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As I write during this most sacred of times, whether you celebrate the Spring Equinox and Ostara (Oestera-Eostre-Eastre), the festival of the cycle of the seasons, the death and return of the sun, the divinity of the radiant dawn, or Passover (Pesach) which commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt, or Easter (Pascha) a festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, for which scholars point out certain parallels in the Sumerian epic of Inanna, this passage of time is a season of rebirth, renewal, the freshness of spring rains, scent of blooming flowers and new beginnings.

The divination for this week: HEXAGRAM 41: CONTENTMENT WATER within, LAKE without: Mystery within, Wonder without

There are no changing lines, which means it is the Hexagram of the present moment, the time rests the same.

Lake outside symbolizes happiness, communion, while Water inside symbolizes ones’ own mysterious nature. The image is that of hidden water beneath a Lake, signifying an inexhaustible source of well being for all…it is a highly rewarding time of collaboration based on recognizing the value of both conscious and unconscious experiences. More relaxed than recent seasons, it is nonetheless a time of fulfilling work, restorative rest and inspiring play.

Understanding the message of the Oracle can often take time to decipher the deeper hidden meaning. Other times, parts of our reading jump out and speak clearly and directly to us. This week’s divination had me spend some time reflecting and meditating.

After speaking with friends and neighbours during this period, one thing has stood out for me in relation to this reading – the connection with families and friends has gotten more intimate, there has been a slowing down, people are listening to the rhythms of life again, watching nature, moving slower, being together even at a distance with Zoom calls for Passover and Easter which has brought many joy and comfort. Yes there is stress, families are having to re-address their work, their space, the kids, and their everyday living, re-booting or searching out new communication tools, finding out what truly is important in their lives. Plus being of service has amped up considerably with food deliveries from local farms, restaurants and stores – we are eating more sustainably supporting ourselves and our local businesses. Local groups are getting together around the country to sew facemasks for their friends and healthcare providers.

There are those suffering in ways other than Covid-19, but some of them have adjusted to finding comfort, continuing their discussions online or on the telephone with their support systems and therapists. Another technique for soothing the emotions is the healing energy of water especially now. Whether taking walks by an ocean, pond or lake, or listening to meditative sounds of trickling water, taking long ceremonial baths with salts and essential oils, or having an image on the wall or your desktop, all will assist in soothing any disjointed and disconnected nerve endings. Even having a beautiful bowl of water nearby will enhance the healing qualities of her essence in your field.

When Divine Light and Divine Shadow are harmoniously balanced, the lived life within the world of manifestation and the soul’s experience within the world of pre-manifestation are so closely linked…

Moments become hours, hours become days, days become months… time becomes a seamless series of enjoyable events and illuminating states. One’s actions express one’s intent perfectly…the unknown is meaningful and the unknowable a revelation. Truth speaks form every leaf and pebble. Sea and sky whisper the first story over and over. Chance events fall like lightening, provoking laughter like thunder…Days go by without a single thought rising unbidden. Clouds are the world’s dreams, seasons its moods. Where does the timeless begin and time end? …

Another theme that is appearing is that time seems to have disappeared in a strange way. Days do float by, and people are taking the space to rest and nourish, catching up and adjusting sleeping patterns that were destroyed during our over-stressed, ‘must get this done’ daily living. Many like myself have taken time to do some form of a spiritual retreat to nourish and give strength to the inner spirit.

There is also no doubt that our “resting in place” has opened an immense cleansing and re-awakening of nature. The Himalayas are being seen for the first time in years – a whole generation had not even realised that the mountains were actually there in the distance – can you imagine? Here the water is pure, the air is fresh from the winds and the rains, and spring has sprung with plants and flowers blooming everywhere. My only hope is that we find a way to sustain this new balance in our lives, realising the old ways were out of control, that the bombardment of ‘Business as Usual’ will no longer be productive nor life-sustaining.

When the world of manifestation and the world of pre-manifestation meet, a rainbow bridge…no guardians at the gate save the few gargoyles holding up the rearguard of the last Age. A place of strange images morphing into one another along a drifting boundary between waking and dreaming. A place of madness for the uninitiated, place of untroubled transition for the initiated, the well-worn path Home…This formula signifies  that you are attuned to the mystical marriage of the Creative Forces, the Source of symbols coming and going between the World Body and the World Soul.

Here is a snippet a post that I received with some of my Soul Sisters from the amazing Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who I have considered one of my mentors from my days of studying the Sacred Feminine:

“…all those who know the light of springtime banishes the dark in Oestera, all those who know now is the time for the strongest spiritual people to form the phalanxes and to walk relentlessly forward together against the dark… I call each in his and her own way to stand with...”

So if you’ve got a spiritual bone in your body it’s time to call on your ancestors, spirits, guides, angels and protectors so that we can launch into new waters of wisdom with clarity and strength together. Please begin, if you have not already, to find some form of contentment within this containment. Use this sacred time.

In the ‘Forest of Fire Pearls’ it relates to: HEXAGRAM 46: HONOURING CONTENTMENT        Success comes to those who seek the source of serenity. The situation is one in which one is content with contentment.

SEQUENCE OF SEASONS: Launching into new waters, the true self treasures the joyous mystery of every moment.

After things are freed from adversity, they withdraw into happiness: HONOURING CONTENTMENT is the dwelling place of wisdom

SOULS’ JOURNEY The traveler dwells beside the cavern’s spring: The voices of the ancestors echo day and night.

As Andrea Bocelli so graciously prefaced before his concert in the Duomo de Milano on Easter Sunday:

 “On the day in which we celebrate the trust in a life that triumphs…I believe in the strength of praying together. I believe in the Christian Easter, a universal symbol of rebirth that everyone, whether they are believers or not, truly needs right now. Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together millions of clasped hands everywhere in the world we will hug this wounded Earth’s pulsing heart…the mystery and joy of rebirth.”

The preceding transcription was taken from ‘THE BEFORE HEAVEN I CHING – Reading the Text of Creation’ by W D Horden with further commentary from his ‘FOREST OF FIRE PEARLS ORACLE‘ – The Medicine Warrior I Ching

Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning, then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness.   ~ Thomas Adams

HEXAGRAM 22: PI – GRACE aka ADORNING/BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE ~ KEN-MOUNTAIN over LI-FIRE Beautify, embellish: display courage and beauty; make appearance reflect inner worth; site of radical transformation.

Charge to the ORACLE: Beings cannot come together without a new way to unite. Accept this and use the energy of GRACE

I sat with GRACE for a longer period of time than usual, as I really wanted to understand exactly what the ORACLE was speaking to with this HEXAGRAM. Our lives have truly changed drastically in a month’s time and I wanted to write with clarity. The SAGE advises us to make the best of the situation we all find ourselves in. We are to raise the bar, be beauteous from deep within – at least that is how I interpret the meaning of his/her words. We are not meant to pine away this time on folly but to utilise it to its highest advantage.  Of course we are adapting to our new forced situation, yet finding amazingly creative, yes even elegant, new ways of presenting ourselves to others, of truly connecting with others. 

SITUATION: Be elegant. Be brilliant. Display your valour Let the way you present yourself signal the changes in your life. This is pleasing to the Spirits. Through it they will give you success, effective power and the capacity to bring the situation to maturity. Be flexible and adapt to what presents itself to be doneImpose a direction on things. That brings profit and insight.

SCHOLAR: HEXAGRAM shows an outer limit that produces a radiant display. Beneath the MOUNTAIN there is FIRE. Release tensions and display energy. People can’t come together carelessly…Brighten and clarify all the different parts of how you present yourself. Don’t cut off social processes that are already underway…Use gradual, continuous change to accomplish things in the human world…

This also had me thinking of the grace periods companies, utilities, banks and other businesses are granting their clients. How we’ve had to move into this timeframe with generosity, not the hoarding mentality we’ve all seen and heard about in the press. How we are coming together carefully, but joyfully, with free classes given online to keep people calm, free of anxiety, connecting, and supporting each other in another form of this open hearted generosity. Yes there are others profiting, but on the whole there is a much needed sharing. This is wonderful karma, there will be superb payback; this is GRACE in action.

JUDGEMENT: GRACE shows success. It is not favourable to create form for its own sake…“GRACE shows success” points to the Cosmic Principle revealed by the Sage: a thing’s uniqueness has come successfully to expression. It also means the fulfillment of its destiny while in its form…the SAGE informs that the designs we see in Nature are the ways in which the consciousness of each individual thing expresses its uniqueness.

GRACE expresses either grace as mere ornament, or as beauty coming from within…GRACE is a person’s natural state of harmony and unity with the COSMOS. The collective ego has introduced the idea that neither harmony nor order exist in NATURE, and that it is the human task to impose order upon it. Such a view clearly reverses cause and effect, because all the disorder and disharmony are created by the collective ego’s slanderous views of NATURE, and by its projecting pretentious and hierarchical order onto the COSMOS.

…This is evident in the attempt to engineer harmony through societal conditioning, engineer health, engineer “better nature” through genetic manipulation, and to even engineer weather. Treating the consciousness of NATURE mechanically creates fate for the person who participates in it…FATE cannot be fought, but it can be ended by recognizing the mistaken ideas that have created it, and ridding oneself of them.

The message is really strong and clear here, the ORACLE speaks to how we arrived at this moment of COVID-19. We have traversed, trespassed, and trafficked into territories we should have left in their pristine beauty and wildness, destroying the Rainforest habitats, killing and maiming animals taking them out of their natural surroundings into our civilised domain. They need those bacteria and bugs to survive where they live, they are not the culprits, we humans are responsible. Harming the very EARTH that sustains us. With global warming, scientists are also talking about the melting of the Permfrost, which will release new microbial substances into our hemisphere which could cause more issues:

The results indicate severe deepening of the active-layer permafrost in the watershed and release of previously frozen-lock soil carbon, which also implies enhanced microbial respiration of CO2 with important implications for carbon-climate feedback during climate warming,” said lead author Tommaso Tesi, a researcher at the Italian National Research Council.

This is a time of reckoning, of looking at who we are as individuals, and as a species, and as nations. We are being shown the past shallowness of corporations after the all-mighty big buck, the so-called “Instagram Influencers” with blown-up egos inflating our own ‘me’s’, presenting products and outfits we never really needed, to the current posts and presentations of some of our more conscious “etoiles” now online “au natural” – no makeup, no styling, roots, et al – this is right in our face and wonderfully refreshing. We’re not perfect, and we’re showing it, and we still are okay.

LINE 3: Graceful and moist. Being firmly correct brings good fortune…Can point to a person with the self-image of being complete in himself, with no need for further development. “Being firmly correct” means saying the inner No to this self-image and its flattery. The self-image causes one to look critically at others as undeveloped and oneself as superior. A seed phrase is: “I am more developed than they are.” (other meanings in text)

Direction: Take things in. Be open and provide what is needed. Changes to:

HEXAGRAM 27: YI – NOURISHING aka JAWS/The TIGER’S MOUTH ~ KEN/MOUNTAIN over CHEN/SHAKE Nourishing and being nourished; take things in; the mouth, daily bread; major site of initiation and creative transformation; a seed figure

The newly formed HEXAGRAM speaks clearly to how the virus enters our bodies – the mouth (and nostrils) and about how we need to correct our source of nourishment. Yes we are going through an ordeal, that is true, and many are suffering and succumbing to this virus. Let us not forget them or the courageous caregivers.

This divination is very clear about what we need to contemplate during this time, if not for always. Again, the ORACLE here speaks to how we nourish others, moving away from the ‘ME, ME, ME’ movement to the ‘WE-WE-WE’ future of our Aquarian times. Thinking of the group, my position in the group, how my actions affect everyone else out there, not just my egoistic self.

An ordeal that transforms the Spirit, giving the power to become an individual, free of collective judgements… JAWS means correcting the source of nourishment.

SITUATION: what goes in and out of an open mouth. Take things in to provide for yourself and others. Take in what has been said and done and let it nourish the new…Putting your ideas to the trial generates meaning and good fortune by releasing transformative energy. Contemplate what nourishes people and what you are nourishing. Think about what you give and what you ask for. Seek out the source of what goes in and out of your mouth and the mouths of others. The answer to your question lies there.

SCHOLAR: HEXAGRAM figure shows previous accomplishments being swallowed to nourish new growth. Within the MOUNTAIN there is THUNDER. Provide what is needed…correct the way things are nourished and nourish the ability to correct things. Consider your words carefully when you speak with others…Putting your ideas to the trial generates meaning and good fortune by releasing transformative energy if you use them to correct how things are nourished. Contemplate the open mouth. Look at the source of your own nourishment.

The SAGE uses this theme of nourishment to refer both to what is taken in as food, and metaphorically, to what is taken into the psyche as thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. The SAGE distinguishes between what nourishes the true self and what feeds the ego. What nourishes the true self adds to the person’s existing supply of chi energy – life force and will to live – whereas what feeds the ego robs one of chi.

Now to leave you with a bit of GRACE, from my heritage, with a song so frequently played around the world and to honour those who have left us … Bruce Hindmarsh suggested that the secular popularity of “Amazing Grace”…represents the ability of humanity to transform itself instead of a transformation taking place at the hands of God. “Grace” had a clearer meaning to John Newton, who penned the hymn, as he used the word to represent God or the power of God.

Whatever your belief, as we pass through this creative, transformative period, may this space we have been given to stop, slow down, and contemplate how we lived so quickly and unconsciously before the Coronavirus, help us transform our lives and that of our world into a new and better place for all. You might even try a meditation – it just might change how you look at reality.

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist and conductor best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra and who loves to make people happy with all kinds of music. This is an over-the-top version but its great and obviously affected everyone in the audience. The pipes are in my blood and resonate with me to this day.

A dear friend reminded me of this perfect quote from the Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran. I love how it speaks to our current lives, right now, today:

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Be well!

My reference texts today were:

 ‘I CHING ~ The ORACLE of the COSMIC WAY’ by Carol K Anthony & Hanna Moog with additional commentary from Stephen Karcher’s  ‘TOTAL I CHING ~ MYTHS for CHANGE’

I sit here listening as the rains of March come pouring down, replenishing our water sources, cleansing the air and nourishing all our beautiful flowering trees and plants at this beginning of Spring, with the Equinox just a few days behind us. We have entered a new Portal.

The animals and Earth are taking back their territories, enjoying their freedom, as we humans STOP, rest in place, and conserve energy. While the numbers are increasing, people are following the protocol for the most part for COVID-19 here in our neck of the woods. It is so calm in my neighbourhood, that I can actually hear the distinct sweet songs of many different birds that often got lost in the hum or our everyday living.

During the Coronavirus we are each partaking in forced individual retreats, yet we are becoming even more resourceful, using our technology that just a few weeks ago had us still walking around like zombies. We are now using our devices to Livestream events such as yoga, Qi Gong, gym workouts, Pilates and more. Thus seeing our fellow class buddies, giving virtual hugs and kisses, connecting the best way we can. We are sensual beings, us humans, and we still need touch and closeness but we are finding new creative temporary ways to connect. There are even concerts being live-streamed such as the wonderful Mindtravel event coming up soon.

One of the most powerful ways we can utilize technology, which seems to speak directly from the reading below, is to use these new platforms to come together online to explore, meditate, contemplate and attend spiritual services. I have been invited to so many wonderful free offerings from the beloved Eckhart Tolle to Sounds True bringing us so many different teachers and teachings. I am sure there are many more invites from your local, national or international groups. This is such a wonderful way to calm the anxiety, stop the chattering mind, and sit and just be together. As Hexagram 26 instructs, disentangle from the everyday, find the right time to be peaceful and eliminate the outside chaotic energy to truly find the Great Being within

Just this weekend, I attended a number of virtual online gatherings while one teacher was on the East Coast, his Sangha was in Colorado, and we all were online, yet separate, as a group in Santa Barbara. Another dear Buddhist teacher was teaching from retreat in New Mexico with another Buddhist and Christian scholar while the host, a Benedictine monk, hosted from Bonnevaux, France. Then later today I was online with Astrology University listening to three wonderful teachers and fellow astrologers, Lynn Bell from Paris, Laurence Hillman from Missouri and Tony Howard who runs the webinars from Oregon. So much wonderful support, a wealth of different wisdom traditions!

It is a whole new world out there and once we calm the mind, focus, and disentangle from the drama, we can tap into the sage-mind spoken of below and view life and how we move forward with a whole new fresh perspective. We are not going back to the old ways and many new innovative ideas and creations will come out of this time. Proactive instead of reactive, and with that we change our world and align with Heaven. Enjoy the reading as the clarity of the Sage and the Divine Feminine is always spot on.

HEXAGRAM 26: TA CH’U (DA CHU)/GREAT ACCUMULATES/GATHERING THE SPIRIT

HEX 25 & 26 – The Paradigm: Disentangling from past afflictions and       Accumulating the Spirit

The pair involves disentangling from negative emotions and past traumas and nurturing the great within yourself. It suggests the birth of the Great Being and the sage-mind through ‘eating ancient virtue’. Carefully consider your place in relation to this model.

DISENTANGLING MEANS DISASTER HAS COME FROM OUTSIDE. GREAT ACCUMULATES MEANS YOU FIND THE RIGHT TIME,

DA CHU: concentrate, focus on one idea; accumulate energy, support, nourish; bring everything together; great effort and great achievement Charge to the Oracle: when you are disentangled from affliction, you can ‘Accumulate the Spirit’ of the new…

Entanglement means letting yourself go, succumbing to perverse influence or disease, being without order or rule, crazy, vain, compulsive and cruel. Being released from entanglement, results in a state of balance and purity, the image of an original and originating connection with Heaven.

Disentangling suggests the ways to maintain that purity and freedom from affliction. It enables you to act spontaneously, to deal successfully with what comes on the stream of time, to attract and welcome the unexpected. It suggests the Wang demon who carries contagious disease, plague, miasma, etc. and the purification, exorcism and rituals used by the ‘wu-Intermediaries’ to drive out these diseases and demons. It is particularly concerned with the nei ye or inner way and the sage-person or sage-mind. The meditative practices of the inner way centre on ‘correcting’, which calm, tranquillise, rectify and free the body in order to restore a state of neutrality and align with Heaven…

SIX AT THE FIFTH LINE: there will be rewards. You have managed to confront and disable what could have been a powerful obstacle, accumulating and focusing a significant force. The Way is open. This will bring rewards in the end. Direction: Collect the Small to achieve the Great. Turn conflict into creative tension.. The situation is already changing.

Hexagram changes to:

HEXAGRAM 9: XIAO CHU/SMALL ACCUMULATES/GATHERING THE GHOSTS XIA CHU: accumulate small to do the great; nurture, raise, support…

…This time is like a shell or womb, a protective covering that will be broken through in Spring. Philosophically, this is the ‘nurturing of the smallest possible thing’ (ji), the emergent point that heralds change. It is the quality of the Way that, though now barely visible, will lead on to illumination.

For you poetry and literary lovers out there, I leave you with this link from Maria Popova’s amazingly inspiring literary site Brainpickings which has an excerpt from the new poetry collection ‘Ledger’ of the poetess and Buddhist Jane Hirshfield. Have a contemplative week.

Today our reading comes from ‘TOTAL I CHING.’ The wise Stephen Karcher is a prolific writer and researcher and has fused the divinatory oracle of the I CHING with the earlier Taoist version, the ‘ZHOUYI’, based on a thousand years of Eastern thought. I CHING images are from Carla Filizzola.

These Hexagrams always speak for themselves and the message from the TAO today addresses the current goings on in our present crises with health, politics and separation. This is especially apparent under the influence of the Saturn (order and structure) – Pluto (transformational power) combination which represents chaotic challenges of deep, fundamental change to existing systems. This is likely to impose some kind of restriction on our freedom of movement or upon our resources. ~ Robert Hand

The message in our HEXAGRAM is clear, follow the protocol that we have been given by our courageous health leaders and community. Yet, the greater message here is how we can be of benefit to others. If you are not compromised: Do you have elderly neighbours who might benefit from you shopping for essentials for them or making sure that a neighbor or someone who is living alone is well? How about a stressed out mum, who now has the kids home from school and needs a break to just take a shower or a walk to regain her sanity. Or Mums, whose kids have already played together at pre-school – kindergarten – K-12 coming together in small groups of support on line or otherwise. How about being proactive and creating a class online, as my Sheng Zhen group did here in SB, to support each other by promoting healthy exercise, augmenting our chi and coming together in community.

And lets not forget laughter, my friends from around the world are sending me silly and sometimes ridiculous videos and photos but they make me laugh and we all know from past studies that laughter is the best medicine. Last but not least, I believe this is the most important part of the first HEXAGRAM, is your personal self-cultivation, be it mediation, journaling, chanting, etc. as that will not only still the fear and anxiety prevalent in the field but will have an effect on those around you. I am sure that there are many ways we can support each other during this time of self-isolation. Do you have some original ones?

In the second HEXAGRAM 20, I just love how the Sage speaks directly to our current hand washing protocol. What better way than turning the washing of hands into something sacred, a ceremony, taking a breath, focusing in the present moment as bringing Mindfulness and Joy into this new ritual. BTW, my age group was brought up with these healthy everyday routines as a part of life – somewhere along the line of this digital age where we literally touch everything we have forgotten how important this practice is.  

Though, the main message is again self-contemplation, and how perfect to take time in our forced self-isolation to do some major introspection. Looking deeply into what our lives here on the planet actually are meant for and how we are connected to each other, to Gaia, to chi, to the Universal Life Force. Perhaps as this time brings people together in other ways than face to face, we can contemplate and finally come up with a plan to take better care of our home, the EARTH, and all of her inhabitants with loving kindness and care. Be well my friends.

HEX 59: HUAN/DISPERSION

WIND IS ABOVE WATER. Wind belongs to Spring. Wind blowing in all directions causes it to spread in all directions.

UPPER TRIGRAM: SUN/WOOD – symbolizes a boat, which, with the help of the WIND can pass over difficult WATERS. Thus, now is a suitable time to go far away or communicate with people who are at a distance.

If one is guided by clarity and calm, one can successfully avert or correct problems and handle the aftermath of DISPERSION. There may be some worry over losses, so one should be careful. For the most part this HEXAGRAM has a positive outcome.

For example, when ominous clouds gather and create stormy conditions, the WIND comes and blows them away. This is how DISPERSION can break up congestion.

DISPERSION is especially valuable in SELF-CULTIVATION. When one is strongly influenced by desire, ambition or misunderstanding, one must remove the obstruction or there can be no real progress. Once the “frozen ice” is dissolved, joy can be restored.

LINE 2: “He quickly goes to the rescue. Remorse disappears.”

(An incorrect position as it is YANG in a YIN place) Thus, the surrounding YIN lines hinder is moving YANG energy, like a wild horse trapped within a ravine..

The second LINE is unable to help itself; it gathers its energy and helps the first LINE, which is in even greater trouble. Even though one has much strength, it will go to waste if not used to benefit others.

From the COMMENTARY:

DISPERSION occurs when human intelligence exceeds spiritual capability, when a person or a society is unable to function as a whole. Intellectual divergence arises from the different capabilities people have for understanding and knowing things. Arguments and wars breed in the warm bed of DIVERGENCE.

Real peace cannot be achieved until the full capability of knowing is achieved by both the individual and the human race. Meanwhile, tolerance must be cultivated when dealing with differences.

Changes to:

HEXAGRAM 20: KUAN/POINT OF VIEW

WIND is above EARTH. Just as a penetrating WIND pervades everywhere, a good way of life and good teachings influence everyone they touch.

The image of KUAN suggests a physical structure of an altar or temple

GUIDANCE: “Contemplation. After washing the hands and beginning the ceremony, with deep sincerity the officiant centres the mind. The hearts and minds of all participants are drawn to this good example. Likewise, the way of the highly evolved inspires people to revere the divine order of the Universe.”

The two YANG lines at the top of the hexagram represent models of virtue in times when negative forces are pushing forward. …The greater significance of KUAN represents a way of life that is cultivated and guided by constant self-contemplation. Through such introspection, one remains unaffected by the pressures of worldly life and stays attuned to the deepest level of nature, which is the origin of the universal life force. By following worldly trends, one becomes lost in the temptations of the superficial…the hexagram is also concerned with one’s overall view of life, which may be determined by how broad and encompassing one’s understanding is. Even if one has traveled in many countries and lived among many different people, one’s view may still be very narrow.

Today I have used the reference of Hua-Ching Ni a true master, author, teacher and physician who comes from a long lineage of highly achieved Chinese masters.

These amazing images are from Joan Larimore – IChing Artist and are for sale

This week just a translation, the words, the writer and the translator speak a thousand words by themselves… Read more