References & Links
- April 22nd and 29th – The Science March on Washington / Earth Day March
Recording
Link to Tele*Coyote (3.6.2017)
Transcription
As I’m rummaging around in my closets and in my re-searching and indeed kind of stirring the cauldron, getting into the mood of Egypt. That Jupiter retrograde really wants us to re-search: you know, the long ago wisdom guiding traditions. John Anthony West is really really good on this in ways that we will it will animate. But that’s part of why I thought we would start off with some authentic Egyptian music but first – there’s a mysterious door, right, Captain?
We’re in a land of beautiful mystery. That’s Ali Jihad Racy, apparently that is quite close to ancient Egyptian music and we go, ahh so beautiful. And right before we were gathering, I was seeing a very brief thing on one Vice, which is a pretty good HBO show, and it was a beautiful show Yoyo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, and talking about how music is healing for now and in the Middle East, going deep deep deep down into the beauty of the Middle East to bring it forth and it’s diaspora. They are on tour, but it was it exquisite. And they spoke with a Syrian musician who narrated his is arduous journey when he had to leave Syria, he said, ‘with just a little backpack and my musical instrument and I went through you know Romania and Bulgaria and being in the what worked in farms and this until he found, Yoyo Ma. So much beauty coming out of so much harshness.
So team, it is a delight! Welcome everyone, welcome new people just arriving and skidding in, and old people and old old timers, and mavens, and people re-newing, Thank you! Very wonderful, because we are heading into the thick of everything. As Richard was animating beforehand going, yes, the weather, the weather – everybody noticing how crazy the weather…. The dementors, the dementors lining up difficult things. But you know, April 22nd and 29th – The Science March on Washington – Earth Day March – you know it’s like, this is it, to track to the root of the species – when did it start completely missing the whole point of life? This species meaning humans. And so, the idea increasingly of, as I dust off all my books and all the chapters of my life going, Yeah, well let’s let’s bring everything back – the Tao Te Ching, everything about cooperating with nature is guiding genius, the work of Dion Fortune (that we’ve been playing with) – to compost thugocracy.
And remember, Matthew Arnold said, to be cultured to be acquainted with the highest possibility of the human spirit throughout time – and I like expanding everything beyond humans – I like throwing humanism into the cauldron (humans as the measure of all things) and may the hubris of humanism be replaced by the truth of Animism (everything’s alive, everything has a soul, everything’s available for communicating). So, the highest possibilities of – not just humans through time, although that’s a good start – but wolves, and plants, and all of these things.
And then, gleaning from detective novels and myths and Egyptology – we brew everything together in our syncretic stew. Reading Wyoming detective novel last night, alternating with Egyptology and mysteries, going, Alrighty, we mix it all. But I liked the detective and his buddy heading into a dangerous situation, and the buddy said, What are we calling this escapade? (Escapade – again, escape artistry) and he said, Steadfast Resolution. And I go, that’s good – rather than resistance, we can have resolution, resolving, persisting… because resisting (you know, resolution is kinned with resisting) and resisting really is coupled with arrest – resisting arrest! And it does invoke polarity, so and that’s why we were especially alert to to our dedication to not being snookered into polarity – it doesn’t mean putting up with things, not at all. We’re going to bring Aikido deftness into into play, and I had my second Aikido lesson – I do not presume, I do not want to commit hubris – but it was very, very a good contributing part of me feeling more jaunty and so useful.
Because in Aikido, (and I like the wonderful Hispanic woman, so impressive, going, wow what a great teacher and you know, the sort of subhead of the thing, going, you’re doing very well and I was pleased to be doing rather well) – there’s an elegance to the dynamic… somebody grabs your wrist and you rotate your palm, which breaks the hold, and then you put your other hand on their elbow and you walk forward (no pushing, no pushing in Aikido, because you always want your hara, your base, under you) and you just walk forward, and you take them down. So it’s not lalala, but you do – you take them down, and it’s very effective. And then they have the freedom to choose whether they hurt themselves or not, because you’ve got a torque and it’s like, no, no, no don’t hurt yourself. So there is autonomy, and there is freedom, but there is taking down. And I go, Okay, for all of us, you know, peaceful people and all vegans and whatnot it’s like, there is a value to taking down and that’s something we want to tease into the dynamic.
But back to welcoming our Goats, (our Saturn, our autonomy) right, they are very skillful and witty as well. And we get our our goats back with our dedication to not being snookered into polarity, but dancing around it, and if there’s anything up to no good – we we can take it down with its own aggressive energy, because it’s better for that person or being also. It’s better for them to be taken down. And in some spooky way, as we look at the world, trumpelstiltkin going completely bat-nuts, we go, yeah it’s almost like he’s yelling concessions because everything is self-referential. And we go, well, there are many lotteries in Las Vegas and elsewhere, but how long will this last? I don’t know but I’m kind of counting on the eclipse on August 21st – we might not have to put up with it that long …although it’s true then there are other dementors is rising, and so on, that we would then have to get through.
But the Jupiter Retrograde is also, let’s journey backwards to the root of – when did the human bad behavior begin? You know one friend says, a kind of Buddhist legend is that, It’s when, around the fire, when one person took more than they needed, took more than they needed….
The Facebook post has been very excellent just very impressed by everyone’s really useful postings and so I’m going to glean some things too… so, don’t we have our ‘second grade lesson’ that some of us have listened to (but for those who aren’t on the Facebook I thought it would be great to include it).
We have our ‘second grade lesson’ lined up:
“My theory about a program for liberation is that it needs to be explainable by a second grader or else it’s not it’s not very practical not usable. So for example, the first point on my program would be: Nobody gets seconds until everyone has had firsts. That’s profoundly revolutionary, it’s actually incompatible with capitalism, and yet it resonates with almost everybody, right? Another one might be: Don’t break stuff what you can’t fix. Seems simple enough. Don’t use things up at a faster rate than their capacity to replenish. You know there are all of the things that people know and understand and have had to learn as children in order to get by in the world, but somehow are convinced that they don’t work on larger scales. So I ask organizers: ‘Well, if you took this program (the second grader program) and took it to your most reactionary relative at the holiday table, and said, ‘Hey listen to this program, reactionary uncle, what do you think of it?’’ Almost everybody comes back with the answer, Well he would say, That’s all very nice, I wish the world could be that way. That’s pie in the sky, but we live in the real world. Get real get over it you know if we don’t take for ourselves other people will etc.
So what he’s telling us is that his heart is on our side. But his despair, his hopelessness, prevents him from seeing a real pathway to that possibility – so that the process of liberation is the process of making pathways visible to people and that’s why it’s partly a question of storytelling but it’s partly a question of structuring our movements in a way that the experience of living that movement, tells and reinforces that story – that generosity is possible, that loving each other can be rewarding and is not necessarily a recipe for being betrayed and killed. So then it’s really – how do we go back to what people hunger for the most deeply, but are so convinced is not possible?”
Ricardo Levins Morales ‘Second Grade Lesson’ video
Yes, that’s really great, making pathways visible to people – that is surely one of our great dedications and one of our skill sets, we keep in our magic backpack and take out and polish and hone and animate. And, it was my brother Joe who guided me to saying, Animate – Anima means Soul so surely to ‘Animate’ is to ‘honor the soul or bestow the soul’ …I don’t know if we can bestow a soul… but to honor the soul in another and by honoring it, to make it Bring Alive.
Again now we’re entering the egregor realm, but before we go into the kind of main body of our Festival Cahoot of the Egregors – I did throw the i-ching on our behalf. And said, Oh, I-ching, in this time of wild craziness and terribleness and Dire Beauty, good things and terrible things, what should we know – what’s available – how do we dance? I like Stephen Karcher’s Total I-Ching – so it began with:
“One – inspiring force – dragon – creative energy
persist – create – endure – power to guide”
[There we go, make pathways visible to people, really good.]
“Heaven and Earth exist without beginning or end,
This is the primal power of inspiration,
Use it as a spirit helper.”
Well, part of what we’re going to honor too is, you know, some things are always true, times when they are truer. Genius and inspiration are available as dance partners – we have Jupiter just setting on the west as we convene, and from our little headquarters in Cabin John, but Mars and Uranus – where ever one is at sunset, after sunset, little bit of Venus still… we get a little bit of Venus more until the 23rd when she gets so close to the Sun that we won’t see her – until she re-emerges, depending on latitude, as the morning star (we might have to get up early). So it’s a kind of poignant dynamic. But, yes, Where is inspiration and ingenuity and lightning, and Where would we like to change some circumstance in our life and/or in the world? Remembering that, whatever we do for ourselves, grants us the spiritual muscle tone to do that in the world.
We love that, so –
“Inspiration.
Force is part of a pair that forms two of the gates of change.
Inspiring force – the Dragon – represents inspiration, a shape-changer at once inner and outer, that constantly breaches natural reality.
The dragon’s inspiring force rises in the heavens. As the constellation Cerulean Dragon, who initiates and presides over the growing season. He connects with the Bei Dou, the big dipper, where shanti(?) reside, and dispenses the fates of all creatures.
Now remember, also language is liberating – especially if we track everything back to its originating impulse, before it got snookered and bamboozled. Snookered into polarity, bamboozled into Orthodoxy – orthodoxy mean straight teaching, we want our teachings curvy, like rivers (and rivers that curve can metabolize poison, and rivers forced into straightness poison themselves and others) and we go – Okay, everything derives from nature. But remember you know, as tricksters and as part of this cycle of history – the enormous freedom that is granted to us. I mean really, in the in the whole realm of human history, to be able to say what shall we eat today? Now, that’s us in the easy world – not in Somalia, not in wherever… but to be able to say, What shall we eat? Where shall we go? These are these are huge things to honor and wonder and reflect about.
The word Stamina – I have not yet tired of saying – comes from Stamen, not the plant stamen, but the stamen as the thread of our lives that the Norns, or the weaving women, weave. Stamina implies we can strengthen it, and lengthen it, and play cat’s cradle with it, and do all kinds of things – it’s not just, here you go. Always reminding us, that all cultures, philosophy, and astrology emerge within that cultural context. So you know, there’s Vedic Astrology – which has many many many fabulous beautiful things – but it can lean, in its shadow, into certainty and prediction – but if you were born in fourteenth century India your life is quite predictable, you know, so there we go.
We – all of us – ourselves and what we encourage, and root for in others – is unpredictable, really autonomous, so everything wants to be kind of transformed. Which is why, first we do the research – and we honor the authentic research and scholarliness – and then we bring it up, and see if it wants to, how it wants to, bound into the modern world, with a little trickster liberating flourish. John Anthony West is very good, and just in my beginning chapters here in Serpent in the Sky (The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt), that when we delve into Egypt, and indeed you know all cultures of long ago antiquity, (well, many cultures of long ago antiquity) we see an incredible integration of science architecture myth meaning art and poetry – all one thing. What he says is, The guiding wisdom of reverent cooperation is nature’s guiding genius (that’s my words). And this dance of heresy versus dogma – and heresy, remember, to be a heretic was considered a very positive thing in early Christianity, and indeed in all pretty orthodoxy, because it means free thinker and we like that. So, John Anthony West says, ‘the universal laws of science art and religion are a unity’ and he’s gone back into Atlantis… he’s pitching that much of what comes to us from Egypt, that rises seemingly full blown, ‘Refers’, he says, ‘not so much to Atlantis as a location, but as an earlier wiser civilization whose remnants live in stories all over.’ He says, ‘not physical location’. And then, he says, ‘Greek is a late comer civilization’ (and part of me – I don’t know why I have this slight antipathy – maybe it’s just an antipathy to the orthodoxy of Greek – but I took glee) when he said, ‘and Greek is a very late comer to this civilization…’ (we want to go further back further back further back…) he said, ‘Egypt in Mesopotamia – older by several millennia… And in Greek,’ he says, ‘the religion was not conducive to the exercise of the intellectual adventure.’ …Don’t know… I mean, again, we’re dusting everything off. I remember one of the smartest, most challenging, interesting courses I ever took with my senior year at hippie high school where it was very broad but we did the history of the Atomic Theory – going all the way back to Thales, and the pre-Socratic philosophers… But I liked what he says, ‘In Greece the religion was not conducive to the exercise of the intellectual adventure – it was kind of separate.’ Yeah, and part of our dynamic is challenging Orthodox assumptions.
And we’re going all the way back, I’ll be filing scouting reports, but six thousand years ago the Chaldean priests were the observational stargazing towers, we know this pretty much and I wanted to bring up you know… just weaving everything modern and ancient and fictional and all through this the sky guiding story. This moment from a pretty good book called The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett. In which there is a Tibetan Lama, you know, he’s dealing with moral complexity that Tibetan Lama is running a couple million dollar heroin deal in China to free Tibet…. so it’s sketchy, sketchy but it is complex. The Tibetan Lama is giving a darshan in Kathmandu to many foreigners and explaining sort of spiritual common sense principles: unity, caring for one another. And at the end of it, an African-Americans says, ‘Excuse me for asking this, but are white people just crazy, you know, just insane? Are they are they a major part of our problem? What’s up? And the Lama says, ‘Well it’s more complex, each race, each country, each physical quality of land was given different attributes to combine in the whole – to combine in the whole – and he said the white race was given this kind of metallismo (this metallic technological industrial rar rar rar)’ and he said, ‘that was meant to be just a small part of the brew, but it became so magnetizing, such a toxic con, that everyone else who is supposed to keep the soulfulness and the beauty in the perspective and everything alive – got mesmerized by the con of White Western culture – so it’s everybody’s problem and up for enough for everybody to solve it.’ And we go, well that’s kind of fun.
Right, so, we’re just brewing all these things together going, yeah, okay, what about that? Remembering, always our dynamic is: syncretizing. Jupiter is the intelligence of curiosity and travel and storytelling and blessing and cross pollinating and synchronizing it’s rising in the east (it’s right on top of my Sun right now). It is retrograde until June seventh, I think, meaning research research research in order to bring old things alive in a new way just over and over again – stirring things up, again, in our own personal lives or that with which we have an affinity, for what we’re checking out…).
I know the Sabian Symbol for Jupiter right now pretty well because it’s my Sun. And it’s got two versions, one is
‘A child giving birds a drink at a water fountain – solicitousness.’
I love that, I love feeding birds and giving them a drink at a water fountain… I aspire to that.
And the other image is,
‘A water fountain seemingly motionless at its peak – the unbounded capacity to contact others through life.’
And that’s desirable too. For all of us, it is available.
Jupiter rising opposite Uranus – Uranus’ degree [Sabian Symbol] is, ‘A woman carrying a precious veiled burden into the future – protecting as much life as possible.” So now we’re again making pathways visible to people. It’s part of our skillful dynamic, which is – when dealing with (as John Michael Greer says, If you want people to get nothing done but conflict convince them they’re on one side of something you will only get heat and polarity – the snookering into a polarity) …again we want to spiral away, it doesn’t mean put up with stuff but it just means not to be snookered especially now – in the world, and certainly in America, there are so many narratives right? And Jupiter always says there can be twenty thirty forty stories going on simultaneously and they can be conflicting and they can all be true or partly true …which ones we’re going to vote for? So there’s all these huge you know kind of tsunamis of hubbub going, The uber proud polarizing left is like, No! Everyone is being snookered by the Russia thing – and we go one that there is something in there, (I mean that’s something to be honored, and we’re going to get to our own wonderful Nikola Clay presenting to us ‘Let’s not be distracted’) but those people can get very kind of rar rar rar. And then there’s like, you know, ‘Russia is to blame for everything’-people, over there. And then there’s like, What are we supposed to be paying attention to? And it is a complex narrative, and I think part of our cultivation, that is especially needed now – let us all be agents.
So, what are we doing here? You know it is in my increasingly enthusiastic fervent, that all of us really you know begin to feel the support of our synchronized trickster confident Aikido selves – derived from everything that we love, that we may be agents of cool response in a hot reactive climate.
And it does take practice – I remember some kind of I don’t know slightly presumptive person of the audience at a center in San Rafael, going, Trickster training? You can’t train tricksters! And I go, that shows all the more why you need that. But it was useful – it was useful because it was like, one second – is that a contradiction oxymoron ‘trickster training’? And I go, No – it’s like the Aikido first little mini beginning lesson said, we want to practice these things which are so like nature right – we want to practice these things all about swirling and spirals and movement – because it is no longer natural to humans and we go, aaahh. Now, the animals have it – I mean nobody has to teach animals Aikido or inky the octopus how to escape they know all that. But we seem to have traded some things off, and so the Aikido guy was saying, humans don’t know how to do this naturally which is why it takes practice and that’s why we like to play, you know to wonder, when kerfuffles come up going, what would trickster do what would its one of our wise inner trickster do what will we spiral into practice in our mind’s eye ,and with each other you know and then I out into the world? And again, we can blow it, but you know everybody blows it – but you go, oops, not quite right – but we learn from that.
And remember, little aside, saying – coyote is very lucky if enough con men show up to school her (or him) – we are very lucky we are so lucky. Because it is an evolutionary assist, and again though the value of practicing… practicing…
So, a little bit back to the I-Ching that I was narrating for us with Hexagram One.
“We connect with the sky.
The dragon rises within us – a mysterious vital force moving and circulating through the subtle body.
Dragon force is the actualizing potential between the seen and the unseen.”
Well that’s fun! Now we are in these mysterious realms – the seen and the unseen – and that’s why we’re practicing visualizing our egregor (in different forms – we’ll keep playing with this and teasing it). The wise protective trickster being that is each one of us customizes but that also we set forth to protect – you know, protect life, protect all those who are under attack, all of that – between the seen and the unseen and the commerce – because Jupiter is about all passageways, all thresholds, all crossing things, and certainly between the seen and the unseen.
And that was also – the seen and the unseen – that’s why the Venus cycle is so predominant in virtually all cultures, because you can really see and not see it in a regular rhythm. And as we know, Venus will be the evening star for – well it changes actually – some months and then, it was short this time. And then Venus get so close to the sun that we don’t see her – it’s called Venus going to the underworld. (Or him – it’s also Quetzalcoatl in Meso-America.) And thought that Venus spends forty days in the underworld of invisibility. But this this month she’s only going down for eight days going, can’t leave those humans alone for that long! and then she rises back up. But for the Mayans, well for everybody, what’s called the Heliacal Rise of Venus – when she emerges from invisible to visible – is considered a very big deal, these are like births, I mean births are invisible to visible these thresholds. And the Mayans thought that the Heliacal Rise of Venus was so important, that’s why they killed a lot of people as sacrifices, and all kinds of things that we don’t need to do. We go, I think we think you’re literalizing a metaphor, Mayans. There we go, because we are tricksters we can talk back to anybody. And question everything – we are Heretics, absolutely.
‘The Dragon Force is the actualizing potential between seen and unseen
The inspiration in a work of art – the dynamic language of the Myth World”
I just want to repeat that beautiful idea: Art is the dynamic language of the myth world. Right, so we’re having our dreams some of us on our council, champion dreamers are really really great, but again we all get to participate in this – so champion dreamers be among us, yeah we’re up for that! And I have been dreaming more often, even though I have been disobedient and not always turning the screens off two hours before sleeping… but remember as Stella Coyote says, we’re tricksters… Whenever she did something that harmed herself, And I would think well she’s learned her lesson – it’s like no no no she just learns next time how to get away with it! When she ate the entire cooked chicken, and didn’t feel very well – bones and all – and I was really worried like, ohhhhh… And then, as she recovered, (that’s right we want to bring back our ‘Pub of the Hurling Coyote’ …we used to have that years ago, I’m bringing it back now!) Because what Stella did, and we learn from everybody, is she was like uuughhhh, (and I couldn’t take her to the vets because she would have you know freaked out) l was like okay I’ll just rub your little tummy, and she goes, just rub my tummy! and I go OK and then one day something she got up and she went outside and she dug a little pit (a little triangular pit – just it was quite precise a little a little Egyptian triangular pit) and then she hurled into it. And then she covered it up with her little pointed nose, and then she danced on top of it – she did a little dance deeedadeedadee and then she peed and drank her pee and then she was fine!
And so, hence, we are dusting off all the things from our council… from our long journey together, that I might have forgotten about, but now we have the Pub of the Hurling Coyote in the Underworld where you can always just go, and dig a little triangular pit, and go whooohhAAh and then cover it up with our little pointy noses and then dance on top of it deeedadeedadee… and then, like Gandhi, one can drink one’s pee if one needed to. The Pub of the Hurling Coyote is hereby open in the Underworld.
And I do remember, years back, when when there was a very young esoteric student – I think he was ten, but he really wanted to be part of this thing – and he hung in for a couple months… but when I brought that up and he said, You mean like if somebody makes you go to a church and it’s not like a real thing? and I go, yeah he goes, Alright, well, whooohhAAh. It was very it was very cute. So there’s that.
So with Stella Coyote, I thought well she won’t she won’t do that again – but, no, see the next day she stole an entire cooked chicken from between my hands, as I was taking it out of the oven ….and she just learned to chew really well (num num num num) and she got away with it, she got away with it. So, we have guidelines you know, no rules, but guidelines. And we go yeah, it’s good to do these things – again, just inch by inch just a little bit of the many things we have to do… Coyote Trickster very forgiving, you know absolutely approves of disobedience, again, heresy in a good way.
“The inspiration in a work of art is the dynamic language of the myth world.
One is connected with the great personality, the deep personality in all of us, and with the diviners and sages who can help us realize this force.
Promote seeing or visualizing.”
[Well that’s just what we’re talking about, I-Ching you clever counsellor]
“Become aware – connecting with the inner images being struck and moved by inspiring force.”
Yeah, so again, things that we’ve done together – time to dust it off, we’re at we’re getting ready to dust off everything. I do like our egregores, that we will continue to honor and wonder about. The templates awaiting animation. And I do like, and I’ve been doing this as well – I aspire to follow homework but not to disapprove of myself when I don’t – and everybody here too, but it’s very useful… Well, as marriage is brought up…you know there’s some leeway but then, there’s also a time when the plane takes off. And so we want to be mostly Skookum (connected to spirits and completely competent for the Work at hand). So, there’s some leeway right, but it’s the general dedicated direction – because Uranus is trining Saturn – as a rhythm throughout this year again: discipline is liberating (not external discipline just the slow thing of experimentally going, Yeah when I did that it felt really good, and when I didn’t do that it didn’t feel as good, so here we are).
And we are in the last two weeks of Pisces – to the waning of the year before spring. So all the Pisces demons, as well as virtues – and it’s about not being a martyr – better a trickster than a martyr – which has a lot to do with polarity. Because I was also watching a documentary on early comedians and Lenny Bruce. I grew up listening to Lenny Bruce because of my older siblings, so that was great, with Mort Sahl. Lenny Bruce was the first time – no, it was Red Fox but then Lenny Bruce – was the first time that comedy routines were put on records. And so, I remember Lenny Bruce going, ‘Make me a malted! – You’re a malted!’ but it was also, you could see he was doing great things and everybody was saying that, you know, they’re comedy all depended on Lenny Bruce. And he was defiant he was defiant, but he was polarity-defiant. And he died in a sad too early way, and we go, right again… better a trickster than a martyr (we wish to him). [Some rustling of notes here..oh I well I had some notes on Lenny Bruce…] but it was that idea of – it’s like once I had a client in Rhode Island who a pretty good hearted district attorney, mostly for good things… multiple Aries kind of guy, Aries-Pisces combo (like now in the sky, which is a challenging thing, just to kind of get that right) because he was always going up to judges and people going, I dare you go ahead and hit me go ahead and hit me and then he’d come back and go, They hit me! They helf me in contempt! They did that! and so it’s like right, so that’s all useful – we honor our ancestors who did important things, and who went down with the boat, and we are engaged in in doing that more effectively. Better a trickster than a martyr – which is again like our second great teaching ally making pathways visible to people – liberating even the tyrant …not counting on it, but willing – we love that.
So the I-Ching continues and says: “Dragon is a Realizing Spirit Image” – right, and imagining things. So, before we go to sleep I encourage – and I am completely willing to do this, and the more of us to do it, it strengthens the field. That’s part of our experiment. (That’s our story and we’re sticking to it) – to visualize the desirable, and to begin to kind of visualize our syncretized from many things liberating trickster cells and then larger than that protective spirits, just before we go to sleep…
“Inner images – promote seeing or visualizing
Becoming aware – connecting with inner images”
[And that transitional time period you know right before we go to sleep is considered very very powerful for imagining and setting the template.]
Dragon is a Realizing Spirit Image
Gate to the unseen mediator and conductor of blessings
[Thank you were just talking about blessings, Dragon]
A tireless creative energy
Shape changing
Inspiring and creative dynamic harmony
[Now remember I was asking what is available to all of us, there we go]
He’s dangerous [right] – he’s a tiger – he brings deep abiding joy
[So yeah, to be a little bit dangerous – meaning not to be messed with, capable of bringing an opponent down.]
He brings deep abiding joy
In the body Dragon (or Force) acts through the lungs skin and nervous system.
Regulating the rhythm of life
Making energy descend and disperse
Connects the surface with the central nervous system
[…Dragon dragon dragon….]
This is describes your situation [our situation] in terms of the primal power of Spirit to create and destroy.
Its symbols are: the inspiring power of heaven – the light of the sun that causes everything to grow – the fertilizing rain – the creative energy of the dragon that breaks through boundaries.
You are confronted with many obstacles, the way to deal with them is to persist.
[Yea persisting! Yea ancient language translated into English long ago – persisting]
Persist – For you are in contact with fundamental creative energy
[There we go, and that’s the Aikido thing, which is as we practice – our channels get unclogged and we are more in touch with fundamental creative energy]
Take action – be dynamic strong untiring tenacious and enduring
Continue on your path and don’t be dismayed
Ride the power of the dragon and bring the fertilizing rain
Your situation contains great creative potential – it can open up a whole new cycle of time
[That’s great! And the I-Ching (as many of you may know) especially this one – is not always jolly or jaunty at all]
The scholars speak
The hexagram figure shows creative force in action
Heaven moves and persists
This spirit power is available to you – use it as a source of strength and determination in order to continue on without pause
This great force is the beginning of things,
as the cloud spread in the rain falls all things flow into their shapes
it shows you the end that brings a new beginning
[Well again it’s very very Now – we’re very much at end and beginning, end and beginning.. so how do we want to participate? what do we want to end? this war on reverence, taking more than one needs, all of those things… ending ending.]
The way it brings a new beginning – the way energy moves in the world
In the proper time to accomplish something
If you become aware of its movement you can ride this energy in it’s six different shapes
As if they were six dragons
‘She’ll be riding six white Dragons when she comes’ – Well again it’s something to play with tonight (and and every night well what’s our ride, what’s our ride. So Jupiter also has the idea of a story that you can ride – it says, ‘For the moment, you humans, don’t so much worry about is this true or not true – it’s like can you ride that?’ And so I love that, you know so everybody – mount up and ride six six dragons who are happy to be ridden!
…you can ride this energy in six different shapes, as if they were six dragons
The way of forces to change and transform things
It makes the innate spirit within each being manifest
This protects the great harmony of the world.
[So yeah. This is very very now. Protectors – protectors of harmony – and stories that serve that, that we are protecting harmony.]
Take advantage of it
Use this creative energy to produce ideas that inspire people and give the models of transformation
[OK we will!]
Bring together what belongs together
Right that’s part of the wonderful dynamic. Protecting the great harmony of the world – you know if we want to put that in our pipe and smoke it, or put that in our journals – what are we here to do? To protect the great harmony of the world.
{[*Nikola Clay, council member]: “I was listening to this kind of new, I guess young, astrologer named Timothy Halloran, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. But he was being interviewed by some other, on a webinar, with some other astrologers and what he was talking about was, kind of like, I think he related Chiron to Lucifer and the dark shadows showing up, you know ..and the dangers in blaming everything on this Thing outside – but which you know, it’s all over the media thing, you know what that is. And then he he drew the parallel he said – somewhere in the twelve or thirteen century, I guess it was the Catholic Church or are some, you know one of those, that decided that cats were were bad, they were evil, they represented you know witches or something evil and so many many cats were killed during that time…. are you aware of that period? {Yeah!} and then what followed.. {the Plague!} what followed was you know, so they they blamed the cat and so it was just, OK we will just destroy the cats and then we will be done and no then then the things got really bad, and that became the black plague that lasted much longer and killed I don’t know how many people but yeah ..so he was kind of warning us, to you know not not make it about this person or this group of people and just you know even use the word ‘compassion’ you know the feminine and or whatever you want to call, it that you know being ushered in now is the compassionate (one) and that will that’s the more the answer. And looking for our own shadow and I yeah I did that and, it’s not a lot of fun looking at your own shadow, I realized that I was a bully …there’s been times when I was like acting in a way that I was I would have described someone you know that’s, has a lot of power right now, you know. And it was like yeah – but anyway yeah, the danger in going and pointing a finger at just this thing on the outside and without going into the inner research and see I wonder how I’m like. In some, in some way.”}
Yeah, I think that is part of a valuable brew. Absolutely, the cats were burned and people put ashes of cats on their forehead, like on Ash Wednesday, and here we are in Lent and yes, exactly, really bad. And exactly as you say, so when the rats came in, carrying the fleas that carried the plague, there were no cats and that’s why the plague was so virulent. So that’s an important lesson, and that’s why my Cat was like, Can you open the window? I’m leaving now for this delicate conversation.. and went out the door.
We do want to blend that, and then it’s true that we don’t want to fixate – you know, again, as Aikido says ‘Do not stare into your enemy’s eyes, he will mesmerize you. Do not stare at his weapon, he will terrify you. Create your own magnetic field, and then you can sit anywhere you like.’
Which is not the same as what the important thing you’re bringing up, but it’s it’s cousin. And it’s so it’s like Ho’oponopono – we love that you know that, heal the bully within us all – withdraw our complicity from this – if we all dreamed this up, how can we dream it down – and yeah, I think that’s also the practice the practice of that we’re all inspired to do, just every day, when somebody we don’t even know steps in front of us, or whatever, and we might not like that person going ErggzahErgGzah… You know some of this is kind of primeval, like if something bumps you in the water, you’re like Veerrhhrahh! or you know, whatever it is. There is a saying, that we can chew up and distill, but ‘Nature unaided always fails’ is a hermetic saying – which we might go, What do you mean, nature’s really wise? but it’s like, the natural reaction like ‘rar rar rar’ You know, that’s why we begin to hurl lightning at the story circle and turn it into a spiral…
So there is that, there is the Ho’oponopono and then from that place of healing tyranny within and all the little teeny things that we might do about just really like not liking a stranger for something they did, or thinking that person is too rich, or too short too thin, or too fat, or too something… It’s why Tiffany Aching, the wonderful young girl witch in Terry Pratchett, is so good – because she likens that (and so do other writers like Doris Lessing) but she said, ‘We don’t want our first thoughts or even our second thoughts, we want our third thoughts’ but she goes you know, ‘When those things happen we’re tuning in to the tyranny station. Or the intolerant station…’ and we go no no that’s why we want to snap out of that. And that character, Tiffany Aching, says, ‘Whenever we say things or think things like, ‘ I don’t know why I said that’ you know or ‘I don’t know what got into me’… she encourages the metaphor of possession, that there is a ‘collective weather pattern’ that we’re all a group mind that we’re contributing to in good ways or not right.
And that’s why we’re honing our dedication and our frequency – we aspire in the direction of, May our manner of relating be a liberating blessing – in a witty spicy way. And then, disruptive and lot of humor is disruptive, and in order to create unity, and we go there we go we love all those things. And at the same time, from that good place you know one also does not go passive… Well, these are these are mysterious worthy things before the council, because in the Aikido thing, there’s a very famous Aikido story from Japan – but it is for real because I actually have a friend who studied with this man and it’s a real story. And you may have heard it many times, but it’s really useful – so there was a serious Aikido Student Teacher on the way home in Tokyo on the subway and a very drunken man got on and was kind of bullying people and frightening old people and everything. And so he was gearing up, going, It is my task to do something… But, before he got there, an Old Man went up to the drunken bully and said, Oh! Oh I see you’re drunk on sakê! I love to drink sakê with my wife, and we toast the moon – you, you probably do that too… and again, making pathways visible… and the drunken man said, No I don’t have a wife and the older man said, Well no matter – you probably take sakê, and you hold it up to the moon, and you toast it! and he’s like, No, I don’t! I’ve I’ve lost my way! and they and they walked away, with the older man’s arm around the bully just guiding him… there… and causing the Aikido guy to go, That that was the real Aikido. Not ‘something I’ve got to do’… We’re all expanding our repertoire – each person’s got a different affinity or a different quality, and we love that.
Well you know the I-Ching – it does have some warnings, a little bit, to give us.
It’s Nine in the Second, it’s a good one
“Inspiring Force – The Dragon in the field
Advantageous to see great people – Harvesting
Power and virtue is spreading throughout early spring, the dragon’s horns are visible above the horizon.
Creative energy emerges in the lower center, [right, Hara]
You have the ability to realize things now – take the advice of people you know seek those who connect you to the great spirits and trust what is great in yourself.
Bring people together give them a goal you’re coupled with a creative force.”
And then we get to, you know kind of WoOah Nine in the Third changing line
“Noble one completes the day – Using the inspiring force again and again
At night comes along alarms and adversity, hungry souls and angry ghosts
This is not a mistake
The way reverses and returns
This is a transitional time of incessant activity, plagued by practical and emotional problems – old ghosts may have come back to haunt you
Well, we can take this personally or collectively – going, oh old ghosts old demons old qualities of human rapaciousness of taking more…
Old ghosts may have come back to haunt you don’t worry this is a very important change and creative energy is available to you.
It’s kind of what you were saying, Nikola, that you know going, Wow yeah I’ve been a bully and yeah I think for all of us, part of our tricksters self- examination… I sometimes will look at myself being overly something or other, and go, Hmmm If I met me now would I like me? Hmm Not Sure! And then for many for many bullies, I know a lot of creative bullies, and I, go you know, to some of I say to them, If you met you you wouldn’t put up with you for a second! And it might be a fun wish, If Trump met Trump, Trump wouldn’t put up with Trump for a second! I mean really, so we might want to waft that out there.
Old ghosts come back to haunt you don’t worry this is a very important change and creative energy is available to you.
Turn your back on the past and commit yourself to the New
This marks the return of The Way in your life
Make your way step by step – Find supportive people
Gather energy for a decisive new mood”
[Thank you! Thank you very much, O’ I-Ching!]
And then it did change to Twentyfive
“Disentangling Woo Wang
Disentangle yourself
The spirit returning can disentangle you from affliction”
Well, again all of it is Micro to Ourselves and then Macro to the Larger thing – Let us disentangle ourselves, that we may be agents of disentangling in the larger thing.
Entanglement means: letting yourself go; succumbing to perverse influence or disease; being without order or rule; crazy; vain; the compulsive or afflicted emotions; something twisted; perverse; 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 way 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
[There we go well because it’s all lively now.]
It suggests
The Wang Demon who carries contagious disease
[We were just talking about contagious disease and plague!]
The Wang Demon who carries contagious disease plague miasma and drought
And the purification exorcism and rituals used by the Woo Intermediaries to drive out these diseases and Demons
It’s particularly concerned with the Nei Way,* or the ‘Inner Way,’ and the sage person or sage mind
The meditative practice of the inner way
Center on correcting what calms tranquilisers rectifies and liberates the body
in order to restore a state of neutrality and align with Heaven
This allows energy and breath to circulate freely
And transform awareness
It enables a person to collect great energy and move with or be blessed by Heaven
Disentangle from the afflicted of emotions of greed anger desire and ignorance
[Thank you thank you! One last little thing here…]
Disentangling describes our situation in terms of acquiring the capacity to act spontaneously and confidently
The way to deal with it is to free yourself from disorder
Disentangle yourself from compulsive ideas confusion vanity anger last hatred and the desire for revenge
As Nikola was guiding us, it’s true – when we see something we don’t like in the giant vulgar Trumpelstiltskin cartoon (Bless his soul somewhere)… We do want to disentangle ourselves from ‘compulsive ideas confusion vanity anger lust hatred and the desire for revenge’ because we have somebody who in the Mystery Play has apparently unconsciously consciously volunteered to embody these vulgarities!
By freeing your awareness from these entanglements you can gain the capacity to act directly.
Because there is so much beauty and indivisibility rising up from this and embrace. And collectivity. And there’s a new Ban coming down on March 16th. Again let’s just again without presumption, without hubris, you know kind of move that into the cauldron going, no, no, not that either…
So again, the I-Ching says,
Proceed step by step the spirit has really returned
If you return to it you will not be the source of disaster
[Well there we go. Remember disaster means ‘against the stars’]
Associate with with others without getting caught up in disorder
The ideal realizing in person reflects this by emulating the early wise rulers using the generosity of the time inspired by heaven to nurture and inspire all things.
Persist and work through inner inspiration
It is time to advance!
Okay, thank you I-Ching very much – that works very well with the sky story and our Festival Cahoot of Egregores! Yes, thanks to Rebecca for researching that link… ‘The Egregore (Egregor), an occult concept representing a thoughtform or collective group mind…An autonomous psychic energy made up of, and influencing the thoughts of a group of people’
{[*Robin Rose Bennett, council member, herbalist]
So it came to me when we were reading that the spider could be a wonderful egregore for untangling.}
Oh yeah. Well that’s great. Yes we love that we do love that and the wolves love that too there we go. That’s been perfect timing. That’s great no it’s really good and also especially because Stella coyote is doing so well and what the vet had said and showed me the X-rays, said she had a spider webby-like tumor that had fractured her shoulder and that’s why he didn’t expect her to be around much longer. But I just I took her for a toenail trim and he’s like, She’s alive?! and it’s like, yeah yeah medical cannabis and mushrooms and organic liver and good cooking and yarr! But I go right – and helping to strengthen her little bone and to call on a spider to untangle that web and pack it up and move on… is a really good image. So that’s great Grandmother Spider, thank you. Great egregore.
We want to animate egregore allies, protective witty escapade artist allies.
Right, and (even if you did just cut and paste, Nikola Clay, I did like that) – What are we being distracted from? We keep our eyes on the tiny pebble of life under the cup as it’s by the con going do-de-do-de-do-da And to do that we do want to experiment with slowing time down, which is good at this moment… as I realize the wolves were announcing that we are close to deconvening because we don’t want to stretch people out and we want some good Saturn boundaries..and I started to rush….
{[*Evangeline, councilmember] Caroline, I just wanted to tell you something that happened today, and I don’t know how it is astrologically, but this morning (and this is the third dream I’ve had in say the last three months there that woke me with the same feeling) that I had this dream that was such that, I was just completely engaged in dealing with what was going on and there were it was threatening – not physically – but it was threatening in many ways. And when I woke. I realized what came to me was, Oh, I can awaken from this dream and when I’m thinking have now is we are so caught up in his dream that was constructed by so many entities that have intent was probably not particularly good you know if you want to see any others all those entities that we know or have been manipulating attempting to manipulate the situation have created a situation …it’s pretty amazing …but we can waken from this dream and be in who we are. I mean, I’d been working on it today and just in different things seeing ‘oh who I am I can be I am awake I can awaken from this dream that seems to be oppressive to us and get on with the things I have to do’ which are you know, Beyond those distractions you know taking care of the things I can do. And really be enthused and working on them versus being constantly saying, oh..oh..oh… Because that is that that’s the dream – the dream is that we are helpless. And the reality is we can wake up and act as what we are.}
That’s great and it’s also like John Michael Greer says, Let us not tell the story or imagine Nature herself as weak victim, but as powerful – and awakening from the dream…. And it’s part of again the kind of egregore like path, that we want to – as we move into spring, to begin to, well we’re already beginning to – animate and so many good people and wolves and plants in the world… To animate the desirable.
To animate the desirable and then like in a Teru Kami (?) Japanese novel, at a certain point – we get to pull the switch on the reality train going, We’re going there… We’re going over there… Again the Renaissance is an irresistible invitation to the best of humans… and that’s where we want to keep our primary gaze: on the desirable. Exactly, Awaken from the Dream. We want to be aware of it.
And an ally writes in, saying, Can you say more about why guidelines and not rules? Well everything is kind of complex and everything proffered to everybody’s autonomy …but we go ‘guidelines, not so much rules’ because rules are meant to be broken, a little bit… however there are Saturn Boundaries. I want to bring Saturn into it because the astrological language is so clear there are boundaries. Which are strong guidelines – like there’s only so much water on this planet, there’s a limited amount of that that’s that. I think guidelines are what we encourage in our self and others. Rules… Well it’s interesting I’m going to Mount Sinai where Moses you know that some people think was a different mount but that’s where Moses received the ten commandments and like, Oh, commandments – Boy! because the Ten Commandments were actually stolen from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In which they weren’t commandments, they were guidelines really. You know in which Osiris has one hundred forty something professions: I have not killed, I have not committed acts in lust, I have not stolen…. As an inspirational guideline – rather than the finger wagging ‘thou shalt not’ So the old testament not only stole the ten commandments from the from the Egyptian Book of the dead without attributing right but changing them from inspirational guideline profferings to going, Thou shalt not!
Which makes all of it you know kind of kinky and weird and twisted and strange and contorted …so yeah so I like to say (with flexibility) ‘no rules, but guidelines’ … Now if somebody were behaving really badly in a way that harmed somebody you might go, Hey! (the dog whisperer) Hey not that – over there…over there… or like the Aikido guy, the real Aikido guy, the old man on the train, on the subway train, stepping in and speaking to that person’s ‘you must have reverence’ – he didn’t shame him, he said, ‘you’re drinking sakê, what a beautiful thing that is.’
It’s like the fabulous Louis Pascal post in the facebook page – which is quite genius quite genius – (and we sent the link out – See Article) because again, Step in going, I so admire this… And also, I know many people – my brother in law works with Bill Gates and stuff – and they’re all, he really believes that genetically modified food will save Africa, right, he really does believe that. And so, I don’t agree with that at all… and some of the tense situations where my sister said, ‘poor monsanto…they are the victim of a highly financed oppositional publicity campaign..’ OhGods!Arghahaha… conniption fit. But I do like to step in with those guys and go, We are in accord with our desire to safely feed Africa – Agree with the thing, right, and then tease it out… ‘but did you know about the toxic effects of this… and did you know about the positive elements of organic gardening… and did you know….’
It’s useful to step in and rather than finger wag – because finger wagging is a resistant thing, that’s a losing move, that ends in conflict. And so we are practicing and aspiring. Also keeping our eye on the little pebble under the cup that the conman’s swirling around. And Nikola’s post was, ‘I wonder what we’re being distracted from….’ and then the cut and paste but really useful – ‘in case anyone getting too distracted by the Russian spy drama and the Obama bugging – the following bills been introduced: to Terminate Environmental Protection Agency; Vouchers from Public Education; Terminate the Department of Education; Repeal the Rule Protecting Wildlife; Repeal the Affordable Care Act; Defund Planned Parenthood; National Right to Work (which is, ends unions)… I mean the criminalizing abortion and sanctions against….
Yeah there’s a lot going whoa… And then as tricksters, we would go, Not that – but over here… right, and with the second grade lessons, we go, Imagine a world…. If we present the desirable vision that almost everybody could agree with… it’s like, Start with the Vision – Not with How, because How gets people to go to war…. (the wolves agree with that) You know, ‘if your city blooms mind can’t’ like, No – Wouldn’t we all like a wonderful life for all children, inner cities blooming… wouldn’t we all like that? There we go…
And that’s where we get to have our hypnotic mesmerizing skills with the Sun and Mercury conjoined… Mercury’s in the underworld with the Sun right now. But it’s a great degree, and we also honor Pope Francis whose really doing what he can, in a pretty great way, because the image [Sabian Symbol] is
‘An Easter Parade, rich and poor alike, pour out onto rain drenched streets in a joyous rebirth celebration’
That’s Pope Francis’ Saturn – he’s doing that. And that’s the Sun and Mercury – May we All be voices for ‘the Easter Parade rich and poor alike emerge in a sun shower, in a joyous rebirth celebration’ And since Jupiter is about reflecting on taking things backwards… you know I do look at some of the dementors and those possessed by up-to-no-goodness and go, they were all little babies once – they were all little wuzza-wuzza babies (wuzza wuzza wuzza) and it’s useful to take it all the way back there too, going, ‘they were little babies, did they want to grow up and be dementors?’ What happened to them? It’s like Evangeline, saying, ‘take it back cook it back to what did this want to be there? And awaken from that dream! And be agents of awakening – snap out of it – you could be a great person, over here… yes you could, you could be surprising and loved over, and over here…’ (though not counting on it…)
Robin Rose bringing our spider in, Grandmother Spider – who’s got such storyteller.. Grandmother Spider storyteller, there’s the there’s one of the many egregores of Jupiter, in a way, that we can animate. I never harm – well, knock on wood, I do not harm spiders – the little ones in the house I’m very grateful for, thank you, thank you very much the big ones… I haven’t seen a big one recently, but some times, but I have had really big ones in which I’m in bed and then something really huge crosses my peripheral vision I’m like, Oh God no I hope not… And it’s a spider the size of my hand, but I talk to it… and I go you know nobody wants to get hurt here, there we go… I’m going to put a little glass jar over you and a little cardboard and a good thing and now we’re going to take you outside there… but then Thank you and it’s also I like spiders – bring wealth – right so I’m always encouraging my neighbors, no, don’t kill the spider, it brings wealth. And that actually speaks to people, going, I was going to kill it – but it brings wealth? Oh OK. So make up you know protect it – well like Charlotte’s Web, actually… Charlotte made up a protective dream for Wilbur. ‘Tell them that this thing brings them good fortune’ – ‘Oh, well! Okay!’ You know playing that way.
The question of guidelines and rules is a worthy wondering. So that’s it for the moment but we are cultivating our savvy liberating story craft….
And yeah and I guess just ending with the rousing, ‘What is being attacked? Let us find the beautiful and stir that up and and summon the intelligence of and beauty of Arab culture… and the intelligence and beauty of Hispanic culture… and bringing and cooking and cuisine and art and all of that… and the beautiful work that Yoyo Ma is doing with the Silk Road ensemble.. and this – which again is – it bypasses thinking and speaks to somebody’s soul. And whatever we speak to in another, is the part of them we’re inviting to dance.
So we’re getting ready to set forth on our caravan… our caravan of Dreams… May we all have sweet and powerful dreams. It’s a pretty big powerful dreaming night – Chiron – Yeah I know a guy around and I’m not completely sure on what what Timothy was saying about Chiron, some people attribute everything to one thing, you know, Chiron! Chiron! Especially Chiron people, but – I like, we like, Chiron, Chiron is quite happy in Pisces. Chiron has re-achieved that great degree, [Sabian Symbol]
‘An officiating clergy…’ it’s about rooting out all orthodoxy and corruption,
‘A purged clergy officiates anew –
cleaning out psychological blockages in self and culture –
resolving to philosophical or moral deadlocked spiritual reformation –
sorting out different factors’
And as I speed up, and let me remember to slow way down in order to speed up, as we deconvene. But I do love, if we are to not be distracted – if we are to be Aikido centered – if we’re to be Agents of Calm Reflection operating from the Center of the Storm – you know I love the fantasy novel ‘The Initiate Brother’ and the Botahist brotherhood there, you know ‘maintaining tranquility of purpose when in the realm of evil violent roiling collapsing Empire’ – so it’s quite pertinent – but they learn how to slow time down… And it’s quite ‘experimenting with time’ you know where we go, there we go if we’re doing little things that we’re supposed to be doing time seems to expand. And they slow time down so they can see each grain of sand dropping through the hourglass and so everything they can move… they can they’re not razzle dazzled… they can see where the pebble is under the cup and which cup it is, and they can see the opponent coming at them, or at something beautiful and step right out of the way… one of the – again, I’m a presumptive baby with two lessons in Aikido – but it’s so interesting, because they go, the more advanced you get the more compassionate the more skillful you are the more capable of compassion – when you’re confident you can have more compassion because it’s not fear, it’s confidence and you can take your opponent down, but they say in Aikido, the more advanced you get the smaller the circles smaller – not big gestures and not pushing… And then also a crucial thing is – you stay quite intimate with the attack, right, so you don’t go out… you stay quite intimate. Because that gives one more control over the dance and the dance is dedicated to harmony (and the well being of all creatures). So somebody comes at you, you don’t step far away, you step out to the side, so now you’re in back of them or alongside them now… not far away from the place where you can direct the energy. We love that.
So here we are on our caravan of dreams, we’re going to set forth – unless somebody has something that they are just wildly enthused to say?…Oh This is great. Renchasan in Richmond ‘Remember me? I just tuned in, I came to your place for reading… I cleaned up my house yesterday throwing out a sofa bed mattress and box springs and a chest drawers’ That’s adorable, that’s great! And we leave them for somebody in the caravan! And so you’re ready for the caravan. We’re all ready for the caravan, to set forth on the caravan of dreams, (have you queued up the camels, oh Grand wazir, backstage?) [Richard: Oh, the bazaar is breaking down… the camels are ready…] All right let’s go.
