Beauty in the ruins (Hexagram 23)

Now that I have cooled to you
Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,
Temples soothed by the sun to ruin
That sleep utterly.


~ William Carlos Williams,
from 'Postlude'

     In the I Ching's sequence of its 64 principles, Hexagram 23, SPLITTING APART / DETERIORATION is placed between GRACE / BEAUTY and RETURN / RENEWAL. Beauty ascends, then withers, as Autumn follows Summer. Winter stills the earth ... and then Spring returns to breathe its green upon what has died ...
     The nuclear hexagram (the inner operating principle) of H23 is H2, THE RECEPTIVE / PURE YIN, symbolized by the Element of Earth ... and the fact of the Earth that is our home. All things emerge from what lives beneath and around us; be assured that after the cooling, the utter sleep, Life will turn over and reveal a new emergence ... 

'Postlude' in full is here.

Photos linked directly 

to their sources.

Of course there's a Something (Hexagram / Principle 1, CREATION, EXISTENCE)

KABOOM! 

-- It came into being. 

You, me, us, all of it -- 
Everything. 

Something from nothing.

Something ... from Nothing

and here we all are.

Something emerged ... and Something 

merged ... 

and we who are human

in mind 

grapple It,

battle It ...
though
the soles of our feet 
know It is true: 
we are here: Life
marks the spot.
When our kind could begin
to ponder this Something, we
called it, mostly, 
God


We all name It
something ...
we are urged
from the soles 
of our feet
to name It ...
to know from our
souls that It
is Why we are here. 
KABOOM!
BEING explodes into being. 
Hello, world!

Hexagram 14, GREAT POSSESSION

To be alone, but to be pierced through with a kingly joy, now and then, as I believe I am, is a great possession indeed. As I sit here at this table ... I must report to you this sensation of some gold essence striking into me, blood deep.

~ Sebastian Berry, The Secret Scripture

Happy New Year from Hexagram 49 ...

The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Photo: Voyage: Self, by Johnny Picardo

Photo found at freq.uenci.es

You will find his weakness ... (Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

you will find his weakness,

and shudder

as you arise

to greet

the fraughting pulse,

the small mammal

that terror is,

gentling

under your palm

before he can

clutch it again

to the cage he has made

of his heart,

cage pouring down

to its foundations

and into the Earth:

Alchemy of The Gentle

you will reach her skin

before she can

naught it again,

you will pour sweet balm

into the fissures, 

and weep

over the wounds,

closing them over

with a kiss

from the eye of God.

Doorways open,

then disappear,

under the quieting hand.

Images created at the color of ...

Yin Wisdom says ...

Receptivity is a superpower.

~ Rob Brezsny

The image is a still from the film Fantasia (1940)

"There's a lot less of me now, and that's fine ..." (Hexagram 41, DECREASE)

I was walking with a friend not long ago, someone with whom I have much in common. Like me, she's in her 50s; she's lost a lot of weight and struggles to gain it back; she's experienced a lot of illness over the past few years, and has been divorced by her mate. Here we are, strolling in a park under the drying leaves, marvelling that we're still alive.

We stop dead in our tracks -- yes, I said 'dead' -- and gawk at each other. Then we double over laughing. Other park-goers -- especially the furtive young -- give us a wide berth. Two nutty eldering women ass-over-teakettle over some idiocy! What a sight!

Eventually we made our way back to verticality and wandered on, still sputtering.

"God, laughter's good for the heart!" my friend blurted out. "I mean, don't you feel warmer?"

I did. I was even sweating a little under my three layers.

My friend -- Joy, I'll call her -- swung her arms, batting me with her left. It was a spontaneous thing, this soaring of landlocked limbs. Joy jigged a little too, a wee highland tappity-tap. She tipped her head back and her happy mouth fell open. Suddenly she was six, a goofy little fool all pudged up in her scarves and sweaters.

Then she drew everything in ... She stilled herself and levelled her eyes with mine.

"There's a lot of less of me now, and that's fine," she said.

There was a certain ... gleam in her eye ... one I'd never seen.

She'd lost a lot -- her home, some friends, her health, her mate, all certainty. And here she was, dancing a gentle jig beside me. She dropped her head, raised her arms, and her feet two-stepped.

"I've lost so much ... and look what I've gained --"

Up went her head, and in to a circle she spun. A slow, quiet spin, as befits a skinny little thing who's prone to occasional faints because her blood pressure tends to plummet with nada notice.

Look what I've gained.

There was nothing, really, to see of gain -- nothing in that moment that was particular to her. We were outside, in a public space, sans tea, chocolate, shelter, warmth. We were out in the open with nothing to hold onto, a few feeble dollars in our pockets, under a belligerent sky.

I suddenly found it very easy to breathe.