I’ve been talking with each speaker for the Festival of Change, bouncing ideas around, discussing what we’ll cover in their call, and getting to the point where – never mind the whole running-an-event, selling-tickets thing – I’m really looking forward to this just for what I can learn from these people.
Anyway… I’ve tried to give the Festival the shape of a reading, or of any experience of connection (as the event isn’t just for people familiar with an oracle), such as perceiving synchronicity or interpreting a dream. The idea is that as we travel through this structure, it opens up a space where each participant can have that experience of connection, rather than just listening to a bunch of theory about it.
The ‘shape’ is one I’ve been talking about for a few years: opening, connecting and integrating.
Opening is all you do to become ready to receive a response.
Connecting is all you do to receive the response.
Integrating – also sometimes called ‘fixing the omen’ – is all you do to carry the change embodied in your response through into practice.
Working with this very-neat structure in practice is a little like trying to carve the ocean into neat slices. The ‘opening’ creates the container for the whole experience, and its dimensions are a function of willingness to ask and receive. It has to be present as you connect with a response and allow it to say what it says (and think of perceiving a synchronicity – opening-connecting in a single moment?); it has to carry through into ‘integrating’, so I’m still awake to keep learning from the reading.
When we were preparing for Opening Space for Change, I asked people in the I Ching Community why it was important to them to open space for change. Martin, who was a wise man, responded at once,
‘Why is it important to you to keep space for change closed?‘
That’s embarrassingly easy to answer. I feel secure in what I know, I don’t want that threatened, I want to know what I’m doing next, I want to have things under my control… erm, OK, so I want the illusion of things being under my control… I like living in fantasy-land, thank you very much…
So opening turns out to be not-so-simple, as well as not so readily isolated.
And then connecting – which is a whole lot more than just decoding a transmission and ‘understanding what it says’. A Yijing reading will often give you a new image to see yourself with, a new story to think in – and then of itself this ‘fixes the omen’ into your awareness. Without any conscious intent to change, the shift in perception brings about a change of being, and connecting turns out to encompass integrating.
By the same token, integrating isn’t just ‘doing what it says’ (thank goodness!). Something that’s struck me, talking to one speaker after another – as well as how much I’m looking forward to this – is how everyone seems to be talking about questions. Opening, you listen to the question you’re asking; connecting, you ask questions to create a flow of conversation; integrating was described to me just the other day as ‘keeping the enquiry going’. Or in other words, sustained opening, which means living in connection, which…
This reminds me very much of some aspects of a great Tape I got long ago (and converted into CD) of a talk given by the modern-day Gnostic, Stephan A. Hoeller on the YiJing. It was so good that Michelle and I divided transcribing it into print. Among the things Hoeller emphasized is for those who entertain relating to the YiJing they need to be READY for CHANGE – and not only or always change in the trivial minutia, but more often fundamental and larger change – just the kind of change we most often resist. Another point: about a continuing dialogue with the YiJing – asking questions about the answer you recieved to clarify or sometimes to “pin it down” … there are times when I have done this and was further enlightened – but other times I have seen that I must be careful that I am not doing this because I am lookng for ANOTHER answer closer to what I would RATHER have heard in the first place. That is an easy kind of self-delusion. Even with that process – the Yi is forceful in making you aware of your lack of awareness. Thank you for this most interesting post. – Glen
This reminds me of the steps of application in Tai Chi Chuan:
Connect -> Adhere -> Join -> Follow
Gregg
Hilary, this is lovely. I particularly enjoy (and relate to) the phrase, “like trying to carve the ocean into neat slices.” Indeed.
It made me realize that I’ve been feeling the upcoming Changes event as having a strong Piscean energy — the most mutable of the mutable water signs. Ever-changing, difficult to pin down, and having the gift of emotional and spiritual sensing — that capacity to feel deeply into what is happening and respond from being, rather than from mind.
Thanks for this beautiful post.
.-= Tori Janaya´s last blog ..Opening to Love- Part II- The Power of Wanting Without Getting =-.
Glen – hear, hear! Readiness for change, or at least honesty about what you are and aren’t ready for. I actually find it’s better to say explicitly, ‘I’m not asking about that because I’m not prepared to change it’ than to prevaricate.
About continuing dialogue – actually in the post what I meant was asking yourself questions about the reading, so you keep alive the awareness that you’re engaged in a conversation and not just reading something fixed off a page.
As for
– heh… so it’s not just me, then…?
Gregg – yes, that does sound intriguingly close. Where can I learn more?
Tori – hello! I suppose a Festival of Change is not going to be easily pinned down, but I’ll try to dry things off a little 😉 .