Enclosed Tree

My hexagram for the new year:

47 - K'un - Adversity

A Dead Sea, its Waters spent eons ago, more deadly than the desert surrounding it:
The Superior Person will stake his life and fortune on what he deeply believes.

Triumph belongs to those who endure.
Trial and tribulation can hone exceptional character to a razor edge that slices deftly through every challenge.
Action prevails where words will fail.

Once you have developed yourself and formed your character, you will be tested in the fire of life.
The fire of life is the Universal force that endlessly shapes and alters you until you come to realize who you are in relationship to the rest of the Universe and learn to act accordingly.

This is the realm of the Shaman.
You have exhausted every alternative, spent yourself completely, taxed body and mind beyond your former limits.
Survival and salvation lie beyond your reach now.
Only transcendence to a new existence - a higher plane of being - will see you through.
The Old You is just a dry husk.
You can't return to it.
Metamorphosis is the only grace offered.
You can only return to your homeland as a New You.

The Pulse

WITH FEAR, WE SAY NOTHING AT ALL. FEARING NOTHING, WE SAY EVERYTHING. WITHOUT BOUNDARY, EVERYTHING IS.

REMOVING MASKS, WE SEE OUR TRUE SELF. EVERYWHERE WE DANCE.

==

SEARCHING, WE NEED ONLY ASK WHAT WE FEAR TO FIND. WITHOUT FEAR WE FIND EVERYTHING.

ONE TO ONE THIS TRANSMISSION IS GIVEN AND RECEIVED, FOREVER.

FOREVER BORN AND FOREVER DYING, THERE IS NO BEGINNING AND NO END.

==

With restraint, the tactful man speaks slowly and carefully. Always watching his words, he utters none he does not intend. He utters none he does not know. He utters none that is beyond himself. He utters none that is of the true moment.

With no restraint, the madman speaks wildly and endlessly, never watching his words, he utters all he does not intend. He utters all he does not know. He utters all that is beyond himself. He utters all that is of the true moment.

==

FROM EMPTINESS, COMES EVERYTHING.

==

WE ARE CONDUITS, CHANNELS OF ENERGY.

==

THIS MOMENT IS PARAMOUNT AND SUPREME. THE EVER CHANGING MOMENT ELUDES MEANING, BIRTH, AND DEATH. IT IS THE SOLE CATALYST OF ALL. AND THUS TIME. AND THUS SPACE. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE, WE ARE.

==

WE HAVE NOTHING TO WAIT FOR.

Instinct, not Intellect

Hexagram 16


There is a rhythmic force, a world music, that lives deep in the Unconscious of each of us.
It's a primitive drumbeat, a shaking rattle, a tribal chant that invokes the primal self to rise up and join the dance.
This is the enthusiasm that is generated now.
Not rhetorical persuasion, not a play on the emotions, but a charismatic, irresistible Call of the Wild.
Confucius said that the person who could comprehend this could 'rule the world as though it were spinning in his hand.'
This is a time for instinct, not intellect -- the Thunder from Beneath.

Ice Nine

"In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.
And God said, 'Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.'
And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud-as-man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud-as-man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. 'What is the purpose of all this?' he asked politely.
'Everything must have a purpose?' asked God.
'Certainly,' said man.
'Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,' said God. And He went away."

-Bokonon