Taomeow

Actually, that's not what makes someone a shaman. Shamans serve communities. Sorcerers serve themselves. Shaman is a job description, not a talent/ability description.

It depends on the type of beverage and goes both ways -- alcohol itself is partially converted to sugar in the body, but sugar is also partially converted into alcohol (aldehyde) in the body, which is why alcohol with extra sugar makes one more drunk than the same amount of alcohol without. How people metabolize either is pretty individual, it depends on what diet they consume regularly and what meal (or no meal) was consumed prior, during, or after drinking; which neurotransmitters are low or high at the baseline; levels of circulating MAO which degrades them upon release, also liver enzymes and functions (there is, e.g., a master enzyme for addressing alcohol in the body which is either low or absent in one-third of the Asian populations, which is why many people of Asian descent either can't drink at all or might become alcoholics with lightning speed upon exposure), and so on. In your case, serotonin seems to be your primary stress mediator and painkiller (which is what monoamines are all of them). If you wanted to drink alcohol, you would probably have no ill effects you describe if you were to drink it the traditional way, i.e. with a fatty meal rather than over a light snack or a carb or, worse, just by itself. But if you don't want to drink, no reason to, of course. And if you wanted to rearrange your metabolism toward less dependency on sugar, I'd look into the paleo diet which, in the shape and form I experimented with ("Primal Body, Primal Mind" by Nora Gedgaudas) eliminates all cravings for carbs within 48 hours -- and permanently for as long as you keep to the protocol. It's not an easy eating habit to maintain though because the whole industrial society is geared toward activating and maintaining the glycogen-burning secondary, emergency system instead of the ketones-burning primary system of human metabolism. If you tried drinking on a paleo diet (which it discourages, actually, but mostly due to the author's heavy aversion to the idea of consumed sugar in any shape or form -- which IMO ignores other properties of alcohol worth considering, notably its protective effect on telomeres, the "immortality machine" of life) -- as I was saying, if you were on a different diet and tried to drink with that, you'd be surprised how differently your body might react.

Which may explain why alcohol feels toxic to you, from the neuroendocrine perspective. A weakness for sweets and starches is essentially an addiction to serotonin, sugar being the most popular metabolic shortcut. Alcohol, on the other hand, is a shortcut to adrenaline (and also, to an extent, norepinephrine, dopamine, and a bunch of other neurotransmitters), but not serotonin. A serotonin addiction is a symptom of depleted ability to produce it internally (all addictions are unconscious attempts at self-medication). Against this backdrop, one may deplete his or her serotonin stores still further by drinking alcohol, since the metabolic mechanisms for releasing various neurotransmitters partially overlap and compete. Feeling low on serotonin, in some people, produces that same subjectively "toxic" state via just skipping a couple of meals. Would you say you are also in this category? Curious.

With a wheel of fire the Charioteer drives home the Year of the Horse

Oh boy. OK, let's get particular. Yin is what is open to receive yang, yang is what is seeking the opening in yin to expand and penetrate into. There's always yin within yang and yang within yin. (If you look at the taiji symbol, you will notice the "fish eye" -- that's what it symbolizes.) Now then, when I'm loading a gun, like I did in my simile, the hollow where you insert the bullet -- that's the opening in the "broken line," that's the vagina, you impregnate it with a bullet, that's your yang, the dick, the active principle. Nevermind the bullet is not flying yet, a dick that is not actively engaged in the act of copulation at a particular moment is still yang, it's just less yang than the same dick will be when it does engage. Yang and yin are degrees, not absolutes, and are always yang or yin compared to something else, not by themselves. You look at the attributes of yang and yin (all of them, not at your truncated list) and then you see how phenomena or objects measure against each other in terms of these attributes, and then you can always and invariably say that anything that is "more yang" than anything else makes that "else" more yin by default. E.g., a fire in your fireplace is yang compared to water in your sink, but the same fire is yin compared to the sun. The sun is yang compared to earth but yin compared to a supernova. A supernova is yang compared to the sun but yin compared to the Big Bang (assuming there was a Big Bang.) And so on. Now then. When you fire the gun, your trigger is your yang-within-yin. Likewise when you have sex with a woman, she is not all yin ladies-don't-move style, there's yang within yin there too. The sperm -- that's yin within yang, but each individual 'zoon is yang within yin. And so on. Observing the interplay of yin and yang in all phenomena, both natural and unnatural (e.g. your computer, unnatural as it is, is very yang compared to your potted plant, have you noticed?) is my favorite pastime. I'm aware of it pretty much 24/7 and derive great pleasure and satisfaction from this awareness. I was trying to share my joy, is all. But of course the prerequisite to enjoying the dance of yin with yang is being able to dance... I was hoping a day will come when you might start hearing this music. I even recommended the Ta Chuan (The Great Treatise) to anyone who would undertake discussing the I Ching... and the Eranos translation... But you're right in assuming none of my sources are ChiDragon dancing with ChiDragon, so your lack of interest in them is understandable.

I am not jumping the gun, I am loading it for you and showing you how to use it if you want to hit the mark instead of shooting yourself in the foot. The gun is yin, the bullet is yang. The mountain of your example is not "yang that had risen already" -- a mountain has yin on the bottom, yang on top. The Mountain the 8th trigram, which has yin on the bottom and yang on top, emulates that. Have you seen a mountain lately? Likewise I might challenge anything you say that I see as challenge-worthy, and if you quit, I will respect your decision. Then again, I might get too busy (or too exasperated, as often is the case with my reaction to your contributions) to follow this particular thread -- keep your fingers crossed, that's a possibility.

Not sure why "already" -- more importantly, be careful with a "pothole" as a term you choose to describe yin -- if you fall in the hole of your own making, you may never get out. A broken line represents female reproductive organs that have an opening -- the Receptive, yin. A Mother ain't no sunken pothole. I'm glad you didn't say asshole, but still you got me wondering -- where do you go to "observe Nature?.." A solid line represents the male reproductive organ -- the Active, yang. It is fashioned after a dick. The Chinese number one, represented by one straight line, ditto. This is why odd numbers are considered yang in the I Ching. The Chinese number two is represented by two lines with an opening between them. (Used to be positioned side by side too, just like the "broken" yin line of a trigram.) Which is why even numbers are considered yin. The I Ching views 6 as yin and 9 as yang because that's how the downward motion of yin and upward motion of yang are depicted. If you put 6 and 9 together, you will get the taiji symbol. Looking at the 6 and 9 also gives you a straightforward visual idea of yin being "womb heavy" and yang, "top heavy." A top-heavy approach to the I Ching is infertile (fertility is in the womb) and in constant danger of losing its balance and falling flat on its face. When tackling taoist subjects, one must be constantly vigilant against any statements that are disrespectful to yin, because this non-taoist in its origins yin-dissing ideation, coupled with unfortunate terminological choices suggesting inferiority of yin, is an insurmountable obstacle on the Way. To put it bluntly, NO WAY.

removed with apologies

I go to my teachers, practices and studies to harden the core and soften the surface -- we taoists call it "wrap a steel needle in fluffy cotton." I temper the steel and fluff up the cotton wherever and however I see fit. I'm not the only one.

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

Mak Tin Si managed to butt horns with the Jade Emperor Sean himself, back in the day... He was spamming up a storm, and I thought it was extremely unfortunate because a lot of what he was talking about was of interest to me -- folk taoism (and not from the mainland at that), lots and lots of "superstitions" which I for one love to collect and test (I do believe many so-called superstitions are rooted in real laws of the subtle, magical R&D, technologies and applications mostly but not entirely lost). But his social skills, or should I say antisocial antiskills, needed some polishing before he could thrive in the perilous TTB environment and withstand the scrutiny of its all-seeing eye without blinking. So, judging by the video, he got right down to working on that...

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

removed with apologies

As they say where I come from, "don't teach father how to fuck."

This one is regarded as an important koan in one of the three schools of Japanese buddhism, Rinzai, which is the Japanese line of the Chinese Linji school of Chan. It is based on the story of the Chinese monk Zuigan, who devised a method of sitting in meditation and carrying a dialog with himself which led him to self-understanding. The koan is known as Shujinko, or "Master," and goes as follows: Zuigan was sitting alone in meditation on a rock. "Shujinko," he called to himself. "Yes, yes," he answered. "Shujinko. Be warned against the deception of others around you. Aren't you doing something that will cause them to talk behind your back?" And then he abruptly said, "Shujinko. Were you dozing just now?" "No, I was not," was his reply.