(no subject)
rain all day today here in montreal. i went over to the street mission today at noon to
eat with the folks over there. it was an unusual day because most of the usual people
who prepare the meal and set things up were all at a funeral. i stayed afterwards to
clean up and wash dishes. i think there were 12 of us eating today. there would have
been more if it had not been for the rain.
i ran in the woods on mt. royal today for one hour in the rain. i think i saw a total of
a dozen other people out walking or cycling or running. i love it like that. like i have
said, i grew up on the prairies and i really crave the wide open spaces for my solitude.
today is the first day that i have been able to run hard with no knee pain for about ten days.
i injured my left knee doing plyometric exercises, or ballistic bop, or whatever you want to
call it. i love to leap and thump and stomp and crash around. i leapt down onto a hard surface
and i knew that the impact on the medial meniscus was not good, immediately. at first
i was afraid that i had slid too far forward upon impact and might have pinched the articulate
capsule in there. i waited to see if there was any swelling or increase in pain, and was very
relieved to find out that there was neither. no swelling at all. but i know that i took a bit of a
crunch on the meniscus.
so today i was confident enough in the healing process that i was able to repeat exactly the
same movements that caused the trouble before. and it was just fine. no discomfort at all.
i will credit that to the skill of my chinese herbalist. i told him about it and he made up a
formula that i have used before that is specifically for improving bone-ligament chi.
and i am also grateful to a friend who made me a bottle of homeopathic arnica drops.
i took the arnica under the tongue immediately when i came limping home after the injury.
i have been homesick for the prairies a lot, lately. i look around me and feel like i do not
belong here in montreal, sometimes. i feel like i have deserted my own best interests by
remaining here. but then after a few days i look around and realize that many of my
neighbours are also from somewhere else. in fact, i am in a sea of strangers from far away.
and i am amazed and delighted to see that my continued presence and volunteer contri-
bution at the street mission is appreciated. i do not talk about my massage career very
much at the mission. i do not want to make controversial conversation there or suggest
that i would do massage for anyone there. i do not want that kind of reputation at all in
that context. so even though i feel longing for my long-time friends back in the west,
i realize that i am still here and still committed to my adoration of mt. royal. i call it
the mountain of love.
there is a convergence of influences on the strictly personal level that keeps me here,
apart from the fascination with the multi-ethic diversity all around me.
as i have said, the ling zhi mushroom from traditional chinese medicine is one influence that
has been constant for me in the past five and a half years. and also the psychedelic cactus
known as san pedro or peruvian torch. in fact, i think that when the ling zhi mushroom and
the san pedro cactus come together in the particular INFJ nexus of my life story, the mystery
of the forest and the rock of mt. royal suddenly becomes alive in a mythic, eternal way.
i have stopped using the psychedelic cactus now, because the forest has gone to sleep for
the winter. soon the mountain will be covered with deep snow. i feel very strongly that the
communication with the green world via the ling zhi -- san pedro axis is what i have to work
on as a poetic investigation, that is very specifically my own. it is my new focus going into
this old man stage. now is the winter phase of that project. no more cactus now until spring.
maybe everything that i have done previously in chinese medicine and in psychedelics has
prepared me for this new project. the mountain, the cactus, the mushroom are all equal and
mutually reinforcing for me on the spiritual side of things. and the syllabus or syntax of
the I Ching is how i form these ideas and learn to express them. this is a purely solitary
method for me. but if i focus correctly and keep on the path, so to speak, then i have some-
thing to contribute to the human context, the neighbourhood.
i have something to contribute to this human neighbourhood of broad diversity as long as i
focus correctly on what is specifically my own on the spiritual, solitary side. that is my yoga,
in the original sense of that word, to yoke or to harness.
today when i was out running i stopped in an open grassy area and did a five minute calisthenic
or isotonic routine. suddenly i saw something shiny and glinting in the wet grass. like any good
magpie i stopped to inspect it closer and discovered that it was a 25 cent piece, a quarter, and
there was also a penny right beside it. somebody must have been sitting or lying there in the
grass and had some change fall out. i put the coins in my pocket and continued on my way.
so it was 26 cents. now the 26th hexagram is also the hexagram most suited to discussing the
concept of yoga or yoking or harnessing.
__________
----- ------ you have the full representation of heaven below the mountain. the mountain is
----- ------ restraining or training the younger lines of heaven below. the second line refers
__________ written text or scripture. the third line refers to an action taken towards the fifth
__________ place. the fifth line refers to a conclusion that has been repeated many times
__________ before one comes to a decision. it has been conditioned by repeated experience
the first line refers to something that cannot be included or integrated within the upper context.
something that must be weeded out, or it may also refer to something that is superior to the
top line, and thus appears to be too controversial or disruptive. maybe the first line refers to
a renegade or deviant from the body-piercing community who can never be fully embraced by
traditional yoga hierarchy because they know too much already gained by the body-piercing
trance states. they do not fit anywhere. maybe they wear the right yoga clothes and can do the
asanas, but they are just too flippin weird to be embraced by the oldtime yogis. so if the yogi is
the one at the top yang line, and the young first line is some weirdo body-piercing maverick, there
is going to be some conflict.
however, if the top line is in harmony with the first line, then you have 46, pushing upward, which
shows something discontinuous with the old traditions. it is discontinuous and disruptive to the
status quo. maybe the body-piercing pervert who practices yoga is going to discover something
important for others to see. something nobody has ever seen before.
i see quite a few people like that around me here in montreal. what they bring into the yoga practice
would never be accepted in any historical context because of its occult or sexual implications. you
know the status quo history of yoga does not allow for deviant sexuality. not at all. even big spiritual
leaders like the current dalai lama of tibet do not think that homosexuals can spiritually evolve in
the dharma. you should read some of the things he has said about homo or bisexual practices. he
represents that old status quo control of the brahmin class that is afraid of female power and afraid
of anarchic freedom.
for instance, if you say that the third line of 26th hexagram is an exercise of independent will or
intention, then let's say that it is a mouseclick of a woman choosing to click on a thumbnail of
a sexually explicit photo. maybe it is a photo of another woman masturbating. this produces the
hexagram of 41. one thing about all the number relationships is that if you reverse the digits, the
same context will be seen from another perspective. in other words, 41 is also 14. or 26 is 62.
all these number relationships are valid in the system. 14 has to do with the state of possession
or host/guest relationship, just like the guru/chela system of yoga. but if the woman is clicking
on such potent images on the computer as 26(3) she may be doing so outside of the status
quo definition of 14 or the ownership of the master. she is escaping out of the structure of the
teaching.
for me, the biggest revelation that i have discovered is that 26(2) the scripture of the way, is
in the flesh, the muscle of the person on the massage table. i read the body the way that i
read scripture. and also the second line of the 26th hexagram is the natural history of
the forest. the bark of the trees, the lines of compression in the sedimentary rock along the
trail. the ganoderma mushroom growing on old dead trees. the den of the fox in the cemetery.
that is the scripture i follow. that is because i am INFJ --- the mystery is going to lie in the
sensate world and in thinking. i soak up the influences of the inferior function when i am
out running on the rock, in the mud on the trail, the wetness of the falling rain.
when i give myself over to that sensate flux completely with no fear, then the thinking
becomes supercharged by the spiritual friendship that i have with the ganoderma mushroom.