Good morning!
I know that it has now been over a month since the advent of the Year of the Wood Dragon and I am just getting around to writing to you. Time has become a strange and somewhat unreliable friend these last few months. In any case, in honor of the Year of the Wood Dragon, a collection of us gathered to create a divination inquiring how we might be of benefit to ourselves and the world in these turbulent times. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the practice of divination, I will say it isn’t about divining the future. It isn’t about trying to know what will happen. It IS about seeking to see into your own experience, your own experience of what is arising inside and outside of you. And it is about finding the way to move through your experience with ease and confidence.
In this case, we used the I Ching, perhaps the oldest oracle in human civilization, dating back some 4000 years in China.* To use the I Ching, one creates a hexagram, a figure of 6 lines. Where usually one person creates the hexagram by creating all six lines, for this group divination, we had 6 people each create one of the lines. We asked “How can we navigate with resilience and clarity so as to be of benefit to ourselves and others in this coming Year of the Wood Dragon?”
The reading we received was powerful for all of us, I dare say, and I would like to share some of it with you. The initial hexagram is one called Zhen- Shock, Hexagram 51. This hexagram refers to the impact of unexpected and sudden events, no matter whether those events are personal or global. From Carol Anthony’s commentary on this hexagram:
“Shock has the effect of temporarily separating our ego from our psyche. The ego seems to disappear, in a somewhat cowardly fashion, returning only when the crisis subsides. During this separation, our real self learns that it is able to handle a situation it thought only the ego could handle; therefore, it gains strength. The ego insinuates itself back into leadership of the personality, however, and the shock process must be repeated until the ego loses credibility and the real self gains enough strength to keep the ego separated and in check.”
Real self? Ego? How do we recognize either of these for what they are? That is really the question to me in these times when nothing less than our authentic selves are being called for. It is clear to me that we are in the process of being shocked by events in our world. It is clear to me that my ego is very childish in response, stamping my feet, wishing things would simply stop being so abhorrent, etc. But what, in fact, does my real self have to say?
In the way of the I Ching, we received two changing lines in this reading. A changing line refers to a point where the outcome is uncertain, where a choice must be made, a place and time where we will have to choose a response to a particular event and that response will bring a particular result. Nothing is set in stone. Outcomes are uncertain. But what is certain is that a choice will have an impact on the course of events.
A divination with changing lines shows you what might be the outcome if certain kinds of responses are employed. The resulting hexagram in this reading was Jie-Release-Deliverance-Loosening Hexagram 40. This is, in many ways, a very positive outcome; a release from tension, a freeing up of energy. Seeing this, I immediately consider the positive effect of being shocked out of your usual routine, shocked into choosing new ways, thinking new thoughts, almost as if you have traveled far away without having to go anywhere.
I know we normally think of the experience of Shock as a negative. But in this type of reading, I suggest it is anything but a negative. Instead, it is an opportunity for us to open up to new possibilities for ourselves and our world. What if the events unfolding in the world are the best way for humanity to evolve, to learn needed lessons, to grow? What if despite our ideas about how things should be, the way things actually go turns out to be the best way for all concerned? Is it possible for our minds to get big enough to embrace these possibilities?
I also suggest that your “real self” is not only open to these kinds of possibilities, but is even potentially made of these possibilities. That real self is not bounded by society’s current malaise or by upbringing or conditioning, but instead remains untouched by chaos and change in the world.
Real self then might be the part of you that knows you are alive, breathing, awake, no matter what is happening. Real self might just be the part of you that shines the light into the confusion and lets you see what matters. Then, when you respond from the heart of what really matters to you, it will loosen, free, untie, or release anything obstructing the changes that are needed.
I know that I can’t always know what is needed for either myself or for anyone else. But I can choose to look beyond my ego-driven selfish temporal desires and find the heart that sees the sky of mind. Hilary Barrett says:
“What must change?
What must continue?
…Consider what remains constant and true when everything else is in turmoil.”
It is never amiss to ask yourself what you value most, what is most important, or what is it you really need. These kinds of questions can bring you back to yourself in a way that is nourishing and soothing even when things are troubling or difficult.
Remembering what is most important to me, finding the place in me that stays connected to who I really am and and asking myself what really matters is an ongoing practice, day in and day out. It is easy to get distracted, to forget, to get caught by all the movement in the world. In this Year of the Wood Dragon, sudden movement will be the standard, but what I get out of this reading is that if you can allow things to loosen, to release, you might just stay happier and healthier than you ever thought possible.
*Tarot Cards, another form of divination, came much later, only 500 years ago, in Europe.