This is the question addressed in a group divination at a three-day workshop on The Toltec I Ching in Southern Oregon, November, 2011. While six people threw the coins once each, the group as a whole concentrated on receiving the Oracle’s answer with open hearts and minds.

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SUMMARY OF ORACLE’S REPLY

The principal hexagrams articulate a clear message of change moving from the present situation to the future.  The first step in establishing the right kind of ending to this time of darkness is the most decisive—it is what sets in motion the natural consequence of the future Restoring Wholeness.  This initial change that we are, even now, beginning to experience is titled Entering Service and explicitly describes the 180-degree re-polarization of our collective lifeway:  the profundity of this change of worldview away from self-interest and toward self-sacrifice cannot be exaggerated—so sudden and widespread as to resemble a positive virus, the desire to put the past behind us is itself the specific trigger that activates the new beginning of Restoring Wholeness.

The two transition points marked by line changes give voice to the specific bridges between the present and the future situations.  One warns against relying on precedents to move forward, indicating that past attitudes and behaviors must be set aside in favor of bold new forward-looking solutions.  The other alerts us to the fact that a last-hour attempt to maintain control will result in a clamping down on freedoms by authoritarian forces—rather than securing their position, however, this is the last nail in the coffin of authoritarianism:  oppression has the unintended consequence of reminding people of their own collective authority and power of self-governance.

The ancillary hexagrams point to a simultaneous deeper—but no less widespread—change going on within individual consciousness.  Like a forest fire, the heat of which ignites the tress in front of it before its flames touch them, a profound shift in awareness passes from person to person, building momentum as it grows:  the concurrence of all the ancillary hexagrams on this single focus indicates, in context of the question, that a cultural meme of metamorphosis itself spreads among peoples everywhere with a spontaneity and velocity impossible to imagine beforehand.  It is as though people everywhere simply tire of using the past as an excuse for continuing the inhumane treatment of human beings and the environment—the past is cast off, people share a common experience of exhilaration at finally breaking free of their imaginary limits, the combination of which triggers an authentic and lasting transformation of human nature.

The Oracle foresees, then, an opportunity for humanity to heal its long-standing wounds and restore itself, both on the collective and individual level, to original wholeness.  Hand-in-hand with this social transformation, individuals everywhere are gripped in a corresponding metamorphosis meme that transforms the human psyche in a way that makes it more adaptable to the future.  The two bridges that must be crossed if we are to authentically arrive on the far shore of this future are marked by the line changes:  throwing off the shackles of past thinking and throwing off the shackles of authoritarianism.

The Ending that the Oracle advises is that of self-interest above all else.  The Beginning that the Oracle envisions is one in which all apparent opposites are united in harmonious balance.  This opportunity appears to being triggered by the ancients’ intuition of the length of this age of darkness:  human nature must shift in predictable ways through predictable crises, which the ancient Mayans were able to calculate and mark symbolically with the end and new beginning of their calendar on the Winter Solstice 2012.

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Each of the six Sections below provides the details of the text of the Oracle’s answer, followed by a Commentary analyzing its relevance to the question at hand.

Anyone wishing to expand upon these commentaries and interpretations is invited to add as much as they wish through the comments section.  I will respond to each and welcome the widest possible discussion among participants.

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THE ORACLE’S REPLY

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SECTION I.  THE PRESENT HEXAGRAM—

The primary hexagram determined from the six throws of the coins, which represents the way the Oracle views the present situation:  Hexagram 20, Entering Service.

Image:  An old man steps onto a long road that winds up a mountain, at the summit of which a plant grows.  He carries everything he needs for a long journey.  Under his arm, he carries a painted book of healing plants, opened to a plant matching the one on the summit before him.  His walking stick is in the form of a serpent.

Interpretation:  The old man represents wisdom gained through experience and means you are more concerned with bringing benefit to others than you are with receiving recognition for your efforts.  The plant at the mountain’s summit represents a distant goal and the long road winding up to it symbolizes the many twists and turns facing you on your lengthy journey.  That he carries everything he needs for a long journey means that you have anticipated hardship and prepared for it ahead of time.  The painted book of medicinal plants symbolizes the knowledge of the ancestors that is as relevant in the present as it was in the past.  That the book is opened to a painting matching the plant living atop the summit means that your goal is part of the living tradition of the old ones.  The walking stick in the form of a serpent symbolizes a helping spirit who knows the way on this winding and convoluted path.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you initiate a new and fuller realization of your potential by materially helping others obtain what they most need.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior undertakes an arduous journey in order to alleviate the need of others.  The quest to find benefit is a noble calling but one to be undertaken only when we are willing to accept the trials by which we acquire practical knowledge and ready to accept the tribulations by which we learn self-sacrifice.  Because experience has taught you that serving others is a nobler pursuit than serving yourself, you do not hesitate to take up this next leg of your journey.  Because it will be a long and difficult endeavor, you set your determination to see matters through to the end.  Because you cannot always count on others to make the hard parts of the journey easier, you make yourself self-reliant, flexible, and strong.  Because others lack consistency of vision and become periodically fascinated by new ideas, you study on your own and incorporate time-proven methods into your approach.  Because you strive to realize the highest vision, you pay close and constant attention to your spirit guide, who steers you clear of the pitfalls on the road of service.

Intent:  Observe those who profess to be pursuing a goal similar to your own.  Distinguish between those motivated by selflessness and those motivated by self-interest, between those content to fulfill their duty to others and those striving for advancement and recognition.  Learn from the ambitious that ulterior motives poison benefit. Learn from the selfless that pure intentions nourish benefit.  By weeding out unnatural feelings of being taken advantage of, you cultivate your innate garden of sincerity, devotion, and generosity.  By observing those who habitually exhibit cynicism and self-righteous indignation, you learn that poison eventually poisons the one who produces it.  By observing the incorruptible benevolence of your helping spirit, you learn that enduring noble-heartedness is itself the road by which you yourself become benefit.  Sow your seeds of intent in the timeless that others might receive benefit in time.

Summary:  Do not forget that you have undertaken a difficult road in order to benefit others.  Watch your reactions carefully, making sure that you harbor neither resentment toward those you serve nor distrust of those with whom you serve.  Continue to focus on the ideal of your goal, allow your journey to ennoble you.  Do not listen to voices that sow dissension or dissatisfaction in your heart.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  THE PRESENT

The elder masculine figure here refers to the wise part of the purpose-driven half of human nature, sending it on  a quest to find the secret cure to the crises we collectively face.  This means the faction of humanity that seeks power and progress for their own sake need to voluntarily place their resources and energy into solving real-life problems without creating new difficulties in the future.  Real medicine is curative and restorative and does not produce negative side-effects.  This authentic caring and sincere concern inspire others to collaborate for the common good.  This willingness to set self-interest aside in order to address the common need pulls people together in an atmosphere of unity and mutuality.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

The Oracle is specifically condemning the immature adolescent masculine force of humanity, answering the question by indicating the kind of strength and resolve needed to end this current Age in the best manner:

turn away from the headstrong pursuit of dominating others in any form and every level;
embody the archetype of the wise medicine man who has dedicated his entire life to service of the Whole; and,
prepare all concerned for a prolonged, arduous and heroic adventure ahead.

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SECTION II.  THE LINE CHANGES—

There are two line changes in the present hexagram that indicate the specific transition points by which the present trends develop into the future:

Second:  Just because the rule worked once doesn’t mean it will work again—conditions have changed and you must change with them.  You are being too cautious and acting as if you had no confidence.  Envision how this partnership fits with your long-range goals and then act.

Sixth:  People are malleable but cannot be oppressed indefinitely—clamping down too tight makes them question authority.  Once they begin looking into their own authority, their spirits can no longer be molded to another’s  will.  Step forward to meet their material needs and you will win their loyalty.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  TRANSITION POINTS

The second line change warns that basing actions and attitudes on past precedents is foolish and self-defeating.  The past ways of dealing with people and nature has all been based on short-term solutions that have created new and even more complex problems.  Harmonious cooperation between all is inevitable:  the time demands bold and decisive action that leads to universal amnesty and reconciliation.

The sixth line change warns that ignoring the Oracle’s guidance leads to a time of widespread anti-authoritarianism.  This grassroots movement arises as a reaction to the misuse of power that subjects people to increasing oppression and diminishing freedom.  As people collaborate in their effort to build something new, they find unexpected strength in their collective vision.  The old is overthrown by new because all differences between spiritual traditions are set aside in the collective effort to meet all material needs in the emerging age of peace and prospering for all.

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SECTION III.  THE HIDDEN HEXAGRAM—

When the second line changes and the sixth line has not yet changed, the hidden hexagram is formed.  It speaks to the attitude and behavior needed to bring the future into being:  Hexagram 9, Uprooting Fear.

Image:  A male warrior, wearing war paint and a jaguar headdress, stands at the mouth of a cave and utters a battle cry that sounds like a jaguar’s roar.  In one hand he holds the power of the lightning and its thunder and fire.  His other arm is clenched, forming a shield of obsidian knives.  The flight of arrows is broken and stopped in flight.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the indomitable intent of those who will not be overcome by fear or insecurity.  The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude.  His war paint and battle cry mean that you do not hesitate to show your resolve through direct speech and direct action.  The cavern and jaguar headdress, both symbols of the feminine half of the spirit warrior, mean that you do not hesitate to conceal your deeper intentions within the feints and stratagems of indirect action.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you withstand every inner and outer test of nerves the way a mountain withstands every individual raindrop.  Wielding the lightning’s fire and thunder means that you can concentrate the energy of the creative forces and direct it toward making matters known, using the power of fire to illuminate and the power of thunder to resound.  Forming a shield of obsidian knives means that you invoke the law of equal action and reaction, defending yourself solely by adopting the patient strength of those who no longer try to keep destructive people from destroying themselves.  Stopping the arrows in flight means that the spiritual protection you cultivate succeeds in making you impervious to harm.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you have prepared well for this battle and have nothing to fear.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior protects the feminine half from physical, emotional, and spiritual harm.  Only a whole-hearted commitment to the proper course of action will stand you in good stead—only through clarity of vision, firmness of will, and consistency of action will you be able to act with the courage and conviction needed to prevail against those in the wrong.  When we can no longer make excuses for oppression and coercion, then we find what it is that is worth fighting for:  it is at just such a juncture that we commit to a course of action that improves our lives, refines our character, and broadens our compassion.  This is a time for hardening your heart against even the slightest of fears and closing your mind to even the remotest possibilities of failure.  Take up the symbols of this hexagram and make yourself like this spirit warrior and you will not only pass through the trial unscathed, but you will bring benefit to others in ways impossible to imagine at present.  Because your motive is pure and your reasoning sound, you act without doubt or hesitation.

Intent:  By pulling out the weeds of fear and indecision when they first appear, you will acquire the inner power to break up stagnation and free up benefit so that it might fulfill its corresponding need once again.  In such a time, it is necessary to coordinate your forces in response to events.  When you must confront matters, do so unemotionally, speaking the truth without exaggeration or distortion.  When you are attacked, defend your spirit in private without responding to taunts or intimidation in public.  Act with the daring of one who has gambled everything on a single throw of the dice, advancing when you are expected to withdraw and withdrawing when you are expected to advance.  Do not hesitate to make allies of those within the opponent’s camp, thereby allowing doubt and fear to take root among those who sought to sow it.

Summary:  Your path takes you into unknown lands without any clear sense of where you are being led.  You are fully committed to this course now and there is no turning back.  Set your will firmly on the goal and banish all worrying and second thoughts from your mind.  All this is meant to be, so proceed with unshakeable confidence and optimism.  Move like a jaguar among rabbits.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  HIDDEN HEXAGRAM

Those who seek the path of Entering Service confront the institutionalized forces with vested interest in the status quo.  Here, the Oracle is unequivocal in its call to action:  uproot all fear, don’t let any doubt creep in, move as if you have already won.  No effort to establish a new beginning brings about worthwhile and lasting results if the endeavor is carried out only halfway due to uncertainty or timidity.  To end things well under these circumstances means having the fearlessness to bring self-destructive lifeways to an end once and for all.

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SECTION IV.  THE FUTURE HEXAGRAM—

After the line changes have taken effect, they develop the future situation:  Hexagram 5, Restoring Wholeness.

Image:  An old woman heals a young male warrior, who wears an arrowhead necklace.  While she chants an ancient curing song, she places a lizard on his shoulder and administers purifying herbs and water.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts great benefit fulfilling great need.  The old woman personifies the great-great-great-grandmother, the feminine force of profound wisdom and nurturing, the inner healing force within all, the aged and loving medicine woman.  The male warrior personifies the strength and vitality of youth, the great potential of the young, the idealism and insensitivity of the inexperienced, the impatient and reactive nature of the untrained passions.  Taken together, they symbolize the exchange of forces needed to heal your old wounds and enable you to bring benefit to all around you.  The herbs symbolize the feminine medicines of compassion and the understanding of relationships.  The arrowhead represents the masculine medicines of single-mindedness and the pursuit of new experiences.  Taken together, they depict the exchange of energies whereby the new must be refined by the old and the old must periodically be revitalized by the new.  For this reason, the hexagram shows that the young warrior is both a patient and an apprentice of the medicine woman, learning firsthand the ways of restoring natural and original wholeness and, thereby, bringing much needed energy to the feminine half that has been giving to others for so long.  The lizard, the one who grows back its tail, represents the spiritual medicine of regeneration whereby the original state of wholeness is restored.  The medicinal herbs and water together represent the purifying and cleansing away of the useless, the wasteful, and that which only confuses and drags down the original energy of body, mind, and spirit.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you reclaim your spiritual birthright of indivisible wholeness.

Action:  The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior replenish one another.  It is a time for seeking new experiences that will broaden your vistas and deepen your joy of life.  Your innate wisdom and compassion do not have their source in thought but, rather, in life—they are not replenished by good intentions but, rather, by meaningful experiences.  In order for a well to bring benefit to others, it must tap into the unseen river of benefit flowing beneath the surface of the world of the senses.  Take no comfort in your accomplishments or knowledge now.  Instead, look to your need and pursue new interests that hold the possibility of discovering more meaningful joy in this lifetime.  Take a more playful and spontaneous approach to matters for a while, confident that what you find will reinvigorate your more serious efforts to nurture others.  It is not necessary to know ahead of time what new interest will prove meaningful—just as following a butterfly might accidentally lead you to a treasure, simply follow whatever captures your attention at present, confident that the creative forces will lead you to the proper goal.  Unsettling the beneficial feminine force in this way breaks up routines of thought, feeling, and memory, forcing you to reach a more effective balance between giving and having enough to give.  Because you make yourself whole again, you succeed in bringing benefit to others likewise seeking to restore their own wholeness.

Intent:  When people’s reactions are out of proportion to events, it is a clear signal that an old wound has not fully healed and is being reactivated by present circumstances.  Such reactions barely disguise the fact that something in the present is provoking an individual or group to relive the emotions of an old injury.  But disguise it they do, for the impact of many injuries is either long-forgotten or unrecognized.  Whether you find this imbalance in yourself or others, the nurturing-medicine of the wise feminine force must be augmented by the directing-medicine of the single-minded masculine force:  while it is essential that the wounded warrior be healed through reassurance and loving-kindness, it is just as necessary that the wounded warrior take up the discipline of recognizing that the new is not the old.  At the first sign of distress, the wounded warrior must immediately name the present and not allow the past wound to be re-opened.  Using the beneficial masculine force in this way allows you to keep the past from infecting the present.

Summary:  A forgotten part of you returns and takes the lead in establishing a new sense of inner unity and purpose.  Welcome the idealism and vitality of the young masculine warrior back into yourself and then act on your newfound vision of your future.  Over-confidence is preferable to timidity at this time.  Balance your roles and responsibilities with the new and the exciting and the daring.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  THE FUTURE

Here, the Oracle points to the restorative tendency of homeostatic living systems to right themselves and return to a harmonious balance.  The Oracle balances the present time of Entering Service with the future time of Restoring Wholeness by illuminating the actual transformation of human nature taking place.  Here, in this future time, the immature masculine force within humanity voluntarily submits to the teachings of the elder feminine wisdom and compassion.  The strength and vitality of the purpose-driven masculine element is not, in and of itself, problematic.  It is only when it has no purpose above its own need to achieve that it becomes pointlessly overactive and carelessly short-sighted.  This greater purpose to which strength and vitality must be turned is the regenerative principle itself:  not only is the immature masculine force being instructed in this future hexagram but it is being healed as well—the teachings are themselves the medicine that restores people and nature to their original wholeness.  The purpose-driven masculine half of human nature becomes truly regenerative when it places itself in service to the relation-driven feminine half of human nature.

It should be noted that the entire thrust of the Oracle’s message in these first three hexagrams has been the positive and meaningful transformation of the masculine half of human nature.  In Entering Service, we are reminded that there is a positive, wise and selfless archetype of the masculine nature.  From the text, however, it should be clear that this does not refer to the gender of individuals:  the ancient wisdom traditions teach that each individual—and, indeed, humanity itself—has its feminine and masculine halves.  These are cosmological Creative Forces, Yin and Yang, whose union creates and sustains everything from within:  in the wrong measure, this union results in imbalances in nature and human nature, just as the right measure restores all imbalances to their original wholeness.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

The Oracle is unequivocal in its vision of the path forward:  there will be a re-polarization of the human psyche, one that brings it back into accord with the World Soul by setting the relation-driven life above the purpose-driven life.  This worldview of the relation-driven heart-mind places the needs of all life—the global civilization and the global environment—ahead of the wants of any special  interests.  In this sense, the meaning of the reading is very clear:  collectively, we set aside self-interest and enter into service of the Whole, uprooting all fear of the as-yet-unforeseeable way forward, resolute in our faith that the original wholeness of life, land, and spirit is being restored.  From this perspective, the living balance will not only be restored but this kind of ending will establish the foundation for the Golden Age of Humanity ahead.

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THE ANCILLARY HEXAGRAMS

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SECTION V.  THE NUCLEAR HEXAGRAM—

The structural core of the hexagram provides us with a glimpse into the essential nature of the transformation carrying us from the present into the future:  Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution.

Image:  Ancient spirits, part human and part butterfly, emerge from cocoons that hang from the branches of a tree.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the passage into a new and more ennobling stage of life.  The human form symbolizes the body and its potential.  The butterfly symbolizes the soul and its potential.  The cocoon symbolizes a period of self-imposed isolation during which one undergoes transformation.  The tree symbolizes continuity of the vision passing from the spirit ancestors to their living descendants.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you turn inward to fulfill the timeless ideal of the evolving immortal.  Of the features of the butterfly, the antennas symbolize senses beyond the five senses, the compound eyes symbolize looking at things from many different points of view, the proboscis symbolizes nourishing oneself only on the nectar of life, and the wings symbolize the capacity to rise above limitations.  That many of these ancient spirits emerge from their cocoons at the same time means that you find spiritual companions on your journey.  Taken together, these symbols mean that your own invisible progress is essential to the forging of the invisible community of spirit.

Action:  The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior—the human and butterfly forms, respectively—unite to form a more versatile and charismatic person.  This is a time in which powerful forces, long dammed up within you, are finally released and allowed to come to expression.  The higher potential you have long sensed approaching now falls within your reach.  Remove yourself from your daily routines where you can and spend time by yourself in communion with nature and spirit.  Turn your will inward, direct all your inner resources toward destroying every influence of the past that seeks to destroy your joy of life and sense of confidence.  Consider the obstacles that have held you back, look at them from the perspective of the grandeur of the universe, reflect on their importance in the scheme of eternity:  sense the immortality of that which is beyond the senses, feel yourself an intrinsic part of the indivisible whole, see the world through the eyes of the ancestors’ hopes and dreams for your life.  Taking up the view that every lifetime is of the utmost consequence, you cease to act out of self-interest and rededicate yourself to another lifetime of bringing benefit to others.  Allowing your heart to be touched by the ancestors’ wishes for your happiness and well-being, you cease to be influenced by misfortunes and injustices and attempts to break your spirit.  Taking wing amid the field of immortal spirit warriors, you learn to meet need with benefit everywhere it exists.

Intent:  The longer that beneficial intent is held in check by coercive and oppressive forces, the more momentous its release—when dark forces predominate, they eventually reveal their malicious intent, thereby creating among otherwise compliant people a constructive backlash.  In this way, individuals who do not think of themselves as daring find themselves thrown forward into the very vanguard of change.  Resist wrong-doing without doing wrong:  without attacking or defending, do not give an inch.  This is a battle of wills whereby you will be transformed into a stronger and wiser warrior.  This is an especially auspicious time to take up the discipline of creating yourself as you have always wished to be, rather than allowing others to define you.  It is going to be exciting to the degree that you seek to take wing into the future—but unnerving to the degree that you seek the safety and security of the past.  Above all, avoid becoming either restless or paralyzed by the pace of change:  have faith in the beneficial intent of metamorphosis going on within the cocoon.  If you step back into your shadow-half and gaze unblinking upon the countenance of your light-half, this is a time in which all your inner obstacles are spontaneously changed into their opposites.

Summary:  You are entering a time of profound transformation.  In order to advance, give up something in the past that has been holding you back.  In order to give up something in the past, see yourself in the future.  Consider what you will be like when your inner obstacles are no more.  It is best to fashion a period of solitude in which you can crystalize your vision and solidify your intent.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  NUCLEAR HEXAGRAM

Two points in particular articulate the Essence of this reading—

• This is a time in which powerful forces, long dammed up within you, are finally released and allowed to come to expression
• The longer that beneficial intent is held in check by coercive and oppressive forces, the more momentous its release

We activate our true potential when we have no other choice.  Repression, both internal and external, is creating a backlash of freedom that threatens to overwhelm the status quo at any moment.  Those who do not believe that profound and global change can occur overnight simply do not understand the mechanics of reversal:  when the dam breaks, all the water escapes at the same time.

Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution describes the invisible forces at work beneath the play of appearances.  It shows that the metamorphosis, though given expression through individuals, is a communal transformation, each individual’s release triggering the next individual’s.  We unlock our own unimaginable evolutionary traits when our adaptive traits are no longer compatible with our environment:  we take the evolutionary leap only when backed up against the abyss of extinction.

The past we have inherited from our common ancestors is a chrysalis.  It is a kind of protective encapsulation, keeping us one step removed from a real and intimate communion with both humanity and nature as a whole.  It is a kind of myopia, keeping vision to the nearby and decision-making to the short-range.  And it is a kind of numbness, keeping us from feeling the full brunt of emotions stemming from the harm our actions cause our peers and our environment.  The past is a chrysalis ready to burst and release into the wider reality of full responsibility:  it has protected us while we grew as a species and now we have outgrown it.  The ancient Mayans, in their remarkable insight into human nature, set their calendar of 5, 125 years to end and begin again on the Winter Solstice, 2012, to mark this dramatic and universal shift away from self-destruction.

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It should also be noted that this Nuclear Hexagram has, besides Hexagram 20, Entering Service, three other hexagrams derived from its core structure.  Those are:  Hexagram 8, Harmonizing Duality; Hexagram 48, Moving Source; and, Hexagram 57, Defying Uncertainty.  And, while Unlocking Evolution is the Nuclear Hexagram of Entering Service, it can also be a matter of interest to consider the Nuclear Hexagram of the future hexagram, Restoring Wholeness:  that Nuclear Hexagram is Hexagram 38 Dissolving Artifice, which also includes Hexagram 9 Uprooting Fear, Hexagram 60 Changing Alliances, and Hexagram 61 Strengthening Integrity among its derived hexagrams.

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SECTION VI.  THE UNDERLYING DYNAMICS—

Advanced studies provide a further methodology for deeper analysis and interpretation of the Oracle’s reply.  The following sequence of hexagrams mirrors the predictive sequence formed by the coin throws but brings to light the deeper forces at work.

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ORACLE COMMENTARY:  UNDERLYING DYNAMICS

The hexagrams illuminating the hidden direction and momentum of generative energy (qi) that manifests as the predictive hexagrams (#20 to #9 to #5) are these:  Hexagram 45, Casting Off; Hexagram 43, Going Beyond; and, Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution.

The first item of note about this sequence is the startling unanimity with which it speaks of metamorphosis—#45 in terms of a plumed serpent metamorphosing from the shed skin of an ordinary serpent, #43 in terms of an ordinary mortal metamorphosing into an immortal on the road of transcendence, and #14 in terms of ordinary humanity taking the evolutionary leap of metamorphosing into a new life form.  Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that all three represent the conquest of gravity:  #45 and #14 both explicitly illustrate winged flight, whereas #43 shows the Road of Stars, the Milky Way, the path of transcendence whereby we reunite with our immortal allies.

The second item of note about this sequence is the startling presence here of the Nuclear Hexagram, Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution, the repetition of which reinforces the importance of the chrysalis symbol in the reading.  From this standpoint, then, these hexagrams amplify the meaning of the Nuclear Hexagram, establishing Unlocking Evolution as the central motif of the Oracle’s message.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

Underlying the principal message of the divination (Entering Service to Uprooting Fear to Restoring Wholeness), we find a consistent undertone of personal metamorphosis.  From this, we can surmise that the driving force behind the social changes leading to Restoring Wholeness is a shared personal experience of a higher awareness that transcends ordinary consciousness.  The mechanics of this relationship, which can be thought of as external-social and internal-personal, are hinted at when we view the two sequences as a series of pairs:

• #20 Entering Service and #45 Casting Off
• #9 Uprooting Fear and #43 Going Beyond
• #5 Restoring Wholeness and #14 Unlocking Evolution

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A Final Note—

Diviners interested in pursuing the advanced work further can investigate Hexagram 6, Fostering Self-Sacrifice, which should be considered an esoteric step backward on the path of returning to the One.  The relevance to Hexagram 20, Entering Service and the overall shift of attention away from self-interest and self-gratification for the sake of something greater than oneself is, at the end, elegantly reinforced.  This ought to be seen as the need to maintain both tracks consciously:  the social changes (toward idealism and altruism) and personal changes (toward transcendent awareness) will have to be the two wings of the phoenix rising forever from the smoke of the past.

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William Douglas Horden is co-author of The Toltec I Ching and author of two companion volumes, The Five Emanations and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune.

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Across the imaginary distance of culture and borders, I honor your contribution to the Beginning Times.

~

A dying oak tree, its trunk split and branches breaking, does not in any way resemble an acorn.

The new beginning—despite growing directly out of the remains of the old—does not resemble what it replaces.

While it is imperative to recognize endings before they arrive, it is self-defeating to dwell on them:  Endings serve to direct our attention to the new beginning already starting to unfold.  The Book of Changes is not simply about the art of avoiding misfortune—its deeper intent is to instruct us in the art of arriving ahead of time at the meeting place of good fortune.

An acorn, bright and gleaming in the palm of a hand, does not in any way resemble the giant oak tree dominating the forest clearing hundreds of years later.  And this is a critical lesson of the I Ching—one of context and chance and perseverance.  For, the same acorn that falls in a level fertile field and grows to great height and prominence will grow stunted and gnarled should it fall among rocks on the crags of a cliff face.  The same acorn.

Everyone recognizes that the old is ending.  Everyone.  Worldwide.  The question of concern is, What kind of ground are we preparing for this seed of the new?

The ancients had an accurate sense of the length of time that the pendulum of change takes to swing out to its extreme and reverse the passions of human nature.  Across numerous cultures, the ancients accurately foresaw that this time, the historical epoch in which we are living, would be the turning point for civilization to realize the dream of a Golden Age of peace and prospering for all.

That these are The Beginning Times.

Among those prophesies is the Mayan calendar, whose 5,000-year Long Count of 13 baktuns comes to an end on the Winter Solstice of 2012.  Because the Mesoamerican calendar itself was not in use 5,000 years ago (it is perhaps 3,000 years old, imaginably 4,000 years old), it means that the Maya chose a symbolic starting date for their calendar that would end on a specific date.

A specific symbolic date. 

A date that would get our attention.

This accomplishment of the ancients, to accurately set their calendar to end on the Winter Solstice several thousand years in the future, is a testament to their care and concern for the future.  It is like a message in a bottle washing up on the shore of our island of the present, reminding us of the dreams that our common ancestors carried in their hearts for the coming generations.

It is a symbolic date, not one to be taken literally.  As the old saying goes, Don’t look at the finger pointing at the moon—look at the moon.  It is meant to get our attention, not to become the object of our attention.  As I have noted previously, the actual turning point began to first show itself in 1998.  The reversal of direction that the Mayan calendar points to is this space of time, wherein the old regime of conflict and competition withers and falls, collapsing under its own weight, no longer supported by the beliefs or actions of those it subjugates.  This reversal of direction is predictable because the seasons of human nature are knowable—it is not the direction of outer conditions that the 2012 date points to but, rather, the reversal of beliefs and values within human nature.  When the collective conscience of humanity can no longer be cowed into accepting the desecration of its own nature, then what emerges from the ashes of its old beliefs and values is a united humanity bent on no longer desecrating its relationship with nature and spirit.

Those who cannot believe that sudden and rapid change can, nearly overnight, reverse the course of whole nations simply do not understand the unconscious longings of the human heart.  The longer that people’s true desires are repressed by force and intimidation, the more sudden and more profound the reversal of beliefs and actions.  The dying giant is split and cracking—but what we need to focus on is finding the common ground within which to plant and nurture civilization’s new beginning.

2012 Metamorphosis

As I write here on my little hilltop in Southern Oregon, the Winter Solstice of 2010 has arrived.  It is an auspicious event because it is the first Winter Solstice in centuries to coincide with a lunar eclipse.  For those who have been trained to sense the Qi of the world, the extreme of yin is sinking to its utmost depths, just on the cusp of the turning point back toward yang.  At the apogee of the eclipse, the earth’s shadow moves on and the full moon’s light begins to wax again.  At the height of Winter’s cold and dark, Spring’s warmth and light is born.

A full season ago, on the Autumnal Equinox, I consulted the Oracle, asking this question:  What can humanity expect with the approach of 2012? In the Oracle’s answer, the events around the 2012 turning point predict a time of growing authoritarianism that, once transcended, will usher in a prolonged period of global reconciliation.

More specifically, it points to a crisis that we, as humanity, have confronted before and failed to resolve in a beneficial way for all.  With the approach of 2012, we have the opportunity to face that collective dilemma again.  Although the official reaction will reflexively try to repeat the same mistake as before, a groundswell of enlightened goodwill that transcends borders will unite people everywhere in a positive and constructive response—one that overrides the authoritarianism of religions and governments and sets in motion those metamorphic forces of nonviolence and noninterference that give rise to the harmonious and creative civilization our collective ancestors dreamed for us.

In my ongoing effort to expand on this message and present its ramifications as transparently as possible, I have executed the classic transformation of the reading’s hexagrams into their nuclear hexagrams.  This transformation produces a new pair of hexagrams that represent the underlying forces at work beneath the surface of events.  The hidden motivations, the unconscious currents, the dreams demanding expression.

The primary hexagram of the 2012 reading is #54 Repeating Test.  Its nuclear hexagram is #63 Awakening Self-Sufficiency.

This is interesting because this same hexagram appeared as the future outcome in my June 2009 reading as the answer to my question, At what crossroads does our global civilization stand now—and in what direction does good fortune lie?

For those not yet familiar with the Toltec spirit warrior, it is defined as a woman or man who trains to defeat their own enemy-within (which is in turn defined as their self-defeating habits of thought, emotion and memory).  We can see that there is a growing movement of individuals worldwide who have taken up such training—which appears under different names—in order to restore humaneness to our collective life.  It is this metamorphosis of individuals that is striking the spark to the kindling-nest so that the phoenix might arise more glorious from its ashes.

As a nuclear hexagram, #63 speaks to the unconscious desire to free ourselves from those baser instincts that divide us as a people from ourselves, nature and the sacred.  As its text illustrates, this hexagram seeks autonomy from that which trivializes human nature by seeking to restore its full creative power.  It is a nuclear hexagram that overcomes outer conflict by understanding that the instincts dividing us are universal to all people and, so, constitute the very source of our inevitable unity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Summary:  Only the body marks the passage of time—for the soul, there is only this everlasting moment of growing.  Let five rivers of energy come in through the senses, let them run together into a sea of growing power.  Do not expend it on petty thoughts, moods, or goals.  Send forth your rain clouds only to water the valuable.  Condense intent into actions that foster peace and prosperity for all.  Your success is inevitable.

The derived hexagram that appears in the 2012 reading is #2 Sensing Creation.  Its nuclear hexagram is #39 Reviving Tradition.  As the future outcome, #2 Sensing Creation is profoundly inspirational.  It presages a time of worldwide reconciliation and heartfelt collaboration towards an emerging vision of what civilization might become.

As its nuclear hexagram, #39 Reviving Tradition reminds us that our common ancestors lived closer to the time of creation than we do.  It shows that the underlying forces of #2 Sensing Creation are part of the emerging reversion to values and beliefs grounded in a more traditional—and meaningful—lifeway.  This could have evolved into a time in which the reversion to traditional values and beliefs led to greater conflict and confrontation, but the movement into #2 assures us that the mistakes we have made in the past will no longer be repeated.  This is because the general amnesty and forgiveness of past wrongs is based not upon the surface differences between traditions but, rather, upon their shared foundation in the sacredness of everything.

Image:  The ancient spirit of fire takes the form of a male warrior, who is made part of the land by the roots growing like veins through his body and the earth.  His arm is raised, greeting the long line of people in shadow that approach him.  Another line of people, their torches rekindled, depart in light.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the ancestors’ inheritance passing from individual to individual and from generation to generation.  The ancient spirit of fire symbolizes the universal tradition of fire-making, whose timeless ritual unites all people in a common heritage.  The male warrior symbolizes the self-discipline and training needed to stand against greed, ambition, and materialism.  That he is made part of the land means that you find your spiritual home in the site of your own lifetime.  The long line of people in shadow is a symbol of those seeking to find their way back to a balanced and harmonious way of life.  The line of people departing with torches rekindled is a symbol of those who find the light of the ancestors inside their own hearts and carry it through the darkness of their own time.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you resist spiritual erosion the way a mountain of righteousness stands against the wind of corruption and the rain of meaninglessness.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior views everything as a buried treasure left behind by the spiritual ancestors for their descendants.  It is a time for holding fast to what lasts rather than getting distracted by the novel or overwhelmed by the fleeting.  Avoid participating in the fads and fashions of the day, seeking instead to uphold the values and world view of a more spiritual time.  This means, first and foremost, respecting and honoring all that is not human:  when matter is seen as devoid of spirit, then nature can be desecrated without a second thought; when one form of nature is seen as devoid of spirit, then all forms of life can be desecrated without a second thought; when one form of life is seen as devoid of spirit, then human beings can desecrate one another without a second thought.  For this reason, the spirit warrior sees the world as the divine homeland shared by the living and the dead and those not yet born.  Recognizing that meaningfulness is hidden from those who attack it, you look into the secret heart of things and see the One Spirit of creation everywhere you look.  Recognizing that meaningfulness is an open secret to all but the greedy, ambitious, and materialistic, you bury the treasure again in your own turn so that your descendants will find their secret heart.

Intent:  Even though you feel out of step with the wounded spirit of the time, you are actively involved in healing it:  recognizing that its illness is meaninglessness, you feed it the medicine of meaningfulness day and night throughout your life.  Just as the fire of light and warmth must be fed wood and air to continue burning, the spirit of the time must be fed the joy and insights born of meaningfulness if it is to continue living:  without the tradition of meaningful consecration to feed it, the spirit of the time will eventually die and be replaced by that of meaningless desecration.  For this reason, the spirit warrior keeps alive the ancient tradition of training every thought and feeling to reflect the hidden sacredness of every moment.

Summary:  The more you put the world view of the ancients into practice, the more you have to offer others.  Be generous with what you have learned but do not stop learning:  just as people depend on a well for their water, the well depends on the invisible river below ground for its water.  Assume that you will understand matters better in the future and act with a corresponding degree of humility.

The 2012 reading, with all its associated meanings, reminds us to reject utterly the paranoiac heart-mind of this wounded age that would have us dwell in the irrational belief that unseen forces are conspiring to do us ill.  Rather, it reminds us to keep in mind the definition of the word Pronoia:  the irrational belief that unseen forces are conspiring to do us good.  It is irrational only in the sense that spirit warriors do not confine their efforts to the rational world.

It is two years exactly now until the Winter Solstice of 2012 arrives.  Priest-diviners everywhere are focusing the generative energy of their intent on plowing the field of the World Soul to receive the rain of spirit seeds already falling and taking root in the open heart of human nature.

~

Across the imaginary distance of culture and borders, I honor your contribution to the Beginning Times.

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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There are two overarching lessons of the I Ching.

The first is this:  Every Ending Begets A New Beginning.

Change is not conceived as an endless string of cause-and-effect events but, rather, as a cycle of repeating seasons that influence the cause-and-effect events within them.  Human actions and endeavors, in other words, are not viewed as independent of the time but, rather, are viewed in context of the season in which they occur.  In this sense, the linear progression of change is always set against the unchanging principle of cyclic change that underlies the unfolding of time.  For this reason, each of the hexagrams of the I Ching is experienced as a spatial expanse no less immediate and encompassing as Spring, let us say.  Or Autumn for that matter.

In the previous post, I published an oracle cast on the recent Autumnal Equinox.  In it the events around the 2012 turning point are presented as resulting in a growing authoritarianism that, once transcended, will usher in a time of global reconciliation.  More specifically, it points to a crisis that we, as humanity, have confronted before and failed to resolve in the most beneficial way for all.  With the approach of 2012, we have the opportunity to face our collective dilemma again and, although the official reaction will reflexively repeat the same mistake as before, a groundswell of enlightened goodwill that transcends borders will unite people everywhere in a positive and constructive response—one that overrides the authoritarianism of church and state and sets in motion those metamorphic forces of nonviolence and noninterference that give rise to the harmonious and creative civilization our collective ancestors dreamed for us.

Far from confronting the end times, in other words, we are on the cusp of entering the beginning times.

~

A Training Manual for the Road Ahead

The Toltec I Ching is, first and foremost, an Oracle, continuing the age-old practice of rendering the voice of the One intelligible to the contemporary mind.  By echoing the living words of the Spirit that continuously recreates the world, the Oracle manifests the universal civilizing influence caring for the entirety of creation, including humanity.  Because our thoughts and lives are part of the One, the Oracle enables us to anticipate each crossroads as it approaches and keep our feet firmly on the path of freedom.  To open our hearts to the hopes and dreams placed in us by all that has come before us is to sense the loving-kindness and  communion in the Oracle’s answers.

But, as its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World, implies, The Toltec I Ching is also a training manual of ethical strategies embodying the ideals and values of the emerging world culture.  The vision it presents is of a living universe in which everything is invested with spirit and, just like human beings, has a level of awareness that is constantly undergoing a process of metamorphosis.  Our transforming human nature is envisioned as the spirit warrior, defined as a woman or man who trains diligently to defeat her or his self-defeating habits of thought, emotion, and memory.  The Duality of the great creative forces that manifest the intent of the One in the form of the macrocosm, furthermore, are mirrored in the masculine and feminine halves making up the microcosm of every human being.

As said since ancient times, the metamorphosis of the whole is initiated by the metamorphosis of the individual—and it is the work of each spirit warrior that builds an ever-widening community of humaneness.  The 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World are embodied, of course, in the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, each of which incorporates the core lessons of attaining good fortune, both individually and collectively.  This individual striving to benefit the whole is seen as the open secret of personal and collective good fortune:  by letting go self-interest, the spirit warrior metamorphoses into a well of benefit that allies her or him with others likewise making positive use of the law of spiritual cause-and-effect.  Like all truly proactive measures, these lessons do not merely help us avoid coming difficulties, but establish new attitudes and behaviors that actually help shape the emerging future.

The actual means of metamorphosis is the work of harmonizing the masculine and feminine halves inherent within each individual—and inherent, therefore, in every social institution.  Understanding that our feminine and masculine halves are microcosmic reflections of the macrocosmic creative forces empowers us to marshal our energies toward constructive actions and ennoble our intentions toward ever-widening circles of harmonious unity.  In the arena of social institutions, for example, the conservative tendencies within a nation that seeks to defend itself with military strength can be thought of as its masculine half, while its progressive tendencies to channel resources into social service programs and international diplomacy can be thought of as its feminine half.  How well these two halves reach a harmonious balance of power determines the longevity of the nation and the well-being of its people.

The step-by-step training of the spirit warrior is just this exercising of the masculine and feminine halves in response to the archetypal situations making up human experience.  Specifically, it is the blending and balancing of the our feminine and masculine halves as they alternate in our outer actions and inner intentions that is formulated in the hexagram-by-hexagram progress through the sequence of 64 hexagrams.  Each of the hexagrams has it own proportion of the feminine and masculine generative energy—or, in more traditional language, its own specific mixture of yin and yang qi—and the hexagrams are arranged in a sequence that activates and harmonizes the sacred duality within us.  Working our way through the sequence of hexagrams, in other words, cultivates the creative forces within us, setting our intentions and actions on a course of self-transformation that leads to ever-widening spheres of good fortune.

~

The Storm Before The Calm

Returning to the recent 2012 oracle provides us with the opportunity to see how the lessons embodied in the hexagrams provide us with ethical strategies and ennobling values during a time of profound social transformation.  Of the numerous hexagrams relevant to this situation, we will cite just two examples—

Concerning the first part of the Oracle’s answer, in which a rising tide of reactionary authoritarianism will need to be overcome, we can look to Hexagram #41 Feigning Compliance for inspiration:

Image:  A shadowy male warrior stands upon the coils of a great serpent, forcing it to submit to his will at spear point.  He has, however, mistaken the snake’s tail for its head, which rises above and behind him, ready to strike.

Interpretation:  The shadowy male warrior symbolizes those who seek to dominate others.  The point of the spear symbolizes force, whether in the form of aggression, threat, intimidation, or subversion.  The great serpent symbolizes the energy and power of those who resist domination.  Its coils symbolize the convolutions and intricacies of the strategy of invisible defiance.  That the serpent’s tail is shaped to look like its head means that you are able to disguise your true intent behind a mask of conformity.  That the serpent’s head is poised to strike means that you remain vigilant, neither missing any real opportunity for resistance nor getting lulled into a false sense of security.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you lull your captor into a false sense of security while awaiting the right moment to reclaim your freedom.

Action:  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.

Intent:  The spirit warrior refrains from attempting to dominate anyone in any way, for fear of the inevitable and justifiable backlash it would produce.  Others are not necessarily so farsighted, however:  at a time when force and intimidation are openly used to control our actions and shape our attitudes, it is imperative that we train ourselves to resist every tendency to succumb to mental or spiritual tyranny.  By adopting a demeanor of naive complacency while making our true thoughts and feelings unreadable, we make it possible to live with oppression without being conquered by it:  using visible compliance to mask invisible defiance, we maintain our reverence toward all things so that we never wrong others the way we were wronged.

Summary:  When those who are more powerful demand you submit to their will, do not just pretend to go along with them—make a show of agreeing with them and working for their goals as if they were your own.  Keep your true feelings to yourself, work to find kindred spirits who can be trusted, and gather your strength until the moment to reclaim your independence and freedom arrives.

~

Concerning the second part of the Oracle’s answer, in which a time of widespread reconciliation will lead to a new world culture, we can look to Hexagram #16 Renewing Devotion for inspiration.  Once we have surmounted our self-destructive tendencies, we need to hold fast to our new vision of harmonious unity:

Image:  On the platform of a pyramid, a group of male and female warriors greet the dawn with ceremonial fire, drum, and song.  Out among the surrounding vegetation, a bird greets the dawn with two speech glyphs, one of which represents a flower and the other a song.

Interpretation:  The pyramid is a symbol of the sacred mountain at the center of all things and means that you are part of the collective work striving to mirror the handiwork of nature and the divine.  The dawn is a symbol of the daily renewal of creation and greeting it with companions means that you have others with whom you share the song of your beliefs, the drumbeat of your passions, and the fire of your creativity.  The surrounding vegetation is a symbol of the natural order and means that you are in harmony with the spirit of the world.  The singing bird represents the winged, transcendent, essence of nature and means that you are free to spontaneously give voice to the pure joy of life.  The flower and song glyphs represent the spirit warrior’s philosophy of life and mean that you have the courage to confront the eventual passing of everything beautiful, as well as the dignity to honor each passing both before and after it occurs.  Taken together, these symbols mean that your sincerity, trustworthiness and persistence will bring you success, vindication, and contentment.

Action:  The feminine and masculine halves of the spirit warrior unite to carry out past decisions.  This is not the time for questioning the correctness of inner decisions such as your commitments to your beliefs, values, and viewpoints—nor is it the time for second guessing the wisdom of outer decisions such as your commitments to your duties, goals, and loved ones.  It is, rather, the time for honoring your sense of honor—the time for renewing your devotion to the higher purpose guiding your life.  Sometimes it is not a question of what we have faith in, but that our faith is strong and unshakable.  Likewise, it is not always a question of who or what we are faithful to, but that our faithfulness is pure and unbreakable.  Your future circumstances are created out of today’s actions, so set aside all thoughts of changing direction. Your future character is created out of today’s motives, so set aside all self-doubt.  You have taken a stand:  do not permit the opinions or actions of others to move you off center.  Keep in mind that your decisions each have a symbolic value and represent part of your relationship with the whole of creation—by daily renewing your heartfelt devotion to acting with integrity, you will achieve the kind of consistency, firmness, and clarity that brings the highest benefit into your life and the lives of those around you.

Intent:  If we look for reasons to doubt the perfection of all creation, we will find them.  Because the perfect nature with which we are born is overwhelmed by the collective self-doubt produced by human history, we come to doubt our own vision and are increasingly influenced by the prevailing viewpoint of the world as inhumane and, therefore, imperfect.  It is this social indoctrination that creates an artificial viewpoint which obscures our original vision and, much like a mask covers the real face, creates in us an artificial sense of an imperfect nature.  When we become aware that our true birthright is usurped when we are too young to defend the perfect nature we bring into the world, then we come to understand the old stories about the royal child who is hidden away until it comes of age and can reclaim its rightful place in the world:  once we recognize our true self as that part which was hidden in order to protect it until was strong enough to fend for itself, then we view the world through the eyes of our innate perfect nature and no longer remain blind to the perfection of all creation.  Renewing their devotion to perfection every day, spirit warriors are tireless in their effort to remain aware that nature is spirit—and unfaltering in their decision to rejoice in the fact that they are a vital part of that perfect unity.

Summary:  Work to continually renew your heart-felt dedication to fulfilling the first ancestor’s vision of the human spirit, especially when surrounded by others who lack the awareness and sensitivity to appreciate the presence of spirit everywhere.  Stay true to your road and destination.  At this time, influencing others is more proper than allowing them to influence you.

~

Introducing these two hexagrams into the 2012 reading allows us to derive additional information by comparing them to the original ones cast on the Autumnal Equinox .

Comparing the two hexagrams relating to the “storm” portion of the oracle, we find that there is just one line change—in the fifth place—between Hexagram #54 Repeating Test and Hexagram #41 Feigning Compliance.  The fifth line change of Hexagram #54 Repeating Test seems particularly relevant:

The situation is auspicious—you are at the vanguard of sweeping changes that will benefit all but those you replace.  The principal task for now is to brighten the emotional atmosphere and give everyone hope.  Slow down—actually implementing the new will take a long time.

Likewise, comparing the two hexagrams relating to the “calm” portion of the oracle, we find that there is just one line change—in the sixth place—between Hexagram #2 Sensing Creation and Hexagram #16 Renewing Devotion.  The sixth line change of hexagram #16 Renewing Devotion seems especially useful:

Look back at the period just passed and study it diligently, gleaning all the lessons you can from it.  Do you feel more empowered or less empowered than before?  What do you want to have continue, what do you want to have change?

Expanding a reading by consciously introducing hexagrams that amplify the meaning and intent of the Oracle’s answer like this allows us to combine the two facets of the I Ching—the Oracle and the book of wisdom—into a more comprehensive and illuminating forecast.  In this way, we can encompass more of the mood and decision points of the divination by opening up the intuitive aspect of the reading to more in-depth analysis.

~

Summary:  The Master Key to Inspired Action

The second overarching lesson of the I Ching is this:  Sooner Or Later, Everything Changes Into Its Opposite.

Nothing can maintain its status quo forever. The action of trying to maintain its status quo is the very thing that triggers its own backlash.

In point of fact, the stronger its action, the more wide-spread its action, the longer its action continues, and the stronger its resistance to change, the more profound and complete and rapid its reversal.

As the old adage goes:  No one is easier to topple than one standing on tiptoes.  When things reach their peak, they decline.  When the natural process of expansion and contraction is thwarted by unnatural means, such as force and oppression, then the decline does not follow its natural timetable but is accelerated by the pent-up energies locked within a self-destructive equilibrium.

Perhaps a universal change of heart seems unlikely to some.  Perhaps they view the politics of the moment as in control of our collective destiny.  Perhaps they are afraid to hope again.

But these are irrelevancies in the grand cycle of change, the forces of which work from the inside and outside simultaneously.  The cathartic moment arrives unbidden by conscious calling:  it answers the unconscious desperation and despair welling up from within both the personal and collective unconscious.  Just as the chick’s call from the inside the egg is answered by the hen’s pecking the shell from the outside, the anguish of the personal unconscious calls forth a complete and immediate reversal of conventional beliefs and values from humanity’s collective unconscious.

This 2012 Oracle states unequivocally that we are on the cusp of a metamorphosed civilization, one in which personal ethics are mirrored in our collective ethics and in which individual self-transformation ripples outward, contributing directly to the transformation of the Whole.

The Master Key to Inspired Action, then, is Inspired Intention—it is the diligently cultivated heart-mind that can, moment-to-moment, shift its attention to a world in which there are not only enough resources for all to live, but one in which there is enough time for all to live blissfully.

The Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach.

What shall we build together?

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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The cycle of change carries matter, energy, and spirit along its course of natural unfolding.  Time is spatial:  autumn follows summer just as a time of consolidation follows a time of expansion.  The Current, the Way, the Tao, is organic in the way it develops, moving the individual and civilization both according to the seasons of generative energy.

The Seasons of Generative Energy

The Oracle can speak to the way present trends are developing into future situations because it gives voice to the principles underlying all change.  The seeds of winter are sown at the Summer Solstice, just as the seeds of summer are planted at the Winter solstice.  Because they are seeds of generative energy, however, and not phenomena directly perceptible to our senses, their sowing and fruition generally occur long before—or sometimes after—we imagine.

The structure of the hexagram’s six lines is traditionally divided into three levels, of old called, Heaven, Man, and Earth.

Three Dimensions of the Hexagram

The top two lines represent heaven, or spirit.  The lower two lines represent earth, or matter.  The middle two lines represent mankind, or human awareness.  Humankind, embodying so perfectly the conjunction of spirit and matter, is thought of as the bridge connecting the sacred and the mundane, the invisible and the visible, the formless and form.

The Oracle is able to communicate with us because we bring human awareness into the divinatory moment, bridging the physical mechanism of divination (such as coins, yarrow stalks, cards, dice, random number generator) and the oracular awareness permeating time and space.  The Oracle gives voice to the One based on the relationship it has sustained with human beings for many thousands of years now.  The divinatory moment, then, is the very embodiment of the ancient saying:  Just as there is only One Mind, so is there only One Body.

Three Dimensions of the Divinatory Moment

Is this not the same Oracle that takes different forms in ancient cultures throughout the world?  Will we continue to hold ourselves apart from nature and spirit by relying on a crippling kind of reason that does not recognize its own limitations, even as the Great Mystery stares it in the face every moment?  Will we continue to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that materialistic reason and religious zealotry are the only two poles of human participation in the world?  Will we dare to return to the ancients’ worldview of everyday unity with the Living Whole?  Can we abandon our histories of wrongs and establish a time of amnesty in which we might address our common problems?  Will we find our way back to a lifeway of nature mysticism that bequeaths to our descendants a civilization in harmony with itself and nature and the sacred?

With the above in mind, I take up the coins this morning of the seasons’ pivot and throw my question into the Beyond—

~

What Can Humanity Expect with the Approach of 2012?

The divinations I have cast on the subject of 2012 have been unanimously positive in the long run but have hinted at obstacles to be overcome in the short run.  The Oracle I received on the Autumnal Equinox 2010, regarding the events swirling around the turning point of the Winter Solstice of 2012, is the most detailed yet about the storm we will have to pass through before we achieve the calm of the New Dynasty of peace and prospering for all.

The first hexagram, representing the near-term events, is called Repeating Test.  Following is its illustration and interpretation—

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.

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.

Intent:  Now is the time to strengthen the ladder of your evolution by descending it in order to repair a lower rung.  Actions and decisions that have haunted us must be laid to rest if we are to advance further toward our rightful destiny.  Within the inner landscape of our soul there are hurdles we failed to clear, pitfalls we failed to avoid, on our first encounter—where we first reacted with weakness we can now react with strength, where we first acted naively we can now act wisely, where we first reacted with fear we can now react with confidence, where we first acted selfishly we can now act lovingly.  Because you do not allow this opportunity to correct the past to slip through your hands, you break the chains holding you and your allies back from ascending to the next rung of success.

Summary:  Don’t make the same mistake again.  Some fears are false fears, some hopes are false hopes:  stop and consider how you are reverting to a way of thinking, feeling, and acting that did not work before.  You are stronger and wiser now—act as you wish you had acted the first time.  Seize this opportunity to heal the past and you will create the future you long for.

The Oracle appears to be saying that we—humanity—are going to have to pass through a crisis with all the dynamics of one we mismanaged the first time.  The exact nature of this crisis remains veiled by time, of course, but the transformation of our collective response is mapped out in the lines of change.

In other words, the specific transition points between the short-term and long-term are marked out by the line changes that produce a second hexagram out of the first.  In the present case, it is the first, second, and sixth lines that change.

Line Changes—

1st:  Many are in denial of the growing trend toward oppression—all you can do is join with those of like mind and prepare for what lies ahead.  Avoid controversial positions and don’t call attention to your efforts.  Make yourselves useful but anonymous.

2nd:  Many cannot get past the first hurdle—all you can do is appreciate the cunning of those above and go along with it for now.  There will be time to fight for principles later but the priority now must be just surviving this time.  Do not provoke envy or resentment by flaunting your little success.

6th:  The dam breaks—the last vestiges of oppression dissolve, the will of its leadership broken, and the waters of free-thinking and creativity rush forward again.  Celebrate with those around you.  Spend your time training the next generation, for without continuity of principles it will all happen again.

From the above we can surmise that our collective response to the first crisis was a knee-jerk reaction toward the use of force and intimidation—and that our first tendency in the second crisis is to revert to our previous response.

The first line change points out the insidious nature of fear that is generated by shock:  it is easy to convince people that the worst has only begun and that they must protect themselves by taking up a defensive posture that makes life more miserable everywhere.  This kind of lashing out against enemies real and imagined, internal and external, can be masked as necessary for only so long—eventually, there is a growing recognition that no amount of rationalization or justification changes the fact that irrational oppression is irrational oppression.

The second line change points out that there are many who remain fixed in a fear and aggression specifically propagated by those in power.  This is the most difficult time, when the fever is at it pitch.  It can be a dangerous time for those who dissent, one in which it is necessary to avoid attracting the attention of those with the power to crush dissent in the name of the greater good.  At the same time, this line change reminds those who manage to thrive during this time not to distance themselves from those less fortunate.

And finally, in the sixth line change, we see that the fever has broken.  The mass delusion passes like a nightmare evaporating with the dawn.  Even those perpetuating the self-destruction lose the will to go on.  People of good will and innovative solutions to the crisis come to the fore.  It is a time of widespread celebration and an overwhelming sense of relief.  Most of all, however, it is a time of establishing the new worldview for the next generations, because the forces of self-destruction are forever like a seed ready to sprout even in the loveliest garden.

~

The second hexagram, which grows out of the first by virtue of these three line changes, represents the long-term repercussions of the events associated with 2012.  Titled Sensing Creation, its image and interpretation follows—

Image:  A female warrior is naked, immersed in water and surrounded by flowers.  A wellspring of water rises from between her hands.  The water drops are drawn as beads of jade in order to portray the precious nature of that which sustains life.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the great courage essential to creating a meaningful life.  The female warrior symbolizes the way of nurturing and encouraging human nature that increases its sensitivity and loving-kindness.  Being naked means that nothing stands between you and the world.  Being immersed in water means that you plunge whole-heartedly into the spirit of that which nurtures all.  Being surrounded by flowers means that you perceive the perfection of the world as it truly is:  each moment blossoms perfect and whole, then passes like a fading flower—each perfection born into the world must die.  The wellspring of water symbolizes the inexhaustible source of courage that allows you to use your awareness of mortality to more profoundly experience the joy and sorrow inherent within every encounter.  In this sense, the flowers and the water signify not only the wisdom attained through experience, but the aesthetic sensibilities to be moved by a beauty and truth not always apparent to others.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you open your spirit to the overwhelming perfection of the world and share your vision with all you touch.

Action:  The feminine half of the spirit warrior collects the movement and energy of the unseen forces, calming them and bringing them together in harmony, making a place for them to gather strength and then making that source of benefit open and available to all.  Where past injustices and resentments survive to poison the well of benefit, true need goes unmet and people suffer unnecessarily:  the spirit warrior fosters a climate of forgiveness and reconciliation, reuniting those whose hearts have become estranged and dissolving the tensions and insecurities that have prevented people from coexisting in harmony and mutual understanding.  Before action, the passions breeding distrust and discord appear too strong and too deeply entrenched to be overcome.  After action, the benefit you help cultivate results in a greater union of good will, hope, and creativity.  You succeed where others fail because you rely on the warrior’s refined sensibilities to guide you rather than past experiences.  You succeed where others fail because you reflect generosity in every thought, word, and deed rather than demanding that others first prove their worth.  You succeed where others fail because you cleanse yourself of all ill will rather than harboring any spiritual intent that might poison the well of benefit that you are become.

Intent:  Whether the struggle is internal or external, work to increase your sensitivity to the realms of nature, human nature, and spirit.  Because people differ only in the degree of their sensitivity to the One Spirit, continue to open your perceptions to more and more sublime thoughts, feelings, memories, and sensations.  By recognizing that you are filled with the source of nurturance, you can calmly let all your adaptations arise from it.  By giving form to the source of nurturance, you can respond to things with dignity, patience, joy, and appreciation.  Because your sensitivity to the world is your strength, you can find the way to restore harmony and progress where others find only opposition and antagonism.  Make the well-being of others your goal right now and you can build a coalition of allies to undertake even greater endeavors in the future.  Avoid taking sides, work to bring them together.  Cultivate trust in the early stages of discord, rely on your lack of self-interest in its later stages.  You succeed because you bring future benefit to those separated by the past.

Summary:  The beauty and loving-kindness you seek are within your reach.  Let go of obsolete opinions and dogma handed down to you from others.  Find that which allows you to share happiness with others and you will achieve greater freedom and creativity.  Focus on the healing of old wounds, promote the forgiving of old wrongs.  Set aside personal ambition, act for the common good.

Surely one of the most beautiful and promising of times, Sensing Creation is the opening up of forgiveness and reconciliation.  It is a time of universal trust and mutual goodwill.  Past differences dissolve in an atmosphere of shared hope and a collective vision of a greater future for all.

With this, the Oracle appears to reiterate its prognosis for the era beginning with the changes surrounding the 2012 landmark:  following a period in which the self-destructive forces in humanity start to reassert their authority, a new wave of humaneness emerges to guide us into the Golden Age of Humanity.

The Oracle sees, in sum, a tempestuous storm before the long calm.

What shall we build together?

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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The Oracle can speak to our lives from its timeless dwelling place because the timebound changes we encounter in the historical present follow certain invariable cyclic processes.  The Oracle and its body, the 64 hexagrams, do not change.  But the world of nature and civilization does, dragged into the black hole of ever-greater disorder by the gravity of entropy.  The Oracle speaks to us from outside time because it is the voice of the generative energy that continues to sustain the on-going creation of the universe around us—it speaks to us about the way to escape the trap of Fate because it is the voice of the loving-kindness of the one spirit nurturing the on-going birth of all creation.  It speaks to us because the one spirit taking form in all matter strives to awaken in matter, to continue its own limitless growth by calling us to join it at the further end of the road of Freedom.

It speaks to us, in other words, because it is calling itself home.

The Oracle and its body, the 64 hexagrams, do not change.  But its clothing does.  More than that—its clothing must change.  Because the Oracle must speak coherently to each Age, the interpretation of the hexagrams and their lines must change periodically in order to adapt to the evolving worldview of civilization.  The reasons for a new interpretation of the I Ching have all been laid out in the previous three posts and I point to those articles rather than repeating them here.

The received version of the I Ching is the King Wen version, which was originally called the Chou I, or Changes of Chou, as it was specifically identified with the emerging Chou Dynasty of the time.  Its order of the 64 hexagrams is attributed to the titular founder of that dynasty, who is said to have arranged the hexagrams in a progression of 32 pairs.  Although each pair is linked by a discernible relationship—generally that of the second being the inverted form of the first—the reasoning behind the sequence of the pairs remains a mystery.

Regardless of the actual origin of the hexagrams or the originator of the received sequence, what we do know is that this sequence cannot be divorced from the oracular nature of the I Ching.  Its more rational use as a book of wisdom, in other words, does little to disguise the mystery lying at the core of its use as an Oracle.  Lest anyone enter thinking that the art of divination is a rational affair, they ought be assured that it is, instead, a matter of engaging the numinous, the sacred, the supranatural, aspect of reality and so is essentially an act of mystical union with the One.

Of course, we draw an imaginary line here between matter and spirit in order to work with concepts existing only in our minds.  The non-dual nature of reality means that matter and form Itself are the numinous, sacred, supranatural Itself.  It is this absolute identification of matter and awareness that establishes the oracular communication:  our question, the coins, and the Oracle’s answer are all drops of water in the same sea of thinking matter.  How could there be any boundary between thought-drops and matter-drops in the single sea of spirit-matter?  It is this absolute merging of our awareness with all of creation that reflects the embodiment of spirit in all matter.  And it is this merging of self and world that allows us to dissolve the subject-object barrier between ourselves and the Oracle.

Comparing the New and Traditional  Sequences

Looking at the King Wen Sequence from a distance, we see an overall pattern of 32 pairs of hexagrams divided into two uneven parts.  Part One consists of 30 hexagrams that begins with the pair #1 The Creative (Heaven 0ver Heaven) and #2 The Receptive (Earth over Earth) and ends with the pair #29 The Abysmal (Water over Water) and #30 The Clinging (Fire over Fire).  Part Two consists of 34 hexagrams that begins with the pair #31 Influence (Lake over Mountain) and #32 Duration (Thunder over Wind) and ends with the pair #63 After Completion (Water over Fire) and #64 Before Completion (Fire over Water).

We know that the trigrams Fire and Water are delegates for Heaven and Earth, since they often represent the Sun and Moon, respectively.  So ending Part One with the doubling of the Water and Fire trigrams as a response to the doubling of the Heaven and Earth trigrams at the beginning of Part One makes good sense.  As does the final pair of hexagrams in Part Two (Water over Fire and Fire over Water), since this is the intermarrying of the two opposing trigrams rather than their doubling.  If the goal had been absolute consistency in this regard, then Part Two would have started with the symbolic counterparts to #1 The Creative and #2 The Receptive, namely #12 Standstill (Heaven over Earth) and #11 Peace (Earth over Heaven).  But such is not the case.  Part Two begins instead with a pair of hexagrams that use the intermarrying of the remaining four trigrams (Lake over Mountain and Thunder over Wind).  So where the beginning and end of Part One and the end of part Two are all marked by hexagrams comprised of the trigrams Heaven and Earth and Fire and Water, the beginning of Part Two is marked by hexagrams comprised of the other four trigrams:  #31 Influence is made up of the youngest daughter and youngest son (Lake over Mountain) and #32 Duration is made up of the eldest son and eldest daughter (Thunder over Wind).

There is a kind of symbolic structure to the traditional Sequence, in other words, that depends on the doubling and/or intermarrying of [1] trigrams specifically related to the first two (Heaven and Earth, thence their delegates, Fire and Water) and [2] trigrams expressing the familial relationships among the eight trigrams (Lake and Mountain, Thunder and Wind).  As has been often noted, Part One appears as the Upper Half of the hexagrams, representing cosmological forces at work, whereas Part Two appears as the Lower Half, representing the social and cultural forces at work.  Indeed, the traditional interpretation of #31 Influence (Lake over Mountain) and #32 Duration (Thunder over Wind) is that they represent the institutions of courtship and marriage, respectively.  The text of these two hexagrams not only refers to the “superior man” but the traditional interpretation, such as that found in the standard Wilhelm-Baynes translation, contains such parochial material as:  “During courtship the young man subordinates himself to the girl, but in marriage, which is represented by the coming together of the eldest son and the eldest daughter, the husband is the directing and moving force outside, while the wife, inside, is gentle and submissive.”

This emphasis on the well-known familial relationships between trigrams lies at the very heart of the King Wen Sequence.

Diagram 1: Family Relationships Among Trigrams

In other words, the first two hexagrams of the traditional King Wen Sequence are those symbolizing the father and the mother, which are considered the parents of the following 62 hexagrams.  This representation is due in large part to the fact that the father/heaven hexagram is comprised of six solid lines and the mother/earth hexagram of six broken lines, whereas the remaining 62 hexagrams are all made up of combinations of solid and broken lines.  The father/heaven and mother/earth hexagrams are the only two that exist as pure yang and pure yin forces, while the remaining 62 hexagrams exist as combinations of yang and yin energies.

This dependence on a paternalistic model of creation and change goes hand-in-hand with the top-down model of rulership to which the traditional I Ching has long contributed.  As part of the wisdom tradition of ancient China, the I Ching played a role in the instruction of rulers in the ongoing effort to create enlightened rulers, whose adherence to the Way would lead the nation into a time of peace and harmony and prosperity.  As the Oracle, moreover, the I Ching played a role in advising rulers in their decisions of statecraft.

As discussed in the previous three posts, this faith in the education of rulers has worldwide proven a disastrous failure and any continuing alliance between the I Ching and the ruling elite is unethical in the extreme.

We are a world of peers and neither governments nor churches are our parents.  No fellow human being stands above us to mediate between us and the infinite.  We are not children to be led.  We are, in fact, those most in touch with reality, possessing worldly wisdom and capable of determining our own destiny, whereas those pretending to rulership live in a shared hallucination of power far removed from the needs and dreams of those they would govern.

The old dynasty of rulers has come to an end and the new dynasty of peers has begun.  The Toltec I Ching reunites the ancient worldviews of the indigenous peoples of China and Mesoamerica by fusing the symbology of the Toltec culture to the I Ching of China, thereby reuniting the Eastern and Western Hemispheres of global consciousness.  The Toltec I Ching marries visual and written imagery to each  hexagram, thereby reuniting the Left and Right Hemispheres of the individual consciousness.  The Toltec I Ching, both in its role as a repository of wisdom and as the Oracle, allies itself with the emerging Dynasty and legitimizes it by reflecting its universal equality in a new Sequence and interpretation of the hexagrams.  The mechanics of this new Sequence are discussed here, which produces the following arrangement with its corresponding hexagrams in the King Wen Sequence—

Diagram 2: Toltec I Ching and King Wen Sequences

Viewing The Toltec I Ching Sequence from a distance, we can make our several principle features.  First of all, we note the beginning and ending pairs of the 64 hexagrams.  #1 Provoking Change (Thunder over Thunder) is paired with #2 Sensing Creation (Lake over Lake).

Here we see that the initiating force is something that has triggered or activated a change.  Its attribute is Shock or Surprise that motivates and inspires us to take up the challenge of transformation.  To quote from the text:

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.

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……

~

Its paired hexagram, Sensing Creation, accompanies it as a profound immersion in and heartfelt appreciation of the wonder of existence.  Its attribute is Joy or Appreciation that sensitizes us to the underlying perfection of creation.

To quote from the text:

Image:  A female warrior is naked, immersed in water and surrounded by flowers.  A wellspring of water rises from between her hands.  The water drops are drawn as beads of jade in order to portray the precious nature of that which sustains life.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the great courage essential to creating a meaningful life.  The female warrior symbolizes the way of nurturing and encouraging human nature that increases its sensitivity and loving-kindness.  Being naked means that nothing stands between you and the world.  Being immersed in water means that you plunge whole-heartedly into the spirit of that which nurtures all.  Being surrounded by flowers means that you perceive the perfection of the world as it truly is:  each moment blossoms perfect and whole, then passes like a fading flower—each perfection born into the world must die.  The wellspring of water symbolizes the inexhaustible source of courage that allows you to use your awareness of mortality to more profoundly experience the joy and sorrow inherent within every encounter.  In this sense, the flowers and the water signify not only the wisdom attained through experience, but the aesthetic sensibilities to be moved by a beauty and truth not always apparent to others.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you open your spirit to the overwhelming perfection of the world and share your vision with all you touch.

Action:  The feminine half of the spirit warrior collects the movement and energy of the unseen forces, calming them and bringing them together in harmony, making a place for them to gather strength and then making that source of benefit open and available to all……

From the very beginning of the Sequence, then, we see that the parent-child relationship of the King Wen Sequence has been replaced not by another creator-couple but, rather, by the archetypal human responses to times of new beginnings.  Something has triggered a time of crisis and #1 Provoking Change responds by trying to increase the potential for all concerned to benefit, to which #2 Sensing Creation responds by establishing an atmosphere of widespread relief and reconciliation.

Similarly, there is not any talk of the “superior man”.  Every man, woman and child is considered a spirit warrior to be honored and respected for their facing the inevitability of death.  That both male warriors and female warriors have within them a masculine and feminine half is likewise considered self-evident and a key element in each individual’s process of self-realization.

~

Turning to the last two hexagrams in the Sequence, we find #63 Self-Sufficiency (Wind over Mountain) and #64 Safeguarding Life (Mountain over Wind).  Rather than the artificial structure of the King Wen Sequence with its final pair intermarrying the Fire and Water trigrams, we find ourselves approaching the end of an organic sequence in which social forces (#63) finally coalesce to achieve a harmonious self-sufficiency that (#64) ultimately cannot be sustained and threatens to extinguish the very lifeway that is most treasured.

The attribute of #63 is Peaceful Adaptation.  To quote from the text:

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.

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.

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……

~

The attribute of #64 is Obstructed Adaptation.  To quote from the text:

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.

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.

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……

~

No Conclusion

As with all organic processes, every ending begets a new beginning, so it comes as no surprise that #64 Safe-Guarding Life is itself the crisis that sets in motion #1 Provoking Change and, thereby, another round of the Cycle of Fate.

When the Oracle answers our questions with a hexagram that includes one or more lines changing to a new hexagram, it is providing us with a way to leap out of the Cycle of Fate and create our lives outside the entropic law of increasing disorder and disintegration.  When we receive an answer without any line changes, however, then it means that we are temporarily held fast in the Cycle of Fate and should see ourselves as eventually moving into the next hexagram in the Sequence.

Of old, it has been said that if we quiet our heart-mind then we will transform it into a lodging-place for the One.

As the speaking of the One, the Oracle rushes in to fill the vacuum created by our question.

Standing at the border of the known and the unknown, we step out of our familiar worldview of self-and-other duality and into the longed-for unitary experience of the eternal return.

May we all transcend the Law of Fate and create the Golden Age of Humanity in the nearest possible present time.

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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The Unity of all things dwells in an undifferentiated state of living potential.  Neither awake nor asleep nor dreaming, it is the shining awareness everywhere present, the fount of time and eternity.  It is still and silent, utterly at peace and filled with harmony.

The Unity of all things produces a secondary world of birth and death when its living potential is activated by the intention of its parts.  This is unavoidable, since the harmony of the Whole could not be perfect if it denied in any way the natural creative impulse of its parts.  The unitary nature of the living potential produces a single field of intentions, so that no intention exists in isolation but, rather, enters the universe of intentions, where it becomes part of the vast interconnectedness of cause-and-effect.

The living potential bifurcates its generative energy along a line of further-dividing dualities:  the 1 becomes 2, the 2 become 4, the 4 become 8, and so on.  These numbers represent the ways in which generative energy distributes intention throughout the phenomenal world.  They are entities in the sense that they are comprised of intentional parts and comprise an intention of their own as a part of a larger whole:  the 8 trigrams is an entity that both contains all 8 of its trigrams and extends the intention of the 4 bigrams. The 4 bigrams double the original duality of solid and broken lines, producing two pairs of dualities.  The 8 trigrams double the duality of the 4 bigrams, producing four pairs of dualities.  This process continues until the 64 hexagrams produce 32 pairs of dualities. None of these entities, however, actually precedes another:  they all exist simultaneously and symbolize the multiple points of view required of human perception to appreciate its environment and respond to it successfully.

Diagram 1: Emanations of Duality Arising from the Process of Doubling

This cosmological process is perceptual in nature because it cannot be divorced from human perception—it represents the identification of human nature with the whole of the universe.  Because our perception arises from the same process as the rest of creation, we perceive the unfolding of the cosmos by perceiving the unfolding of our own perception.  That unfolding comes in a series of emanations coincident with the vast undifferentiated One.  Awareness stirs within the stillness of the Unity of all things, its creative urge producing a division in the unity.  Now there are two.  Thus is born Number.  Which produces Symbol:  in the case of Two, it is the Duality of complementary feeling-tones of Autonomy and Love, for the movement out of the unity requires independence of spirit even as it establishes the relationship with the Whole.  From Symbol comes Name:  in this case, yang and yin, masculine and feminine, heaven and earth, creative and receptive, movement and stillness, and so on.  With names, things enter into the universe of all other names and the ensuing relationships they form produce an intricate web of Meaning that explores all the possible distributions of generative energy within civilization.

The cosmological process whereby the material universe gives body to the spiritual Unity of all things, in other words, is mirrored in the process whereby civilization gives body to the original undifferentiated perception of human nature.  In both cases, it is the cosmological unfolding of ever-dividing dualities that creates a relational order and structure to the world of phenomena and experience—an order and structure resulting in the natural tendency of all things toward increased disorder and decay.

The unfolding of the Many out of the One, then, is the Way of Fate, where all things and relations between things forever spontaneously changes in the direction of greater disintegration.

And it is the return of the Many into the One that is the Way of Freedom.

~

Reversing the Course of Fate

The return of the Many into the One is an ancient formula symbolizing the spiritual transformation we undergo when we cultivate our present self to the point where we spontaneously re-experience our original undamaged nature.  This return to our true self as it exists before and after social conditioning is likewise called uniting heaven and earth.  It comes about because we train ourselves to stop viewing the inner and outer world as pairs of dualities (like good and bad, right and wrong, self and other) and develop greater sensitivity to the Unity of all things.  This is commonly referred to as the mystical experience arising from the reunion of subject and object:  it points at the profound metamorphosis we undergo when there is no longer any distance between us and the universe nor is there any boundary between our individual mind and the one mind.  This is called reversing the outflow of generative energy and has long been associated with the real person, or sage, whose enlightened nature has been reclaimed.

As noted in the previous two posts, the Way of Fate is the entropic process carrying all things and the relationships between things ever further into disorder.  From the perceptual cosmology, this is the result of the initial division of the Unity of all things and its subsequent doublings into further dualities.

The Way of Fate is the realm of birth and death.  Everything that enters this realm must progressively deteriorate and die.  This is the first and greatest of the perceptual dualities.  From it arise all the other dualities comprising the law of Fate governing the lives of so many.

Running counter to the Way of Fate is the circulation of generative energy.  This is the flow of the subliminal force that gives life to life.  From the perspective of spirit, generative energy is matter.  From the perspective of matter, generative energy is spirit.  From the perspective of entropy, generative energy is information.  From the perspective of life, generative energy is mind.  It circulates among all things, entering all the dualities in order to hold them together in the Unity of all things.  It is the subliminal force that can postpone the arrival of Fate indefinitely.

The true person, the sage, the enlightened person, have long been those who cultivated this generative energy of the universal return within themselves and others.

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The Oracle of Freedom

Uniting heaven and earth is an act that happens within the human being.  It occurs within us in the present mind-moment when we stand at the center of the compass and open our heart-mind to the ever-present Unity of all things.  We bring the one spirit of heaven and the one body of earth back together within ourselves every time we re-experience the nonduality of reality.  Reuniting the one spirit and the one body in a conscious act is an act of conception that gives birth to a timeless intention—fueled by the generative energy of the return of the Many into the One, it reverses the course of Fate by spontaneously and immediately returning to the Act of Creation.  Such experiences not only benefit those who undergo them but spill out into the world of intentions, contributing to the metamorphosis of civilization itself.

There are many traditions of self-transformation whose goal is the mystical experience of nonduality.  Our complete metamorphosis into a true person that constantly stands at the center of the compass takes many years of genuine insights and sincere cultivation.  Standing at the center point of nonduality, voluntarily collapsing the distinction between subject and object, voluntarily letting go of all boundaries between my self and the One—this is the method and the goal of self-realization practices.  It is not a practice undertaken lightly nor attained effortlessly.  It is the Path of Freedom in every sense and those who keep it underfoot their whole life are still too few.

But it is not the only way of uniting heaven and earth.

There are many, equally old, traditions of divination whose goal is to make the voice of the one spirit accessible to the one body.  Across cultures and the millennia, the tradition of priest-diviners has arisen to give voice to the ancient Oracle guiding humanity away from the cliff edge of self-destruction and back toward the Living Monument of self-creation.  It is a tradition based on the recognition that our self-awareness works according to the same laws as the rest of creation:  our spirit speaks most directly and powerfully to our body in our dreams, just as the one spirit speaks most directly and powerfully to the one body in its symbols.  Long considered the first language, symbols speak with a directness and power that words cannot—laden with complex layers of meaning and emotional associations, they appear all-at-once, spatially, rather than in the linear, temporal, string of words of conscious language.

Divination, then, is the art of translating the symbols of the Oracle.  It is the human awareness breaking through the barrier of subject and object, voluntarily merging self with the one spirit, re-coupling the primal duality of spirit and matter.  It is the spontaneous and immediate act of uniting heaven and earth.  It is not necessary for the diviner to consciously strive to effect such a union—the act of divination collapses the subject-object duality by its very nature.

Engaging the Oracle automatically entails stepping back into the Unity of all things.  We cannot seek an answer from the Oracle and hold ourselves separate from the one spirit, we cannot receive the Oracle’s answer and hold ourselves separate from the one body.  To open ourselves to the invisible realm of unity underlying this world of the senses is to lose the ego-self and step into the oceanic dreamtime of nonduality:  this is called becoming the site of the return of the Many into the One.  As has long been said of the I Ching, inquiring of the Oracle is not a matter of any special knowledge or skill— the divinatory act activates a mysterious conjunction of dualities solely by the power of the questioner’s sincerity.

The Oracle is the speaking of the generative energy that circulates between the beginning and end of time, between the Act of Creation and the Act of Completion.  It circulates in the same way that the ocean’s water evaporates, forms clouds that are carried by the wind to the land where it falls as rain that accumulates in streams and rivers in order to flow back into the sea.  It is an all-at-once-ness circulation that is spatial and not a linear progression of time.  It is the flow of the unchanging life-that-gives-life behind the flow of perceptible change.  To life, generative energy is the unborn mind that moves at will backward and forward between the beginning and the end of time:  it is unborn because it does not ever enter the realm of birth and death and so stands forever outside the realm of Fate—it can move at will between end and beginning because it is the circulation itself.

The 64 hexagrams constitute the map of Fate.  They show the 64 possible mixtures of yang and yin generative energy that produce the world of phenomena.  They show the pitfalls and traps everything and everyone faces in the realm of birth and death.  They show the vast archetypal landscape of entropic change driving all changing phenomena.

Engaging the Oracle activates the creative intent of the living moment, revealing the way to transcend Fate and create a lifetime of good fortune.  Circulating among the lines of the hexagrams, the generative energy calls us to follow the way of freedom in every sense.

Diagram 2: Clockwise Circulation of the Four Bigrams

The Oracle speaks to us by selecting from the 64 possible hexagrams just those that represent the present situation we face and how it is developing into the coming situation.  In doing so, it points out the choices we have if we are to keep the path of freedom beneath our feet.

The Toltec I Ching is the newest iteration of the Oracle’s speaking.  By recasting the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico, its interpretative material gives a new voice to the emerging Dynasty of the Open Secret.  By marrying the two great cosmovisions of the indigenous civilizations of China and Mexico, it unites the East and West hemispheres for today’s global civilization.  By interpreting each hexagram with both original illustrations and written material, it unites the right and left hemispheres of the brain for today’s global consciousness.

I cannot distance myself from the I Ching anymore than you.  Those who haven’t yet internalized the I Ching may think the above considerations to be mere abstractions but those who know that the 8 trigrams are their own sense organs have already discovered that the 4 bigrams are the opening and closing of the Gate of Good Fortune.  May benefit pour out of you to cover heaven and earth.

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Next:  Reading the Map of Fate

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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The old Dynasty of nationalism, aggression and self-interest is overturned now by time.  In its place, like billions of seeds fallen on the fertile plain of history, the first signs of the new age of enlightened peers reveal the emerging change to all.  Like the light from a distant nova that takes years to reach us, the effects of this spiritual revolution are already on their way.

We have entered the Dynasty of the Open Secret.  Founded in seclusion by a group of priest-diviners on the Summer Solstice of 1998, it will be celebrated worldwide on the Winter Solstice of 2012 and usher in changes that will carry us all into the Golden Age of Humanity.

As discussed in the previous post, we follow here an ages-old tradition of legitimizing the new Dynasty by introducing a new version of the I Ching that more accurately reflects the vision and ethics of our age while still maintaining the shamanically-charged power of the Oracle.  As explained there, it is the periodically revised Sequence of the 64 hexagrams—the mysterious order into which its 32 pairs of hexagrams are arranged—that renews cyclic time and restores humaneness to the social order.

This new version of the Oracle is based on a new arrangement of the hexagrams named for its Dynasty:  The Open Secret Sequence.

Diagram 1: Trigrammic Substitution between Fu Shi, King Wen, and Open Secret Maps

In the diagram above, the Fu Shi, or Earlier Heaven, arrangement occupies the centermost circle, while the King Wen, or Later Heaven, arrangement occupies the second circle.  Even though the Fu Shi is considered the Primal Arrangement of the eight elemental forces of change that manifest this world, research indicates that it may have actually been discovered many centuries after the King Wen.  The Fu Shi arrangement may in fact be related to the work of the great diviner Shao Yung, whose work inspired Leibniz to marvel that the binary code had been discovered in China long before his own discovery.

The Fu Shi arrangement is a static one that pairs the trigrams across from one another—the trigram Heaven, made of all solid lines, for instance, is paired with its opposite-complement, Earth, made of all broken lines.  By contrast, the King Wen arrangement, which delineates a dynamic process of growth and decay, is read in a clockwise circular manner:  Beginning with Thunder (Shock, Movement) in the East of the second circle and ending with Mountain (Stillness, Death) in the North-East, each of the trigrams spurs the next in the cycle of organic development in the lives of societies, organizations, ideologies, relationships, and individuals.  The Fu Shi, then, is thought of as the eternally paired dualities whose harmonious balance gives rise to the King Wen arrangement of the invisible forces giving rise in turn to the phenomenal world of change.

Tradition has it that the trigrams of the Fu Shi arrangement shine through those of the King Wen.  In other words, trigrams occupying the same compass point overlay one another, illuminating different aspects of the same sacred metaphor for the archetypal change that manifests in every life.  They share the same space of time and are enriched by their association with their shared compass points.

Diagram 2: The Spatialization Of Time

Diagram 2 shows how the temporal flux of the seasons and the day are superimposed on the four cardinal directions of space.  In this way, the developmental cycle of beginning, expanding, contracting, and return is mapped onto East, South, West, and North, respectively.  The eight compass points of the map of change are, then, the archetypal placeholders that charge their associated trigrams with oracular power, since it is the compass points themselves that comprise the real-world ordering principle of the flow of time.

While it is the shamanically-charged Sequence of 64 hexagrams that legitimizes a new Dynasty, in other words, it is the theurgic mapping of the trigrams onto the eight compass points that legitimizes that new Sequence.  That ritual act, which produced the Open Secret arrangement of the trigrams, was performed by a group of priest-diviners at the kairotic moment of noon on the Summer Solstice of 1998.

Returning to Diagram 1 now, we see that its outermost circle is occupied by the Open Secret arrangement of the trigrams.  Whereas the Fu Shi arrangement is static and the King Wen moves in a circular clockwise manner to show the natural unfolding of phenomena, the Open Secret arrangement is read in a circular counter-clockwise direction to show the way of reversing the universal natural tendency toward disorder.

Because the past Dynasty was founded on the inevitability of entropy in social institutions and human relations, it is called the Dynasty of Fate.  It has been ruled by those who accept such inevitable disintegration and benefit from it.  Using their influence to exacerbate the natural trend toward disorder, they have made the fate of perpetual decline the common dwelling place of the governed.  By “decline” is meant the descent of civilization into ever darker regions of the collective human psyche:  ever-shifting wars, church-and-state sponsored hatred of other peoples, creation of urban centers that assure alienation from nature, unjustifiable disparity of standard of living, worldwide poverty and contamination of water sources, self-destructive degradation of the environment and animal habitat, governmental misuse of technology and media to to cow its populace into accepting increasingly authoritarian forms of control, and so on.  By tradition, this was called by the priest-diviners weeping for the fate-driven herd.  And it was called by the sages crying out against waste of life.

In contrast, the newly-emerging Dynasty of the Open Secret is founded on the principle of the conservation of life.  It recognizes the equality of all life and acts accordingly.  It honors human life, animal life, and plant life, transforming the present civilization into one in which human beings wrench loose from the iron grip of Fate and make of this world a paradise for all life.  This, the priest-diviners say, is what the Oracle has foreseen.

Fate is the destructive physical force of disorder in the universe and must be struggled against if we are not to fall irrevocably into ruin.  This is called by the sages protecting the flickering flame from the void of night.  And it is called by the priest-diviners feeding the bonfire that will outlast the dark.

For while Fate is the gravity that forever pulls us downwards and darkwards, the Oracle is flight upwards and lightwards:  Whereas Fate embodies the certainty of ongoing deterioration, the Oracle embodies the acausal nature of meaningful coincidence.  It is in this way that the Oracle interrupts the predetermined course of Fate by identifying those kairotic moments—those crucial turning points appointed by a higher order of cause-and-effect—in which darkness might be converted to light.

What is the mechanism by which the hexagrams are charged with that oracular power?

The Open Secret Sequence of the 64 hexagrams is derived directly from the King Wen Sequence by substituting the Open Secret arrangement of the trigrams for those of the King Wen arrangement.  In other words, the trigrams in the outermost circle of Diagram 1 are substituted for those in the second circle.  In this way, the magically-charged order of the 32 pairs of hexagrams underlying the King Wen Sequence is maintained in the Open Secret Sequence.

But as explained in the previous post, the legitimizing of the new Dynasty requires more than a new Sequence of hexagrams—it also requires a new interpretation of the hexagrams that reflects the vision and values of the emerging Dynasty.  It requires, in other words, establishing a new voice for the Oracle.

The Toltec I Ching is the first speaking of that voice.  Based on the Open Secret Sequence of the hexagrams, it uses the symbology of the ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas to give voice to the sacredness of all life upon which the new Dynasty is founded.

The following diagram compares the order and names of the hexagrams in The Toltec I Ching and the traditional King Wen version—

Diagram 3: Transposing Between Toltec I Ching and King Wen Sequences

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Next Week:  The Oracle and the War Against Fate

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

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My first teachers of the Book of Change impressed upon me the perceptual aspect of this ancient work, as opposed to the historical interpretation so prevalent in modern versions.  They focused my attention on the natural symbolism of the trigrams, encouraging me to develop an emotional, or heart-mind, experience of the real world energies they represent.  This meant spending long spaces of time in nature, learning to cultivate a communication with these energies based on the kind of spiritual intuition I was being taught at the time.

My nature pilgrimages led me to more remote areas of the Americas, especially the least-traveled parts of the Copper Canyon in Mexico, where I was adopted by a family of Tarahumara shamans.  My initiation into the densest Pre-Columbian rituals of these descendants of the Toltec peoples opened the gateway of energies connecting each of us with all others.

Stumbling into Native American teachers, in other words, brought me to the understanding that my teachers of the indigenous Chinese I Ching had insisted I learn.  This makes profound sense in retrospect.  Nature is Nature everywhere.  And shamanism, though its techniques and descriptions differ by culture, is everywhere based upon sensing and interacting with the spirit within all matter.

Beyond this, however, it is self-evident that the indigenous peoples of ancient China and the Americas share the same mother culture, which spread not just through Asia but crossed the Bering Strait and populated the whole of the New World.  It was only after I encountered the sacred divinatory calendar, The Day Count, or Tonalpoalli, of ancient Mexico that I glimpsed the thread of an oracular tradition running through both cultures.

In the meantime, my continuing studies of the I Ching proceeded without books.  I pursued my teachers’ advice to grasp the real world nature of the trigrams in order to see through their eyes.  Experiencing the trigrams as the archetypal structure and pattern of human perception allows us to extend that structure into the hexagrams, whose combinations of trigrams reflects the real world coupling of internal and external dimensions.  This perceptual approach to the I Ching provides us with a way to encounter the living Oracle, as opposed to sticking to the dead words of the historical rendering.

There are many good books published on the I Ching.  However, they are all based on the King Wen Sequence of hexagrams and rework the same historical material over and over.  This is not in and of itself bad, of course.  There is much to be gained by mining such a rich vein of interpretive material.  But we now know that those interpretations of the hexagrams and trigrams, attributed to King Wen and the Duke of Chou, are based on historical events that occurred at the time of the transition from the Shang Dynasty to the Chou Dynasty.  The naturalistic symbolism of the I Ching, in other words, was used as a vessel to contain and express the power of righteous change that cannot be fulfilled without the righteous effort of righteous individuals.

Undoubtedly the work of several generations of priest-diviners spanning the Shang and Chou Dynasties, this historical interpretation infuses the hexagrams and lines with the oracular power of an ancient lineage of shamans using the historical developments of the time as a living metaphor for archetypal change as it manifests in any Age.  This remarkable accomplishment explains the predictive power of the historical interpretation, originally titled the Chou I, or Changes of Chou, and its continuing efficacy as an Oracle.

But the real power of the Oracle does not lie in its interpretive material—it lies in the real-world energies that manifest in all matter, including human nature.  The real power of the Oracle lies in the real-world energies that likewise manifest as the living symbols of the I Ching in the form of its lines, trigrams and hexagrams.  This correlation between the real-world energies that form the unchanging pattern of change within nature, spirit, and human nature is the real dynamic that establishes the Oracle’s communion with unfolding events across the entirety of the eternal moment.  It is this naturalistic perspective that needs to inform the interpretive material and not the historical events of 3,500 years ago.

The concept of righteous, for example, is based on both a specific spiritual presence and spiritual ethic:  it indicates something that is both in accord with the One and actively pursues the course that benefits all.  It is a concept that runs like an unconscious assumption throughout the traditional text:  because it was written by the court diviners, who were advising the political leaders of their time, it is a top-down model of change that assumes an enlightened, righteous, ruler will lead the many into a time of peace and prospering for all.

Such an ideal, noble and well-intentioned as it is, can now be said without any fear of contradiction to be ill-founded and antithetical to human nature.  Power creates institutions to perpetuate power.  The many suffer at the hands of the few that hold the reins of power.  Wealth and power are concentrated among the few, who enjoy privileges at the expense of the many.  Rulers serve their own purposes, not the needs of the governed.  Even if one such ruler established a reign of real equality and justice, we know now that the succeeding generations of rulers would not cease in their efforts until they had undone all those reforms.  Power is anonymous and perpetually seeks the line of least resistance, following the pull of gravity, towards totalitarianism.

If we are to reach the Golden Age of Humanity that so many generations of sages and savios have prepared us for, it will not be because of the trickle-down righteousness of a ruler.  It will be because the ground-up awakening of righteous individuals continues to build into a sea change of self-governance that spans borders and guarantees peace and prospering for all.

Rather than being written for the rulers, the I Ching needs to be written for the governed, who must adapt to the political, economic, and social pressures of the day, all the while seeking the path of personal and collective metamorphosis.  The question is no longer how to rule but, rather, how to deal with rulers.  It is not how to influence the many but, rather, how to deal with those seeking to influence.  Rather than being written for those seeking to maintain the status quo, the I Ching needs to address those seeking to create the most meaningful life possible for themselves and all others at the same time.  Rather than being a vessel for the elite, the I Ching needs to be a raft for those seeking to free the elite from their slavery to greed, dominance and self-interest.

Some might argue that there have been efforts to update these anachronisms in various modern interpretations.  But this argument fails on the single issue of the Sequence of hexagrams, upon which all those interpretations are based.  As mentioned above, this Sequence is attributed to King Wen, who masterminded the overthrow of the Shang Dynasty and the founding of the subsequent Chou Dynasty.  This Sequence he allegedly devised while under house arrest by the Shang emperor.  It is this Sequence and its appended interpretive material that came to be known as the Chou I or Changes of Chou.

In fact, this Sequence, which begins with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Heaven trigram, is completely identified with the founding of the Chou Dynasty.  The importance of this cannot be overstated.  Legend has it that the Sequence of the hexagrams was different during the preceding Shang Dynasty, where it began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Earth trigram and was known as the Guizang Sequence.  Likewise, the even older Xia Dynasty that preceded the Shang had its own Lianshan Sequence, which began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Mountain trigram.  Thus, each of three succeeding dynasties had their own Sequence of hexagrams.

The historical accuracy of this legend is less important than its symbolic import, for what it means is that the new Sequence of hexagrams confers upon a new Dynasty its legitimacy.

The Mawangdui manuscript is the oldest physical copy of the Chou I and, even though it starts with the same hexagram formed by the doubling of the Heaven trigram, it presents a different Sequence and even different names for many of the hexagrams.  Not only, then, were there different Sequences of hexagrams associated with different Dynasties, but even within the same Dynastic tradition, it was permitted to alter the received Sequence as well as the names of the 64 hexagrams.

Why?  Because such altered sequences were not intended to be used to communicate with the Oracle.  Similarly, the masterful Sequence of Shao Yung that was based on the natural number values of the hexagrams arose in conjunction with the Chou I but neither was it intended to be used to communicate with the Oracle.

Why not?  Because the order of the hexagrams in the Dynastic Sequence alone is charged with Oracular power.  The Sequence and even the hexagram names can be changed in order to investigate the pattern of change among the 64 hexagrams but the Oracle answers only to the sacred unchanging pattern of change among the hexagrams as exemplified in the King Wen Sequence.

However, the priest-diviners of the Shang, who were seeing the end of their Dynasty—not just in the events surrounding them but in their oracular divinations—faced the problem of constructing a new Sequence for the coming Dynasty.  This they would have considered their sacred duty since their ultimate allegiance was to the Oracle and not any political entity.  The specific problem they would have faced, then, was how to devise a new Chou Sequence while maintaining the magically charged Sequence of the Shang Dynasty, which began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Earth trigram—the same problem their predecessors faced during the transition from the former Xia Dynasty, whose Sequence began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Lake trigram.

What we know as the King Wen Sequence, therefore, is conceived as at least the third iteration of a magically charged Sequence of hexagrams, each of which began with a hexagram formed by the doubling of a trigram.  Much research and discussion have followed the King Wen Sequence over the millennia in an effort to explain what appears to be the random ordering of its 32 pairs of hexagrams.  It is, of course, this mysterious relationship among the real-world energies of the trigrams and their emergent hexagrams that gives the Oracle its power—which makes formulating a new Sequence that holds this same charge a question of profound import as we enter this new Dynasty.

Next Week:  A New Version of the I Ching

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  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.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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The axolotl is the larval form of the tiger salamander, native to two lakes in the Central Mexican Plateau.  It is famous as one of the highest lifeforms to exhibit the biological trait called neoteny, which refers to the ability of certain species to retain all their juvenile characteristics and reach sexual maturity despite never metamorphosing.  In the case of the axolotl, this means that it never drops it gills to leave the water and live on land like the adult salamander—instead, it lives its whole life in its immature phase, yet displaying the adult characteristic of sexual reproduction.

The word axolotl is a Nahuatl word constructed of two morphemes:  a-xolotl, from atl (water) and xolotl (the god of twins).

From all this we can say that the axolotl is a symbol of great creative power and independent action—a symbol of a being that integrates the positive characteristics of childhood and adulthood by not taking on the negative characteristics of adulthood.  It can produce the next generation without having to transform into the previous generation.  It is the symbol of the Ancient Child.

Its symbolic meaning correlates well with Hexagram 49, Staying Open, of The Toltec I Ching—

Image:  An infant beholds the many diverse items in its surroundings, each of which is calling to the child.  The speech glyphs representing each article’s voice are of different colors in order to show that the child’s natural curiosity leads it to be fascinated by a wide array of interests.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the openness of heart and mind and spirit of those who are adapting to the future.  The infant symbolizes the living potential dwelling within every individual.  The diverse objects around the child represent all the possible paths, both external and internal, lying before every individual at every turn.  That the infant’s attention is drawn to each of the interests means that you look at everything as an opportunity to develop yourself further.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you are not adapted to one particular environment but, rather, to any environment.

The Way of Axolotl is the path of the generalist.  It is the path of retaining the child’s sense of wonder and curiosity throughout a lifetime.  It is the tao of the breaking wave, the path of those who keep moving forward with change rather than settling into one particular vocation, lifestyle, or identity.  It is, in this sense, the path of paths:  it does not strive to reach some arbitrary goal but, rather, seeks to explore all the interesting paths it can find.  To the extent that it encourages specialization in us, it is always in the sense of the wayfarer who stops for a while to become intimately familiar with a particularly intriguing area before moving on to the next.

Intent:  The ideal society is just like the ideal family, existing to afford every member the opportunity to develop their full potential:  in times of darkness, on the other hand, authoritarianism restricts the creation of new opportunities and channels people into meaningless activities that benefit only those in authority.  Likewise, societies change just like families, transforming their goals and relationships with the passing of each generation:  whereas those who thrive in times of darkness cannot conceive a time of light, those who thrive in times of light can all too readily envision a return to darkness.  Whether it is the individual, family, society, or humanity as a whole, the cycles of the pendulum’s swings between the closing down and opening up of meaningful opportunities establishes the fundamental circumstances against which all actions take place and all decisions are made.  The best way to contribute to the lives of others is to nurture and encourage their efforts to further develop their own potential.  In this way, you materially assist others and help transform the fundamental circumstances within which all live.

Fortune favors those who are adapted ahead of time.  The Way of Axolotl goes against the current of culture and family, which generally seeks to channel people into pigeonholes where their lives become highly routinized, seeking instead to keep open the individual’s possibilities to realize his or her potential.  Rather than seeking to merely cobble people together in a haphazard way to make society limp along without real meaning, the Way of Axolotl seeks to create a meaningful society by affording individuals the opportunity to create meaningful lives for themselves.  The fact that cultures differ so wildly from one continent to another means that no culture is inevitable or unchangeable.

Summary:  Cultivate as wide a range of interests and relationships as possible.  Avoid the tendency to focus on one specific thing or person at this time.  Cultivate breadth, not depth.  It is a time of exploration, so follow your curiosity.  Do not jump at the first opportunity or commit yourself to a single course of action now.  Keep all your options open while you prepare for future opportunities.

The Tao of Axolotl is based on the symbol of the Ancient Child.  The fact that the axolotl retains its gills and does not leave the water like the adult salamander symbolizes the experience of those who retain the open-hearted and open-minded spirit of childhood, refusing to metamorphose into the unnatural state of critical, cynical, and domesticated adults.  The fact that the axolotl reaches sexual maturity and can produce offspring symbolizes the experience of those who are creatively productive, fashioning new norms and new opportunities for others simply by pursuing their own sense of wonder.

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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.

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The concept of a world soul arose among ancient philosophers and endures in the heart-mind of many modern people. It was expounded by Plato for one, and can be found in many other belief systems throughout history, up to the present where it appears as the Gaia principle.

In this sense, the physical world is perceived to have a soul or spirit no less than we human beings have.  In the same way, moreover, that “the world” is actually all the things within it, including human beings, “the world soul” is actually all the individual souls within it, including human beings.  But where does this concept come from—and what does it have to do with a world butterfly?

As to the first point:  The world soul does not originate as a thought but, rather, as a sensation.  It is the inevitable result of nature mysticism, of lives so thoroughly immersed in the natural world that they can sense the one soul of which they are a part and experience their unity with it consciously.  This unifying experience of the underlying reality is what gives rise to the spiritual perceptions and practices known as animism and shamanism.

In The Toltec I Ching, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and I make the point that people differ only in the degree of their sensitivity to the one soul.  Here is an excerpt from Hexagram 2, Sensing Creation—

Image:  A female warrior is naked, immersed in water and surrounded by flowers.  A wellspring of water rises from between her hands.  The water drops are drawn as beads of jade in order to portray the precious nature of that which sustains life.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the great courage essential to creating a meaningful life.  The female warrior symbolizes the way of nurturing and encouraging human nature that increases its sensitivity and loving-kindness.  Being naked means that nothing stands between you and the world.  Being immersed in water means that you plunge whole-heartedly into the spirit of that which nurtures all.  Being surrounded by flowers means that you perceive the perfection of the world as it truly is:  each moment blossoms perfect and whole, then passes like a fading flower—each perfection born into the world must die.  The wellspring of water symbolizes the inexhaustible source of courage that allows you to use your awareness of mortality to more profoundly experience the joy and sorrow inherent within every encounter.  In this sense, the flowers and the water signify not only the wisdom attained through experience, but the aesthetic sensibilities to be moved by a beauty and truth not always apparent to others.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you open your spirit to the overwhelming perfection of the world and share your vision with all you touch.

Keeping in mind that every individual is a spirit warrior with a feminine and masculine half, the formula for increasing our sensitivity to the unseen world soul can be phrased like this:  The feminine half of the spirit warrior collects the movement and energy of the unseen forces, calming them and bringing them together in harmony, making a place for them to gather strength and then making that source of benefit open and available to all.

This calming of the spirit in order to make a place, much like a womb, for the world soul to gestate in stillness and then be born in acts of benefit is an age-old formula by which men and women across cultures have attained states of profound bliss and meaningful success.

As to the second point:  The world psyche, like the individual human psyche, grows and evolves without limit.  Its only constant is one of change, always seeking further refinement and a higher order of universal benevolence.  Its only unchanging law is that of unending metamorphosis—what better symbol of our collective spiritual metamorphosis than the world butterfly?

~

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.

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