mysteries and staying in the game

I continue to reflect on the I Ching and tarot almost daily, but haven't posted much on either in a long time. This morning's message from the I Ching, hexagram 43 changing to hexagram 1, seems auspicious somehow (especially considering that Disintegration, hexagram 23, was in the air a few days ago-- the opposite of hexagram 43).

From Jim DeKorne's website:

The forty-third hexagram is an image of the eradication of an inferior force from the situation at hand: five yang lines resolutely advance on the single yin line, which is about to be pushed out of the hexagram at the top. This is a negative image of the twenty-third hexagram, Disintegration, which shows the opposite situation of five lower yin lines undermining one upper yang line. It is instructive to compare the nearly identical message for the superior man in the Images of each of these figures. The idea is one of fostering an equitable distribution of energy within the situation -- Disintegration and the Resoluteness required to rectify it are extreme situations requiring extreme measures. Such extremes must always be neutralized through a justly distributed balance of forces.

It's not the concern of law that any one class in the city fare exceptionally well, but it contrives to bring this about for the whole city, harmonizing the citizens by persuasion and compulsion, making them share with one another the benefit that each class is able to bring to the commonwealth. And it produces such men in the city not in order to let them turn whichever way each wants, but in order that it may use them in binding the city together. Plato --The Republic

The changing top line is definitely problematic-- suggesting *both* the eradication of some aspect of the current situation that is detrimental or undermining, as well as its persistence, or re-emergence in a new and unexpected form. 

The shadow cannot be eliminated. It is the ever-present dark brother or sister. Whenever we fail to see where it stands, there is likely to be trouble afoot. For then it is certain to be standing behind us. The adequate question therefore never is: Have I a shadow problem? Have I a negative side? But rather: Where does it happen to be right now? When we cannot see it, it is time to beware! E.C. Whitmont -- The Symbolic Quest

That is, quite simply, the way of the universe, or the way of samsara in particular. 

Doing any meditation with the I Ching that involves either hexagram 1 or 2 always feels vaguely transcendent and definitely archetypal and impersonal, somehow. These primal forces-- six yang or six yin lines- are like walls in a way-- not really speaking directly to one's actual circumstances. I often feel the same way about the last two hexagrams, 63 and 64.

The symbolism of all of the hexagrams works on many different levels, and this is especially true of the first two, which must be studied together for a full comprehension of each. (Kabbalists, for example, will recognize in these two figures the same forces found in Chokmah and Binah on the Tree of Life.) For the purposes of this comparison it must be noted that the first hexagram symbolizes Heaven, and the second symbolizes Earth: Force and Form. (As consciousness is to the body it inhabits, so Force is to Form and Heaven to Earth.) Form is magnetic, or "negative" in polarity, and Force is dynamic, or "positive."

In esoteric symbolism "Heaven" does not mean the universe above us -- it means the consciousness within us. This polarity is also reflected in the relationship between the ego and the Self -- in a properly regulated psyche, the ego is always magnetic to the dynamic Self.

There is an invisible universe within the visible one, a world of causes within the world of effects. There is force within matter, and the two are one, and are dependent for their existence on a third, which is the mysterious cause of their existence. There is a world of soul within a world of matter, and the two are one, and caused by the world of spirit. 

F. Hartmann -- Paracelsus: Life and Prophecies

I'll be carrying these two hexagrams around with me all day, I'm sure. One immediate association that comes up is my tendency to want to "eradicate" completely anything that I think of as destructive, counterproductive, or even simply ambiguous. There's a reason why Hippolytus   is still one of my favorite Greek tragedies. 

I also love the sly humor of the I Ching that is always pulling us back into the game. As long as we are flesh and blood and tied to the wheel of time, nothing will stay put. We can fight this or embrace it, but there is no reasonable or enduring way around it. Each place we land contains the next clif off of which we have to fall. If we think we are finally standing still in a goal and securely protected from the shifting of reality, we're in for it.