Objects of inspiration capture our attention because they defy our attempts to categorize them or domesticate them or explain them away.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Such objects of inspiration are sublimely useless<\/em>, beyond the exploitation of our own wants, precisely because they themselves<\/em> are inspired.\u00a0 Emerging out of the mists of prehistory, like great pyramids suddenly revealed by evaporating fog, they speak the language of our common ancestors.\u00a0 They speak the language of our common soul.<\/p>\n The I Ching<\/em> of ancient China is one such monument.\u00a0 The Mayan Calendar<\/em> of ancient Mesoamerica is another.\u00a0 Both are divinatory systems that have survived now for more than three thousand years.\u00a0 Both will still be standing, offering respite and inspiration, three thousand years from now.\u00a0 They will outlive us as they have outlived all those other generations.<\/p>\n Troublesome indeed.\u00a0 They beg so many questions.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But unlike pyramids that are built stone-by-stone, the I Ching<\/em> had to emerge full-blown as a flower blooming overnight\u2014what mind grasped the whole of its system all at once? \u00a0And unlike pyramids that are built stone-by-stone, the Sacred Calendar<\/em> had to emerge full-blown as a flower blooming overnight\u2014what mind grasped the whole of its system all at once?\u00a0 Troublesome indeed.<\/p>\n Particularly now.\u00a0 Because it is now that the Mayan Calendar completes its 5,128-year cycle.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Yes, that is correct:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Troublesome indeed.\u00a0 What are we to make of this strange coincidence?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The noise, for those tuning into the conversation, is an escalating crescendo of mixed messages and contradictory predictions.<\/p>\n What are we to make of this strange coincidence?\u00a0 Here we are, alive at the time that the Mayan Calendar completes its Grand Cycle.\u00a0 The stirring of voices around us grows louder with warnings, alarm, and scientific debunkings.\u00a0 The media has jumped into the fray with both feet now and its ratings-driven programming requires as sensational an approach as possible.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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<\/em> augurs.<\/p>\n With all this in mind, I cast the Oracle on November 14, 2009, and received an answer of Hexagram #5, Restoring Wholeness<\/em>.\u00a0 The result contained no line changes, indicating a relatively lengthy period\u2014at least two years long\u2014of similar change<\/em>.\u00a0 In other words, there may be fluctuations in the degree<\/em> of change but not in kind<\/em>.\u00a0 The clearest way to think of this is that each Hexagram represents a season:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We are entering the situation of Restoring Wholeness<\/em> and there are no prevailing trends within in it signaling a move into another situation any time in the near future.<\/p>\n The term Restoring Wholeness<\/em>, of course, indicates first and foremost that the situation we are coming out of is one of division, conflict, and alienation\u2014a not-too-far-off description of the past few years of our collective, even global, experience.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Image<\/strong>:\u00a0 An old woman heals a young male warrior, who wears an arrowhead necklace.\u00a0 While she chants an ancient curing song, she places a lizard on his shoulder and administers purifying herbs and water.<\/p>\n \n Interpretation<\/strong>:\u00a0 This hexagram depicts great benefit<\/em> fulfilling great need<\/em>.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Taken together, they symbolize the exchange of forces needed to heal old wounds and enable you to bring benefit<\/em> to all around you.\u00a0 The herbs symbolize the feminine medicines of compassion and the understanding of relationships.\u00a0 The arrowhead represents the masculine medicines of single-mindedness and the pursuit of new experiences.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The lizard, the one who grows back its tail, represents the spiritual medicine of regeneration whereby the original state of wholeness is restored.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Taken together, these symbols mean that you reclaim your spiritual birthright of indivisible wholeness.<\/p>\n The most obvious aspects of this hexagram are the discrepancies between the healer and the warrior.\u00a0 She is aged, wise and benevolent.\u00a0 He is young, inexperienced and independent.\u00a0 She is the ancient healer, whose vitality is no longer that of the young.\u00a0 He is the youthful warrior, whose vitality is not yet that of the aged.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She is the nature mystic, attuned to and immersed in the sacredness of everything.\u00a0 He is the manipulator of nature, the controller bending dead matter and insentient life to his will.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n These worldviews are no longer confined to ethnic cultures or geographical regions, of course.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This movement back towards the animistic\u2014or what is often thought of as the shamanistic\u2014worldview can be seen as the vanguard of the coming widespread restoration of humanity’s ruptured wholeness.\u00a0 It is not necessary to recapitulate all the elements of that rupture.\u00a0 Everyone in the world knows that things cannot continue in this way. We have entered the time of Restoring Wholeness<\/em>.<\/p>\n This Hexagram says that nature and people will no longer be treated as disposable resources.\u00a0 Heartless greed and cold intellectualism will no longer make policy for the whole of nature and humanity.\u00a0 The head is a good adviser but a heartless tyrant when allowed to rule.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The head is gradually realizing it is part of this relationship between spirit and matter.<\/p>\n Knowledge is not wisdom.\u00a0 Knowing how to wreak havoc is not the same as having the wisdom not to do so.\u00a0 Knowing how to harm ourselves is not the same as having the wisdom not to do so.\u00a0 The young warrior in this hexagram knows how to produce vast technological changes but not how to reverse their unintended consequences.\u00a0 The old healer in this hexagram knows how to avoid creating unintended consequences by sustaining a more simplified, if less materially extravagant, lifeway.<\/p>\n The warrior’s arrowhead symbolizes the directness of his approach to matters.\u00a0 The drawback to this strategy is that different circumstances require different approaches\u2014the approach cannot always be direct and purposeful action<\/em>.\u00a0 Such a one-sided focus on doing<\/em> creates tremendous stress on the body.\u00a0 Those brought up in a worldview of doing<\/em> 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.\u00a0 Those brought up learning how to change things do not learn how to accept things that do not need changing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Impaired judgment<\/em>\u2014not the best resource for people bent on doing<\/em> at every turn.<\/p>\n Awareness is<\/em>.\u00a0 Will does<\/em>.<\/p>\n The healer’s medicine, the power to restore wholeness, is based on the ability to be<\/em> with things.\u00a0 This is not nearly as nebulous as it sounds to the modern mind, which generally translates being with things<\/em> as not doing anything<\/em>.\u00a0 Nothing could be farther from the truth.\u00a0 Or closer.<\/p>\n Being with things<\/em> means being a part of things, feeling ourselves a part of things, sensing the world around us\u2014indeed, the entire universe\u2014as the larger body of which we are an integral part.\u00a0 So not doing anything<\/em> does not describe the active process of psychologically merging with the one body of creation.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, not doing anything<\/em> does precisely describe the ancient worldview, since it is the world itself that is doing<\/em> 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.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n Wisdom is<\/em>.\u00a0 Knowledge does<\/em>.<\/p>\n By answering with this hexagram, the Oracle is saying to us all, the solution is not coming from outside you:\u00a0 you must commit to an extended period of healing this immature warrior mentality\u2014only then will you have the sense of belonging together that you need to move forward as an entire world.<\/em><\/p>\n Action<\/strong>:\u00a0 The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior replenish one another.\u00a0 It is a time for seeking new experiences that will broaden your vistas and deepen your joy of life.\u00a0 Your innate wisdom and compassion do not have their source in thought but, rather, in life\u2014they are not replenished by good intentions but, rather, by meaningful experiences.\u00a0 In order for a well to bring benefit<\/em> to others, it must tap into the unseen river of benefit<\/em> flowing beneath the surface of the world of the senses.\u00a0 Take no comfort in your accomplishments or knowledge now.\u00a0 Instead, look to your need<\/em> 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<\/em> to others likewise seeking to restore their own wholeness.<\/p>\n Restoring wholeness with the world is an essential step.\u00a0 But real wisdom knows when to open the heart to compassion and forgiveness.\u00a0 Old enemies will find the profoundest source of relief and joy as they put away arms and forget old wrongs.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The worldview of the nature mystic fosters not just mutual respect among all but reverence, love and adoration.\u00a0 Life cannot hate life.\u00a0 Life cannot hold one life more sacred than another.\u00a0 The change that is coming is one of universal reverence\u2014we 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.\u00a0 The lost art of regeneration is a soul art<\/em>:\u00a0 it is the forgotten practice of dissolving guilt, anger, hatred, revenge, and hostility with the open heart of joyous gratitude.\u00a0 It is the lost soul art<\/em> of dropping every expectation that joy is going to come from outside and setting forth to spend every moment producing joy regardless of circumstances<\/em>.<\/p>\n Intent<\/strong>:\u00a0 When people\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But disguise it they do, for the impact of many injuries is either long-forgotten or unrecognized.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At the first sign of distress, the wounded warrior must immediately name the present and not allow the past wound to be re-opened.\u00a0 Using the beneficial masculine force in this way allows you to keep the past from infecting the present.<\/p>\n The Oracle closes with these final words regarding the intent we need to carry forth with us into the coming time of Restoring Wholeness<\/em>.\u00a0 The day-to-day practice involves constantly reminding ourselves that this<\/em> is not the past.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The past is dead, long live the present.<\/p>\n Everyone in the world knows that things cannot go on like this any longer.<\/p>\n The Oracle says everyone in the world is on the verge of acquiring the wisdom to act on that knowledge.<\/p>\n The Golden Age of Humanity is within our grasp if we will but dare reach out our hand.<\/p>\n \n .<\/p>\n The Toltec I Ching<\/em><\/a>, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.\u00a0 It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.\u00a0 Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World<\/em> hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The great Chinese sage Chuang Tzu calls our attention to a strange tree beside the road.\u00a0 Its bark is so tough that no ax can penetrate it, its wood is so twisted that it cannot be split or used for … Continue reading ![\"05](\"http:\/\/www.thetolteciching.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/05-copy.jpg\" "\\"05")
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