009-01-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

We may sit on opposite sides of the table, but underneath it our legs are entwined.

(Gregg Levoy, Callings)

(I can't help but think of Israel and Palestine ...)

(Photo: Kim Snelink)

The Quoteable I Ching

Beauty in the ruins (Hexagram 23)

Of course there's a Something (Hexagram / Principle 1, CREATION, EXISTENCE)

Hexagram 14, GREAT POSSESSION

Happy New Year from Hexagram 49 ...

You will find his weakness ... (Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

Yin Wisdom says ...

"There's a lot less of me now, and that's fine ..." (Hexagram 41, DECREASE)

The essence of Hexagram 2

Pure clarity (Hexagram 20, CONTEMPLATION)

18 --> 19

Notes on Hexagram 21, BITING THROUGH ... 'cause I need this capacity right now!

'The Intelligent Man' (Hexagram 14, GREAT POSSESSION)

As long as we live, we are alight (Hexagram 36)

Work the 'small plot of land' that is you (Hexagram / Principle 9)

Kurt Vonnegut: Quotes and hexagrams

Paulo Coelho on Enthusiasm (Hexagram 16)

Hexagram 64: Anything is possible

Dandelion, dissolving (Hexagram 59)

The shadow-side of Hexagram 14 -- GREAT POSSESSION

Three pennies ...

In retreat, more or less ...

Hexagram hands: Hexagrams 1 - 8

Peace and fleas (Hexagram 11, PEACE)

Letting it all go ... (Hexagram 41, DECREASE)

Three-Word Wednesday wordplay ... with hexagrams!

Emergent Chaos (Hexagram 3, Difficult Beginnings)

What the caged bird is really doing ... (Hexagram 47)

A death and rebirth poem (Hexagrams 23 and 24)

KABOOM (Hexagram 51, Shock)

Use of Power (Hexagram 34)

Agnostic by default (?)

Making a fist = a sign of life (Hexagram 26, DETERMINATION)

Hexagram 55 as the principle of Poetry?

Precisely my point, said the One

A contrast of children (Hexagram 38 -- DUALITY)

We are creatures of contradiction ... (Hexagram / Principle 38)

Hexagram 56: JOURNEYING

Spring! (Hexagram 24)

There is a core truth ... (Hexagram 61)

Why I love the I Ching

Easter ... Spring ... Resurrection (Hexagram 24)

I've been told that I'm a terrible follower ... (Hexagram 17)

Invincible Spring (Hexagram 24, RETURN)

Remembering summer joy in deep winter (Hexagram 58)

The Love: first thoughts and a review to come

WOW, WOW, WOW (Hexagram 28)

Hexagram 55 -- ZENITH; EPITOME

A divination about addiction ... and prayers

Progress with ease, not greed, in the New Year (Hexagram 35, PROGRESS)

May we all be home for Christmas ... (Hexagram 37, FAMILY)

Solstice soon (Hexagram 24, RETURN)

Healing happens ... (Hexagram 18, REPAIRING WOUNDS)

"Light made from nothing" ... The feeling of "living" a hexagram

I have been a blob where this blog is concerned ...

The November decline ... Hexagram 41, DIMINISHMENT

A book for one of the I Ching's core principles, KINDNESS (aka Benevolence)

"In every experience of true listening ...

An offbeat possibility for Hexagram 51, SHOCK

Hexagram 37 -- INTIMATE BONDS

In the deeps (Hexagram 29)

The essence of Hexagram 32, ENDURANCE

Healing is ...

Oppression ... and its undoing. (Hexagram 47)

Gratitude, first of all ... (Hexagram/Principle 2 -- EARTH)

Let all go ... (Hexagram / Principle 59, DISSIPATION)

A sage speaks: our common extremes (Hexagram 38, CONTRADICTION)

The heart of CONTEMPLATION (Hexagram 20)

A **WOW!** quote ... and a wander through discipline, wanting, and oneness

Thank you, dear readers ...

Three quotations ... (Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

Ah, stress ... a riff on one of our forever companions (Principle 28: CRITICAL MASS)

Old habits die hard, don't they ... (Hexagram 39, OBSTRUCTION)

A strong soul (Hexagram 34)

Hexagram / Principle 58 -- JOY

My prayer today (Hexagram 50, THE CAULDRON, and Hex. 48, THE WELL) ... and a response to Renee's question!

Oh, phew ... Sweet relief for late-bloomers (Hexagram 53, GRADUAL DEVELOPING)

The I Ching continually blows my mind ...

Is this a form of justice? ... Hexagram 21, JUSTICE

The light is always there ... (Hexagram 36)

A WOW! quote ... and a wander through discipline, wanting, and oneness