In order to exercise the right to change things for the better, we must first allow ourselves to be changed for the better.  This means allowing the relative self to be changed by the true self.  Voluntarily submitting to the higher self’s purpose like this allows the relative self to awaken to the life within its life, to remember the life beyond its life—by becoming more than just the sum of our body’s experiences, we let go of the personal history that has conditioned our reactions and we begin acting without being constrained by precedents and preconceptions.  Rather than acting only on our own interests, we become devoted to making things better for the people, animals, and nature around us.  When we allow ourselves to be changed by the true self, in other words, we are no longer concerned with how circumstances affect us—what concerns us is how we affect the circumstances around us.

Undergoing this self-transformation leads us to the Fourth Paradox Of Wisdom:  it is only by voluntarily submitting to the will of the true self that the relative self achieves Autonomy—it is only by recognizing its dependence on the true self that the relative self achieves real independence. But the will, ambition, and impatience of the relative self are not easily tamed and it requires sincere dedication to the true self’s purpose if we are to master the kind of self-control that carries us along the path of wisdom.

We may be devoted to changing things for the better, for example, but the interconnectedness of everything means our actions become part of a web of causes that is interwoven in increasingly complex ways, making it impossible to ever predict the ultimate effects of any single action.  This is why one of the principal symptoms of wisdom is humility:  we can act in good faith that our motive will guide our action to its intended effect, but we must not harbor the pretense of knowing its final outcome.  To exercise creative power and the right to change things for the better without a firm grasp of the governing principles is the precise opposite of wisdom.

Humility, then, is the practical face of Autonomy:  we can be devoted to changing things for the better, but we cannot be attached to the results of our efforts.  Rather than imagining we can control all the potential ways our actions might interact with all other actions over time, we must free ourselves from the relative self’s perspective and adopt that of the true self:  the successful fulfillment of the true self’s purpose cannot be understood as spanning a single lifetime but, rather, must be viewed as a long-term enterprise spanning many lifetimes.

Freedom, therefore, is the ideal face of Autonomy—the freedom to act and react without being unduly influenced by externals, the freedom to act and react without being controlled by past experiences, the freedom to act and react without being inhibited by fears and expectations of the future.

The freedom, in other words, of the untroubled spirit.

And herein lies the difference between freedom and imprisonment—for the untroubled spirit is untroubled no matter how difficult things get, whereas the troubled spirit is troubled no matter how good things get.

If we are to exercise the freedom of the untroubled spirit, we need to relinquish control of events and take control of the troubled spirit—yet because this is the precise opposite of how most people conduct themselves, we come across few people after whom we can model our behavior.  Even though this makes finding our way in life more difficult, it does force us to find our own way.  There was, of course, a first enlightened person.  A first healer.  A first shaman.  A first artist.  A first poet.  A first storyteller.  Autonomy forces us to live as if we were each the first person to see the world and respond to it in a wholly unpremeditated and original way.

Freedom is what happens when the relative self and the absolute self act as one.

Autonomy must not become just another kind of strength to be relied upon in our effort to overcome others in the competition for social resources.  It needs to be the center from which we act and feel and remember.  It needs to replace the sense of identity that has been unintentionally patched together by the relative self through its reactions to the body’s experiences.  Just as the vulnerable caddis worm crawls along the streambed picking up bits of debris it passes and then attaching them to its body to make a protective shell, the relative self builds up a reassuring sense of identity by piecing together a personal history out of the random events to which the body has been exposed.  Autonomy needs to become the sense of self from which all our actions and reactions arise without any ulterior motives.  Once our only motive is the creation of constructive change, the only obstacle to success is our desire to succeed:  by detaching our attention from any sense of success and failure, we have already succeeded in shifting our sense of personal purpose away from what is created and toward the act of creating.

Herein lies the short path to Autonomy.  By experiencing the act of creating first-hand, we are led to recognize that all of creation stems from a single source.  And by withdrawing our attention from the creation itself, we are subsequently led to experience the inexpressible purpose driving the act of creating itself.  After that experience, it is no longer possible to create anything counter to the underlying purpose to the whole of creation:  from that point on, our personal purpose is wholly aligned with the single purpose of the universal source.  Taking an active part in the universal act of creating, in other words, leads us to discover our own personal purpose in the grand scheme of things and, thereby, the unique sense of identity that transcends our individual lifetimes.  The short path to Autonomy runs straight through the quagmire of cultural conditioning without ever diverging into the quicksand of self-importance.

With this background in mind, let us turn to our training exercises and receive, in the experiences they engender, the answers that the Lesson Of Autonomy gives to our most stubborn questions.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with eyes closed, silently repeating to yourself, My Heart Is Another Sun.  Concentrate your attention on the center of your chest, visualizing a grapefruit-sized sun there radiating light and warmth out into the world.  Allow the visualization to sink into your emotions, so that the sun-heart within your chest emits unconditional loving-kindness and goodwill out into the world.  After these first steps are accomplished, allow the emotional feelings to sink deeper yet into your material body, producing physical sensations of a corporeal sun from which emanate life-sustaining rays of golden light.  After this stage of the training is mastered, carry the exercise out during all your daily activities until it becomes second nature.  Keep in mind that no shadow can ever fall upon the sun as you silently repeat the catch-phrase, My Heart Is Another Sun.

Exercise Two—Sit quietly with eyes closed, visualizing a spider web upon whose every knot there gleams a dewdrop.  Visualize further that each of these many dewdrops is reflecting every other dewdrop and, indeed, that each dewdrop is reflecting the whole of all the dewdrops together.  Once you can sustain this image, place yourself in the visualization as one of the dewdrops and then place everyone and everything you know as the other dewdrops on the web.  Allow yourself to feel how you are reflected in each of those dewdrops.  Allow yourself to feel how everyone and everything you know is reflected in you.  As you stabilize this image, allowing yourself to feel both how each dewdrop is reflected in the whole and the whole is reflected in each dewdrop, silently repeat the catch-phrase, All In One, One In All. When this stage of the exercise is mastered, extend the spider web to infinity and eternity, allowing everything in all places and in all times to become a dewdrop similarly fixed on the living web of creation, radiating All In One, One In All.

Ultimately Autonomy means to sense the omnipresent Act Of Creating and then aligning ourselves with it rather than going along with those who are not aware they are being motivated in large part by a mass hypnosis that has, over the generations, settled upon human nature.  Strive to see the world the way it really is rather than allowing yourself to be unduly influenced by the received wisdom of civilization, since that world view is the one that has created the history of suffering we are trying to change.  True Autonomy allows us to exercise freedom of perception and judgment, even as it draws us into a more passionate and compassionate involvement with the times in which we live.  Similarly, true strength allows us to defeat the self-defeating habits of thought, feeling, and memory that make us confuse weakness for strength, failure for success, and folly for wisdom.

Of all the exercises in this training regimen, the Lesson Of Autonomy is the most trying, for it demands the most of us, prodding us on to climb heights we never imagined attempting.  So take your time, re-read the background material regularly, and practice the exercises by steeping yourself in the feelings they evoke.  Move from the abstract to the bodily, making your experiences ever more concrete.  What we are searching for is not something that happens to us—it is something that we ourselves produce.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

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.

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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Such is the script inscribed on the memory stone of my dying.

Some six years ago, I was fortunate enough to die, fully conscious, for the two or three minutes it took the emergency room staff to revive me.  And, as validated in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, I experienced those few moments in the after-life state as a much longer period of time.  As it happened to me, I catapulted out of my body into a sphere of conscious light, a single radiant presence within which everything that exists, had existed, or ever will exist, was present at the same time.  Each of us was likewise a sphere of conscious light, a microcosm of the greater sphere of which we were a part.

Each of us was, in fact, an Idea within the One Mind.  This constituted our true self or essential identity, our meaning as established in relation to all the other Ideas in reality.  We were constantly coming into contact with other Ideas in both intentional and accidental ways.  And “contact” there was of a very specific kind, for the act of one sphere touching another meant that all that those Ideas held instantaneously passed between them without friction or resistance.  I learned much more in that brief stay there than I could in many lifetimes here.

I mention my personal experience to make it clear that I am not constructing a mental framework for intellectual amusement.  What happened to me went straight to my heart, only later to be sorted out and given words.  Which has made me realize that we Ideas are not cold fragments of rationality and reason but, rather, warm reflections of passion and compassion.

It is this profoundly moving emotional aspect of the nature of Ideas that has most greatly impacted me in the time since I returned to my body.

I understand One Mind to mean that everything, material and immaterial, is of one substance, is of one unitary indivisible nature.  One Being.  One Presence, Alive and Aware throughout all Creation.

Likewise, I understand Idea to refer to each and every thing, material or immaterial, animate or inanimate, as an elemental and intrinsic Thought in the Living Awareness of the One Mind.  Each stone.  Each star.  Each molecule.  Each electron.  Each plant.  Each animal.  Each person.

Which is why the ancient indigenous lifeways feel so natural to me.  And why I choose the lifeway of an animist.

It is that singular word Spirit that combines the twin concepts of heart and mind—of profound emotion and identifying thought—into a single harmonious symbol.  It is in the ancient lifeways that we find an un-self-conscious participation in the natural world based on the sense of self-knowing:  Since everything is Spirit, then everything shares a common way of being.  And since I am half form and half formless—which is to say, half body and half spirit—then other things are likewise half form and half formless.

Every other thing in creation, in other words,  is likewise alive and aware, just as I am, each of us sacred vessels of the One Spirit.

Every other thing in creation, therefore, is likewise a person, whether a human being or not, and is to be treated with all the respect and purity of intent with which one would address the One Spirit itself.

Such a lifeway arises from a deep-seated love of Nature.  A constant sense of awe in the face of Creation.  A sincere appreciation of the sacredness of everything.

And it leads to spontaneous and natural intimacy between Ideas.  Immediate communion between the individual and the One.  Universal loving-kindness among all Creation.

Everything arises from the same font of Spirit.  Form Itself is Spirit.  There is no other from which we must protect ourselves or which we ought to fear.  The material universe and all its stones and rivers and trees and animals and people arise from the same origin.  Belong to the same family.  Deserve the same peace and prospering.  When we treat nature and humanity and all our creations as The Sacred, as the living awareness of the One Mind, all the walls around us crumble, our hearts open in gratitude, and our every thought, word, and deed manifests good will.

I repeat here what I learned there when I came into contact with other spheres of conscious light:  This road—the road of treating everything as a sacred person, including other people and including ourselves—this road is the shortcut to peace of mind, bliss, and self-liberation.  It is a straight-forward discipline that trains us to see through the surface of appearances and into the living meaning of whatever has engaged our attention.  It is a wide open gateway to awakening here in this lifetime to our own individual and timeless Idea.  It is the well-worn path of freedom in every sense.

It is, in a word, the path of the spirit warrior, of men and women who sincerely undertake the task of defeating their enemy-within by moving away from self-defeating thoughts, feelings, and memories and towards a self-liberating presence within the ongoing universal Act of Creation.

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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.

~

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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Inspired action flows spontaneously from an inspired mind.

When we replace trivial and undignified thoughts with substantial and ennobling ones, we are focused ahead of time on perceiving and interpreting events in the best possible light.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to the pursuit of self-interest and channel it into acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired mind flows spontaneously from an inspired heart.

When we replace selfish and self-important feelings with generous and all-embracing ones, we are positioning ourselves ahead of time to respond to events with loving-kindness and goodwill toward all.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to self-defeating attitudes and channel it into creative acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired heart flows spontaneously from being attuned to this single wish of the Living Whole:  that all benefit as one.

But how are we to give up our separate sense of self-importance and open our heart to this living wish when so many around us are acting out of greed, superstition and fear?  How are we to refine our thoughts and emotions when we are bombarded from every quarter with ever more sophisticated attempts to capture our attention?

It is one of the oldest lessons:  If your intention is clear of ulterior motives, then even distractions and confusion are The Way.

Self-defeating thoughts and emotions, from this point of view, are viewed as the enemy-within, the constellation of habit attitudes and habit behaviors that constantly throw up stumbling blocks to the spirit warrior’s progress.  Indeed, the spirit warrior is best defined as a woman or man who clarifies their intention by consciously training to (1) recognize Spirit within all matter and, (2) defeat the self-defeating habits of the enemy-within.

Freeing our intention of ulterior motives by focusing on these two goals, we find that confronting the distractions and confusion thrown up by the enemy-within becomes more like practicing with a sparring partner than an out-and-out battle.  More and more, the enemy-within is experienced as an artificial sense of self that was formed by the conditioning it received from family and culture.  As we get to know it better, it seems most like a recurring dream opponent trying to awaken us to our true potential.

For example, even if we were born to the same parents on the same day, it is obvious that were we then raised in a completely different culture, say the Mbuti of central Africa or the Inuit of the Arctic tundra, we would have a completely different personality, a completely different sense of self in relationship to the world-at-large.  Once the hollowness of this illusory, conditioned, self is fully experienced—like recognizing that the distorted image in a funhouse mirror is not our true reflection—we stop reacting automatically to events around us.  Our actions become more creative, more spontaneous, and meet with greater success.

In this sense, inspired action, an inspired mind, an inspired heart, and attunement to the wish of the Living Whole all spring from living each moment with an intention free of ulterior motives.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

Spirit, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

When we clear our intention of ulterior motives, we are no longer beleaguered by our inner talk—Spirit rushes in to fill the clearing we have made for it.  Our heart-mind becomes its nest.

And of what is this nest constructed?

Lessons:  the accrued wisdom of the ancients, who first learned to stop their inner talk and then recorded what Spirit whispered to them in that shining silence.

By taking Spirit’s voice to heart, we, like the ancients, replace unworthy and self-destructive thoughts and emotions with ennobling and beneficial ones.

An Oracle is the voice of Spirit, speaking to us across the ages in the language of lessons.

Lessons are wisdom teachings, a body of ethical principles that can be adapted to the ever-changing circumstances of life.  As in sailing, you don’t set your sails to go with the wind in the same way you do to tack against the wind—nor do you drop anchor in the open sea just because it works when you are in port.  Lessons and their ethics guide our responses to change. Lessons make us better adapted to events, more competent, more improvisational, less predictable, and more creative.  Their ethics make us more generous, more compassionate, less competitive, more collaborative, and more successful.

The Toltec I Ching incorporates the lessons and ethics of the Oracles of two of the world’s great civilizations.  From ancient Mesoamerica, comes the Oracle of the Tonalpoalli, or Sacred Calendar, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Toltec sages.  From ancient China, comes the Oracle of the I Ching, or Book of Change, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Taoist sages.  We invite you to explore further your own inner path—and to carry the timeless wisdom of the ancients back into these troubled times.

This article appeared originally in Volume 8, Number 4 of Evolve! magazine.

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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For the ancient Toltecs and the civilizations they inspired, the highest expression of their lifeway was embodied in the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song.

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

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

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

This is a lifeway, in other words, of spirit warriors, those who exert constant effort to defeat their self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.  It is the lifeway of those who use death to awaken authentic gratitude for being alive and sharing this shape-shifting perfection with others.  When we experience it fully, Flower evokes a kind of spiritual nostalgia for the present moment that ennobles us and all our lives touch.

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

Treating all things as miracles that pass away too soon, our thoughts, speech and actions take on a new caliber and timbre.  We concentrate on what is present instead of what is absent and we discover new depths of patience and tolerance.  Our lives take on greater meaning and our contributions meet with greater success.  We treat everything and everyone more nobly and we are enriched immeasurably.

As a spiritual practice, Flower-and-Song enters each moment asking two questions:  What is in front of me?  How am I treating it?

What is in front of me? opens us to the ultimately unknowable nature of the world.  By questioning the absolute nature of our perceptions, we come to accept the extraordinary mystery everywhere veiled by ordinary appearances.  It is a question that, once taken seriously, forces to us to look closer at the world:  Is this merely what I have become accustomed to seeing through daily contact—or is it the sea of spirit in all its manifest forms?

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

In our book, The Toltec I Ching, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and I discuss the deeper implications of such a spiritual practice—

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

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

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

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

The Lifeway of Flower-and-Song, then, is a spiritual practice of Inner Activism—it sensitizes us to our tendencies toward self-interest and alienation, replacing self-defeating habits with those of spontaneity, creativity, and good will.  It shifts our focus away from personal success toward a heartfelt longing for peace and prospering for all.

And it constantly reminds us that the Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach if we but dare hold out our hand.

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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 great Chinese sage Chuang Tzu calls our attention to a strange tree beside the road.  Its bark is so tough that no ax can penetrate it, its wood is so twisted that it cannot be split or used for carpentry.  We can imagine this ancient tree, growing in the most dramatic and inspiring way, its leaves no good for tea, its fruit no good for medicine.  Of what value is this Useless Tree?

As Chuang Tzu points out, perhaps we ought to simply seek out its shade and be grateful for a place to rest or even admire the uniqueness of its form and beauty—perhaps we ought, in other words, to seek its true usefulness instead of pressing our own wants on it.

He goes further, however, to point out that the tree is ancient—and indeed, will continue to go on as it is—precisely because it cannot be exploited.  It remains true to its nature, so its life is not cut short by the whims of others.  Because it cannot be exploited, it lives on to fulfill its destiny of inspiring all who value the sublimely useless.

Objects of inspiration capture our attention because they defy our attempts to categorize them or domesticate them or explain them away.  They are troublesome in the sense that they speak to an older part of us, one that longs for symbolic communication, authenticating our own symbolic self.  And they can be particularly troublesome when their symbolic utterances precede actual events, as if there exists an underlying order to the world that synchronizes its happenings in a way that is completely invisible to our human senses.

Like the Useless Tree, they root alongside the road, offering us a place to rest and seek inspiration but oblivious to all who pass oblivious to their antiquity.  Such objects of inspiration are sublimely useless, beyond the exploitation of our own wants, precisely because they themselves are inspired.  Emerging out of the mists of prehistory, like great pyramids suddenly revealed by evaporating fog, they speak the language of our common ancestors.  They speak the language of our common soul.

The I Ching of ancient China is one such monument.  The Mayan Calendar of ancient Mesoamerica is another.  Both are divinatory systems that have survived now for more than three thousand years.  Both will still be standing, offering respite and inspiration, three thousand years from now.  They will outlive us as they have outlived all those other generations.

Troublesome indeed.  They beg so many questions.  Like the great pyramids, we wonder at how they were built in the first place, who conceived of their form and symmetry, what was the original source of their own inspiration.  But unlike pyramids that are built stone-by-stone, the I Ching had to emerge full-blown as a flower blooming overnight—what mind grasped the whole of its system all at once?  And unlike pyramids that are built stone-by-stone, the Sacred Calendar had to emerge full-blown as a flower blooming overnight—what mind grasped the whole of its system all at once?  Troublesome indeed.

Particularly now.  Because it is now that the Mayan Calendar completes its 5,128-year cycle.

On December 21st, 2012, the Winter Solstice, the Long Count of the ancient Mayans will arrive at the last day of its journey through the 13 Baktuns that comprise the Grand Cycle of 1,872,000 days.  Yes, that is correct:  the Mayan Calendar, originating among some of the world’s greatest astronomers and mathematicians of antiquity, comes to an end after nearly two million days, precisely on the Winter Solstice of 2012.

Troublesome indeed.  What are we to make of this strange coincidence?  Certainly it has now become a cultural meme of the first magnitude, propagated by an apocalyptic movie, dozens of knowledgeable books, and thousands of concerned websites.  The noise, for those tuning into the conversation, is an escalating crescendo of mixed messages and contradictory predictions.

What are we to make of this strange coincidence?  Here we are, alive at the time that the Mayan Calendar completes its Grand Cycle.  The stirring of voices around us grows louder with warnings, alarm, and scientific debunkings.  The media has jumped into the fray with both feet now and its ratings-driven programming requires as sensational an approach as possible.

I have written elsewhere in these blog postings about the actual mechanics and meanings of the Sacred Calendar, as well as the tendencies of groups to move unconsciously as a herd, so I am not going to cover that ground again here.  At the suggestion of Paul Cash of Larson Publications, I have consulted the Oracle of The Toltec I Ching regarding the meaning of this strange coincidence and what changes this 2012 cultural meme augurs.

With all this in mind, I cast the Oracle on November 14, 2009, and received an answer of Hexagram #5, Restoring Wholeness.  The result contained no line changes, indicating a relatively lengthy period—at least two years long—of similar change.  In other words, there may be fluctuations in the degree of change but not in kind.  The clearest way to think of this is that each Hexagram represents a season:  although every day in summer may bring some changes, they are within the context of summer and do not partake of the spirit of another season until that one passes.  We are entering the situation of Restoring Wholeness and there are no prevailing trends within in it signaling a move into another situation any time in the near future.

The term Restoring Wholeness, of course, indicates first and foremost that the situation we are coming out of is one of division, conflict, and alienation—a not-too-far-off description of the past few years of our collective, even global, experience.  Since the 2012 cultural meme has expanded beyond any borders in particular and is considered significant in nearly every country in the world, the present reading should address the global human situation as well as possible.

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 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.

The most obvious aspects of this hexagram are the discrepancies between the healer and the warrior.  She is aged, wise and benevolent.  He is young, inexperienced and independent.  She is the ancient healer, whose vitality is no longer that of the young.  He is the youthful warrior, whose vitality is not yet that of the aged.  In terms of the global rift whose wholeness requires restoration, she symbolizes the older naturalistic worldview of heart-based spirituality, while he symbolizes the newer technological worldview of head-based scientific materialism.  She is the nature mystic, attuned to and immersed in the sacredness of everything.  He is the manipulator of nature, the controller bending dead matter and insentient life to his will.

Interpreting the Oracle’s answer in terms of these two worldviews is dictated by the context of the question, which seeks to uncover the meaning behind the confluence of the ending of the Mayan Calendar and the way the modern mind is reacting to it.

These worldviews are no longer confined to ethnic cultures or geographical regions, of course.  Now entire sub-cultures of people living in the technological culture, for example, have abandoned the worldview of matter as dead and insentient, taking up a lifeway of revering the sacred in every form.  This movement back towards the animistic—or what is often thought of as the shamanistic—worldview can be seen as the vanguard of the coming widespread restoration of humanity’s ruptured wholeness.  It is not necessary to recapitulate all the elements of that rupture.  Everyone in the world knows that things cannot continue in this way. We have entered the time of Restoring Wholeness.

This Hexagram says that nature and people will no longer be treated as disposable resources.  Heartless greed and cold intellectualism will no longer make policy for the whole of nature and humanity.  The head is a good adviser but a heartless tyrant when allowed to rule.  The newer worldview of technological hubris will voluntarily step out of the leadership position and take up a power-sharing stance with the older worldview of openhearted reverence for all of nature and humanity.  The head is gradually realizing it is part of this relationship between spirit and matter.

Knowledge is not wisdom.  Knowing how to wreak havoc is not the same as having the wisdom not to do so.  Knowing how to harm ourselves is not the same as having the wisdom not to do so.  The young warrior in this hexagram knows how to produce vast technological changes but not how to reverse their unintended consequences.  The old healer in this hexagram knows how to avoid creating unintended consequences by sustaining a more simplified, if less materially extravagant, lifeway.

The warrior’s arrowhead symbolizes the directness of his approach to matters.  The drawback to this strategy is that different circumstances require different approaches—the approach cannot always be direct and purposeful action.  Such a one-sided focus on doing creates tremendous stress on the body.  Those brought up in a worldview of doing are constantly frustrated by the fact that they cannot act yet, or that they missed the opportunity to act, or that increasing competition among other actors conflicts with their own actions.  Those brought up learning how to change things do not learn how to accept things that do not need changing.  This fundamental level of chronic stress upsets the body’s natural response to life, causing poor sleep, an impaired immune system, a heightened sense of alarm, anxiety, and impaired judgment.  Impaired judgment—not the best resource for people bent on doing at every turn.

Awareness is.  Will does.

The healer’s medicine, the power to restore wholeness, is based on the ability to be with things.  This is not nearly as nebulous as it sounds to the modern mind, which generally translates being with things as not doing anything.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Or closer.

Being with things means being a part of things, feeling ourselves a part of things, sensing the world around us—indeed, the entire universe—as the larger body of which we are an integral part.  So not doing anything does not describe the active process of psychologically merging with the one body of creation.  It requires dropping away boundaries of the self-other duality and feeling ourselves fully immersed in the Whole, just as each of our cells is fully immersed in our bodies and each fish is part of the sea.   On the other hand, not doing anything does precisely describe the ancient worldview, since it is the world itself that is doing and any active striving on our part to exert our own will on things inevitably results in unintended consequences. The ability to move along with the flow of change, making sure that all people and animals and plants are living in peace and shared prospering, is an ancient art and one built on the wisdom of sustaining a lifeway that is in harmony and balance with the entire world.  Of what good is progress, in other words, if it leaves the majority of people in the world behind and drives other species into extinction and sows the seeds of our own destruction in the environment?

Wisdom is.  Knowledge does.

By answering with this hexagram, the Oracle is saying to us all, the solution is not coming from outside you:  you must commit to an extended period of healing this immature warrior mentality—only then will you have the sense of belonging together that you need to move forward as an entire world.

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. Because you make yourself whole again, you succeed in bringing benefit to others likewise seeking to restore their own wholeness.

Restoring wholeness with the world is an essential step.  But real wisdom knows when to open the heart to compassion and forgiveness.  Old enemies will find the profoundest source of relief and joy as they put away arms and forget old wrongs.  Difficult as it is to imagine before it has happened, this will feel like the most natural and foreordained of events once it has occurred.  The worldview of the nature mystic fosters not just mutual respect among all but reverence, love and adoration.  Life cannot hate life.  Life cannot hold one life more sacred than another.  The change that is coming is one of universal reverence—we will be One again once we hold the sacredness of all things in our hearts, we will be Whole again once we feel nothing but benevolence and good will toward all.  The lost art of regeneration is a soul art:  it is the forgotten practice of dissolving guilt, anger, hatred, revenge, and hostility with the open heart of joyous gratitude.  It is the lost soul art of dropping every expectation that joy is going to come from outside and setting forth to spend every moment producing joy regardless of circumstances.

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.

The Oracle closes with these final words regarding the intent we need to carry forth with us into the coming time of Restoring Wholeness.  The day-to-day practice involves constantly reminding ourselves that this is not the past.  We must all be willing to start over, recognizing that there is more than enough blame to go around on all sides and that the old worldview of forever keeping old animosities alive by constantly recounting the wrongs of history needs to be replaced with a worldview of universal amnesty and goodwill.  The past is dead, long live the present.

Everyone in the world knows that things cannot go on like this any longer.

The Oracle says everyone in the world is on the verge of acquiring the wisdom to act on that knowledge.

The Golden Age of Humanity is within our grasp if we will but dare reach out our hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Oracle Cast  2 June 2009

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 2012 Imago Gene

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Oracle cast Summer Solstice, 2009

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.   Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

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