Daeluin

When the whole is divided, parts need names. When we focus on simplicity, that is enough. Sometimes with refining, we may use our awareness of the parts to step beyond something that was holding us back. Whether or not this is necessary is anyone's guess. In taijiquan one might be told to hold their spine in a certain way. Holding their spine this way might take extra effort, and over time this effort might help the energy flow in a way that creates greater integrity. And one might also simply hold their spine in the most comfortable posture at the time and focus on cultivating the qi. As the qi builds, the posture that is most comfortable will naturally change. I prefer this second method. However sometimes we get stuck in a place where we aren't sure what is holding us back, and we don't seem to be changing in a way that will move us forward. Perhaps we need time. Perhaps we need a very precise change that is difficult to comprehend from our perspective. Perhaps we need to accept something or make a sacrifice to help our life become simpler. Perhaps we need to heal old trauma or let something go that our energy is attached to. Perhaps we need a teacher to help show us our blind spots. Parts may be described in many ways, over many systems. All patterning systems are centered in the whole - they all show the same things, from different perspectives. A tracker can see medical ailments in the footprints, much as can a palm reader, much as can an astrologer from any astrological system. In taoist classics there are frequently found advisements on what things do NOT lead to the culmination of the way. In general the things mentioned are simply related to attachments. Methods and techniques are tools that may be used to take us further. When we no longer need them we should let the tool go. Stillness is easy to maintain. What has not yet emerged is easy to prevent. The brittle is easy to shatter. The small is easy to scatter. Solve it before it happens. Order it before chaos emerges. A tree as wide as a man's embrace Grows from a tiny shoot. A tower of nine stories Starts with a pile of dirt. A climb of eight hundred feet Starts where the foot stands. Those who act will fail. Those who seize will lose. So, the sage does not act and therefore does not fail, Does not seize and therefore does not lose. People fail at the threshold of success. Be as cautious at the end as at the beginning. Then there will be no failure. Therefore the sage desires no desire, Does not value rare treasures, Learns without learning, Recovers what people have left behind. He wants all things to follow their own nature, But dares not act. daodejing 64

I recall quite enjoying "Eight Brocade Seated QiGong," though I am not sure how this book differs from his "qigong teachings of a taoist immortal" book. The one I read was full of textual explorations which gave multiple perspectives when it came to actually exploring the how-to of the practice near the end of the book. I only ever did the first four though. Curious now about how the teachings of this book differ from that book.

It is generally easier to spend money than it is to do the work that earns the money. Easier to consume than to produce. Easier to express than to explain. And even then, the work we do, be it cooking, building, serving, transporting, teaching, usually involves the care-taking of a process that is transforming more yang to yin than yin to yang. There are layers upon layers of this. Perhaps one needs to transcend time and space before one reaches something of an equilibrium.

No wonder emptiness covers so much ground. It can accept and pass through everything, without effort!

I am aware that attempting to understand the math of awareness and acceptance would take me further into tension than the simple act of accepting it, which releases the tension. This is the point, right?

This seems related to our creation-oriented momentum. I wonder how this changes when one equalizes or reverses this momentum.

Thanks wilfred!

Stillness is akin to cleanliness. When cleaning say, a bedroom, it can be as easy as picking up a pair of socks or as difficult as remodeling. Depends on how clean you keep it. If we don't do much to make it dirty, not much cleaning needs to be done. If we have parties there every night there is a lot to do. The whole body is like this, not just the mind. The more we clean the energy body, the more we can abide in natural stillness and clarity.

Supposedly a part of our soul that is linked to our heart (and presumably compassion at some level) is the particular destiny we have that will take us towards greater balance, greater centered-ness. Naturally this is different for each of us. We all come from different lineages of energy through space and time, all defined by their differences within the whole. And yet despite the differences, we can each walk this same path to balance, and we can each discover that it leads to greater open-hearted-ness. To walk this path we simply listen, follow, and change what doesn't lead to greater integrity. If one only does what others want, perhaps that is their way. And yet I also see people who are trapped enabling other people and unable to serve themselves. So I think it works both ways. Some people are selfish and need to open. Some people are too open and don't know how to be centered within themselves. Giving and receiving are one, yet sometimes we do not accept what returns to us. In great compassion the heart is open. When this compassion is centered and balanced, accepting and trusting all in peace, open yet not stirring, when giving and receiving are one simultaneously, perhaps this reaches what is called awakening.

I find that the more I dissolve my ego, the more compassionate I become. I don't need to think about it, or create it, it is something that is right there. But I need to continually clean away what comes between it and everything else. Ironically it seems quite easy - I just stop doing the things that maintain my buffers. Over time the buffers go away.

Appears legit, though what looks legit can always be manufactured with some cleverness. I'd call it a blend of qigong and fengshui. A friend of mind had something happen with leaf spirals over the spot where he'd been doing extensive qigong in. After he took a break and the wind came in, it reached that area and blew leaf spirals around back and forth a few times before continuing to gust along. And I've experienced some interesting weather connections myself. Personally I don't entertain the idea of controlling things... it is enough to merge with them, be a part of them, to harmonize and so avoid changing things too much. Controlling the weather for popularity reasons is a bit contrived. Unless that purpose is tapped into something deeper and natural, it is likely to be pulling weather patterns more out of harmonious balance than pulling them toward harmonious balance. In my opinion.

Hmmm... I recall being spellbound by an excerpt of A Wizard of Earthsea in 5th grade, and in 6th LotR gave me a safe haven from my peers in such a deep and satisfying way. But spiritually, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior helped me to wake up a bit and take a peak outside of the box. I remember one paragraph in particular speaking of the mind (intellect) as something like an usurper. I found this oddly perplexing as I didn't understand, yet knew it for truth. Then The Celestine Prophecy. I just soaked those principles right up. To this day I love using the description of relationships where two people form a codependent whole, rather than two people becoming whole unto themselves and forming a "superwhole." And Anodea Judith's Wheels of Life, such a fantastic and in depth book on chakras and spirituality. Those 3 really helped my 17-18 year old self realize there was something else out there worth living for. At the time I couldn't really understand what the point of life was if all I did was simply feeding into a society that was destroying itself. A few years later I found a taiji class that opened the door to cultivation work and books on qi, and the rest is history.

Why? If he sees clearly, he also sees the penalty already being paid for poisoning the river or destroying the forest. And just as there is such a penalty, there would be one for his act of revenge, for how is striking down one thing down different from striking down another? When something is struck down, it suffers trauma. When the river returns, it will need to overcome that trauma and the fear that it is unwanted (the spirit(s) of the river constantly attempting to digest that pollution). The human who destroys the river who lives on, is suffering from the consequences of its actions and has an opportunity to learn from those actions, and to change. Those consequences may be easy to hide from at first, but they exist non-the-less, and become more and more evident over time as karmic taxes. Perhaps the human can be guided. As long as the human is alive there is time for it to atone. But the human who is struck down then also suffers trauma from being struck down, and returns predominately focused on overcoming that trauma, not easily making the connection to the actions of its previous lifetime, which it does not remember aside from the intense imprintings related to the patterns of lessons it faces immediately following re-birth. And perhaps it fights harder using the same mentality that caused it to destroy the river in the first place. How then does quickly striking down the destructive human help either rivers or destructive humans? I wonder, if we are mainly tasked with preserving balance when things are small, why then should we tackle huge problems that are not small? Is it not simpler to start at the imbalances within, and so prevent those imbalances from being projected externally where they could become magnified beyond our control? How do we presume to know the proper external balance of things? It could be the engineers who made the once twisting and winding Kissimmee river straight thought that they were helping to improve upon its environmental impact by preventing flooding. However their presumption that they knew what was right had devastating consequences: Of course undoing the things we recognize as having damaging consequences is very important work. Sometimes it is very clear. However, we still need to remember that treating the disease at the root is not merely undoing the damage caused, but healing the reason we thought it was OK do do the damage in the first place, which comes from leaving the dao - the center - in favor of humanity and righteousness, cleverness and knowledge. It comes of presumptuous actions (that are often very well informed and knowledgeable, making them easy to attach to and thus one becomes more closed to sensing future implications beyond an immediate result). When we are able to return to the dao within ourselves, we are also better prepared to heal others at the root, which better presents to them the opportunity to correct their karmic mistakes in a way that makes them desire to do so. When we tell them what they are doing is wrong and why it is wrong, it is just a clash of righteousness against righteousness, which has its own environmental consequences. This dance is perpetuated as each side becomes more entrenched, and unless we dissolve these entrenchments and go deeper, warring behavior can manifest. Sometimes dissolving entrenchment and going deeper requires going beyond words, for when the human mind has become the master, it can be very attached to its momentum, and fighting it with more words simply creates trauma and more entrenchment at the mental level, enforcing and augmenting the blockage that is already clogging up the other systems and causing illness. But love might melt away its fixations and open its heart to seeing clearly, dissolving the blockages and perhaps creating an openness where one is not as inclined to feel the need to fight to survive, and this openness can yield more openness, more balance. Humanity and righteousness are a polarized pair, sometimes associated with the phases of wood and metal. This benevolence and judgment (as they are also translated) can heal each other and help to heal the disconnection from dao. Judgment against judgment creates an entrenchment of judgment, which is a lot of metal stagnation. Liu Yiming uses the five confucian virtues of humanity 仁, righteousness 義/义, social harmony 禮/礼, wisdom 智, and sincerity 信 to show a pattern (following the interplay of the wuxing) of how they may abuse each other and become stuck, disconnected from the dao, and how they may follow sincerity and integrity to integrate and fuse with one another, dissolving stagnation and returning to harmony:

This helps a little: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuji_(philosophy) Feels to me like all of these meanings share the same root, which goes so far back that several variants have been born. As for the characters of the celestial stems, wu 戊 and ji 己 I don't know their origin or how they might be connected to wuji 無極, but they all seem to point to the same concept. In class the other day we heard about the wuji that would be considered empty force, but more in terms of ming jing, an jing, and hua jing: obvious power, hidden power, mysterious power.

You seem to be using wuji and wuchi as different terms. It might help if you could share the chinese characters for these terms. From what I can find, the sources on the internet that speak of wu chi and empty force also use the wade jiles romanization of chi instead of qi, tai chi instead of tai ji, and so on. As far as I can tell the empty state and empty force are the same thing, simply leveraged to different purposes.

Reading what I wrote, and wow, seems like I'm on a crusade or something. But really it all just fell into place. My mother helped me to develop good environmental values growing up, and that helped me to make good choices. But largely the friends I've made are people who are more active about these things than I am. When the opportunity came to live with them and support the building of this community I knew it would resonate with my values. Some of my friends are just naturally good at following the dao, but they know nothing about the dao that is spoken of. I can't take much credit, other than being in the right place at the right time. I hadn't planned on living in a tiny-house either, but when I asked the universe where I belonged I was directed to this destination. The push and pull of it all, as in telling people what to do, seems related to how yin and yang are always going back and forth without really ever changing their quantity. We find it easy to change their equilibrium, and to manifest new things from them, but it is difficult to merge that yin and yang back into something more primordial. Perhaps that is the key.

In the five element theory, we have water, wood, fire, earth, metal. In the 10 celestial stems, these are broken into yin and yang: yang water, yin water, yang wood, yin wood, yang fire, yin fire, yang earth, yin earth, yang metal, yin metal Their Chinese names (in pinyin) are: ren, gui, jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xing wu and ji would be wu and chi in wade jiles, and represent yin and yang earth. Earth is the element which is most related to the center. In taiji or internal work it can refer to different things with varying degrees of specificity, but generally relates to the state of centered emptiness.

I live in 100sq foot room I built myself somewhat from lumber found in a dumpster from a nearby very large apartment construction site. The property is part of an old house a dear friend of mine purchased, which I've been helping to renovate. It's taken a lot of work over the past 2 years but feels really good to be in now. Instead of dry-wall we used something called re-wall that is a similar, perhaps more structural product made from recycled tetra-packs (think milk-cartons). All of the paint and such was sourced so that it does not give off fumes and a lot of effort was made to properly insulate the house to avoid wasted power generation to compensate for leaks. All in all 100 sq feet is great for me, given that I have access to facilities in the main house. It is private and has enough room for me to meditate and do martial arts (there are some built-in shelves along the walls but the floor is clear and open). I am currently working on building a fence around it using locust posts from dead trees we cut down on our property and bamboo I found on craigslist on someone's property where it had frozen some winter and needed someone to cut it down and take it away. The above allows us to live a more community-centric lifestyle. Other outdwellings could be built to easily add members onto our community. We all put in money towards shared groceries, which drastically lowers our food costs, and we cook at least 2 meals a week as a group together, which prevents waste, saves on utilities, etc, etc. We make an effort to check various dumpsters to prevent food waste. If you are not aware, there is a lot of wasted food in the west, often because of expense/liability reasons. It is more expensive to make sure the food goes to someone hungry while following regulations than it is to simply throw it away. Bakery dumpsters very commonly have plastic bags full of clean, 2-4 day old bread in their dumpsters. There is a discount food store nearby that commonly throws away large batches of expire hummus, orange juice, feta cheese, yogurt, well you name it... often because the expiration date has been reached. It is very important to exercise proper judgment when deciding whether food in a dumpster is safe to eat. Is it clean? Does it smell OK? Is the expiration date within reason? How long was it exposed to heat? Is the seal broken? And of course washing it after you get it home, and freezing things if you get too many of them. Common sense. When we aren't dumpstering we like purchasing local organic food - food that didn't harm the earth with pesticides or travel from other countries to get to us... though that's kinda hard to do living in the US. We're blessed to live in an area where there is considerable momentum towards supporting local farmers. We're also working on gardening on our land and building a greenhouse, and will probably implement a greywater system at some point down the road, as well as invest in some form of solar/wind power as that becomes more viable for us. We also compost all of our food waste and recycle, of course. Our trash is usually a 20th of our recycling, sometimes because we are recycling a lot of containers from food found in the dumpster, so in a sense recycling and composting other people's waste for them too! Makes it a lot easier since we are sharing these responsibilities. We don't use AC, but try to utilize proper use of windows to keep the house cool in the summer, warm in the winter, though we do use heat. We are investigating setting up an out-door kitchen with things like a solar stove, or maybe using a cooler with towels to keep hot food slow-cooking without electricity. Often things like this are more difficult because they require a change in our accustomed behavior than they are actually difficult to implement. We've used composting toilets here before and are investigating doing so more. This is one of those things that needs to be done right, as proper sanitation is very important. But done right, there is much less stress put on the environment at no cost to cleanliness. The guys in the house frequently (and discretely) urinate outside to save water. I don't turn lights on just to see where I'm walking. I like the challenge of trying to feel my way around without my eyes, it helps me hone my non-visual senses better at the same time saves on electricity. I stopped driving my car about a year ago. I live close enough to most everything I need to walk, and can bike to things further away. When I need to go to the hardware store for random building materials I'll take the bus. Feels a little funny carrying a couple cans of paint or a 16 pound pike post-hole bar on the bus but whatever. Whatever nature I am surrounded by I try to offer proper respect and awareness of. I listen to the birds, watch the wind play through the trees. The other night I woke up at 3am and was doing qigong when an opossum wandered by, startling us both in the dark. It climbed up a tree that left it with nowhere to go and we were both left in this awkward silence. I made myself relax and backed away and returned to doing qigong, and it, feeling that my attention wasn't upon it any more backed down from the tree and wandered away into the night. I take bugs out when they get trapped inside. I like to watch the moon and the sun, the clouds and the stars whenever I can remind myself to get away from the computer. I feel that connecting awareness to nature is a part of integrating in nature. If the natural flows around us aren't second nature to us, how are we going to make proper decisions about protecting nature? It is bad enough most of us seal ourselves off in homes rather than being a part of the whole real world around us. I pretty much only buy clothes from thrift stores, and don't have many of them. I don't have a lot of stuff in general. Sometimes a pair of pants I like, or my backpack gets a hole in it and I sew a patch on or fix a zipper rather than throwing it out. In general I don't like the idea of planned obsolescence and research the things I purchase so I know they'll be with me for a long time to come without ending up in a landfill somewhere. In a way this gives my clothes more character and sentimentality. I chose them to last, and so they wear well, and a patch here and there just adds to their value as far as I am concerned. One of my biggest challenges, is working to avoid eating more than I need, and consuming things that buffer me from deeper awareness of my environment. Recently I've discovered that the body creates phlegm when it is fed more of something than it can easily process, and phlegm acts like an enegetic buffer. Many of these things are very common in the western diet: coffee, sugar, eggs, dairy, processed foods, alcohol. It is difficult, but I am beginning to recognize how I tend to want to run away towards these things, for they help me buffer myself from being more clearly in the moment, being responsible for who I am. But I'm tired of running away, why do I need to buffer myself from who I really am? Finally I am working on my spiritual development so that I may better nurture and support the world I live in. The more I progress along this route the healthier and stronger I become, having more energy to nurture the things I care about and needing less support from the mainstream paradigms. The above didn't happen over night, but step by step over many years, making choices that led here naturally. There is no right or wrong path or lifestyle - it is just about responding with integrity to what is right in front of us in the present moment.

17 The greatest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are hardly aware. Next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst is the one who is despised. When a leader doesn’t trust the people, they will become untrustworthy. The best leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly. He works without self interest and leaves no trace. When the work is accomplished, the people say: “Amazing: we did it all by ourselves.” 57 The more regulations there are, The poorer people become. The more people own lethal weapons, The more darkened are the country and clans. The more clever the people are, The more extraordinary actions they take. The more picky the laws are, The more thieves and gangsters there are. Therefore the sages say: "I do not force my way and the people transform themselves. I enjoy my serenity and the people correct themselves. I do not interfere and the people enrich themselves. I have no desires And the people find their original mind. Some of this might seem like wishful thinking, but I feel it is describing the higher application of spiritual principles. The more regulations and restrictions and cleverness there is, the more the people work against each other, and thereby against the environment, against naturalness, in increasingly extreme ways. The more trust and acceptance there is, the more we approach everything being naturally self-so. We can see that the approach to this is not immediate, but comes over time, with gradual progress. Certainly there are actions that may be very effective and more directly taken, in such a way as allows others to want to change their ways from the inside out rather than thinking they are being forced to change from the outside in.

I hear this, and I feel this is a common conclusion to come to. I am trying to keep reminding myself that what humanity has done in the course of 2 thousand years, and especially in the past 200, marks a very short time frame. If humans are unable to correct their unsustainable patterns, they will just as quickly disappear. From the perspective that these things will take care of themselves, our personal role should just be a matter of karmic balance. Are we contributing more to harmony than we have to destruction? And if we try to change others, are we doing it in such a way as to promote harmony, or in such a way that awakens negativity and conflict in people? If we are telling others what they are doing is wrong, will they also take the perspective of looking externally and judging right from wrong? Personally I feel that the world is overwhelmed with external judgments, and this is part of the destructive forces at work. I feel that we need more acceptance, more trust, so that we may awaken and return to more flow and navigation from the heart rather than the intellect. The mentalization of spiritual energy is a large factor in the destruction of the environment. Ley lines that connect nodes of converging qi in the environment are closed off and sometimes dead because human activity siphons away these natural flows, stagnating and dampening the spiritual cleansing functions of our planet. More people need to awaken to spiritual dynamics, and then there will be much natural clarity on how we are contributing to the destruction of naturalness. So of course there are many perspectives. I like to remind myself of the principle that opposing something often tends to maintain it. To grow beyond this paradox requires going beyond the horizontal dynamic and evolving in a more vertical sense. Zhuangzi says we can only ever know ourselves from the inside out, and all else from the outside in, and uses this argument to demonstrate the futility of external jugments and agendas. We can only really know what is right or wrong for us, and working towards our own spiritual maturity helps us to continuously become more aware of what we don't know we don't know. If everyone around you is sad, does becoming sad at their sadness make them happy? If you are able to absorb their sadness and transform it into happiness within you, does that happiness not then tug upon their sadness? A good healer sees a sick person and focuses in that direction to heal them. A great healer radiates healing in all directions unconditionally, simply by maintaining their high level of refined personal integrity.

Speaking out is not always necessary either. By being the change we want to be, by living life so that our actions are nurturing nature rather than contributing to its destruction, we draw others in our wake naturally, without telling them what they should do.

I like how Daoism is ever absorbing the beliefs of the time. It doesn't stick to its own dogma and resist outside beliefs, but rather shows how those beliefs are also connected to dao. Like with Confucianism and the idea of filial piety. It is important that we respect the delicate bonds between our relationships. We don't necessarily need to follow them to the letter described by confucian texts, but we can easily see that following the principle of those texts helps us all to nurture each other. Two thousand years ago it may not have seemed important to protect nature, but today we can easily see how this idea of filial piety is in principle about nurturing the whole web of life, not just the human web of life. Today we understand how delicate ecosystems are and how the loss of a single, seemingly insignificant species can have a catastrophic impact upon the entire support system. Today we recognize that these ecosystems are in quite the delicate balance, something that took a long time for nature to refine. It is a blessing to be here on this planet, so thriving with life. The diversity of life on this planet is what allows us so much possibility. Life is a blending of spirit and matter, and we have yet to find other planets where it thrives like it does here. Nurturing the harmony and refining the balance is something humans are able to take a very direct part of, yet it is difficult for us to recognize this when we are blinded by self-serving agendas. Indeed, I wonder what would happen if everyone stopped paying their taxes? Would that be better for the environment? Change to government will come too as we nurture it in a harmonious direction, one of rule more by principle rather than law. But this takes time. Destroying what we don't like does not mean what we like is going to replace it. More often there is a regression. Paying taxes is not a very big burden. In humility and frugality we are able to survive on very little, and taxes are very little. It is greed that comes with a bigger price tag. Do we really need everything we want?

BaZi and Tropical (western) astrology are actually very similar. In both the central aspect is cycles of time. In BaZi we have the 12 animal signs: rat ox tiger rabbit dragon snake horse sheep monkey rooster dog boar These are really just the 5 elements doubled, with an extra pair of earth: water earth wood earth fire earth metal earth water. These are known as the 12 earthly branches, and they are like boxes in which gravity has trapped their counterparts, the 10 heavenly stems, which is why an extra pair of earth manifests. This elemental unfolding follows a cycle: winter spring summer fall. Water wood fire metal. The element of earth represents the central balancing between each season. This seasonal cycle is also followed by western astrology. The western groupings begin and end on the equinoxes and solstices, while the eastern groupings are centered around the equinoxes and solstices. In both the same principles may be found. An easy example is Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn. Or the transition of metal into water. In a cycle, there is a beginning point, then a waxing, a culmination, a waning, a return. Water, wood, fire, metal and returning to water. When we look at the transition of metal into water, we are looking at the process by which metal harvests and processes what has grown in the wood and fire phases of the cycle. The better it is able to process things, the better it is able to return. This is a process of taking all that has been born and trying to return it to where it came from... but that is hard to do. We are attached to some things and want them to live on, while we allow other things to die. What we keep and get rid of is part of the phase of metal, and the metal we preserve into the return is the blueprint within the seed of the next cycle. In western astrological terms, we have Libra, the sign of harmony and justice. And yet justice often leads away from harmony. many Librans are harmonious on the surface, while being very aware of the fine balance between life and death, right and wrong that will soon demand answer. In Scorpio there is no longer time for observing balance, we've entered deeply into the time of life and death. What needs to go needs to go, what needs to survive must make the final efforts to do so now. Winter is coming. This is the phase of the cycle where the attachments one has are either surrendered to the return or held onto with tooth and nail. And yet the process of the return is not about fighting death, for death is a beautiful and necessary part of life. Once we stop clinging to life and surrender into the cycle, we enter into awareness of the whole. There is freedom here, and space to reflect upon the entire past cycle. We are no longer attached to a single perspective and are able to glimpse the yang returning after the culmination of yin, even though we have yet to enter the void. Sagittarius. Now from the remnants of the past cycle we fully enter the void and the seed is born anew. It has not sprouted yet, it is still hidden. It takes its time to observe the blueprints encoded from the last cycle and listens so it may approach the new cycle with pragmatism. Capricorn. And so on as our seed continues to mature, sprouts deep within the earth and begins to grow, finally breaking through to the surface on the spring equinox. ---- The cycle is simple, yet profound. It also applies to the relationship between two cycling bodies. Two planets circling the sun. At one point they are lined up together. One moves faster than the other and begins to pull ahead. After a while it gets so far ahead that they are at opposite points from the sun. And finally it catches back up to that point when they are together. The same principles apply. It is little different from how one might jog a lap in a circuit. In the beginning one feels fresh. A little while later one develops a rhythm, finds one's pace. Half way through one knows exactly how much is left, there is a culmination and one knows it is all downhill from here, even as the aging process begins. With a quarter left one is able to tell how one has been pacing one's self, if there is enough energy left to make it all the way back to the beginning. The closer one gets to the finish the more one is just finishing it off, following through with the momentum to be done. In studying planets we can see the same thing. The sun and the moon. The moon travels faster, pulls on the tides, the emotions, the subconscious. On the new moon the sun and the moon are in the same part of the sky, and the moon pulls ahead beginning a new cycle. People born now and projects started now are pioneers into new territory related to this relationship between our perception of the pulls of the solar and lunar gravities. Similarly, people born and projects started when the moon is in its last approach to the sun are feeling the full spectrum of the last cycle, and are said to have a greater maturity as related to these solar-lunar energies. Other cycles people look at are between mars and venus, or pluto and mars, or any of them. There are many ways that each of us are carrying endings and beginnings and culminations. Someone may feel like they were born with an innate mechanical aptitude but has developed their spatial awareness to a lesser degree. Someone may have a powerful social ability while still needing to learn how to take care of themselves. There are many degrees to each of these things, and it is important to note that the wisest aspect comes near the end when the energy can often be weaker, while the culmination can often bring the strongest energy while only having half the wisdom and experience. Whatever the system, cycles are often easy to spot. The more one understands how they work, the easier it is to interpret.

What is protecting nature? What is nature? There is a daoist saying, do nothing and let everything be done. To me, this means to set one's intention upon the heart and balance of all things, to hold to unity, and make all decisions based on this. Further, avoid the making of contrived decisions. Just allow life to present choices, and follow in the direction that leads closer to the heart, closer to harmony, closer to the unity of all things. Yesterday a housemate asked me if her costume for a laser-tag party looked OK. Wow, a costumed laser party, how great! But I didn't once think it'd be nice to go to it, I just flowed with the moment. I don't have FB or anything like that; I just trust the universe to send me where I need to be. That night there were a whole bunch of old bananas for sale in the co-op on discount, so I bought them knowing our house likes to freeze them, and I peeled and froze them all that night. Today I got my work done, and then a visitor showed up at our house. We were both like "hey I know you!" and she invited me to the laser tag party and asked if I could bring ice-cream. I asked if vegan ice cream would be OK and she said sure and I food-processed some banana-avocado-almondmilk-cocopowder-sugar-cinnamon and it was done. It all just fell into place without my contriving our desiring for anything. The more I cultivate myself the more this type of easy harmonizing occurs. Is nurturing harmony in all things not also nurturing nature? Is being full of judgment about right and wrong decisions not nurturing conflict and thus creating separation within nature? We all emerge from different perspectives, how can there be any absolute right or wrongs except those from our own perspectives? All humans have a large impact upon non-human ecosystems. How do I know which ones my nurturance of will lead to the greater destruction or healing of this nature? To me it is as simple as setting my intention to include the harmony of all, not just human things, and taking step after step toward closer flow with dao.

I pondered on this for a while, and came to this answer. Hexagram 15 line 5 also has some interesting ideas. Innocence, humility, and integrity are powerful forces, but I think they work best when they don't have an external agenda, or when they are being pressed upon by external forces. It is hard to press upon something that doesn't want to get caught out when the circumstances offer a lot of freedom. Once a critical mass is reached however, trolls would just go to a different forum. I doubt there is much reward to be found in trolling triggering reactivity in people who by nature can't be trolled don't react or stray from the heart. The more they might try, the more their prey rubs off on them until they are forced to flee or open their own heart.