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To war or not to war...that is the question

C

candid

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Kts,

There?s a difference between remaining emotionally detached and idly sitting on the sideline. I?m hardly apathetic toward it but see it as unproductive to debate, especially in this forum. That doesn?t mean I?ve taken a vow of silence on the matter.

Hope this clarifies.

Candid
 

lenardthefast

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Dear Lindsay,

With regard to point nr. 2 in your post, I believe that to be addressed here in this forum. I know that I have received greater insight into the various arcane symbols used by the Yi since joining Clarity. As to the overall experiment I am still in the process of trying to digest it. There does seem to be a pattern there and I am usually fairly good at spotting patterns. Diligently working away on it for my own edification. When finished, should I come up with anything I believe significant, I will surely post it, as I suppose others will also. I definitely enjoyed being a part of the experiment and having this large body of results to study. I, like you, believe there was a uniqueness to it.

Oh, by the way, TODAY is MY birthday! Happy birthday to me, from me.

Namaste,
Leonard
 

suzy

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Happy Birthday, Leonard!!!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you....
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lenardthefast

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Thank you very much, Susy!(Looks like I will be sacrificing a Maine lobster to the birthday gods tonight!)

Namaste,
Leonard
 

kts

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Dear Candid,
Sorry, I didn't mean you were apathetic, just that I wondered whether you fitted the description of something about to explode.
 

hilary

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Happy Birthday, Leonard!!
Good day for a birthday, too.
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Enjoy your lobster... let us know if its shell cracks interestingly
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lenardthefast

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Dear Hilary,

Thank you! I shall report on all 'significant' cracks. Oh, btw, although I am fairly good at interpreting chicken entrails, I am unaquainted with the intricacies of 'crack' reading. Do you have any advice as to what I should look for? ;-))

Namaste,
Leonard
 

lenardthefast

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Dear Hilary,

I threw 2, The Receptive, asking the same question two nights previous to the 'experiment'. As is my custom when receiving no moving lines, I read All the lines as if they were a story(starting from the bottom, of course). Although I intuited a sense of foreboding throughout the story, the sixth line was especially scary. Any thoughts?

Namaste,
Leonard
 
C

candid

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Kts,

I?d be lying to say the ordeal isn?t distressful to me. I?m troubled and saddened at the mention of war, even when I believe military action is appropriate, which as I?ve expressed here, I?m not convinced of in this case. Its for this reason, I believe, that I received 52 this morning. To be aware but not become so attached that clarity of mind is lost.

I?ve seen friends and family split apart (hopefully not a reference to my reading) over intense political viewpoints before. I respect that others may not share my own viewpoints. All I?ve ever asked is that the courtesy be returned, and that no hostility develop between us. We here have some strong common interests. My primary interest (here) is to hold together as a community so that we all can continue our collective study on I-Ching and related topics.

Happy Birthday, Leonard!
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Candid
 

lenardthefast

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Thank you, Candid!

Upon doing a really fast perusal of the 'table' I seem to find that H54 occurs 7 times and H44 occurs 6 times. In one of my favorite translations H54 advises "caution and inability to communicate'; H44 advises 'resisting the temptation to dally with an inferior element'.

All I have time for now, have to pay the bills!

Namaste,
Leonard
 

hilary

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Is 5pm Sunday OK for everyone, then? Please, say something!

(Date and time for Leonard's chicken-entrail-reading seminar still to be announced.)

Thanks, Candid, for the occasional reminder that we should avoid turning this into a political forum, or (worse) one where only people with certain views feel welcome. Let's keep on studying this extraordinary group divination of ours. After all, it was supposed to bring us Radical Change, at least if we keep talking.

Leonard, about 2, unchanging - whatever else, the 6th line isn't an inevitable outcome of 2, and no lines moving isn't the same thing as 6 lines moving. I'd take Receptive unchanging pretty much as Yi declining to offer a prediction, showing instead the terrain open for anything and everything to grow with vigour. Still, it wasn't given to me to read...
 

suzy

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Hi, Hilary --

Okay, saying something here: yes, I think chat at 5pmGMT sunday is fine. But how? Where and how will the chat room materialize in cyberspace, and what is the secret passcode to enter? :)

Suzy
 

hilary

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Suzy and anyone else who unaccountably doesn't read all the announcements here and remember the newsletter from 3 issues back
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...

We do have our own chat room now, at http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_chat/chat/index.php3. I could try to create a private room for us so that you have to register to enter. On the other hand, I doubt we'll have much problem with gate-crashers, so I'm inclined just to meet in the public 'I Ching' room. Do by all means have a look and see how it works. Apologies for the wonky colours in places - still can't work out what to change to correct them.

Please note that if you do want to be registered, you'll have to register. In other words, the usernames and passwords can't be transferred automatically from this forum to the chat.
 

lindsay

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Happy birthday, Leonard!

A group interpretation? Why not? ? we?re pretty much in uncharted territory anyway. Here is an interpretation based on the following assumptions:

(1) The basic question was a request for a picture or image of the situation with Iraq, maybe with emphasis on the future. There are 12 readings addressed to this question. They are for labeling purposes (in table order, hexagrams only):

A. 18
B. 13, 47
C. 11, 46
D. 64, 38
E. 6, 44
F. 8, 2
G. 26, 18
H. 11
I. 32, 50
J. 22, 17
K. 60, 8
L. 41, 56

(2) I am assuming the Yi would not hand us something beyond our capacity to understand. What?s the point of presenting an answer that cannot be understood by the group?

(3) One easy-to-understand format would be a sequential narrative of events. Time and brainpower force me to use only the hexagrams to create a skeleton narrative. The changing lines and other factors would flesh out the narrative considerably, but I?d rather stay on a more abstract level for now.

(4) The traditional assumption in predictive divinations is that the primary hexagram precedes and leads to the future relating hexagram. This would be a logical backbone for any narrative the Yi chose to tell us. I will assume it?s so.

(5) Looking for other narrative connectors, I assume like-hexagrams should be paired. For example, I assume reading A. is somehow connected with reading G., both of which contain Hex 18.

(6) Putting the narrative together involves some guesswork, but the Yi may assume we know enough to supply the appropriate links.

(7) Hilary assumes the reading is framed by the unchanging hexagrams 18 and 11. This makes a lot of sense to me, but as I worked with the narrative flow, I was forced to abandon this structure. At least for my version of this group reading.

Here goes:

Great Accumulating (G26) leads to Deterioration (G18). Saddam?s stockpiling of weapons or Washington?s aggrandizement of world power leads to a deteriorating situation which some feel must be dealt with.

Repeated Deterioration (A18) leads to Dispute (E6). Deterioration becomes a prolonged process, the key to the unfolding situation. This situation is marked by intense world debate and disputing.

Dispute (E6) leads to an Intense, Tempting Encounter (E44). I believe there may be a personal quarrel between Saddam and Bush, based on the last Iraqi war, that may blind both leaders somewhat to the scale of the dispute.

Temptation (E44) leads the demand for Articulating or Measurement (K60). Here we have the demand for weapons inspection.

Measurement (K60) leads to Grouping, Alliances (K8). The lack of conclusive results by the UN weapons inspectors has forced an emphasis on gathering allies and grouping to resist.

Repeated Grouping (F8) leads to Receptiveness (F2). The scramble for allies and polarization of world opinion has lead to a certain receptiveness or desire for understanding the roots of the conflict. More information is needed.

Receptiveness (F2) leads to Embellishment (J22). The demand for justification has led to embellishments of the facts, on both sides. More confusion as appearance/reality increasingly becomes an issue.

Adorning (J22) leads to Following, Accepting Guidance (J17). The propaganda of both sides galvanizes the position of supporters as they increasingly accept guidance from one of the two leaders.

Following (J17) leads to Bringing Together (B13). Two sides, hard in their resolve, assemble their forces. Troops are deployed, weapons made ready.

Bringing Together (B13) leads to Oppressive Confinement (B47). Suddenly most nations find themselves in a box, fixed positions from which there is no backing down.

Confinement (B47) leads to Not Yet Accomplished (D64). As the battlelines harden, the uncommitted and opponents of war struggle to cool things down by insisting that the situation is not hopeless, the battle not yet joined. Still room for progress in negotiations.

Not Yet Accomplished (D64) leads to Conflict (D38). Efforts toward peace are futile, war breaks out.

Confict (D38) leads to Persevering, Continuing (I32). No quick victory. Fighting continues longer than expected. Iraq is resolute, the US implacable.

Persevering (I32) leads to the Cauldron, Transformation (I50). Fighting continues until suddenly, thanks to the combination of many factors, the main obstacle to peace is transformed or eliminated.

Transformation (I50) leads to uneasy Peace (H11). The main obstacle is gone but peace proves a lengthy process.

Repeated Peace (C11) leads to Advancement (C46). Finally a winner emerges from the peace and advances its claims.

Advancement (C46) leads to Diminishing (L41). The gains prove short-lived and soon diminish in their value.

Diminishing (L41) leads to Traveling, Seeking (L56). The victor is forced to resume its self-styled journey, seeking a solution to what is now an intractable situation.

So, this cheerful narrative accounts for all of our hexagrams. There are minor links I cannot develop here, having already tried your patience. Still, I think you?ll find this is a plausible, unified reading.

Lindsay
 
C

candid

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Oh! This reminds of a conversation I had last night with a friend about Yi. I was trying to explain what role the relating hexagram plays. I used the analogy of going on a cruise. In order to find ones place at sea, we would need two specific reference points, and where they intersect is where our position would be. Then she asked, what if there's no relating hexagram? I said, well then the ship is anchored. Then it hit me that Hilary had brought the subject of no changing lines up before, and we all attempted to to coin an appropriate name for that type of instance. Well, the word "anchored" seemed fitting.

Hilary, 5 GMT should be fine for me. First I'll have to figure out what time that is here though.
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Candid
 
C

candid

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Lindsay - Fantastic! Excellent continuity and seemingly logical.

Thank you!
 
C

candid

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Hilary - My handle and password got me in just fine. (?) That's at 10AM Sun, my time.
 

lindsay

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Thanks, Candid! I?ve made a chart the size of a soccer field to work this all out. There is a precedent for this type of interpretation. In ?Rediscovering the I Ching,? Greg Whincup did something similar by spinning a narrative out of the King Wen sequence. He thought his story explained why the hexagrams were presented in the order they were.

I?ve never used a chat room. How do they work?

Lindsay
 

lenardthefast

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Dear Hilary,

Sunday at 5pm GMT is fine with me. Since I no longer live on a farm I guess I'll have to go to the local Chinese market to find a live chicken, so when you get ready for that one give me about 4 days notice. ;-))

Thanks Lindsay. I hope the soccor players didn't mind. Pretty impressive amount of work considering the time at your disposal. Just how many gallons of coffee did you have to consume? ;-))

Namaste,
Leonard
 

hilary

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I've only very rarely dropped into chat rooms myself. I'm hoping that those who are familiar with such things, like Candid and Val, will be around! The biggest difficulty seems to be not knowing who is busy typing, so you all end up talking at once.

Lindsay, how did you settle on this particular order for the readings?
 

lindsay

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Dear Hilary ?

Soccer field is just the usual American hyperbole. Actually I worked the whole thing out on a cocktail napkin while I sipped my usual double martini for lunch.

How did I work out the sequence?

First of all, I had the idea that the Yi was telling us a big story, and that each reading was a chapter in that story. The hexagrams formed the elements or events of the story.

Then I assumed the structure of each reading followed a narrative order, with the primary hexagram leading to or implying the relating hexagram. Again, while I know you don?t particularly cotton to this kind of thinking, it is very Chinese and very traditional.

I also assumed that readings that contained the same hexagram were linked together, and that this hexagram was being emphasized by repetition. By this logic reading G belonged with reading A, K with F, and H with C.

I thought maybe Anita?s reading, coming later as it did, might be the final installment in the story. This actually caused me a bit of a problem, since I liked putting it elsewhere ? but finally my intuition of finality prevailed.

Then the problem became stitching the readings together. So I guessed the Yi was telling us a story whose beginning we already knew, since that would give us a place to start. And because we asked generally for a big picture, it seemed reasonable that would include the past, present, and future.

Where did the story begin? Reading G felt right to me, especially with its link to A. So beginning with G, I worked out this narrative sequence of readings:

G > A > E > K > F > J > B > D > I > H > C > L

The hardest part was the J-B-D-I sequence, but I relied on internal structural and contextual clues to put them in the right order.

Then I had to figure out what the actual story was. I put the sequence together without really knowing the story. That?s when I ordered another double, thank you.

Lindsay
 

lenardthefast

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Dear Lindsay,

Would you please send me one of those doubles or two or.......how about a whole pitcher of Kamakazes? ....it is afterwork-Friday and my B-day and all....Pretty please?
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Namaste,
Leonard
 

lindsay

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Dear Leonard,

I've just arranged for the dispatch of a 10-wheeler tanker truck loaded with the appropriate mixture to Pennsylvania. Hope it arrives in time.

Have a blast tonight, but pull yourself together for Sunday's chat!

Lindsay
 

lenardthefast

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Thanks, Lindsay,

The truck should just about get me to the sweet spot.
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Namaste,
Leonard
 

willow

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Hi all,
Sorry I haven't been able to participate regularly, but I have been able to come in and skim from time to time. (With unfilled vacancies, layoffs, wage concessions, the joke at work is, that we're each doing 2 jobs for the price of .97% of one.)

So much has slipped in since I started writing my little contribution - wonderful thoughts and interpretations all. What follows got really long, so my apologies in advance. I won't be able to make the chat but I'll be thinking of you all, and try to be there in spirit!

OK, here goes:

I did the same thing as Candid and asked a question to get me started with the interpretations. My question was, "What is the most productive place to get started interpreting all this stuff?" And my answer was 3, unchanging.

Candid's is Bound, the straight-backed meditator sitting like a mountain upon a mountain, changing to Stripping, cutting away the unessential. Mine is Difficulty at the Beginning, or Sprouting -- the first coming together of the light and dark principles in an effort to make something together.

I don't want to sidestep the effort to make a unified interpretation of all the readings, but I also see something worth noting about the variety of them. It's sort of a picture of "The Whole World is Watching." Whatever happens, it will have significant consequences for each of us, and depending on where we are, and who we are, those consequences will be different. We asked for a picture of what is likely to happen, and, as someone said, we may have each gotten back an answer within the terms of our own experience. Sort of like if the group of blind men about to touch the elephant divined about what they were about to touch. Wouldn't they get answers that would support, "It's a rope. It's a tree. It's a wall. etc."?

What I think is the significance of that, is the reminder that each of us goes into this future (that isn't yet fixed) as an individual, and we are advised to remember that. To not get too detached and start to imagine the future is an abstraction that exists independent from our participation. Begin from where you are, from your own experience. Don't ignore your individuality, your perspective and power to contribute to the outcome ? instead go deeply into your desire, so far that you see through it, and then go into the group with a sense of who you are. It's going to be real, for each of us, and for each in a different way. We are each entranced by the visions we see, and are not even seeing our own courtyard and front door. But no blame, because there is something there in the visions ? watch, and see what they have to teach.

What strikes me about the suggestion (Hex #3) to look at this as a time when there is an initial effort being made to mix light and dark, creative and receptive, male and female, is how that echos and yet reinterpret's all this Good and Evil posturing.

Two things that certainly characterize the Bush administration are a refusal to be introspective, and a terrific fear of the admixture of light and dark. My take on the Bush administration is that its approach is deeply affected by the way it came into office. I think that Bush & Co. may feel their illegitimacy even more powerfully than others do, because, after all, they're the ones who know the details of how they "won." The outcome of the election, in a sense, "legitimated illegitimacy." They, who so coveted the "Mandate of Heaven," got instead ?Might Makes Right,? a strange, eerie reflection of their own shadow back upon themselves.

So Bush, attaining office, was simply cast by the gods, ill-equipped, into his own Netherworld. Projection, double standards, what looks to others as downright insanity ? are they surprising results? Here we have the reverse side of #52 ?moving through one?s chamber, not seeing one?s people.?

And the WTC disaster was a huge dramatic expression of a fundamentalist vision of ?Might Makes Right,? that, I don?t think so much catalyzed the Administration as it transfixed and paralyzed them.

What has come out in the aftermath? All the lurking, latent, fundamentalist, transplanted fascist, self-destructive threads interwoven into our government?s patchwork interweaving of light and dark have burst from hiding and grown frantically, furiously. There is a scene in the most recent Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers, where the king of the human realm has been incapacitated by a spell, and he sits in a webby stupor, the pawn of nefarious advisers, until Gandalf breaks the spell. Many people say ?war seems inevitable,? but it looks to me far more like there is a desperate recognition on the part of the administration that the window of opportunity is closing ? either remake the world NOW into a Might Makes Right place, or be swept away in the healing backlash. Do it now, before the spell is broken.

So what is the nature of the spell that incapacitates Bush (and often many of the rest of us)? I would argue (this being an I-Ching forum, hee hee), that it?s the inability to turn that #52 outlook around, to willingly look deeply within, to accept oneself as a complex mix of light and dark. I would argue that it?s addiction.

Doesn?t it seem fitting that Bush is a recovering alcoholic and cocaine user? One way to see the whole drama of France and Belgum, Russia and Korea, is that here the world is, about to stage an Intervention, to get him to sit down once again to see the insanity of his behavior, the hopelessness of his (or America?s) getting what he truly wants, needs and deserves, through continuing the course he is on. But I think the thing is, in a way, he?s just the part of each of us sitting in that chair.

Some of the goals he believes in are certainly valid. And some of the facts he thinks he sees are actually there. Some of the threats legitimate. Hell, one could maybe even make the case that by championing another 50 years of American domination of the world, he?s a Super Environmentalist ? what WOULD happen if everyone on earth could have a car and a refrigerator before we?ve somehow collectively learned some additional materialistic skillfulness and restraint?

But I think that because he has such a hard time admitting an iota of guilt, remorse, complexity, he cuts himself off from the opportunity for forgiveness, and he sees his only path as going it alone. And he surrounds himself with others of similar bent. And champions that part of each of us.

The other day, I found my face shaping itself into a Bush Smirk. What happened was that, unbidden, the thought of a former pleasure (that is now outside the pale of the acceptable in the structure of my life) came to mind. The muscles in my face fought: On the one hand, the sweet silly grin of a memory of the pure delight I touched before, through a certain channel. On the other hand, the earnest, energetic frown of a sincere desire to change, of a ?that?s not OK anymore? judgment, and accumulated effort to shape my life along other lines.

A pure impulse, and a pure will, met in my face in a grotesque stand-off. How, I wonder is it different for Bush ? recalling days of carefree frat-boy privilege and hedonism, yet now attempting to fill a role that requires (at least public) denial of those pleasures? For me, in a minute, the stand-off in my face was over, and a new expression evolved, one of calm interplay of the two impulses. Fortunately, for me, at least sometimes, I can accept the dance of yin and yang within myself, accept the knowledge of myself as the ever-changing form that equally valid opposites take on as they attempt to grow together, be aware of the grace of forgiveness.

But I say ?at least sometimes,? because I don?t deny that Bush sits in that chair for me too. ?The American way of life is not-negotiable,? his Dad said at the Rio summit, and the son now finds himself champion of a go-it-alone reckless policy that looks for all the world like the behavior of an addict. Although it?s true that there are strategic and ?realpolitik? reasons to argue that this is ?all about oil,? I think the most significant reason to look at it through the oil lens is as a manifestation of our collective addiction. The other ?out? for the addict, who cannot accept a spirituality of brokenness and paradox, is to resist forgiveness and reconciliation, to instead move on to a new repression, a new polarization, a new addiction.

And that gets me back to the readings. Changing at the third place in Bound (Candid?s starting-point), is translated in Karcher as:

Bound: one?s limit.
Assigned to one?s loins:
Adversity smothers the heart.

You are cutting yourself in two, separating yourself from real and legitimate desires. The acrid smoke from this repression smothers your heart. You don?t have to suffer like this, it won?t help anyone.

George, you don?t have to suffer like this. Tony, you neither. Osama. Saddam. Yassir. Ariel. America. None of you do. None of us do.

When I look back at all the hexagrams we got, after having written this, I do see a sort of collective interpretation. They?re mostly hexagrams that involve images of groups of people doing something together. I have the image of all the people from all over gathering, descending to the river. All coming together for a meeting, an intervention, a healing.

A healing that we all need as much as our Poster Boy of Insanity does (take your pick! ?like the line in the old CSNY song goes, ?battle lines are being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.?)

Just go down the hexagram names quickly, don?t you get that feeling of an assembling for collective internal/external effort:

18 Work on what has been spoiled
13 Concording people
11 peace, pervading
64 before completion
6 arguing
8 grouping
26 great accumulating
11 peace, pervading
32 persevering
22 adorning
60 limitation, articulation
41 diminishing
3 difficulty at the beginning
52 bound
36 brightness hiding
Many people, many ways, coming together.

My reading was the 60=>8, and if you notice my comment, I recently read that during the rise of Solidarity in Poland, there was a church that put up a banner, "I am Cain AND Abel." So my current personal reality, my particular take on the elephant before us is to starkly see ?that the line between good and evil is a line drawn down the middle of each human heart.? That who?s heading down to the river from here.

Having worked myself up into a bit of a passion, I go searching the internet and find the lyrics to the song I?m looking for, something of a hopeful soundtrack for the coming days. May we all wear the robe and crown, may we all ask and receive forgiveness from each other, heal the wounds in our own hearts, join together. Maybe a new world order is a-borning.

My summary of a collective interpretation is, ?It?s up to us.? Taking the long view, this really is the first real test of the vision behind the United Nations. Of the hope that democracy ? the spirited unique participation of each individual in the life of the greater whole ? can break the age-old and ever-new spell: the spell that goes something like this,
?Because you are an individual, you are alone. No god other than the one you can summon by your own power walks with you. No being other than one you can subdue by your own might works for you. No forgiveness or renewal other than one you can compel by your own willful alienation exists. Choose fear.?

If studying the I Ching has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that being an individual does not doom me to being alone, that another larger-than-personal power always walks with me, with all of us, that power-with is stronger than power-over, that collaboration and forgiveness are always available, if only I set down my willful alienation, my addiction, my fear that somehow the good of all is different from the true celebration of each unique individuality. And choose love.

Gathering clouds of war, thunder coming before, the rain not yet. Gathering individuals, statesmen and commoners. The warmongers on all sides so rivetingly apocalyptic, so catastrophically out-of-touch that they fairly compel an unprecedented effort toward inclusive sanity, call forth the agents of their own healing, which did not before exist. Here we go. Down to the River to Pray. That?s what I think the readings are saying.

But then again, maybe I?m the one who?s out of touch, and last time I checked, there wasn?t much skin left on my thighs either?

Willow


Down to the River to Pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !

O sisters let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sisters let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !

O brothers let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
Come on brothers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !

O fathers let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O fathers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !

O mothers let's go down,
Let's go down, don't you want to go down,
Come on mothers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !

O sinners let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sinners let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
 

cal val

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Hilary...

I'll be there at 5PM GMT. I look forward to it.

Willow...

"that power-with is stronger than power-over"

Thank you.

I'm going to add that to my "power" "collection" which now only holds my own feelings on the subject which is...real power is self-love.

Peace and out,

Val
 

cal val

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Hilary...

I'll be there at 5PM GMT. I look forward to it.

Willow...

"that power-with is stronger than power-over"

Thank you.

I'm going to add that to my "power" "collection" which now only holds my own feelings on the subject which is...real power is self-love.

Peace and out,

Val
 

willow

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Aug 16, 1970
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...real power is self-love.

Yes! And I, for one am not about to let a bunch of self-haters take the whole world down with them.

By the way, I get a hint from your posting the same response twice that this topic may be getting so long that it would be a good idea to start a new topic to continue the discussion. It took forever for my post to load, which I thought was just because it was so long. But it looks like you had the same experience, so maybe it's the topic. Hilary?
 

lindsay

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Dear Willow,

So tell me, Willow, how do you really feel about George Bush?

Too bad he's not a celluloid villain. Too bad Gandalf can't save us. Too bad all his men are well-intentioned and convinced of their rightness. Too bad they are as smart if not smarter than we are. Too bad they love their wives and husbands, children, dogs and cats. Too bad they give to charities and suffer from arthritis. Too bad singing spirituals never saved anybody except in the movies, even in the civil rights days. Too bad most Americans still agree with him. Too bad these people are our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends and comrades. Too bad good and evil don't quite cover the territory. Too bad each and every one of us is completely responsible for everything that is happening. Too bad, don't you think?

I just think it's too bad, because I don't know what to think anymore. My hands aren't clean.

Lindsay
 
C

candid

Guest
Willow,

It is an honor and privilege to pass onto you the coveted "Lindsay Sanity At Clarity Award."

I'll not even attempt to add anything to what you've written, and frankly, I'm speechless anyway.

Respectfully,
Candid
 

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