This morning I consulted the I-Ching and threw the first and third lines of Dispersion (a hexagram which according to Chrissy Philp’s model represents Neptune. I wondered what this might be about. The first line says:
Six at the beginning means: He brings help with the strength of a horse. Good fortune. It is important that disunion should be overcome at the outset, before it has become complete-that the clouds should be dispersed before they have brought storm and rain. At such times when hidden divergences in temper make themselves felt and lead to mutual misunderstandings we must take quick and vigorous action to dissolve the misunderstandings and mutual distrust.
the fourth line says:
Six in the fourth place means: He dissolves his bond with his group. Supreme good fortune. Dispersion leads in turn to accumulation. This is something that ordinary men do not think of. When we are working at a task that affects the general welfare, we must leave all private friendships out of account. Only by rising above party interests can we achieve something decisive. He who has the courage thus to forego what is near wins what is afar. But in order to comprehend this standpoint, one must have a wide view of the interrelationships of life, such as only unusual men attain.
After throwing these lines I headed into my home town – Stroud – to meet a friend. In the middle of Stroud a demonstration was taking place. The demonstration was against the plans that the council had to sell off the central venue called the Subscription Rooms. Another mutual friend was very vocal in persuading us to join and protest against this. He blamed the government putting pressure on the council. As we were walking through the market, my friend introduced me to a friend of his who was a leading proponent of the movement to create a legal precedent that prevented governments from reneging on their commitments to climate change proposals. It was to create a fundamental right that existed beyond individual governments. As we talked, there were a number of references to Trump and the sense was of being part of a war against Trump.
When I joined the protestors they were reciting poetry to the crowd. The poetry sounded very angry and cynical. It was about people deliberately screwing the poor and it had a very angry and bitter feel to it. There was a definite sense of a “cause” that had to be fought for.
A few evenings ago, I was talking to a friend of mine whose wife had had an affair in secret and brought an end to thirty-seven years of marriage. His four kids had been devastated, as had he. He was asking me (since I had suffered a similar fate) what was the point of being people taken over by forces which caused such devastation and suffering. He saw it very much that way. He was angry that his wife saw herself as such a victim still rather than understanding the pain she had caused. But he was questioning whether anyone could really be responsible for being taken over by such forces.
My European friends are still hurt by the fact that the UK is leaving the European Union. Everyone seems to feel the world is such a mess. It is clear that Trump, Climate deniers, Brexiteers are to blame. At a personal level it is the same. What a mess. Everyone feels so disillusioned and it is clear that someone, somewhere is to blame.
When I run programmes for my clients at large corporates everyone has their nemesis and we are often told that we need to be aiming the programme at the difficult people who really don’t get what we are teaching. We have said many times (half in jest) that we have proposed running a programme for difficult people – it’s just that no-one seems to sign up. Everyone knows these difficult people are there and they are ruining their lives but no-one seems to think it is them.
What do we do? Are we at the mercy of ungovernable forces that we can’t control? Do we fight the good fight against evil and put in place rules and rights to protect us from people who don’t hold sacred what we hold sacred?
I have noticed that whenever a new consciousness is emerging it tends first to polarise. It is as if something cannot emerge until it first separates. This seems to be the function of Uranus. To cause separation and polarisation. Yet, I think the point may well be to cause us to have to think more deeply. Certainly everyone seems consumed by Trump, Brexit, the rise of the Right etc. Life has achieved it’s aim that we are provoked and stirred into action and discussion. It is like we have been poked with a cattle prod. Everyone feels very angry and disturbed.
Certainly with Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces, there is a feeling that we are being prodded by an electric cattle prod and governments and politics are certainly to blame. Everyone feels so unfairly victimised (Neptune in Pisces). In my own life, this is playing out through my wife having an affair and leaving to live with her new girlfriend. After twenty-six years together and being a bolt out of the blue for the whole family and done in Neptunian style with plenty of deceit everyone in my personal environment feels very stirred up too. Oh dear, oh dear! What can we do? Everywhere we turn this sense of separation and feeling a victim feels apparent. Is it men who are to blame? Is it white people? Is it Brexiteers? Trump? The liberal elite? ISIS? The USA? Surely someone somewhere must be to blame. They must be taken on, fought, shown the error of their ways. They are clearly heartless, ruthless, unconcerned with people’s suffering and they should pay.
Now I have a secret to share, I think I have found out who is to blame – they are ruthless, heartless, unconcerned with people’s suffering and I think they need to take responsibility for the suffering they have caused. The big secret? I think it is Life itself and I think it has done it deliberately. But how do we fight it? I think we need to spike it’s guns and thwart its motives by coming together and having compassion for each other and blame it rather than our fellow human beings. That would really show it. Or could it even be that Life itself needs our compassion? That it too is really trying to help us? Oh no, can’t even blame that!
When I worked as the head of a Steiner School, it had a Chiron-Saturn square, with Uranus and Pluto plus Mars thrown into boot. It also had a Moon-Neptune conjunction. Everyone who was involved in the school could feel there was a problem and that it was sitting there festering and no-one was addressing it. The teachers felt it was the parents and trustees, the trustees felt it was the senior staff, the parents thought it was the teachers and so on. Everyone was convinced there was a problem and that someone must be to blame. Periodically someone would be identified and scapegoated for being the source of it. Yet strangely, no matter how many people were got rid of the problem did not shift. In the end I realised the only place I could deal with the problem was in me. I realised that the part of me that felt a wave of frustration when the school responded to a problem by doing the wrong thing and making a crisis was the issue. I could see that everyone was feeling that feeling and that the only place I could shift it was in myself – to give it up. To stop getting caught by that frustration and negativity. Life of course gave me plenty of practice! But I got the hang of it and so over time did everyone else until the frustration was replaced by an amazing sense of coming together and unity. It felt like Life was setting the challenges for us and the sense of ‘us and them” dissolved. It had a profound effect on all those who were part of it.
I think it was Christ’s message. I think he saw that no-one was to blame, that it was a set-up and so he said everyone could blame him so that we could all take blame out of the equation. I think it is the same now. I don’t think anyone is to blame. I think we can all blame Life. I think it is setting us a collective test. Can we overcome our sense of separation, can we see it is all “us”? Are we up to it? Well, of course, first I’ve got to forgive my wife – that’s my contribution to the test. I blame Life for giving her a personality (chart) and transits that would do it. I see she is suffering just as much as we all are. Time to control my instincts and rise to the challenge – will I be up to it?
I wonder, can we all become “unusual men” as the I-Ching describes it in the 4th line of Dispersion? Can we overcome disunion? That sounds a better use of Uranus-Pluto square and Neptune in Pisces: “unusual men” who are on everyone’s side and have compassion and understanding for everyone? Could that be the beginning of a collective game – my friend Chrissy thinks we might be moving towards a collective black hole game (a collective game of consciousness). I think that with the Age of Aquarius starting she may well be right. Nothing like a good collective argument and conflict to create a breakthrough and bring us together. The other night my daughter and I argued for a good few hours to try and resolve a conflict and see each others emotional reality and in the end we got there and the result was a beautifully loving evening, like the sun coming out after a storm. Perhaps conflict and separation will lead in the end to union. I think that is the point – we are learning to handle our collective emotions.
What if everyone realised that each person (cell in the collective organism) was important and had their role? What if we saw that every political party had it’s grain of truth and it’s shadow and that all were needed to create the tension that is collective consciousness – in the same way that each sub-personality and tension between them is part of creating our consciousness? What if we saw no-one was to blame?
What a challenge to be given, are we up to it? I asked the I-Ching again and it said a situation of 62 – Preponderance of the Small – it describes “a struggle and exceptional conditions in general”. It also says “exceptional modesty and conscientiousness are sure to be rewarded with success….we must understand the demands of the time in order to find the necessary offset for its deficiencies and damages.” It also says that “the superior man derives an imperative from this image: he must always fix his eyes more closely and more directly on duty than does the ordinary man, even though this might make his behaviour seem petty to the outside world.”
There is one changing line to give us advice on how to deal with this situation:
Nine in the second place means: Remorse disappears. The situation is abnormal. A man's force of character is greater than the available material power. Thus he might be afraid of allowing himself to attempt something beyond his strength. However, since it is the time of DURATION, it is possible for him to control his inner strength and so to avoid excess. Cause for remorse then disappears.
Can we hold back our instincts? If we can then we can avoid the anger and blaming that might be a cause for remorse it seems to be suggesting.
Thoughts on the universe 