Flowing with Life Cycles

“Where are you rushing to young man? You’re already there.” — Old Venetian Saying We’ve been conditioned to lean forward in time, to chase after the red balloons, the dangling carrots, the golden ring, the hottie, the soul mate, the ideal weight, the image of success. We hurry through time, afraid that we’ll miss it. It’s always just up ahead, that thing that always eludes your grasp. Gotta keep going so that you can keep reaching toward it. When we are goal oriented, rather than path oriented, we live in a state of chronic time sickness. We hurry distractedly through time trying to get someplace we think we see up ahead. Meanwhile, the time we are living in, the nowever, is degraded by our trying to hurry through it to get to where we think we want to be. But no matter how much we try to hurry through time, we are still always in the nowever. Our lives unfold and people, places and things all change, but it’s always us in the nowever. If we are preoccupied with the current people, places and things, or the ones that we hope to find in the future, then we neglect those [...]

(Warning: This card employs mixed and exploding metaphor technology. Be prepared for an amalgam of casino and metallurgical metaphors.) Life requires skills of both detachment and engagement. One must strike while the iron is hot, and a life well lived provides molten metal glowing in the forge of each day. Every day you are provided molten metal that you need to engage with and shape with your will, creativity, inspiration, perseverance, and whatever else you got. But molten metal does not usually stay molten and in your particular forge. Once shaped, it cools and hardens and becomes a particular thing which may be taken away from your forge. <i> Croupier</i> is a brilliantly done, contemporary film noir with an anti-heroic protagonist who is a croupier, of course, and quite cynical about the ways of the world and human nature. The one virtue I remember him having, though, is a shrewd card player’s sense of when to hold them, and when to fold them. What has stayed with me from that movie is the one line of truly soulful wisdom that the croupier states as his life philosophy: “Hold on tightly, let go lightly.” The most poignant way this principle applies [...]

(Warning: This card employs mixed and exploding metaphor technology. Be prepared for an amalgam of casino and metallurgical metaphors.) Life requires skills of both detachment and engagement. One must strike while the iron is hot, and a life well lived provides molten metal glowing in the forge of each day. Every day you are provided molten metal that you need to engage with and shape with your will, creativity, inspiration, perseverance, and whatever else you got. But molten metal does not usually stay molten and in your particular forge. Once shaped, it cools and hardens and becomes a particular thing which may be taken away from your forge. Croupier is a brilliantly done, contemporary film noir with an anti-heroic protagonist who is a croupier, of course, and quite cynical about the ways of the world and human nature. The one virtue I remember him having, though, is a shrewd card player’s sense of when to hold them, and when to fold them. What has stayed with me from that movie is the one line of truly soulful wisdom that the croupier states as his life philosophy: “Hold on tightly, let go lightly.” The most poignant way this principle applies in [...]

This card uses wave function collapse, a concept from quantum mechanics, as a metaphor for two states in the human domain — the state of indeterminate potential and free floating possibility, and the state of definite commitment and grounded engagement in the particular. I emphasize the metaphorical aspect because there is a New Age tendency to appropriate the findings of quantum mechanics and use them inappropriately. Quantum mechanics applies to the subatomic domain, and is comprehensible in the language of mathematics. Some will take those findings, and in a glib and misleading way apply them to the human domain. Collapsing the wave function, applied metaphorically here, means to sacrifice the indeterminate state by committing and engaging with something definite. So, for example, someone who relationally is “playing the field” and is uncommitted has an uncollapsed wave function, whereas someone in a monogamous committed relationship or marriage has collapsed the wave function relationally. Sometimes it is better not to collapse the wave function. For example, it may be better to leave certain ultimate questions left open rather than collapse them into definite answers in the form of a rigid fundamentalism. The uncollapsed wave function can be a catalyst for exploration, investigation, [...]

In a lifetime, and in the course of a day, we often find ourselves at a binary nexus, a choice between zero and one, between yes and no. This card indicates such a nexus and reminds us that sometimes no is the more powerful decision, the decision that saves our power from premature or otherwise wasteful expenditure. As Goethe said, “A master first reveals himself by his ability to hold back.” Similarly, a Zen archer hits the mark because she holds the arrow back until just the right moment. In other cases the powerful choice is yes, 1, on, go. From the I Ching point of view, the time to go forward with any major choice is when a deep inner knowing tells you it is time. It is the Self (the totality of all psychic structures) and global intuition that are best qualified to make such choices. The mind and ego can be involved, but should not be the rulers of the process because it is above their level of competence. When the mind-ego alliance is in charge of decisions, you tend to get that ping-pong game sort of dialog in your head: “But what about this? But what [...]

Memory is shadowy, but sometimes it holds the seeds of new life. Conscious reflection on the past can deepen the soul and even provide revelations of great value for the present and future. On the other hand, returning to the past obsessively out of emotional addiction can be a massive, massive draining of vitality needed for full engagement with the present. The past is not fixed or irrevocable. Memories are continually revised. Also, occurrences in the present or future can drastically alter the meaning of the past. For example, let’s say someone has a life phase of intense alcoholism in their past. In one timeline that phase is consistent with a general downwardly spiraling life path. In another timeline the person learns from that phase and uses the wisdom gained from encountering darkness to counsel others who are similarly afflicted. The meaning of the alcoholic phase is drastically altered based on what comes after, and this is one of the ways in which the past is mutable. Even neurologically, when memories are recalled they are always reinterpreted based on current values and point of view. The memory is an artifact of the past that, like an antique, has a resonance [...]

King Solomon once challenged his wise men to come up with a saying that he could use that would be appropriate on all occasions. What they came up with was, “And this too shall pass.” There are many variations on this story. Read the Wikipedia entry This Too Shall Pass

Keep adapting to changing conditions. Stephen Covey says that, “The proactive person brings their own weather with them.” Persevere, and don’t be driven up and down by the inevitable vicissitudes of fortune and circumstance. That’s the short version, for those willing to read some more what follows are some warrior aphorisms and quotes on adaptation: “Forget the flight plan, from this moment on we are improvising the mission.” – from the movie Apollo 13 The next three are from Deng Ming-Dao, a modern Taoist sage: “When unpredictable things happen, those who follow Tao are skilled at improvisation. If circumstances deny them, they change immediately.” “When one senses that one has come to the limits of the time and situation, one should conserve one’s energy. Often, this will be in preparation for a challenge to the limits, or a changing over to a new set of constraints.” “When things go badly, those who follow Tao seek the causes and correct them. If the problem cannot be corrected, they shift the entire frame of reference so that the relative importance of the problem is diminished or eliminated . . .” — Deng Ming-Dao “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did [...]

See the potential of youth, but also its shadow. As George Bernard Shaw said, “The problem with youth is that it is wasted on the young.” Youth has its own natural glamour and charisma and sparkly glow. In our culture, many biological, chronological adults are ungracefully aging adolescents forever fighting a losing battle to appear young. The problem is not necessarily with youth, but the unconscious overvaluation of it. Those who actually are biologically young are often the ones who are most aware that youthfulness is not the magical answer to the human condition. The aspect of youth to retain is a connection to beginner’s mind, and the imagination and creativity of the Magical Child and Eternal Youth archetypes. You want access to these archetypes, not to be ruled by them. If you are ruled by them you may end up, like Michael Jackson, caught in Never Never Land where you never fulfill your potential and seek to stave off aging through plastic surgery and clinging to the young and their fads. As a Mary Renault character said, “Man must make his peace with his seasons or the gods will laugh at him.” The fascination with youth pathologizes when we [...]

This is a time to go forward into new possibilities. Shakespeare wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” This is high tide to approach something — a new situation, relationship, or inner change. If there is an open window of opportunity that your deepest intuition supports, then this is a propitious time to approach.