七星門

Liber Librae. Good stuff.

"Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy. Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome. In sleep, men's spirits go visiting; in waking hours, their bodies hustle. With everything they meet they become entangled. Day after day they use their minds in strife, sometimes grandiose, sometimes sly, sometimes petty. Their little fears are mean and trembly; their great fear are stunned and overwhelming. They bound off like an arrow or a crossbow pellet, certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong. They cling to their position as if they had sworn before the gods, sure that they are holding onto victory. They fade like fall and winter--such is the way that they dwindle day by day. They drown in what they do--you cannot make them turn back. They grow dark, as though sealed with seals--such are excesses of their age." Zhaungzi, 2.

Very helpful & relevant to my life right now, love you long time.

You are not a seer, however a seer is expert in shutting this down while they learn to deal. I'm sorry I muddied the water. Let me be clear, you're only experiencing a side-effect of the work that is not an end in itself. This post is not about medication, it is about you perseverating on your powers. The fact that they have arisen means that you have made some sort of progress, but they should be steadfastly ignored & not used, they are tantalizing distractions on the way. Exceedingly common distractions. This is an obstruction, it is a test. You are walking through a room of beautiful women, you can stop here & bask in their adoration, but if you do you gain nothing. Shut it down, close your eyes, & put one foot in front of the other. If you're too dazzled, too tempted, too disturbed & can't control your grasping then go back to everyday life & forget all about this, one day you will tell it to your grandchildren as a cautionary tale.

Aim for the Bulls Eye, Aldebaran, ruby flame No whither, no whence

I'm hesitant to acknowledge it as a "personal" endeavor because the gathering of these items was itself an act of devotion. & to a certain extent I feel there were a number of synchronicities that permitted me to gather these things & assemble the shrine. The vintage kimono pieces were acquired by the seamstress on a trip to China for the New Year, two days before I checked with her to have something made. I've been hosting Zhong Kui for nearly a year & I serendipitously found Guan Yu in the same style that provides balance to the Altar. I inadvertently ordered the little candles without realizing their dimensions, so they didnt fit the candlesticks I acquired for the altar. When going through my implement cupboard I found some tiny candlesticks I bought some years ago without realizing how little they were & just put in storage, they were a perfect fit for the candles, so I incorporated them. Felt like it was meant to be. The list goes on, but I only had to endure some austerities & everything kind of came to me so long as I made sacrifices. To your question, how do I feel to be with the altar? I hope it is pleasing, but primarily feel that it does not belong to me. We'll see what happens when it's properly opened.

The spirit of Mob is many headed but single minded.

My pleasure, it's been fun!

Somehow I suspect both could be correct, but I'm running on three hours of sleep trying to reset my body clock for a new time zone. My brain is useless for anything other than mindlessly consuming the internet. Both definitely deserve some serious thought, shelved for tomorrow. Thanks!

I had not thought in those terms, something new to incorporate into my understanding & play with. Fantastic, thanks!

Wow wow wow. Too good not to share. Looking through a gate at the Great Wall.

Gasp! Blaspheming the Great Gourd Gods!

"It seems that nothing exists for the modern men beyond what can be seen and touched; or at least, even if they admit theoretically that something more may exist, they immediately declare it not merely unknown but unknowable, which absolves them from having to think about it." Rene Guenon, Crisis of the Modern World.

We'll agree to disagree, but I appreciate you sharing your PoV.

While the intentions of the folks offering to muck about with this gentleman are well-intentioned, I might warn against a receptive person permitting such access as it is far too easy to lose oneself in another. Seriously, talk to Sarah.

It's not as if metal helmets are a recent development but their use is conspicuously limited to protection from physical attack. Seers are not a recent phenomenon & there are time tested traditional methods for containment that aren't the product of new-ageisms that will only make him look insane & further alienate him from his community.

You may want to correspond with Sarah Wreck, she's readily available on FB & IG. She can provide some guidance on head-coverings & their role in protecting receptive people. You may experiment yourself with a turban, a cowl, or a shemagh & gauge the results. I might cut out the lengthy personal stories & focus on the basics, super sensitive, overwhelmed by impressions, at peace in nature, keeping the hair long seems to act as a buffer...even then not well contained, wat do?

Luray Caverns "Wishing Well"

I have a lot of thoughts that I'll attempt to compose into something coherent, although I'm still learning myself. The four western elements (FWE) are of a different character than wuxing. The FWE have a decidedly atomistic character, that is that physical things are made up of these four qualitative basic building blocks of material things in either greater or lesser proportions. An important point that we shouldn't pass over too quickly is that the FWE are firstly qualitative, they describe the character of a thing as it is experienced by humans with the senses, & only secondly quantitative in that objects are proposed to be composed of varying degrees of these elements. For the sake of example, consider a lump of metal. Rather intuitively most people would say that a lump of metal is largely earthy. It is cold, dry, dense. If we increase the proportion of fire in metal, then it melts & flows because fire is the most rarefied element that volatilizes the metal, but not being intrinsic to the metal it soon loses the fire ingredient & returns to an earthy state. Taking what we now know, consider a ball of mercury. Without the preceding one would probably say that Mercury is watery because of its semi-liquid state but that's a fundamental misunderstanding of it's nature. As a metal that is liquid it is properly understood as containing an intrinsically higher proportion of fire. Somewhat simplified without considering the three principles of Sulphur, Salt & Mercury & the planetary complexions, but I hope it serves to make the point that the elements are building blocks, atoms, qualitative ingredients that compose objects. In contrast "Five Elements" is a bit of a misnomer when translating wuxing & is preferably translated "Five Phases." That is, they do not describe things but movement. Qi is analogous to the FWE as a unified building block of matter (everything, really) that is subjected to various elaborations to create the myriad things as defined in terms of the proportion of yin-yang qualities & whose interaction with each other can be described in terms of wuxing. Let's take your concerns step-by-step. I think the misunderstanding is that as a description of movement we are not literally talking about an axe chopping down a tree, but giving an image that describes the relationship between two complexions of qualities. If it makes more sense, think of planting a tree on a lump of metal, do the roots penetrate it & withdraw nourishment as they do earth in the conquest cycle? Wuxing also presents an elaborate system of correspondences much as the planets are used in western hermeticism (alternately, qabalah, but astrology has a more authentic provenance in this regard) & there are planetary correspondences to the five phases, that is the five classical planets minus the two luminaries. As a descriptor of movement it is a description of change in time as it occurs in the natural world, thus understanding the qualitative complexion (xing) of something allows one to use the relationships to apply the appropriate force to effect change in the world in a predictable manner. Neither are fanciful theories any more than gravity lives in an imagination land of invisible forces, but are descriptions of reality as experienced by humans; it is literally their science. An important point is the mechanism for generation of metal, specifically that metal grows in the earth. This is the same theory found in western hermeticism; cf. Agrippa, Paracelsus, &c. Metal generates water by observation of condensation, water accumulates in the earth by the action of metal that gives rise to springs that generates wood (plant life), wood generates fire as it is fuel (food), fire generates earth as it creates ash, metal growth in the earth, & so on. Again, these are observations of natural forces whose prototype is an image describing the relationship of the phases to each other in a cyclical manner. This cycle is ultimately derived from yin-yang & the Taijitu with phases classified in terms of greater yang, minor yang, minor yin, & major yin with a fifth (earth!) as the intermediary providing balance between two polarities. It is worth some consideration of the implications of earth as the intermediary binding/pervasive phase in Chinese thought as opposed to spirit in western thought. You can make arbitrary divisions in a continual cycle of change & for convenience say the divisions are four in number but it is merely a convention, something we accept without questioning. There is no inherent truth to there being four seasons, but there is truth that in a cycle between extremes we will pass through a point in time where they are balanced & it is that time of balance, of temperateness, that is identified as earth. I hope this hasn't turned into too much of a brain dump, corrections or questions to help us learn are welcome.

They muddy the water to make it seem deep.

The political machine appears designed to disturb & divide people, everyone fighting as if their person is threatened, as if they have a personal stake in defending one of the various talking heads. It's particularly insidious in that it gives the illusion of talking learnedly on a topic when most people are usually regurgitating talking points & slogans. The level of reading & engagement that people undertake on their personal time to root out this or that "conspiracy" or "cover-up" is surprising, when there are myriad things they could learn or practice--rather than honing their talking points so they can fight more vociferously over the internet--that are actually edifying. Choosing to be drawn into this sort of disturbance only succeeds in muddying the water. "By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Matt. 7:16 "Best to be like water, Which benefits the ten thousand things And does not contend. It pools where humans disdain to dwell, Close to the Tao. Live in a good place. Keep your mind deep. Treat others well. Stand by your word. Keep good order. Do the right thing. Work when it's time. Only do not contend, And you will not go wrong." DDJ 8

IME, &c. &c. Pick one subject. Pick one good book on it. Pick one practice. Every morning, read a chapter or a handful of pages from your book, you set the limit but you do not compromise, you can always read more, but you will never read less. You do not move on from this book until it is finished. If you were to pick a practice I would think a mindfulness meditation would be fruitful to provide insight into the "galloping horse" that is our mind. Regardless of what you choose, set a goal, say twenty minutes of sitting & do that every morning. You can always meditate longer (or perform more qigong reps, what have you) if you feel like it but you do not cut it short or skip it. You do not to add any other practice until you can consistently practice for three months, although some would say longer. Perhaps at three months you decide to add a physical component to your meditation & take up qigong/taijiquan/yoga; follow the same method & choose, say, the eight brocades. Append this to your daily meditation. Perhaps you would like to meditate twice a day, then add this meditation into your daily practice using the same principles. Keep a log, even if it's as simple as a checklist. Unfortunately there is no way to buy a move-in ready temple! We must build it block by block. Most here insist on teacher, so presumably you'll hear a lot of that.

Ooh, good word, thanks! Very apt observation. I'm inclined to think that the psychologizing of the universe is just another model, neither better nor worse than the traditional numinous model but a model that fails to provide an adequate explanation of the experiential praeternatural phenomenon. I will even assert that the rise of mind-body dualism with the internalization/psychologizing of spirits, gods, &c. is as far from the ancient conception as you can get & significantly hinders progress on the path. It deprives the universe of Wonder. The Gods are real & objective beings. Water is Qi, liquid & flowing, vaporous & aethyreal, coagulated & firm, generating all things. There are spirits everywhere, Gods in the stars, beyond all this there is an emptiness & mystery that is almost Lovecraftian in its immensity, illogicity, & potential to terrify if one chooses fear over awe. There is no "mental" aspect separate from the "physical" that adequately models the universe as these traditions describe them. There is no separation, the freezing of water is a phenomenon as "spiritual" as the resurrection of the body. We are swimming in a model of reality that we take for granted, like a fish in water, the map is not the territory . I am of the opinion that we shouldn't cleave too tightly to one model or another but develop the mental elasticity to use models as tools depending on the task, rather than bludgeon all of human experience into one (currently) predominant model & regard that as absolute reality. This applies to our self-created models as well, holding onto an emotionally charged memory that fundamentally defines who we believe a person is of themselves in reality, rather than realizing we only cling to an illusion; e.g. if Sally told me I had a bad haircut, we create a model of Sally that says "Sally is mean, Sally doesn't like me" & we thereby perceive Sally & write a narrative that is dictated by our Sally-Model (the past) rather than the Sally that is directly in front of us (the present). That turned into a bit of a ramble, I'm passionate about models & reality.

I'm interested in prostration, it's not a methodology I've employed before. I gave a couple sets of full-body (I don't know if that's what they're called) prostrations a go & I am sore in places I don't believe I've been sore in! What is the theory of prostration? I think I have an intellectual understanding that it is an act of submission to the Thou who is beyond all that I am. How does one practice prostration properly? I see there are various traditions, are there any forms that are preferable or more efficacious? Is there a mental component to it, are there recitations or a particular state of mind one should cultivate during the practice?