The future draws us forward with our own creations.
While governments, corporations and the media collude to create an official future of preemptive authoritarianism, individual powerlessness and collective alienation, they unwittingly trigger the pandemic backlash of an unofficial future rooted in the sacred human.
A significant thrust of this global backlash springs from the combining and reinterpreting of cultural creations that have long carried people’s hearts and minds toward a future of universal peace and prospering. Greater mutual regard among peoples, increased cultural sensitivity, decreased cultural biases, and improved research methods have all contributed to an environment in which the perennial values and visions of pre-industrial civilizations can cross arbitrary borders and exert their influence on today’s hearts and minds.
The future itself, as an object of inquiry, has played an important role in the development of several indigenous civilizations, notably those of ancient China and Mesoamerica, where it inspired the divinatory systems known as the I Ching and the Tonalpoalli, respectively. Both these oracular systems can be seen to emerge from the prehistory of their cultures and subsequently evolve as repositories of their cultures’ visions and values. The lessons they embody are clearly foundational, in the sense of being present at the emergence of their respective cultures, and formative, in the sense of exercising a sacred authority over their respective cultures’ development.
Our own participation in the unofficial future stems from our conviction that the indigenous peoples of China and the Americas shared a mother culture of great antiquity and that the lessons inherent to their divinatory systems reflect their common origin and shared reverence toward their Oracles’ future. With that conviction as our point of departure, we have combined the symbols and lessons of the I Ching and the Tonalpoalli, reinterpreting them as expressions of the irrepressible spirit of the sacred human.
The Road of Lessons
Image: Above, a male warrior descends through twilight, reaching for the light of the daytime sun. Clinging to his back is his shadow, who he carries with him. Below, his shadow reaches for a black sun as he walks through a bright place of scattered bones and approaches a living skeleton. In this place, the warrior clings to the back of his shadow, who carries him and guides him through the unfamiliar landscape.
Interpretation: This hexagram depicts a journey into the unknown. The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude. Descending through the twilight means that you take leave of the world of known and familiar experience. Reaching for the daytime sun means that you begin the journey believing that past experience can guide you through this new time. Carrying the shadow means that you have another half, a twin, that accompanies you everywhere, yet is so close and familiar to you that its presence is taken for granted. The shadow reaching for the black sun means that your other half is guided by a different, invisible, kind of light. Walking through a bright place of scattered bones means that your other half feels at home in the land of the ancestors, whose nocturnal sun turns the night to light. Approaching the living skeleton means that your other half visits with the spirit that does not die in order to return to the realm of the daytime sun with new knowledge and understanding. Being carried and guided by the shadow means that you increasingly trust the mysterious and hidden half of yourself to lead the way through unfamiliar and unforeseen experiences. Taken together, these symbols mean that you keep your bearings in even the most disorienting and confusing of times by believing in the strength, wisdom, and resourcefulness of your companion spirit.
This example, Guiding Force, correlates to Hexagram 11, Peace, in the traditional King Wen order of the I Ching. There, it is conceived of as the conjunction of the two primary trigrams, Heaven and Earth, where Heaven places itself beneath Earth in an act of self-sacrifice and service that brings about wide-spread and long-lasting peace.
We reinterpret it in light of the sacred story of the creation of humankind, in which the great culture hero, Quetzalcoatl, descends into the Land of the Dead to recover the bones of the ancestors with which to recreate human beings. An essential part of the story is the role his sacred twin, Xolotl, plays in tricking the Lord of the Land of the Dead so that Quetzalcoatl might complete the otherwise impossible tasks set him.
The sacred narrative provides personal inspiration when its lessons are generalized out to individual conduct—
Action: The masculine half of the spirit warrior follows the guide when passing through times of crisis and change. While our day-to-day practice involves honing our ability to make insightful judgments and far-sighted decisions, there are times when the trials facing us are greater than the strength and knowledge we have accumulated over the course of this lifetime. At times like this, it is necessary to change our orientation: rather than keeping to the course of personal empowerment and happiness, now is the time to set your sights on the brighter star of working to bring benefit to others. Facing in a new direction is not easy, however, since it means breaking habits of thought and feeling that have accrued over a long time. For this reason, it is necessary to rely on the transcendent intelligence of your spiritual ally, whose very existence is proof that selflessly benefiting others is the path of the evolving individual. By following your spiritual twin into service at this time, you reach the goal you would have missed had you sought it directly.
Image: A male warrior wearing the emblem of the smoking mirror pauses in his tracks. The true road runs straight ahead but the warrior’s footprints show that he has doubled back on himself, circling around a pool of water. The day sky overhead is filled with sunlight but the pool reflects the full moon in the night sky, indicating that the warrior made that past part of his journey in the dark of night. As he prepares to undertake this leg of his journey for the second time, the warrior must face the additional danger of a jaguar who now crouches beside the pool.
Interpretation: This hexagram depicts someone facing a dilemma for the second time. The male warrior symbolizes the challenges and self-discipline that make us stronger and more adaptable than we imagined. The smoking mirror symbolizes the penetrating insight, introspection, and self-knowledge required if we are to achieve a vision of the true self. That he pauses in his tracks means that you take the opportunity to slow down your decisions in order to consider your circumstances carefully and discern how they resemble a past experience you have long wished to rectify. That he has stepped off the true road to circle around the pool means that your true destiny must wait while you return to a previous stage in order to complete its task. That it is light now but the pool reflects the night sky means that you are more aware and capable now than you were when you first encountered this test. That this part of the journey is complicated by the additional danger of a jaguar lying in wait means that you clearly perceive this to be a new situation even as you use it to change your spiritual history. Taken together, these symbols mean that you heal wounds left from a past stage of development.
This example, Repeating Test, correlates to Hexagram 12, Stagnation, in the traditional King Wen order of the I Ching. There, it is conceived of as the opposite conjunction of the two primary trigrams found in the previous Hexagram, Peace. Heaven places itself above Earth, and, since Heaven rises and Earth descends, the two grow ever further apart, leading to a time of creative stagnation.
We reinterpret this situation in light of the sacred story of the Smoking Mirror, the symbol of the shape-shifting god, Tezcatlipoca, who dares us to gaze into his obsidian mirror that reveals our true self. Those who cannot look into the smoking mirror without averting their gaze lose their self, whereas those who can are granted their dearest wish. As a symbol of self-knowledge, therefore, this narrative depicts the prevention of Stagnation, just as the preceding narrative depicted the activation of hidden potential leading to a time of Peace.
Further development of the theme clarifies its application to the individual’s life—
Action: The masculine half of the spirit warrior gazes into the smoking mirror of the true self without blinking. It is a time for exhibiting the character traits you believe you should have exhibited when facing a similar dilemma in the past: because you take advantage of this second chance to prove yourself to yourself, you erase past regrets and reveal your true self to the unseen forces. By turning our perception upon ourselves, we are able to sense the lessons we have learned from past mistakes. Until we have had the opportunity to act on those lessons and put them into effect, however, part of us remains frozen at that stage of our development. For that reason, there are few more fortuitous times than those in which we can prove we are stronger and wiser than in the past: by discerning our own patterns of behavior that run consistently beneath the surface of appearances, we are able to stop repeating past mistakes and emerge victorious over our own self-defeating attitudes and behaviors. Because you intuitively know that turning points periodically return until they are finally resolved, you are fully prepared to act when the time comes: because you wait vigilantly for the opportunity to revisit a period of darkness, you do not fail to use the present turning point to extend the continuity of your light further back into the past.
The preceding pair of hexagrams is important because it represents the only possible pairings of the two primary trigrams, Heaven and Earth, a unique relationship that lends the pair a special weight in any interpretation of the I Ching. Moving away from the narrative approach, however, allows us to reflect on the purely visual images carried over from the pre-Hispanic writing system as recorded in surviving codices and monumental architecture.
The Road of Dreams
Spontaneous images spring forth from the unconscious, take on mythic importance, become mnemonic cues for an oral tradition and, ultimately, form the basis of a writing system.
The above example, Going Beyond, makes use of a popular motif found in masks that reveal the stages of youth, old age and death that are part of life. Spanning the array of faces within the mask is a headdress of sacred quetzal feathers, signifying an undertaking of great nobility. The river, or road, of stars (traditionally painted as eyes) represents the Milky Way. Taken together, the symbols point at the process of transcendence.
Fostering Self-Sacrifice makes use of numerous traditional motifs, most notably the ruptured tree, which connotes the discontinuity of a broken lineage. However, the wisdom of the serpent, the nobility of the eagle, and the permanence of tree roots are likewise ubiquitous symbols. Taken together, they portray a time in which one survives difficulty by seeking to benefit others.
This final example, Conceiving Spirit, uses the often-encountered image of one animal (or sometimes an ancestor’s face) emerging from the mouth of a larger animal—in this case, a jaguar emerging from the mouth of a spectacular Plumed Serpent (the literal translation of the name Quetzalcoatl). The curlicued “roar” of the jaguar is a speech glyph, found throughout the ancient codices. The “eyes closed” motif generally signifies death but on occasion may connote an altered state. Taken as a whole, these symbols are emblematic of attuning one’s senses to the world of spirit right before one’s eyes.
The Ancestral Future
The military-industrial-media complex also uses narrative lessons and images to construct the official future, of course. But it does so too consciously, creating an unconscious backlash of mythic and sacred content. As the hexagrams above demonstrate, the ancestral vision of the future is marked by creative governance, self-correcting actions, transcendence, self-sacrifice, and sensitivity to the sacredness of everything. As lessons and images within a divinatory system, these are not merely concepts or wishful thinking. They are lived experiences of the interior of the sacred human and, as such, are immediate echoes of the Oracle’s own voice.
For this is what the Oracle teaches: The future draws us forward with our own creations.
The sacred human is concerned, first and foremost, with what she or he creates within. Lust to dominate others creates an inner body that cannot but act out its desires in the world at large. Goodwill toward all creates an inner body that cannot but act out its intentions in the world at large.
As the voice of the world soul, the Oracle does not so much predict the future as help us create it. As a living history of the lessons and dreams of untold generations of wise and loving predecessors, the divinatory system does not reflect predetermined fate but, rather, reminds us of the forgotten roads before us.
The future, as the subject drawing us closer to itself, takes neither itself nor us lightly. We approach the Oracle as if it were the Other, only to encounter the open secret: people differ solely in their sensitivity to the sacredness of everything. The unofficial future unfolds from within.
Borders collapse. Old wrongs are forgiven. The lessons are learned.
Peace and prospering arise as if inevitable.
The sacred human returns to the ancestral future.
The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.
