Apr 08 25
The Magician
59. Dispersion, Dissolution
64. Before Completion
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
From “A.B.C.”: Does life have meaning? Is it just absolute randomness and subsequent power structures?
Your question presupposes a lot. It is understandable, but it is nevertheless presumptuous.
Certainty requires a single dimension, or fixed context, to exist. Since there are infinite realities, dimensions, and perspectives, there can be no fixed, global, or stable truth/certainty.
But for human life to progress, with something like strife reduction, we must get along (macro and micro, inner and outer).
Obviously it is very hard to understand, and subsequently live, knowing there are no immutable standards or secure facts — that we are always simultaneously at the beginning, amidst and at the end of some process. It can drive one mad. Really. This is where the Magician comes in.
The best mode to fight a deeply fixed cynicism, or fatalism, is forced openness and curiosity. We are all pushed back into the small corners of our minds surrounded by infinity... But you can bait yourself out of these specific nooks by emulating the Magician. To be happy here you must learn to love novelty and coming in and out of knowledge.
Certainty and belief are hell.
Ardent curiosity and loving concession are the modes to aspire to.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Magician. Yes! The Magician! Well... Here is transcendental curiosity married to will. An emphasis on the elasticity/specificity of perspective, scale, dimension, and context. The Magician respects fractals and infinity, anomalies and banalities. The magician doesn’t know but tries to see as much and as little as they can. Accidents, fate, synchronicities, sciences, religions, pleasure, asceticism, art — all are research to the Magician. They are a reflector, embodier and unifier. It is ALL on the table for the magician. From A.E. Waite: “This card signifies... the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof.” “The act of aspiration becoming will becoming action to unite all planes of existence and understanding.”
Our first hexagram this week is #59, Dispersion, Dissolution. Here, the suggestion is to dissolve the barriers of rigidity; a dissolution that reconstitutes the individual into a joining, a melding. That is, to break apart a biased clinging, so as to let in a kind of humble, but deep, appreciation of the cosmos of self as well as the outer cosmos — and the interplay therein. This likely will require a visit to a personage or place or scenario of true greatness (visiting a holy person, climbing a mountain, helping to build something of civic/healthful significance, etc.). “Here the subject is the dispersing and dissolving of divisive egotism.”
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #64, Before Completion. This is the last hexagram of the I Ching (the first being The Creative — the second being The Receptive). A wintery/dark period is closing and a new period (like Spring) is beginning. It is a time of preparation. “The conditions are difficult. The task is great and full of responsibility. It is nothing less than that of leading the world out of confusion back to order. But it is a task that promises success, because there is a goal that can unite the forces now tending in different directions… Accordingly, in times before completion, deliberation and caution are the prerequisites of success.” “If we wish to achieve an effect, we must first investigate the nature of the forces in question and ascertain their proper place. If we can bring these forces to bear in the right place, they will have the desired effect and completion will be achieved. But in order to handle external forces properly, we must above all arrive at the correct standpoint ourselves, for only from this vantage can we work correctly.” This hexagram points to success or an arrival that has been in progress for a long time — a process that is almost inevitable. It is not wholly in the bag but needs to be carefully carried through to the final realization — clarity of vision is of utmost importance.
- Strive to be a reflector, embodier and unifier.
- Strive to unite the various planes of existence and break apart biased clinging.
- Visit a holy person or climb a mountain or build/participate-in something of civic, healthful, and/or broader significance.
- “To achieve an effect, we must first investigate the nature of the forces in question.”
- Clarity of vision is of utmost importance.
From “A.B.C.”: Does life have meaning? Is it just absolute randomness and subsequent power structures?
Your question presupposes a lot. It is understandable, but it is nevertheless presumptuous.
Certainty requires a single dimension, or fixed context, to exist. Since there are infinite realities, dimensions, and perspectives, there can be no fixed, global, or stable truth/certainty.
But for human life to progress, with something like strife reduction, we must get along (macro and micro, inner and outer).
Obviously it is very hard to understand, and subsequently live, knowing there are no immutable standards or secure facts — that we are always simultaneously at the beginning, amidst and at the end of some process. It can drive one mad. Really. This is where the Magician comes in.
The best mode to fight a deeply fixed cynicism, or fatalism, is forced openness and curiosity. We are all pushed back into the small corners of our minds surrounded by infinity... But you can bait yourself out of these specific nooks by emulating the Magician. To be happy here you must learn to love novelty and coming in and out of knowledge.
Certainty and belief are hell.
Ardent curiosity and loving concession are the modes to aspire to.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Magician. Yes! The Magician! Well... Here is transcendental curiosity married to will. An emphasis on the elasticity/specificity of perspective, scale, dimension, and context. The Magician respects fractals and infinity, anomalies and banalities. The magician doesn’t know but tries to see as much and as little as they can. Accidents, fate, synchronicities, sciences, religions, pleasure, asceticism, art — all are research to the Magician. They are a reflector, embodier and unifier. It is ALL on the table for the magician. From A.E. Waite: “This card signifies... the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof.” “The act of aspiration becoming will becoming action to unite all planes of existence and understanding.”
Our first hexagram this week is #59, Dispersion, Dissolution. Here, the suggestion is to dissolve the barriers of rigidity; a dissolution that reconstitutes the individual into a joining, a melding. That is, to break apart a biased clinging, so as to let in a kind of humble, but deep, appreciation of the cosmos of self as well as the outer cosmos — and the interplay therein. This likely will require a visit to a personage or place or scenario of true greatness (visiting a holy person, climbing a mountain, helping to build something of civic/healthful significance, etc.). “Here the subject is the dispersing and dissolving of divisive egotism.”
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #64, Before Completion. This is the last hexagram of the I Ching (the first being The Creative — the second being The Receptive). A wintery/dark period is closing and a new period (like Spring) is beginning. It is a time of preparation. “The conditions are difficult. The task is great and full of responsibility. It is nothing less than that of leading the world out of confusion back to order. But it is a task that promises success, because there is a goal that can unite the forces now tending in different directions… Accordingly, in times before completion, deliberation and caution are the prerequisites of success.” “If we wish to achieve an effect, we must first investigate the nature of the forces in question and ascertain their proper place. If we can bring these forces to bear in the right place, they will have the desired effect and completion will be achieved. But in order to handle external forces properly, we must above all arrive at the correct standpoint ourselves, for only from this vantage can we work correctly.” This hexagram points to success or an arrival that has been in progress for a long time — a process that is almost inevitable. It is not wholly in the bag but needs to be carefully carried through to the final realization — clarity of vision is of utmost importance.