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2012: Prophesy or Symbol?

Posted on October 12, 2009 by William

Maybe it’s a sign of how dramatically movies drive popular culture but a number of folks deeply steeped in the meaning of the Mayan Calendar and the Mayan writing system—as well as numerous scientists—are coming forward to reassure us that the world is not in actuality coming to an end on December 21, 2012.

By way of example, a Mayan tribal elder is quoted recently as saying that the idea of the calendar predicting a catastrophic doomsday springs from Western ideas and not Mayan. This has been followed up even more recently by a Washington Post article approaching the matter from a scientific perspective, in which the astronomical basis of the movie 2012 is viewed as sensationalizing for profit. That article does not take Sony Pictures to task strongly enough for its setting up a phony (and very hi-tech) website called Institute for Human Continuity, whose goal is Ensuring the end is just the beginning and where you can vote for who ought to lead humanity in the post-2012 era. Sane and caring people everywhere ought to boycott this film just to protest this kind of commercial exploitation.

Think none of this matters? Think everyone knows its entertainment?

According to the Post article, David Morrison, the author of an online feature called Ask an Astrobiologist, has “gotten nearly 1,000 e-mails from people who think something dire is about to befall the planet. One teenager wrote to Morrison that he’d rather commit suicide than see the world destroyed.”

An even more recent Los Angeles Times article entitled, Scientists try to calm ‘2012’ hysteria, notes:

Morrison says it’s hard to know whether the people who have written to him with their fears represent a fringe or a larger cross-section of Americans who, distrustful of traditional sources of information and the authorities behind them, are falling victim to the Internet’s snake-oil salesmen.

In such an environment, the viral marketing campaign for the movie “2012,” which encourages people to “Vote for the Leader of the Post-2012 World,” can seem like confirmation of the apocalypse, rather than of an upcoming 90-minute entertainment vehicle.

A spokesman for Sony Pictures, Steve Elzer, said: “We believe consumers understand that the advertising is promoting a fictional film.”

Morrison said the movie’s distributors are feeding the “panic” by creating some of the fake science websites. Most of the sites, Morrison said, are full of misinformation and speculation, often by people who have written books they are trying to sell.

But scientific and ethical considerations aside for the moment, let’s return to the source of the 2012 phenomenon, the ending of a 5,128-year cycle of time as marked by the Mayan Calendar.

Drawn away from purely academic writings for the moment, David Stuart, arguably the foremost expert on Mayan glyphs in the world, spoke his own words of reassurance for informed lay readers, in which he clarified his previous statements regarding the now-famous Monument Six of Tortugero, one of the few surviving Mayan texts that actually seem to predict events—and that specifically mentions the December 21, 2012 date.

Or does it? Stuart references an article by his colleague Stephen Houston, who points out greater ambiguity in the reading of Monument Six than previously recognized. The date may not reference any objective date but rather be ceremonial, having to do with the consecration of a particularly sacred building.

Great pains are being taken by such noted experts and the Mayans themselves to point out that the misconceptions about the world ending simply because the Mayan calendar turns over and begins another 5,128-year cycle are based on exaggerations and decidedly Western apocalyptic myth-making. Why? Well, obviously, the release of the special effects extravaganza 2012 may push already-anxious men, women and children into fear overdrive.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the “Curious? Ask an Astronomer” Web site, says people are scared.

“It’s too bad that we’re getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they’re too young to die,” Martin said. “We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn’t live to see them grow up.”

Few people, after all, are well-versed in Mayan calendrics and astronomical cosmology, especially of the type that purports to deal with phenomena that recur only every 26,000 years or so. Enter the infotainment industry with its conscience-less view on sensationalizing the latest world-ending fad in order to increase revenue. There is apparently no end of people willing to come forward with their direst interpretations, selectively citing facts that bolster their theories. The more shocking and attention-getting the better. And the public good be damned.

A comprehensive and up-to-date review and criticism of the whole gamut of speculations related to the 2012 phenomenon can be found on Wikipedia. Its clear-eyed evaluation of the phenomenon is augmented with useful research into the history of its ideas and the personalities of its proponents. Bottom line? There is nothing to any of the claims of the world ending in 2012.

Likewise, there is a lengthy and very informative article here that discusses the particular difficulties of interpreting specific dates and meanings of Mayan calendrics, especially related to the problem of exactly where the Mayans envisioned their calendar starting over. This is the rather abstruse but fascinating issue of whether a pictun occurs after 13 baktuns or, as is favored by many specialists, after 20 baktuns.

And so, in that vein, I would like to add my voice to that of responsible folks in the Mayan and academic communities, attempting to inform in a useful and meaningful way.

The date December 21, 2012 falls on a day called 4-Ahau in the Mayan calendar, which corresponds to the day 4-Flower in the similar ritual calendars of the indigenous peoples to the north of the Maya, such as the Mixtecs and Aztecs. All of these civilizations had a schema of recurring Ages (or Suns) that ended on one of the 20 days of their calendar and was accompanied by the numeric coefficient “4”. On the famous “Aztec Calendar Stone”, for example, the Ages are seen as ending on the days 4-Jaguar, 4-Wind, 4-Water, 4-Rain, and 4-Movement. Obviously, each of these Age-ending dates is succeeded in turn by another, new, Age.

The essential point is that these dates commemorate and celebrate the creation of the world. They are life-affirming, a philosophy of history that takes into account the periodic transformations of civilization, each one better and brighter than the last.

These are symbolic dates, in other words. Not world-ending events. World-beginning events. Metaphorical. Not literal. Symbolic.

But we are symbolic creatures, are we not? To such an extent that the great anthropologist Mircea Eliade called us homo symbolicus. The use of artifacts as old as 75,000 years points to the origins of language, imagination and spirituality in this creature we call human being. We have a sea of symbols inside us and we seem predisposed to connect those symbols to people, things, events or ideas that infuse our lives with extra meaning. Not all meaning needs be positive, however. Fear can add meaning, even if it increases distress and distrust. And drama. Especially if it seems to bind us closer to others.

And as has been noted, we are herding creatures, after all. Beyond some threshold point, we move and act in a more collective manner than we generally recognize. Presidential elections, real estate bubbles, groupthink, the list is as long as it is embarrassing.

In the present case, the 2012 phenomenon finds itself in the company of other symbolic world-ending predictions: the end of the millennium, Y2K, biblical prophesies, Nostradamus, and a host of others that various people interpret as coinciding with this date. Beyond the purely unethical behavior of using technology and the resources of the media to instill fear in people for profit, we as a culture need to question the wisdom of rewarding those whose use shock for personal gain: The more shock is used on us, the more inured we become to it, so the more has to be administered in order for us to feel shocked. Yes, it’s like a drug. And we ought to know enough by now to stay away in droves from those who peddle it.

We also ought to know by now that human nature possesses a self-defeating, self-destructive side that justifies greed, exploitation, and narcissism. Is it that we, as individuals, can become so mesmerized by our sense of self-importance that we cannot imagine the world going on after our death? Is it possible for us to prefer that the whole world end than that it might go on without us?

My take on the 2012 phenomenon is that the facts have become irrelevant. And maybe that’s a good thing.

There is currently a mood toward anticipating something dramatic happening on the Winter Solstice of 2012 and, even if it amounts to nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy, this mood is likely to provoke some profound inner changes in those people who take it seriously. In this sense, it is not so different than contemplating one’s own death: it brings about a reconsideration of one’s life, how it is being spent, what is really important, what true purpose should be, and so on. Seriously reflecting on the end of the world has got to impact our inner lives—and perhaps our outer actions. In this sense, it might not be so different than those who survive a near-death encounter: It brings about a renewed sense of wonder and reevaluation of what is truly worth preserving.

Perhaps the symbolic end of the world this time around will fuel our collective imagination and inspire our collective heart to renew our desire for a truly benevolent civilization that bequeaths peace and prospering to all our great-grandchildren and their descendants worldwide.

Not the end of the world, then. But the end of a world view, maybe.

A celebration of creation-in-the-making.

Perhaps the symbolic end of the Age this time around will convince us that the Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach if we but dare hold out our hand.

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.

Posted in 2012, Inner Activism | Tagged 2012, Aztec Calendar Stone, David Stuart, death, end of the world, ethics, global community, Golden Age of Humanity, herd mentality, Mayan calendar, Mayan writing system, Monument Six, symbolic behavior | 5 Comments

Celebrating Passage

Posted on September 30, 2009 by William

Image: Four female warrior conduct a ritual of rejoicing, dancing in a circle amid the waves of the ocean. Above them, the moon traverses then night, passing through its four phases.

Interpretation: The four warriors symbolize the four stages of life—child, youth, adult, and the elder. That the make a ritual of rejoicing symbolizes the spirit warrior’s attitude toward the world and its gift of sacred life. That they dance in the waves of the sea shows that rejoicing transports them beyond the shore of reason and immerses them in the oceanic experience of the oneness of all creation. Taken together, these symbols mean that you are, in every stage of life and every activity, celebration itself.

–Hexagram 19, Celebrating Passage, The Toltec I Ching

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What’s so Fascinating About a 260-Day Calendar?

Posted on September 27, 2009 by William

On the surface of things, a calendar with 260 days seems absurd. Of what use could it be? Obviously, there 365 days in a year—who needs a calendar missing 105 days?

The ritual calendar of ancient Mesoamerica is just such a calendar, however. This is the famed Mayan Calendar, of which we hear so much about these days related to the year 2012. And it’s the Tonalpoalli, the sacred Day Count, as it was known in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs.

The 260-day ritual calendar runs concurrently, side-by-side with the 365-day solar calendar. It doesn’t replace the solar calendar but it does infuse its days with more meaning. Each of the 260 days is experienced as being influenced by a particular spiritual force, such as the god of rain or the goddess of fertility.

What makes the 260-day calendar so fascinating to students is its unexpected synchronization to certain important astronomical cycles, notably those of the sun, Venus and Mars.

To begin with, we need to recall that there was a long-standing traditional ceremony in Pre-Columbian Mexico called the New Fire ceremony, in which time started over. This is often referred to as their version of a “century” and was treated no less consequently.

This 52-year century provides us with a baseline from which to proceed—

365 days x 52 = 18,980 days

This synchronizes to the Day Count of 260 days every 73 cycles of the ritual calendar—

260 days x 73 = 18,980 days

This synchronization can be thought of as the odometer in your car turning over and re-starting at zero: in this case, both the 365-day and 260-day calendars start over on the same day precisely after 52 years.

These cycles are further synchronized with the synodic revolution of Venus, which is 584 days long. After Venus makes 65 such revolutions, it falls into perfect rhythm with two New Fire ceremonies (104 solar years) and 146 cycles of the ritual calendar—

584 days x 65 Venus cycles = 37,9860 days

365 days x 104 years = 37,9860 days

260 days x 146 Day Count cycles = 37,9860 days

Beyond this, there is a final astronomical correlation to the Day Count. The synodic revolution of Mars is 780 days long, which is, of course, precisely three times the length of the ritual calendar—

260 days x 3 Day Count cycles = 780 days

Is the study of the Tonalpoalli vastly deeper than the above? Yes, vastly.

But it is these surprising correlations that have captured the imagination of all those who have undertaken the deeper study.

William Douglas Horden is the co-author of The Toltec I Ching.

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | 2 Comments

Lessons Of The Toltec I Ching: Daily Immortality

Posted on September 24, 2009 by William

The Toltec civilization of ancient Mexico influenced all those that followed it, especially in the important arena of the spirit warrior’s philosophy of life, which came to be called Flower and Song.

Flower in this sense means that the spirit warrior looks at everyone and everything as a perfect blossom—something wondrous and mysterious and movingly beautiful. Something ultimately unknowable, since the source of its perfection is invisible. Something ultimately awe-inspiring, because its perfection invites intimacy and communion. And, unavoidably, something passing away right before our eyes, as transient and ephemeral as a fading bloom.

So, Flower in this sense means feeling the perfection of each moment while simultaneously feeling the inevitability of its passing. Whether engaging a loved one or a stranger, a favorite activity, a wild animal, a mountain, the stars, or even all of nature itself, the spirit warrior is fully immersed in this dual awareness of its perfection and mortality. Indeed, it has been said that only true warriors have the courage and fortitude to hold these two profound impressions in their heart-mind at the same time.

Song here means that the only thing truly worth speaking, even to oneself, is the truth of Flower. Anything else lacks the authenticity to fully reflect the nobility and compassion of the spirit warrior. In this sense, Song is the individual expression of the spirit warrior’s lifeway, the moment-by-moment way she or he thinks, feels, speaks, and acts.

Taken together, the phrase Flower and Song is a traditional metaphor for Poetry.

From this we can see that the spirit warrior is one who lives a poetic way of life—creative and empathetic, courageous and respectful, attuned to the world outside and the world within, spirit warriors live whole-heartedly, aware that all the perfection they know and love is passing away before their eyes.

Holding such a state of mind for extended periods of time has certain foreseeable consequences. By forcing us to focus complete attention on appreciating the perfection of everything as well as mourning its inevitable passing, it trains us to attend fully to the moment, drop off inner talk, participate in life authentically, and honor everything as an equal knowing it must die.

But it also has certain unforeseeable consequences. By blurring the imaginary boundary between self and world, it opens new senses and allows us to perceive the spirit within all matter. By blurring the imaginary line between flawed and flawless, it opens our hearts to the sacredness of all form. By blurring the imaginary boundary between animate and inanimate, it opens our eyes to the formless awareness forever transcending the very form it inhabits. By blurring the imaginary line between time and space, it opens our minds to the unchanging presence through which all changing form moves.

With this introduction, let’s look at the illustration and text for Hexagram 30 of The Toltec I Ching.

Image:. The skeletal form of death is shown in the childbirth position, giving birth to new life. Both the blood accompanying the birth and the bones of the skeleton have jade beads affixed to them. Over the heart of the newborn is the spiral cross section of a conch shell.

Interpretation: This hexagram represents the immortality that is born from mortality. The skeletal form of death symbolizes those remains of an individual that are common to all people. The newborn symbolizes the spirit warrior, who is delivered from the body’s death to return to the spirit realm from whence it comes. The jade beads affixed to the blood symbolize the precious nature of that which sustains life. The jade beads affixed to the bones of the skeleton symbolize the precious nature of all those who have come before us. The spiral of the conch over the heart symbolizes the wisdom and power of divine intelligence that fills the soul of the newborn spirit warrior. Taken together, these symbols mean that your body is the womb within which the embryo of the spirit warrior is carried.

Action: The spirit warrior contemplates the inevitable extinction of the body’s spark in order to illuminate the perfection of the present moment. It is a time for studying the end of things, for opening the heart fully to the reality of death: the need here is to reach beyond the intellect’s dead rationality in order to grasp the emotional reality of the body’s mortality. Instead of waiting for death to approach you, take the lead and approach it in order to experience that part of yourself that does not die. Because you have the courage to authentically accept the end of bodily experience, your heart fills with joyous appreciation for each moment that blossoms anew with the timeless perfection of creation. Because you have the loving-kindness to authentically accept that death inspires fear and doubt in other people, you find ways to express your emotions that encourage others to gaze unflinchingly into the bittersweet awareness of mortal perfection. Those who continue to avert their eyes from death’s face, however, see imperfection everywhere and find it uncomfortable to genuinely contemplate or discuss their mortality. Those who treat death as the midwife who delivers them into the ancestral homeland of the spirit warriors, on the other hand, increasingly come to view creation through the eyes of the immortal that is being born every moment. Because you prepare for the end of things, you are ready for the beginning that lies beyond.

Intent: Knowing that death transforms us after the body’s light is extinguished requires little more than intellectual knowledge. Knowing that we transform death before the body’s light is extinguished, however, requires first-hand experience of the deathless. For the spirit warrior, death is not the absence of life. It is the felt presence of the gateway between the visible and invisible realms—it is the loving presence of the guide home. We transform the extinction of the body by becoming the spirit warrior who carries its spark back to the universal fire of creation. We transform the way we view the world by appreciating the preciousness of every moment we are honored to spend in the visible realm.

Summary: Your spirit is growing stronger, take care what you create. Keep in mind the end of things and you will begin only what you wish to be remembered for—keep in mind the unpredictability of fate and you will not waste time or energy or petty goals. Transform death into your ally and you will make every moment count. Transform death into the spirit of renewal and you will find peace of mind.

The lesson we glean from this hexagram, then, is that immortality is not something that happens to us after we die—it is, rather, this present mind, in all its perfection, aware of itself as each mortal form passes through it. We recognize the perfection of this present mind, furthermore, by identifying with the unchanging now rather than the changing flow of time moving through it.

On the day-today practical level, this gives rise to a lifeway in which we treat everything as sacred, including ourselves, and experience everything as a manifestation of universal goodwill. We attune ourselves to the benevolent intention of the world, furthermore, by facing death so authentically that we come face-to-face with the deathless.

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | Tagged benefit, death, deathless, Flower-and-Song, hexagram, I Ching, identity, immortality, Intention, shamanism, spirit warrior, Toltec, training | 1 Comment

Returning to the Ancestral Future

Posted on September 18, 2009 by William

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.

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | Comments Off

The Spirit Of Divination (1)

Posted on September 11, 2009 by William

Among the questions haunting humankind across the bridge of generations, most revolve around these in one form or another—

What lies ahead?

What does the future hold?

Where am I going?

Because spirit is the invisible half of nature, we learn much about spirit by observing nature closely and participating in it intimately. We observe the cycle of the seasons, for instance, and see how the changes of increase and decrease are inevitable—yet the precise timing of their arrival can only be predicted accurately by closely watching the signs that actually precede them. Likewise, we participate most intimately with the cycle of change when we sow seeds in spring, cultivate growth in summer, harvest benefits in autumn, and save energy in winter. Understanding the cycles of spiritual good fortune comes in large measure from such analogies of nature.

But when is spring in the particular arena of life that concerns me at this time? How long will it last once it arrives? Can I facilitate its early arrival—or delay its departure? What season am I in right now? How do I make the most of it for the greater good?

Or, even more basic: Can the different arenas of my life be moving through different seasons at the same time? Can, in other words, my relationship with one person be moving through autumn while another is just entering summer? Can my work be moving through winter at the same time as my health is moving through spring? Can the social and political climate around me be moving through one season even as my financial fortunes are moving through another?

And, perhaps, most basic of all: What are the trends developing right now and in what direction? How can I respond to them without setting in motion any negative backlash? How can I respond so as to set in motion forces that amplify and advance my efforts?

Divination is a useful tool for exploring these and other concerns that arise in life because the most authentic divinatory systems embody the One Spirit. Whether they are authentic because they are inspired to a greater degree than others or simply because time and tradition have carved a river of meaning through the stone of rationality is difficult to say—but the fact remains that the most authentic divinatory systems give voice to the One Spirit through answers in the form of an Oracle.

Authentic divinatory systems express a complete philosophy of life. They take into account the role an individual plays in life and her or his relationship with the rest of Creation. They provide meaningful explanations for birth, death and transformation. They provide meaningful principles for organizing society for the greatest good. They establish congruent values and ethics that allow the individual to gain without taking away from others. They answer questions in a way that helps the questioner succeed by providing insight into his or her greater potential. They do not, in other words, merely tell the future as if it were a predetermined state divorced from the living reality of free will and creative intention.

It is obvious that spring will come every year. But precisely when will it come? Will it be colder or hotter than usual? What crops will be best to plant—and when? By analogy: it is obvious that I will start a new relationship sooner or later. But is this one the right one? Is this the right time? Is it the right kind of relationship for this time in my life? From another perspective: I want to start a new venture but is this the right time to undertake it? Is it matched to the social and economic climate of the time? If not, can it be adapted to fit or should I wait or go in a completely different direction?

The future, then, is not some absolutely predictable “season” that is always the same, always demanding of us the same responses, divorced from the living reality of free will and creative intent. It is, rather, the living potential gestating in the womb of the present. Awareness of this living potential is at our fingertips. When we say that spirit is the invisible half of nature, we mean that spirit lives in all matter. We need look no further than our own experience to see how the matter of our body is but half the story: In the same way that spirit dwells in our own body, it dwells in all matter—and just as our spirit awakens to its fuller potential at times of intense change, so does spirit living within all other bodies. As has long been said, When Spring arrives, all the flowers blossom together.

So the living potential gestating in the womb of the present is the creative intent of the One Spirit, constantly providing all the resources and opportunities for us to succeed beyond imagining. And as the voice of the One Spirit, the Oracle translates the perennial truth into the language and symbolism of the Age, answering the questions that will lead to the success that we can imagine.

But the Oracle does not simply speak to the diviner, answering his or her questions mechanically. As the embodiment of the One Spirit, it also hears the diviner, listening to the thoughts and feelings behind the diviner’s question. Because all things are manifestations of the One Spirit, the Oracle is attuned to the individual music each instrument in the entire symphony is playing. Because it exists in the inner landscape of the nonphysical, the Oracle is attuned to all the individual dreams making up the collective unconscious. Because the Oracle works from within to synchronize good fortune in the external realm, it teaches how each individual might advance in the short-term even as it constantly exerts its influence to actualize its long-term goal of peace and prospering for all in the Golden Age of Humanity.

The Art and Science of Divination

At the crux of a diviner’s skill lies a harmonious balance between intuitive understanding and critical thinking.

It is said of the great Chinese diviner, Shao Yung, for example, that he and his son were sitting beside the fire one winter afternoon when footsteps outside preceded a knocking at the door. “Quick,” Shao Yung said to his son, “what do you predict is about to happen?” The son replied, “So many footsteps symbolizes wood and so many knocks symbolizes metal. This certainly refers to the wooden handle and metal head of a hoe. Therefore, I predict that our neighbor has come to borrow a hoe.” Shao Yung corrected him, “Your grasp of the elements, wood and metal, are quite accurate but you have ignored the fact that this is winter, not spring. For this reason, it is clear that our neighbor has come to borrow an ax to chop wood for a fire and not a hoe for planting.”

It is one thing to train ourselves to make accurate intuitive leaps about the forces at play within a situation—and yet another to develop the analytical skills to place the Oracle’s answer within the context of the current time and place.

In this sense, we can say that the art of divination lies in developing an ever greater sensitivity to the spirit dwelling within matter while the science of divination lies in developing an ever greater understanding of human nature.

From the perspective of this art, people differ only in their sensitivity to the spirit inhabiting matter. At one extreme, there are those who appear completely insensitive and behave in the most brutal ways imaginable, feeling no compunction about killing forests, animals and even people. At the other extreme are those who experience all of matter as sacred and treat everything in the most reverential way.

Obviously, diviners tend toward the latter extreme, basing their actions on the open-hearted experience of sensing the sacredness of everything. Like most things that express our higher potential, such as music or acrobatics, it takes a specific kind of training or practice to achieve an ever-growing sensitivity to the One Spirit inhabiting the one body of Nature. It is the lack of such training that permits the most brutish among us to take the lead in much of civilization’s behavior, particularly its political and economic activity. The entrenchment of a materialistic world view of domination, greed and self-interest that promotes the “common sense” attitude that matter is “dead” and “the ends justify the means” is all built on a carefully-reinforced social consensus of resisting emotional contact with the sacred within every form of creation. We could not, of course, treat nature or one another the way we do if we were to all allow ourselves to feel that everything and everyone around us is sacred. Is the divine.

From the perspective of this science, people differ only in their intention to transform themselves into ever more benevolent and creative individuals. At one extreme, there are those who believe that they cannot change who and what they are, forever blaming others for the opportunities they missed and the injuries they caused. At the other extreme are those who view themselves as inner shape-shifters, forever treating their present sense of self as the cocoon within which their next sense of self is already metamorphosing.

Again, diviners lean toward the second of these extremes, basing their actions on the will to transcend every stage of personal development. This requires a conscious balance between utterly appreciating the present moment and never falling into the trap of self-satisfaction. A balance between a contented peace of mind and a ready willingness to ever answer the call of the higher self. A balance between standing comfortably on the present rung of the ladder and reaching for the next without hesitation. The secret to greater understanding of human nature, after all, is that it does not come from observing others—it comes from experiencing the living unconscious common to every individual. We really cannot free ourselves of all the ulterior motives that obstruct and contaminate the clarity of the Oracle’s answers unless we encounter our unconscious self-defeating attitudes and behaviors—and replace them with new consciously-accepted responses that spur us ever onward to greater benevolence and creativity.

The training involved in the art and science of divination, then, can be described as the practice of the spirit warrior, who can be defined as a woman or man who (1) senses the sacredness of all matter and (2) defeats the self-defeating enemy-within.

This two-fold training produces a profound transformation in the spirit warrior. Seeing and feeling the sacredness of everything, we come to sense our own sacredness. And, freeing our intention of ulterior motives, we make ourselves a clear instrument through which the Oracle’s song might be heard.

In this way, the diviner finds himself or herself on the path of the sacred human. Recognizing our own sacredness, making ourselves a vehicle for spirit: the two-fold path of purifying sensitivity and intention leads us to (1) an intuitive grasp of signs and symbols and (2) the logical discernment to place the Oracle’s answer in context without being unduly influenced by personal opinions and experience.

It is paradoxical that we come to divine change by (1) becoming more sensitive to the unchanging and (2) transcending the temporary by identifying with the eternal, but such precisely is the two-eyed vision of the diviner, who gazes unblinking into the face of the relative and absolute realms simultaneously.

Below is an outline of the training course to be discussed in upcoming posts.

The Spirit Of Divination

I. Breaking through the Time-Mind (The Language-Mind)

Psychological Time as Stream of Self-Talk:

Interrupting Linear Narrative

II. Breaking through the Body-Mind (The History-Mind)

Self-Identity Conditioned by sum of Body’s Experiences:

Creating New Sense of Self

III. Breaking through the Goal-Mind (The Will-Mind)

Illusion of Control as a Separate Being:

Hearing Authentic Calling

IV. Breaking through the Pattern-Mind (The Five-Senses-Mind)

The Common Sense of Ignoring the Unchanging:

Passive Attention vs Active Attention

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | Comments Off

The Oracle and the Smoking Mirror

Posted on August 1, 2009 by William

Tezcatlipoca, the god of the Smoking Mirror of ancient Mexico, wore an obsidian mirror on his chest that reflected the true nature of anyone looking into it. Those who could not gaze at their reflection without averting their eyes lost their lives. Those who could look into the Smoking Mirror without flinching, however, would have their wish fulfilled.

I take a deep breath and ask the Oracle my question out loud, determined not to flinch: At what crossroads does our global civilization stand now—and in what direction does good fortune lie?

A rare thunderstorm shatters the Oregon twilight. Lightning strikes the foothills, thunder rattles the windows, the wailing wind drives sheets of rain sideways against the house. The lights blink off on off on. I shake the coins, drop them, count them, six times. The squall passes on to the next valley. The Oracle speaks.

IMAGE: A male warrior holds the funeral bundle of his child, preparing to place it in its burial site. His face reflects the shock, anguish, and horror that fills his heart.

I almost flinch. This is surely the most ominous of the 64 hexagrams.

INTERPRETATION: This hexagram depicts the inevitable result of carelessness and irreverence. The male warrior symbolizes the versatility and fortitude that are at the core of outer nurturing. That he prepares to place the funeral bundle of his child in its burial site means that strength cannot accomplish afterwards what nurturing can accomplish beforehand. That his face and heart are filled with shock, anguish, and horror means that he is in the grips of the most terrible truth: that which we most cherish cannot be replaced. Taken together, these symbols mean that you avoid causing suffering by honoring and nurturing all that your spirit touches.

Animism is the world’s oldest Life Way. It’s a world view in which everything has spirit, in which every thing is alive and aware. A world view in which all is sacred—humanity no more or less than anything else. It is not driven by self-interest but by reverence. It’s not that I treat nature right so that I might live better, for instance. It’s that I treat nature right because it is the living body of the One Spirit.

The corpus of practices by which people interact with Spirit in a mutually beneficial way is called shamanism. The way in which human beings communicate with Spirit is a principal concern of shamanism and that gives rise to systems of divination. An Oracle gives voice to the essence of situations and the trends developing out of them—it is the spontaneous response of the One Spirit to an individual’s act of divination. The I Ching is one of the world’s best-known Oracles, having been in continuous use for at least 3,500 years.
For all who perceive the world as something grander and more noble than a merely materialistic set of mechanistic causes and effects, the Oracle issues this dire warning of imminent loss. The last line of the Interpretation reminds us that the only thing that cannot be taken from us without our permission is our spirit of reverence and good will toward all.

ACTION: The masculine half of the spirit warrior draws back from the brink before it is too late. It is not a time for pursuing desires and ambitions: those who cannot temper their strength run the risk of losing a source of that strength. When our masculine half goes too far in pursuit of goals and becomes short-sighted and impatient, it is necessary to balance it with the strongest medicine possible: real problems can be avoided only by balancing the masculine half with the power of the feminine half’s protective love. It is the feminine half’s sense of caring and reverence that holds the key to fulfilling the real goal of happiness, companionship, and a clear conscience: those who do not hold the emotions of caring and reverence dear to their hearts run the risk of causing pain for themselves and others. Just because we can acquire something doesn’t mean we should, just because we can accomplish something doesn’t mean we have to: stopping to really consider what we are risking, allowing ourselves to feel the full brunt of such an emotional loss—this is the protective and loving nature of the feminine half’s medicine. Likewise, stubborn pursuit of goals even in the face of warning signs, longing for something that threatens to cause suffering for others, refusal to change course when it endangers the greater good—this is the short-sighted and zealous nature of the masculine half when it loses its balance and sense of proportion. Because you treat nature, other people, and your own creations with the care and reverence you would your own infant child, you counteract every self-defeating action before it ever arises in thought or feeling.

The spirit warrior is a man or woman who aims to defeat his or her enemy-within, his or her own self-defeating habits of thoughts, feelings, and reactions. The dual nature of Spirit, whether cosmological principles on the largest scale or complementary halves of each individual, are symbolized by the terms masculine and feminine. The masculine half is often thought of as direct purposeful action, such as the act of tunneling through a mountain to get to the sea. The feminine half is likewise thought of as unconditional open-hearted nurturing, such as the river that waters everything it touches as it winds around mountains to get to the sea. Obviously, the goal of the spirit warrior is to bring her or his two halves into the kind of dynamic balance that allows for the optimum response to circumstances in the most timely manner.

Here, it is the stubborn pursuit of obsolete and self-destructive goals that the Oracle warns us against—and encourages us to envision the irreparable loss of the true benefits of civilization, to feel the emotional pain of those losses ahead of time in order to motivate ourselves to immediate action. As it makes clear, this is not the kind of action that has brought us to an impasse: we can’t get out of a hole using the same shovel we dug it with. As the Life Way of ethical values and behaviors becomes more widespread and replaces the consensus of self-interest and needless consumption, the rigid patriarchal hierarchies supporting—and supported by—such decadence give way to self-directed egalitarian groups coordinating their efforts to protect what is valuable. It’s this emotional connection to what needs to be salvaged, this treating all things as we would our own child, that forges us together in a sense of shared purpose and mutual respect.

INTENT: The foolish ruin even that upon which they depend. When we recognize the sanctity of life, however, and work to protect it from unnecessary and pointless harm, then we safeguard our own spiritual foundation and that of all who touch our spirit. Consider what cannot be replaced and then cherish it, planting seeds of intent in the spirit realm to nurture it and keep it from being lost forever. Shun materialism and self-interest as you would a poisoned well: keep to the path of the balanced and harmonious way of life, revering all that the life-giving and life-sustaining forces themselves love. By maintaining an unbroken alliance with the helping spirits, the community of spirit warriors ensures that the hidden storehouse of life-giving power is never depleted: only in this way can human nature continue to draw upon the power to create its own, unforeseeable, future.

Not everything can be quantified and brought down to plans of action. Those who simply act as if they care and merely feign sincerity continue to make bad decisions because their intentions are still rooted in self-interest. Those who sincerely maintain that all of matter is imbued with spirit, on the other hand, do so from direct personal experience and treat their thoughts and emotions as inner actions that are just as consequential in the field of intentions as physical actions are in the field of material cause-and-effect. Within the shamanic Life Way, our inner actions are as significant as our outer ones.

The text of this hexagram closes with this demand on those wishing to transform civilization while there is still time—that we open our hearts, drop off all the trappings of cynicism, and consciously wish the best for all. The curative demeanor for the coming Age is the feminine face of loving-kindness and good will, not merely a re-painted mask of the patriarchal grimace of conquest and dominance.

Typically, the Oracle’s answer involves two hexagrams, the first of which refers to the present or near future and the second of which to the future developing from those present trends. The present reading is no exception, involving line changes in the second and fifth places.

2nd The primal relationship between humans and nature has been disrupted by your predecessors’ short-sightedness. Look upon nature as you would your beloved and work to repair this rift. Begin by puncturing the bubble alienating you from the affection surrounding you.

The second line refers to local leaders and groups. Here the concern is clearly with remedying environmental problems, which have been initiated by earlier generations. As before, the Oracle advises us to become inspired not by appealing to our heads but to our hearts. But now, it reminds us that we have stopped pouring out open-hearted affection toward nature because we have closed ourselves off to the love and generosity pouring into us from the natural world. Being too absorbed in the strictly social sphere deprives us of the time and attention we need to share in the strictly natural realm. It takes no leap of imagination to foresee that we must strive for greater intimacy with nature if we are to salvage civilization or, in the worst case, survive its fall.

5th You have made a good start but do not really have the stomach for some of the difficult decisions ahead. Find someone trustworthy to enact reforms. Focus on encouraging people to advance by reminding them of the positive accomplishments of their predecessors that will remain in place.

The fifth line refers to leaders at the highest levels. Here it clearly faults them for lacking the character and resolve to make the necessary reforms. While we have little hope that they will voluntarily step aside and hand over the reins any time soon, we can see that the Oracle envisions a smoother, rather than a more drastic, transition of power. Ultimately, however, difficult decisions will have to be made, which entail reforms that can only be enacted by someone that people whole-heartedly trust. If a successful transformation of civilization is to take place, then the sacrifices people have to make will be made easier if they know what they are sacrificing for: a better world that will carry over the best of the past while jettisoning the rest.

Whereas the first hexagram and its line changes can bee seen to answer the first part of the question, At what crossroads does our global civilization stand now, the second hexagram can be viewed as answering the second part of the question, In what direction does good fortune lie?

Image: A great feathered serpent hatches out of the earth as if from an egg. Its feathers are adorned with conch shells and it senses its surroundings with its bifurcated tongue.

The Plumed Serpent is the symbol of the enlightened human being. In a historical sense, it refers to the great Toltec spiritual and political leader, Quetzalcoatl, who lead his people into a time of great peace, prosperity, and cultural flowering.

INTERPRETATION: This hexagram represents the great forces released by the accumulated efforts of spirit warriors over the ages. The feathered serpent symbolizes the collective intent and vision shared by spirit warriors in every time and every place. That it hatches from the earth as if from an egg means that the community of spirit incubating within the material world emerges as a living, dynamic force of creation. The conches adorning its feathers symbolize the call for all to join the community of spirit. Its bifurcated tongue symbolizes the duality that is one. That it uses its bifurcated tongue to sense its surroundings means that you are attuned to the universal presence of the masculine and feminine creative forces. Taken together, these symbols mean that you align yourself with those whose only need is to bring benefit to their surroundings.

Though times are dark, we are the light bringing it to an end. For millennia, women and men with the highest motivations have dedicated their lives to the creation of a Golden Age of Humanity. That their names are not always celebrated in history books is of little matter—their spirits live on just as ours will. Just as a pyramid is raised stone by stone, the world we wish to bequeath to the future is built life by life. The cumulative effect of light-bearing individuals inevitably tips the scale to an equally long period of history in which universal good will prevails.

Beyond this, the very nature of the One Spirit is to benefit all in equal measure. Joining forces with others who wish to practice unconditional benevolence is the path of good fortune.

ACTION: The spirit warrior reverses the flow of power, channeling it inside instead of outside: by storing up power internally rather than expending it externally, we are able to both free ourselves of habits and gain control over our actions. This inner autonomy also extricates us from social influences that strive to mold us into obedient marionettes even as it allows us to be more tolerant of the deeper motives of those social influences. From the spirit warrior’s perspective, the original intent of religion is to awaken the higher soul to its potential freedom while purifying the lower soul of fear, greed, envy, and hate—just as the original intent of government is to awaken the higher soul to its responsibility to others while instilling in the lower soul the capacity for self-control. From this perspective, the fact that religion and government acquire ulterior motives over time and begin to act in their own self-interest merely demonstrates that they are managed by human beings and must be viewed accordingly. Similarly, the fact that all religions and governments strive to awaken the higher soul and purify the lower soul—even when they have forgotten how and why—simply demonstrates that the quest for metamorphosis is a universal and irresistible force. Just as our inner autonomy releases us from the trap of depending on social influences for our sense of self, in other words, it also releases us from the trap of not seeing how those social influences contribute, however unintentionally, to the gradual unification of humanity. Reversing the flow of power, we gain inner autonomy and, paradoxically, become one with the universal civilizing force.

We give away our power when we are dependent on something, especially when we are dependent on it for our sense of self. We reclaim our power when we pull it back from externals and cultivate an independent sense of self, one not reacting to circumstances in a predictable and automatic way. When we can no longer be manipulated by others or controlled by our own unmanageable desires, we achieve the kind of autonomy that is free to respond to the needs around us in creative, innovative, and successful ways.

Such autonomy also frees us from seeing overly simplistic snapshots of complex processes. It allows us to consider the potential value of social institutions that have fallen into disrepair and disrepute, especially by considering their original value and working to revive it. When a temple was to be rebuilt or enlarged in ancient Mexico, for example, the old temple was not torn down and replaced—the new temple was built around and over the old one because it was recognized that it was the site itself that people already held sacred. The shock of dramatic transformations of culture can be mitigated by slowly and methodically reshaping the institutions people have long held in esteem. History holds clear examples of failed reforms that attempted to remake society from the ground up.

INTENT: The wise become independent even from what they revere. Like children who are grown up and independent of the parents they love and admire, spirit warriors take their place among the community of spiritual equals. Because you use this lifetime to bring the most benefit to others, you incubate the higher soul that is preparing to hatch from the lower soul: joining in the collective labor shared by spirit warriors in every time and every place, you contribute directly to both the fulfillment of humanity’s destiny and the creator’s vision. Becoming part of the universal civilizing spirit, you contribute directly to the founding of a free and harmonious world of equals right here within this world.

Wisdom isn’t so much knowledge as it is freedom—freedom in every sense imaginable. Freedom even from what we have held valuable, since everything changes, rigidifies, loses its original impetus and takes another direction. And freedom, especially, from emotionally-charged words, since they are among the most potent manipulators of behavior.

Breaking through the barriers that have long been used to divide and conquer a world of peers, we are, individually, a microcosm of the greater metamorphosis at work on the whole of civilization.

Thunder still echoes in the distance but the rain has stopped. I close the book, put away the coins. Not quite as ominous as it started out, the Oracle’s answer to my question doesn’t just point to the darker side of human nature—in fact, it spends much more time illuminating the light half of our nature.

Perhaps, ironically, it is easier for us to stare into our darker half than it is for us to gaze into our own nobility. It would be the cream of the jest if civilization faltered and crumbled simply because we averted our eyes from the Smoking Mirror’s reflection of the grandeur of our true nature.

—Oracle Cast 2 June 2009

This article first appeared on the Reality Sandwich website July 7, 2009: http://www.realitysandwich.com/oracle_and_smoking_mirror

Posted in 2012, The Toltec I Ching | Tagged 2012, animism, divination, ethics, global community, Golden Age of Humanity, hexagram, I Ching, Intention, metamorphosis, Nahuatl, new world, oracle, shamanism, social transformation, Toltec | 2 Comments

The Oracle and the 2012 Imago Gene

Posted on July 3, 2009 by William

Summer Solstice. Dawn breaks on the longest day of the year. I look out across the town from my hillside aerie, watching the shadows pull back from the advancing rose light. A train whistle moans low and lonely. It’s a small town, dissected by the train tracks running north and south. The train rumbles into view, heading north, blocking all the early morning traffic on the town’s main thoroughfare.

I stretch out my antennas across the internet. What gives in other parts of the world? What are people thinking and talking about? What is on the mind of folks in Mexico and Brazil and India and Japan and Africa and Europe and China and Russia and the East Coast of the United States and all the other faraway places? What is the state of affairs with the plants and animals kind enough to share the world with me? What do I know of the atmosphere and the oceans and the movement of the tectonic plates on the planet’s mantle? What of the greater world of the galaxies and black holes and dark matter and other universes beyond the horizon of this one? What of the subatomic world of electrons and massless photons and quarks and strings and branes unfolding into all eleven dimensions? What of the past, of all the people who have come and gone, of all their dreams. What of all that I do not know and cannot conceive?

After more than 5,000 years, the Mayan Long Count Calendar is coming to an end on the Winter Solstice of 2012. The date coincides with other prophecies and divinations. What will people think when they look back on this date from the future? What are we about to pass through?

I try to build a vision in my heart of what I am really asking: What is the significance of 2012—and what follows in its aftermath? I shake the coins and let them fall in the full blossoming of synchronicity, six times. The train rumbles north past the crossing. Traffic moves east and west again. The Oracle speaks.

The primary hexagram, the one that answers the first part of the question, What is the significance of 2012, is named “Provoking Change”. It is the first of the 64 hexagrams and represents the power of ending something in the right way.

Image: A male warrior dances with the storm, holding a lightning bolt in one hand and a feather in the other. Where the lightning bolt forks, it takes the form of a serpent of fire, light, and energy. The rattles around his ankles make thunder every time his feet strike the ground and his eyes are fixed on the sky above.

Interpretation: This hexagram represents the great forces essential to creating a new beginning. The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude. The lightning bolt symbolizes the focused application of action and intent that provokes dramatic change. That it takes the form of a serpent of fire, light, and energy means that your vision is part of a living creative force whose movement shatters all that is cold, dark, and stagnant. The dance symbolizes a personal ritual that connects you to creation’s underlying rhythm of movement and resistance. Dancing with the sky, the storm, the lightning, means that you can sense the rhythmic force of love surrounding you as the feminine and masculine creative forces continue to create and sustain the spark of life within the night of matter. Making thunder in the sky, making earthquakes in the land means that your actions trigger a great explosion of potential which, although it cannot be seen, sets in motion ramifications great enough to change what has come before. Holding the feather means that you are rightly connected to the higher, celestial, forces of the sky, while holding the serpent means that you are rightly connected to the lower, terrestrial, forces of the earth. Taken together, these symbols mean that your actions break up the inertia of the old and set in motion events that cannot yet be envisioned.

When the heirs of the patriarchal culture of greed and oppression renounce their inheritance and turn their backs on the very way of life that offers them advantages over their peers, then the end of that culture is nigh. Here, the Oracle uses the male warrior to symbolize the challenge to the status quo. Those who are reared within the culture of dominance and force, in other words, are in a unique position with just the skills needed to bring it to an end. Although it would be easy to identify the patriarchal culture with one nation or a group of peoples, the sad truth is that most of the governments and religions across the globe suffer from this same disease.

The Oracle is clear on this point: the warrior here is as at home in the sky of spirit as he is on the earth of life. This is what sets him apart from his predecessors. He dances with Creation. As the masculine half, he provokes change for the feminine half. He voluntarily shifts allegiance to the new.

Action: The masculine half of the spirit warrior guides the movement and energy of the unseen forces, stirring them up and then setting them in motion, calling them forth and then directing them against places where benefit is dammed up and unable to follow its natural course. Where greed, ambition, hatred, and contrariness are allowed to fester, true need goes unmet and people suffer unnecessarily: the spirit warrior provokes change in order to break up stagnation and release pent-up creative energies, freeing up benefit so that it might achieve a new equilibrium and flow to all. Before action, there is a heartfelt need whose power is so great that it moves you to act on its behalf. After action, you find that the benefit you helped instigate has taken on a life of its own and no longer depends on your efforts for its continuation. Because you are inspired by the ancients’ vision of a balanced and harmonious way of life, you win the hearts of others. Because you place the interests of the whole ahead of your own, you help eradicate the selfishness, self-interest and self-centeredness that has lead to the present impasse. Because you deliberately tip the scales so that they might right themselves again, the stagnation of the old is replaced by a new, dynamic, equilibrium.

The Oracle points at a wide-spread movement among people in touch with the unseen forces, who channel the power of enlightened intention into the transformation of the obsolete techniques of divide-and-conquer by which governments and religions have long kept people at each others’ throats. This forecast predicts that movements already underway will grow and unite in their efforts to bring people together everywhere with the goal of creating a new balance based on an equitable sharing of resources and responsibilities. It further forecasts that those instigating such profound change do so for the common good, out of a heartfelt passion to see a world governed by justice and humaneness, and not in anticipation of securing a position of influence in the new order.

But what, given the climate of mounting insecurity and authoritarianism, would provoke such a change?

What, given the history of civilization, would provoke such a metamorphosis?

The 2012 Imago Gene

Once a caterpillar hangs upside down and becomes encased in its chrysalis in preparation for its metamorphosis into its predetermined butterfly form, its digestive juices turn against it, dissolving the body of the caterpillar into a soupy juice. There is no caterpillar or butterfly at this point, just a liquid phase between. Then something altogether remarkable occurs. Specialized cells, which served no purpose in the life of the caterpillar, are suddenly activated in this liquid state and take on their predetermined role of organizing the cells of that liquid into the body of a butterfly. These are the imago cells. They serve no purpose but to awaken at the time of complete dissolution and reorganize the other cells into the fully metamorphosed adult form.

Ours is not the first generation to envision the Golden Age of Humanity. We are, however, fast approaching the time that has been intuited by prophets, seers, sages, visionaries, mystics, shamans, and poets as the turning point from a profound ending to a profound beginning. Why a similar intuition in so many? Because the intuition of the universal transformation is actually the dreaming imago gene of humanity, turning over in its sleep within the chrysalis of certain individuals, preparing to awaken at the moment of social disintegration and reorganize the juvenile body politic into its fully metamorphosed form. The intuitions, prophecies and visions, in other words, are generated by the imago genes within our DNA. The closer we get to the time of metamorphosis, the closer to awakening the imago genes come and the greater number of people begin experiencing the ever-strengthening sense of looming change.

New research derived from the Human Genome Project demonstrates that novelty and life-enriching experiences can activate gene expression within minutes throughout the body and brain: we are actually transforming ourselves from the genetic level up when we are experiencing a healing environment or a creative act.

No other mechanism satisfactorily explains why so many people across so many different cultures and historical epochs have foreseen the same time as the Great Ending—or how so many people are to simultaneously undergo the metamorphosis of worldviews that is to lead to the Great Beginning. That all this is predetermined may strike some as disconcerting. But it is predetermined only because civilization disintegrates after a period of greed and animosity. Most of us will take solace in the fact that a safety net has been set in place that, no less strange and incomprehensible than the magnetic poles of the earth reversing their polarities, will awaken the long-dormant will to transcend of humanity and reverse the self-destructive patriarchal worldview

Intent: Whether the stagnation is internal or external, familiarize yourself with its inner workings, its strengths and weaknesses, who it answers to and who depend on it, what it ignores and what it overreacts to, the passion of its allies and its opponents. As a pattern of weak points and blind spots emerges, focus your aim on provoking the greatest possible change using the least possible force. Do not be concerned if you cannot match the strength or resources of others: if you are in the right, then allies will join your cause. Your endeavor succeeds because you purify your intent to sincerely strive solely to see benefit moving freely among all.

Here, the Oracle advises against fighting fire with fire or force with force. To know one’s opponents better than they know themselves is possible, just as it is possible to adopt a worldview that one’s opponents cannot divine. To know the pressure points by which one’s opponents can be thrown off-balance is possible, just as it is possible to be utterly inscrutable to one’s opponents. No force is necessary when lightning and thunder startle one’s opponents. Greater strength and resources are not necessary when people everywhere no longer fear their opponents’ threats and intimidation. Such a movement is based on the fact that when people look across borders and ideologies and see their own relatives, the forces of hostility and alienation are already dying from within.

1° The window of opportunity opens—you are poised to ride this wave all the way to the far shore. While others alternate between disbelief and relief, you are learning lessons that will serve you well. When lightning and thunder occur in the same moment, what follows afterward is the ecstatic life.

The bottom line of a hexagram represents the grassroots masses of people. This particular line change is an exceedingly auspicious one. It augurs complete success and foresees even the loftiest goal being exceeded. It does caution, however, that not everyone will join the cause: some will fluctuate between not believing that a real metamorphosis is possible and relief that something more equitable and humane is in the offing. Such people make ineffective allies and should be allowed to go their own way without fear of persuasion or reprisal.

For those in the vanguard of the movement, however, the time of transition offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cultivate unforeseen aspects of their character, develop new horizons of their spirituality, and hone their political acumen to razor sharpness. This turning point in history is unlike any other: the immediacy of information planet-wide means that there is no delay between action and response, between call and coordination, no distance between one place in the world and any other. It is like standing where lightning strikes: there is no delay between lightning bolt and its thunder. The long Dark Age of Humanity gives way to an equally long Golden Age of Humanity.

Whereas the first hexagram and its line changes can bee seen to answer the first part of the question, What is the significance of 2012, the second hexagram can be viewed as answering the second part of the question, What follows in its aftermath?

This is number 10 of the 64 hexagrams, entitled “Unifying Inspiration”.

Image: A female warrior gazes at the moon and paints what she experiences. In the sky, ancient creative forces sing of perfection and the moon echoes their song. Lightning falls from the sky, providing the warrior with the creative energy to paint her vision. The warrior’s heart opens and echoes the song of perfection, too. On her paper made of precious tree bark, she paints of the song she hears and of the butterfly of transformation she feels.

Interpretation: This hexagram represents a vision of the wondrous potential that can arise from shared experiences. The female warrior symbolizes the way of nurturing and encouraging human nature that increases its sensitivity and loving-kindness. That she paints the moon the way she sees it means that you contemplate the ways in which nature transforms itself and that you give them expression in your life. The moon echoing the song of the creative spirits means that you learn the ways of the unseen forces and make them your own. Painting with lightning means that you give voice to the perfecting power which runs like a thread of continuity from the past, through the present, and to the future. Opening her heart to the song of the unseen forces means that you see into the essence of the world and rejoice in the perfection you perceive underlying the surface of appearances. The warrior’s painting is heartfelt but modest, meaning that even our best efforts are incapable of fully capturing the power, scope, and grandeur of our vision. Taken together, these symbols mean that even in an experience as universal as gazing at the moon, you see into its essence and translate its meaning in ways that draw others together in a vision of the true significance and potential of the whole to which they belong.

Here, the Oracle foretells the stage following the 2012 transition, depicting it in no uncertain terms as a time of return to the earth-based worldview of the feminine aspect of human nature. Now that the mindset of competition and conflict has proven obsolete, it is replaced with a reawakened sense of camaraderie and commonality. Reconciliation is the byword of the Age. Benevolence spills from every pair of hands. Loving-kindness shines from every pair of eyes. Now that hands and hearts extend across borders and ideologies, people are free to treat one another like long-lost relatives, rather than the enemies that governments and religions painted them out to be.

The principal feature of this forecast, however, is its depiction of the creative forces both in the sky and being painted by the warrior. This points to a spiritual transformation that coincides with the social and cultural metamorphosis underway. Similarly, the focus on the song that the spirits sing and also pours from the warrior’s heart indicates that people hold themselves to the highest spiritual ideals, making a sincere effort to act as generously and lovingly as the creative forces themselves.

Action: The feminine half of the spirit warrior reawakens the masculine half to the beauty, joy, and truth to be found in sharing benefit. Fulfillment is not an intellectual state devoid of emotional conscience or social communion—it is, rather, a state of multiplying benefit that strives to overflow its vessel in order to enrich other vessels. So powerful is its sense of purpose that benefit will eventually withdraw from those who do not use it to fulfill others. The need here is for a sense of purpose itself, for those who are themselves misguided try to guide others and all concerned suffer from the leadership’s lack of perspective, compassion, and foresight. The heart must be filled with a vision of the great endeavor, whose collective purpose explains past events and actions, increases tolerance and understanding among contemporaries, and prepares meaningful responses to future events. People can sacrifice personal fulfillment indefinitely only if they feel themselves contributing to the fulfillment of something greater than themselves. For this reason, meaningless work in exchange for personal material security cannot hold people enthralled very long—nor can threats of losing such meaningless security force compliance in the long run. This is the time for a positive vision of unity that inspires people to set aside past conflicts, accept and respect one another’s potential, and work together toward a goal that ennobles the lives of all concerned. Only when people feel that all partake equally from the pool of resources do they willingly take up as much of the great burden as they can carry. Open your heart to the divine purpose of human life and your vision will be like a torch for others seeking to perfect their part of creation.

Here, the Oracle condemns the purposeless meandering of civilization up to this point in history: no true leadership with their hand on the tiller to bring a planet of people to the other shore of universal peace and prospering—a damning condemnation of those steering, since that shore is within sight of all. Instead, it is a civilization turning in a circle around material gain for the few at the expense of the many, demonstrating a profound “lack of perspective, compassion, and foresight”. How long did they think they could just blunder along uncaringly? How long did they think crisis management would work before the crises multiplied beyond control?

We see here the ages-old vision about to be fulfilled by the activation of the 2012 Imago Gene: a universal state of emotional conscience and social communion, a state of multiplying benefit, a collective search for the Great Endeavor, the common purpose, that prepares meaningful responses to future events in a spirit of unity and ennobling mutualism.

Intent: All those who have ever lived have gazed upon the moon, their dreams and memories and knowledge reflected forever in that mirror of the unseen forces. All those who have ever lived have bathed in the light of the moon, purified by the ancestors’ expression of a life in harmony with the world of nature and spirit. Every time the spirit warrior returns to the world, the moon awaits to inspire both the feminine half with an inner calendar for renewing the cycles of creation and the masculine half with an inner light for exploring the infinite night of the unknown. Drawing this hexagram, be grateful you can hear the song of the creative forces, that you can hear the language of creation: let what you hear echo in your own heart, dialog with it, and let it echo back out in your own thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.

The Oracle concludes the divination by saying that this Unifying Inspiration is the natural outgrowth of thousands of years of the collective human experience. A solid foundation of ethics survives from many traditions of mysticism that encourage a Life Way based on benefiting all others, including the plant and animal kingdoms. As this worldview attains ascendancy, civilization itself will constitute a healing environment—one in which the exploration of the numinous, in the experience of truth and beauty and art, leads people to a time in which they are already fulfilled and no longer looking elsewhere for fulfillment.

In Spring, all the flowers blossom together. In a time of Unifying Inspiration, people everywhere are free to contribute to the creation of a fully metamorphosed civilization. Each person will experience the activation of the 2012 Imago Gene as if seeing the full moon for the first time, awakening suddenly to the underlying harmony that unites nature, spirit and humanity in a single heartbeat.

—Oracle cast Summer Solstice, 2009

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.

Posted in 2012, The Toltec I Ching | Tagged 2012, ethics, gene activation, gene expression, I Ching, Imago Gene, metamorphosis, social transformation, Toltec | Comments Off

Inspired Action [3]

Posted on July 1, 2009 by William

“….. the spirit warrior relies on the intuition for help navigating the road of opportunity. Because the world is a web of intersecting strategies, rational thought and past experience cannot always be relied on to anticipate what lies just around the next bend of the road. Because other strategies are based on misleading and confusing your rational thought, it is necessary to develop the insight to grasp the actual direction and momentum of change in a direct and intuitive way. Because other strategies are based on taking advantage of the expectations you have derived from past experience, it is necessary to develop the insight to grasp the true potential of the future in a direct and intuitive way. Just as a ship creates a prow wake by pushing water ahead of itself, all strategies create prow wakes in the spirit realm: no matter how distant the strategy’s origin nor how much its effects may be attributed to random chance, its movement through the sea of spirit creates waves ahead of itself that the spirit companion senses and conveys as intuition. Listening closely to your spirit companion, you are able to avoid mistakes and seize opportunities, timing your decisions so that you neither move too soon nor too late.”

—Hexagram 27, The Toltec I Ching

Ethical strategies allow us to respond to wrongdoing without doing wrong. We can feel our way through the crossfire of competing strategies by keeping our own intent free of ulterior motives and ill will. This allows us to avoid many pitfalls, since keeping our intent clear makes us extremely sensitive to the ill-conceived intentions around us. Pure intentions, in other words, attune the intuition to pure intentions, making ill-conceived intentions stand out in stark contrast. Likewise, ethical strategies attune the intuition to ethical strategies, making unethical strategies stand out in stark contrast.

But how to clarify my intent? How to trust that my intentions are pure?

It is just this effort that makes up the greater part of the spirit warrior’s training to defeat the enemy-within.

Such a discipline begins by accepting that most of what I think is nothing more than my opinions. Many of my opinions, of course, are handed down to me by others but nearly all are the result of my familial and cultural conditioning. Others are formed from direct experience and continue to linger because of my irrational conviction that precisely the same circumstances will recur at some future date. Nearly everything I once took for truth is eventually shown to be nothing more than my opinions.

The practice of letting go of my opinions is hampered by the fact the that a large part of my identity is formed around them. A big part of who I am seems to be determined by my opinions about what things are, how they work, what kind of a world it is, why people act as they do, and why I’m treated the way I am. Letting go of old opinions and not creating any more new ones has a profound impact on my sense of identity. With fewer and fewer “guideposts” to tell me beforehand what I am experiencing and how I ought to react, I find myself concentrating more and more on the matter-at-hand and treating it in a more spontaneous and innovative way. Clearing away the cobwebs of opinion, furthermore, turns out to be the surest and quickest way to rid myself of ill-conceived intentions.

The second step in this training involves looking for the purities among my intentions. This is like picking gold flakes out of sand or a loved one out of a crowd. Not all my intentions are ill-conceived. Some are fundamentally pure, relics of my true self before it acquired the conditioning of this artificial personality. Picking out these wholly positive intentions and then concentrating on them attunes me to other pure intentions, which initiates an emerging cascade of pure intentions. This is like concentrating on a dream, picking out a detail or two, concentrating on those, which reawaken memories of other facets of the dream, which in turn reveal further details. Concentrating on my pure intentions creates a new, or more properly a reawakened, sense of self—an utterly realistic and spiritual self able to participate in the world in the most beneficial manner possible.

Participating in the world, however, all too often means confronting injustice and oppression—

“There is no true victory in force because those overcome eventually use the moral high ground to achieve their independence. Such a turn of events is made inevitable by the fact that the spirit of those who oppress is progressively sickened by their past actions at just the time that the spirit of those oppressed is made progressively stronger and finer by the hardship they have endured. Force corrupts those who use it and ennobles those who endure it. For this reason, those who use force fail because they are brutish and short-sighted while those whose spirit cannot be dominated succeed because they are humane and wise. When those who are stronger seek to dominate and control us then we must develop a strategy that ensures we defeat our oppressors without repeating their mistakes. In this sense, it is necessary that we commit beforehand to making no attempt to exact revenge from those who have wronged us. In order to emerge unscathed from domination we have to recognize the indomitable nature we have inherited from our ancestors and then ally ourselves with others committed to preserving inner independence until outer independence can be openly celebrated. Because you take the time to gather inner strength without arousing any suspicion, you succeed in freeing yourself without harming another. Because your humaneness shines on your oppressors, you succeed in freeing them without harming yourself.”

—Hexagram 41, The Toltec I Ching

Ethical strategies are especially crucial when confronting opposition—

“…..the spirit warrior accumulates force in order to resist the use of force. Whether they are internal or external, it is necessary to confront the forces working in opposition to our goals. This is a matter of grave delicacy, however, since the passions tied to self-interest run equally deep and strong among all concerned. Old grievances and resentments, in particular, stand in the way of a peaceful and mutually advantageous resolution to the current discord. For this reason, confronting others means we are forced to confront ourselves, restraining our own anger and righteous indignation by seeing how our own actions have contributed to the present conflict. Only by holding our anger in check can we avoid escalating the problem at hand: an uncompromising stance of having been wronged serves no one’s purposes here since it merely forces others to do the same. The danger is that real hostility can be ignited under these conditions—hostility that can inflict profound suffering on all concerned and take a long time for any party to heal. This is a time to treat your opposition with all the respect due a great warrior: avoid inflammatory and provocative statements based on half-truths or a one-sided view of things, since slyly provoking others to hostility is doubly hostile. This is likewise a time to act like a great warrior: accept responsibility for past mistakes and make good faith commitments to remedy injustices and imbalances among all concerned immediately, since demanding others right their wrongs without following suit is doubly wrong. For the spirit warrior, true force is exercised by not resorting to hostility even when it promises the shortest route to success.”

—Hexagram 32, The Toltec I Ching

Foremost among ethical strategies are the qualities of restraint and self-control, especially when under pressure—

“Whether you are the pursuer or the pursued, this is a time for holding back: where the mother bird tries to hold back the hunting fox from discovering her nest, the hunting fox tries to hold back his first reaction to jump at every opportunity. In the world of nature, both the nesting bird and the hunting fox are spirit warriors. Every moment of every day is a battle for survival of the individual and the bloodline. Each moment of each day requires unbroken attention to the strategies that enable them to successfully play their part in the on-going work of creation. True spirit warriors master the art of holding back by studying what motivates others—and themselves—to act as they do: the nesting bird succeeds because she knows the fox chases anything that runs from it; the hunting fox succeeds because he knows the bird runs away from the nest to protect her eggs. Study what others hold valuable, study what you yourself hold valuable, and you can successfully act on the purposes you perceive behind every action.”

—Hexagram 35, the Toltec I Ching

Inspired Action likewise utilizes ethical strategies for resolving internal conflicts—

“….. 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.”

—Hexagram 54, The Toltec I Ching

As the examples above demonstrate, Inspired Action adapts to circumstances but always reflects the balanced strategy of the spirit warrior, whose masculine and feminine halves constantly intermingle to produce just the right blend of metamorphosis and nurturance.

Without definition, defying expectations, free of contrivances of any kind, Inspired Action reflects the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song, grounding us in the ever-present center of the world and, paradoxically as always, giving us the wings to take flight into the Beyond—

“Just as someone who has mastered a musical instrument can improvise at will, you are able to move through this time with an untroubled spirit, adapting and responding to sudden and unforeseen changes by initiating sudden and unforeseen changes of your own. Just as living music gains vitality and power when played by more than one musician, your efforts are in harmony with the unseen forces and aided by innumerable spirit helpers. Just as master musicians become the music they play, you become the moving source of renewal that you express. Just as the perennial presence of music is given new forms of expression every generation, your actions advance the collective work of renewing the perennial truth every generation.”

—Hexagram 48, The Toltec I Ching

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | Tagged confrontation, discipline, ethical strategy, ethics, Flower-and-Song, hexagram, I Ching, identity, intnet, intnetions, pure intention, strategy, Toltec, training | Comments Off

Inspired Action [2]

Posted on July 1, 2009 by William

Inspired Action cannot be defined or even imagined beforehand.

Why? Because it must be tailored to the moment. It has to be a response that circumstances evoke from us. It needs to be an act of collaboration with the Living Whole.

It cannot be premeditated or calculated because we cannot know what the moment holds until it arrives. We cannot sense what the whole of circumstances requires until we are fully immersed in it. To imagine how we ought to act beforehand causes us to fall into predictable patterns of behavior that fail to express the miraculous nature of the ever-new creation within which we live.

Inspired Action reveals the wellspring of rejoicing forever bubbling just beneath the surface of appearances. It engages the world as a vast mystery of unimaginable potentials and aims to participate in its ongoing creation in ways that benefit the most. It is not so much something we do on our own as much as it is music we hear and feel and long to play, a dance we cannot wait to join. It arises from our depths to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s talking to a stranger, shopping for food, driving to work, watching a movie, starting a new endeavor, walking in nature, meditating, repairing a relationship, making love, or creating art—if where we stand is authentic, our actions will be inspired.

Flower-and-Song

For the ancient Toltecs and the civilizations they spawned, the highest expression of a spirit warrior embodied the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song.

“Flower-and-Song” is a difrasismo, a common form of expression in Nahuatl that uses two words to form a metaphor for a third, more expansive, concept. It is often translated as “poetry” but its meaning is more comprehensive than that, demanding that its practitioners live a “poetic life”. Examining the difrasismo a little makes this clear.

“Flower” in this context involves a three-stage engagement with the world. The first stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as perfect as a blossoming flower. The second stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as already fading and passing into death. The final stage involves bearing these two visions simultaneously in the heart, engaging the moment and what it holds with the full emotional realization that it is “perfect and dying.”

Far from an intellectual exercise, this practice demands the greatest courage, for to face these two soul-shattering emotions at the same time requires us to open ourselves to the profoundest joy and grief all at once. Without flinching from the perfection before us, we are driven to our knees in awe at the impossibility of spirit taking form in matter. Without flinching from the inevitable death of everything we know and love, we cannot help but burst apart with grief and empathy.

“Flower” forces us to a profound gratitude and appreciation in the face of perfection even as it forces us to honor each perfection for its nobility in the face of inevitable death. It is the spirit warrior’s courage to authentically feel, Everything I know and everything I love is perfect and dying.

“Song” in this context means that the most authentic act a spirit warrior can perform is to give expression to the dual realization attained in “Flower”. This is the reason that the difrasismo is generally translated as “poetry”. But the deeper implication of this mystical philosophy of life means that “Song” involves treating every moment as an opportunity to express the truth of “Flower”. It involves treating this entire lifetime as a single act of expressing the continuous vision of “Flower”.

Inspired Action makes use of every thought, word and deed to embody the ancients’ philosophy of Flower-and-Song. Treating all things as miracles that pass away too soon, our thoughts, speech and actions take on a new caliber and timbre: We concentrate on what is present instead of what is absent and we discover new depths of patience and tolerance. Our lives take on greater meaning and our contributions meet with greater success. We treat everything and everyone more nobly and we are enriched immeasurably.

Inspired Action enters each moment asking these two questions—

What is in front of me?

How am I treating it?

The answer to the second question is much simpler than the first. What is in front of me? forces us to confront the ultimately unknowable nature of the world. It forces us to accept the extraordinary mystery always veiled by ordinary appearances. It forces to us to look harder: Is this merely what I have become accustomed to through daily contact—or is it the sea of spirit in all its manifest forms?

How am I treating what is in front of me? demands that we watch our inner actions—our thoughts and intentions, our wishes aimed at things outside ourselves—as well as our outer demeanor and reactions. Am I acting nobly or mean-spiritedly? Am I ennobling my life or trivializing it? Am I rising above pettiness or descending into it? Am I treating others like superiors and inferiors, all in pursuit of my self-interest—or as peers bravely facing their own death as well as they can? Am I spreading ill will, discord and sorrow wherever I go—or compassion, collaboration and joy?

None of this, however, should be interpreted as thinking or acting naively. Of course, not everyone will treat you as you treat them. Of course, there will be those who seek to take advantage of you. Of course. But how others treat you is beyond your control. None of us can control what happens to us. The only thing we can control is how we respond to what happens to us.

Inspired Action does not imply being a doormat or punching bag for untrustworthy people. Wisdom is based on solid clear-eyed discernment, seeing things for what they are. Understanding is based on a wide array of experiences, providing a keen grasp of human nature.

The question of ethical strategies is one we will take up in the third installment of this Inspired Action theme. But to study strategies before we work to clarify our intent is to invite cynicism and self-interest in the back door even as we’re showing false hope and naiveté out the front. There is little purpose to devising strategies, in other words, until we have undertaken the effort to rid ourselves of ulterior motives.

As we read in Hexagram 6, “Fostering Self-Sacrifice”—

“One of the ancients’ great teachings is that acting out of self-interest to the detriment of the whole injures all. Because profit brings gain for one at the expense of many and benefit brings gain for many at the expense of one, the logic of benefit is superior to the logic of profit. Because self-interest cannot injure the whole without injuring oneself and self-sacrifice cannot benefit the whole without benefiting oneself, the logic of self-sacrifice is superior to the logic of self-interest.”

And again, in Hexagram 62, “Conceiving Spirit”—

“…..the spirit warrior breaks through the barrier separating matter and spirit. Such a barrier is erected in our minds by the constant training we receive from those who find advantage in promoting the separation of people from nature, from each other, and from their own true self. If people everywhere perceived matter and spirit to be the same thing, after all, the ignorance, cruelty, and suffering that makes up much of human history would end: if we were all to experience the material form of nature as spirit, we would stop harming it by diminishing it faster than we help it replenish itself; if we were all to experience the material form of people everywhere as spirit, we would stop harming one another by acting as if our own rights and desires were superior to their own; if we were all to experience the material form of our own individual bodies as spirit, we would stop harming ourselves by doubting that every thought, feeling, and action play a pivotal role in eternity. Breaking through such a mental barrier is a matter of constant training, as well: if we do not use every thought, feeling, and action to intensify our experience of matter as spirit, we continue to desecrate the temple of nature, the temple of civilization, and the temple of individuality. Because you increasingly see the invisible within the visible, your thoughts are filled with insight, your feelings with good will, and your actions with benefit.”

Posted in The Toltec I Ching | Tagged 2012, benefit, ethics, Flower-and-Song, I Ching, Intent, Intention, Nahuatl, Self-Sacrifice, Toltec | Comments Off

2012: Prophesy or Symbol?

Celebrating Passage

What’s so Fascinating About a 260-Day Calendar?

Lessons Of The Toltec I Ching: Daily Immortality

Returning to the Ancestral Future

The Road of Lessons

The Road of Dreams

The Ancestral Future

The Spirit Of Divination (1)

The Art and Science of Divination

The Spirit Of Divination

Inspired Action [3]

Inspired Action [2]

Flower-and-Song

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