Pyjamas and Preparation

The places where one is most likely to bang into someone by accident are nodal points, points with high average footfall. These include hospitals, airports, train stations and supermarkets inter alia. I have in the past met people “by accident” at such places. When we went back to the UK recently I knew that there was an increased chance of bumping into to someone I once was acquainted with at Gatwick airport. To meet them in rural Britanny is unlikely. My “circle” extended briefly into the “circle” of others. No such meeting occurred. Fate did not see fit to organise an encounter. Of course in spy novels and films “chance” meetings can be engineered. Were I to bump into someone from my past locally, I would err on the idea of engineered rather than chance. The only people we meet in the local supermarket are the wife’s hairdresser and the geezer we bought the house off. These are spatially likely given our normal trajectories.

Living like we do our normal circle extends 20 km in radius with extensions to 50km for occasional hospital and coastal visits. The chances of me crossing circles is zero outside these ranges.

At the last hospital visit the nurse said that I am not allowed to be “balls out” and must therefore buy some pyjama bottoms at least. I bought some at the M&S outlet in Gloucester Quays. I have some stumpy short fat bloke track suit bottoms on order and a new pair of Crocs in the post. They were not doing a pre-diabetic special offer on the joggers. My hospital wardrobe is taken care of. I can wear my “Trust me I am a Doctor” T-shirt, my psilocybin zwitterion and “breaking bad” ones too. As a rule of thumb hospital temperatures are adjusted to encourage the growth and spread of penicillin resistant bacteria and  upper respiratory tract viruses. I need to get my flu and covid vaccinations done next week. Hospitals are always too hot.

Will they shave my chest again to put cardiac monitors on during the operation? Yeah probably… more itching.

We need to look at placing the second mattress on our bed. To get a loo seat raising contraption and perhaps a litter picker for dropped things. We have a prescription for a hospital bed which will sit here downstairs in the office. We will have the local nurses visit; they are already practically a part of the family. I’ll get a yellow sharps box for my pre-filled heparin syringes post hoc. I was OK injecting myself last time. We have got laxatives to counter the morphine induced arse-corks. I need to check the plumbing to the cess pit. I have 15m of plumber’s rods. This may be done next week.

The initial guess from the nurse is that I will go in on a Friday for the slice dice and drill. Assuming I can stand day one, I will probably be sent home Sunday. The physio thinks I will be housebound for two weeks. After that I may be able to get into a car. In France the pharmacies are shut Sundays so we need to make sure that I have a good opiate stash.

I am due a coronary CT-angiogram next week. Because of the holy Trinity of fat, fags and booze there is a mild concern. This may or may not turn up something, it could be that last obvious showstopper.

This morning I was pleased to wake up without some weird London based stress bunny dream. It seems so far away, another world. I am 95% sure now that I won’t go ahead with the idea of trying to apply for a quantum telepathy patent whilst I am incapacitated. It would only make the dramatics worse.

I don’t know why I keep getting these dreams. I personally think I am at peace with all that palaver and have been for years. Maybe I am kidding myself. Maybe the dreaming is just showing the unresolved issues of others.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

If I had a pretty head I would try not to worry it.

Only a few weeks to go and the pepper mill in my right hip might be replaced with something less frictional and painful. I may even be able to put my own socks on…

It is probably best to have no expectations. The only thing for sure is that it will in some way be different and I will have wound closures and bruising. A physio is due to visit soon after the butchery.

Three weeks from today…I could be on my way to the block…

Today’s Best Guess

Our trip to the UK did not give a definite binary answer. We have the notion that a return to the UK is not a definite no, nor was it a resounding yes. It was a damp squib. We do need to downsize to a smaller house and garden. This is possible in France assuming we don’t get kicked out. It is less financially possible in the UK, though I might earn some pin money doing “A” level science tutoring there. We are probably not welcome elsewhere in the world given that we may struggle with meeting immigration criteria because we are not loaded and will be a burden to the health system. Our use as post-mortem fertilizer is limited.

On the cards is one and probably two hip replacement operations which takes us through to mid 2026. We do not know how well I will respond and the Damocles sword of the wife’s myeloma remains pendant. We are vey unlikely to leave the department before next summer. Which times the house move for autumn ’26.

Irrespective of what happens in the alternate reality of dreams and the machinations of Rubio and Hegseth et al., life here is unlikely to alter much. There does not seem much for me to do and my residual fate looks very minimal. I foresee paint brush and secateur. That is about the scope. We live adjacent to the world and our interaction with it is small and without infliction.

People can struggle with the difference between is and should. They can have idealised ideas about how things are supposed to be. It can be a bit of a mind fuck for them when reality differs.

My days of reaching out and inflicting myself of the world are largely past. I do not see the world as something I have to solve. People will do whatever it is they do. There are lots of important people doing things they deem important. Watching “University Challenge” with men dressed as women makes me glad that I do not have to tread in that minefield. I am in more ways than one of a different age. A visit to the Orange telecoms shop reminds me that I am a fossilised alien living among lunatics.

Of course there could always be a curve ball or a googly. The best guess is a fizzle out relatively free of drama…

That is how things look today…

Quirks of Fate

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Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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The notions of fate and destiny have been around for a while. They are related to prophecy in some respects. They are a logical summation of the cause & effect of karma and/or dependent origination. Once a chain of events has been set in motion the ongoing trajectory is inevitable. It becomes fated. Scientists even use the terminology of fate. They copy much poetic.

Many humans do not like to accept that aspects of their lives are pre-ordained. Some can use it as a chat up line, “hey babe we are soul mates and fate brought us together…”

Yet for many of us there are occasions when fate seems to play a hand. Something entirely unlikely can radically change our lives. We might call this an intervention of intuition, synchronicity or fate. We somehow just so happened to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. The odds against are large.

We could have missed our flight and that plane crashed. We could have swapped tickets with another just to meet the grim reaper on a Boeing 737. Fate it could be discussed is prone to exhibit quirks.

In the strict logic of fate it is impossible to forfeit a fate. Because if it was fated it will happen whether you like it or not. One path apparently open to you may not be taken. You have by fate forfeited that path. You were always fated so to do. So that path was not fated for you. No forfeit of fate, a different path was/is followed, according to fate.

Using the logic of fate. I was perhaps for countless lifetimes always fated to find myself here this afternoon, typing on this keyboard. I had no choice. It was preordained. I was for a while an academic but fate took me away from that path. Retrospect suggests that I was not in any case temperamentally equipped to work in and thrive in such an environment. It was fated that I became a loner-yogi-eccentric-pikey. So here I am.

I don’t know what fate has left for me “on the cards” so to speak. Fate will do the Tarot draw and maybe it has some quirks in store yet. I can’t know before hand, nor am I overly fussed. There is no need to be, because whatever happens it is fated, I cannot get out of it or escape it, it will happen whether I whinge and complain or not. I do not need to tempt fate by walking in the woods wearing camouflage during hunting season. Nor should I lock myself quivering indoors.

Likewise if you are fated to meet me, we will, whether you like it or not. I am probably more likely to be well prepared than you are. If we miss like ships passing in the night, then  no meeting was “on the cards” a feather touch of possibility unmanifest in the web of life is all that is fated and therefore warranted. A passing that may not come again this lifetime or for that mater ever. This butterfly wing interaction may nevertheless be a tiny breath of air to direct you along your fated path.

Trying to run and squirm out of fate is a mug’s game. Sooner of later fate wins, it holds all the cards.

Fate is perhaps more omniscient and omnipresent than humans are willing to accept. It was always fated thus.

And the painted ponies go up and down…

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So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Joni Mitchell

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Today started with sorting through my now extensive medical records for the next phase of the upcoming medical-merry-go-round. By the end of the calendar year I will probably hit ~100 appointments. I am already past 60 RDVs. That is shed loads.

I have had more x-rays and MRI scans than your average person. I am due a few more. Next on the dance card are rheumatology, cardio stress test ultrasound and urology prostate specific antigen follow up. This to be followed by a pre-operative meeting with the anaesthesiologist, dietician and physiotherapist. They will probably say {politely} that I am a fat bastard. To which I might reply that I could start to smoke and drink heavily again so that I can get back to my former heroin chic. I could always knock up some crystal meth in the shed, that is an appetite suppressor.

It is difficult to know what difference a new hip might make. According to the hype it might be a game changer. They are not talking about the second one yet, which will be more complicated. It could offer a new lease of life. I doubt I will be down the mosh pit any time soon.

It is a kind of in between feeling. Something is impending, it is a couple of months away and there is a while away of time in the meantime. We have just received our “poll tax” bill for the year which might be the last or it might not. There are a number of jobs undone in the garden which I may be able to turn my hand to in January.

On the dreaming front there have been plenty. Recurring themes recur. None of which I am in a position to really do much about. There is no indication of an ongoing fate. Dreams of putative past lives might be interesting and jig saw puzzle pieces, to help synthesise a whole. But they do not show an ongoing fate, a path or direction left remaining for me to do.

I remain aware that “my” whole world is subject to sudden unexpected pivot. I am not however holding my breath for such a thing.

And the seasons they go round and round. Autumn is now here albeit a little early. It means leaves and fungi, rain and wind. Soon the pond will again fill and the bloody coypu will try to breach our defences to eat the lotuses on the pond.

And the painted ponies go up and down…

Fate and Façade

A while back I wrote and entire blog around the notion of façade. It was called “Spiegelfassade”. The idea being is that people portray a façade, a persona, an ersatz, to others and then hide behind that. Rarely are human beings WYSWYG. They live in manner inconsistent with their authentic essence, life is a show-and-tell affair and they are not true. The public-relations-faux-façade is more present and giga-pixel ready these days. Insta-ready is not reality. One could make up a whole new identity with the help of AI and photoshop. This having a cover story is not new, it has been around for ever. There is tacit acceptance that some will need a cover in order to ply their trade. Others can take a face from the ancient gallery in a sociopathic manner. Others are knobheads.

The trouble with cover stories is that people can struggle to know what is cover, what is real. There were cases in the UK of undercover cops fathering children whilst in deep cover. Who knows how wide the psychological damage from that propagated? I doubt national security warranted such cynical imposition.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I kept “getting” the number 37. Today I learned that 37 is a prime number, which I kind of knew anyway by sight. Apparently, that makes it useful for cryptography. If you ask human beings to pick a number at random between 1 and 100 it is the second most popular number after 7. Human random number generators are skewed. It is also a number used in a magician’s or mind reader’s force. They can, by prompting, guide you to this number. Ta-dah…magic!! 73 is also a prime number which makes 37 an unusual reversible prime. People choose numbers that are “lucky”. The odds for picking 37 are not 1 in 100. Humans have biases where they imagine there may be none.

The problem comes when façade interacts with façade and there is an illusion of reality on one or both sides. To an extent this is the basis of all 1:1 human interactions. We have a professional façade, a home one and perhaps are real only when we are alone. But if we have over egged the façade, it is impossible to understand or know our true authentic essence. People do not know themselves well and may deny a whole bunch of stuff. They may only know their shell, their façade, which they mistake for reality.

One of the answers in the University Challenge quiz last night was that “an unexamined life is not worth living”. People can quote philosophers in an erudite manner as a groovy tag to conversation. Rarely do they enact fully. Even those enamoured with the classics may quote more than do. We are selective. In this context fate is an interesting idea, that has on occasion a hackle tingling effect. We might like to believe it but only to an extent. We think we determine our life direction rationally, we choose. But a simple leaky condom can alter trajectory dramatically. We can be fated to meet someone who changes our life forever. We may miss a meeting that might be transformational by a hair’s breadth. We were not yet fated for that transformation; we came within a whisker.

If we live within the confines of our façade we may never know. If we are meant to find out, that façade might crack and perhaps violently so, revealing an unprotected nascent embryo beneath. It may evolve or develop another calcified shell quickly, lest the world sees an emperor unclad.

In all of us the authentic essence might leak through a crack. We might think, “what the fuck was that?” as we glue the porcelain mask quickly back together.

If like a Matryoshka doll there is façade after façade, identity after identity, it may take a long while to find that authentic essence. If we are fated to approach said essence then we will, no matter how much upheaval and struggle it entails. Layer after layer needs peeled back and like with onions we may cry along the way. If we are fated to stay in façade-land that is where we eke out our days.

Fate may engineer or come close, in one of these cases we will never know. Along the way we will have lent fate a hand by our choices, our decisions. It was fated thus.

Fate or Self-Determination?

Many imagine that they have partial control over their lives, their circumstances and the trajectory of those lives. I have used the plural lives here which might be a moot choice for those who do not believe in reincarnation. Already people might want to debate singular or plural. Their own minds may not be certain, “do I cark it and that is it, or am I reborn?” This is quite fundamental in terms of outlook. They don’t imagine that the entire trajectory of life can pivot on a few tiny things.

If those marking my undergraduate exams in 1985 had given me one more mark and Sue one less. We would have tied for the last remaining SERC Ph.D. quota studentship. The organic section already had a lot of applicants, the inorganic chemistry section less. The decision would have been to grant the supervisor of my third year research project the studentship and I would have done a Ph.D. in the synthesis of Pt and Pd mixed valence compounds with X-ray, FTIR and Raman. I would have become an inorganic chemist of sorts at UCL and not gone to the Royal Institution nor helped moved the group to Imperial College. At some stage down the line the UCL trajectory could have led me to doing coherent Raman spectroscopy of GaAs growth at UMIST. Here the two possible trajectories could have remerged. This could have led me to the Interdisciplinary Centre for Electronic Materials and to Imperial.

But my life would have been markedly different in the meantime. I would not have formed the same “relationships”.

When Sue transferred to UCL part through her degree I helped her catch up on the course. In effect sealing my own fate by an act of kindness. Without my intervention I would have “beaten” her. Of course I could also have smoked fewer spliffs and not gotten so pissed on a regular basis too.

Seemingly innocuous happenstance can nudge life trajectory more than you imagine. Is it down to fate or is it down to the integral over all the decisions we make? I prefer the notion that fate has a considerable hand. Others do not like the idea that some external force has influence and control of their lives.

BUT.

If you choose your incarnation then you have in a way self-determined your fate by the choice of vehicle into which you incarnate. There may be a fate but it was caused by your choice.

At the moment the residual fate in this life looks pretty simple. No big deal, no big external dramas and marginal significance to the world at large. I am very unlikely to have much ongoing wider significance. If it is fated there is no intervention required of me. If it is fated otherwise something might happened outside the compound to change things. I don’t have to be in any way proactive in this respect. If it is fated, it will happen.

Tomorrow, I have a urology appointment to follow up on my elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. I don’t have cancer yet according to the guidelines of how these things are assessed. But the way the PSA numbers are going it will not be long before I fall into the right numerical regime to mean that I have cancer or at least warrant another hour long session in the high resolution MRI machine or an invasive biopsy. I may get a prostate exam. The trajectory of our lives might take another turn, if it is so fated.

There are many who really don’t like this notion of relying on fate. It is core belief and orientation for me. My dreams help me evolve my fate in accordance with what I, the indwelling dreamer, planned at birth. I have made huge life changing decisions based on dream interpretation. Some of which were very hard with difficult consequences. I was fated to dream and fated to use those dreams to guide this life.

Of course I may seem like a complete nut-job to some. But if so, it was always fated thus.

I am open to the fact that there is not much left fated for me to do in this life. Why would one not accept one’s fate? Even were my life entirely governed by self-determination there is precious little that I can do to alter life circumstance as it stands. It looks like fate has me “cornered” so to speak…

Shit happens… you may as well relax into it…take a deep breath… this will only take a few seconds…

Destined to Occur

The prophet is not diverted by illusions of past, present and future. The fixity of language determines such linear distinctions. Prophets hold a key to the lock in language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. This is not a mechanical universe. The linear progression of events is imposed by the observer. Cause and effect? That’s not it at all. The prophet utters fateful words. You glimpse a thing “destined to occur”. But the prophetic instant releases something of infinite portent and power. The universe undergoes a ghostly shift. The wise prophet conceals actuality behind shimmering labels. The uninitiated then believe the prophetic language is ambiguous. The listener distrusts the prophetic messenger. Instinct tells you how the utterance blunts the power of such words. The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through it yourself.

– The Stolen Journals [1]

Frank Herbert “God Emperor of Dune” Gollancz, Orion Publishing, London. Page 297 ISBN 0 575 07506 6

The Three Threads



Out there in the wider world, people are busy with their business. Maybe focussed on whatever it is that may be “important” to them or so they deem. There is very little genuinely spare time, largely because that internal dialogue is rampant. Many have some kind of agenda which they seek to enact, be that as simple as going to the football and having a skin full, or not.

I have been coming around to the idea that fate has little left in store for me in terms of my interactions in a wider world for the end-game of this lifetime. I am pretty much done.

The {my} world turns inwards and is governed largely by biological health and physical pain. I have managed to get a French rheumatology appointment for September which is contemporary with my next scheduled GP doctor appointment. I have a UK rheumatology appointment next week but they cannot prescribe for French pharmacies. I will probably self-medicate unless things get genuinely unbearable. Any hip operation looks at least a year off.

We have started looking at houses suitable for handicapped living and this is the so-called nanna-thread. The one that looks the most real, the most likely. If we end up in some nanna-accommodation with shared communal facilities, there is a chance that even if I don’t want to, I will end up in some way as spokesperson / organiser for the grey hordes. The nanna thread has UK options in Llanelli with the Scarlets or near Gloucester with the Cherry and Whites.

That is about as far as thinking has gone.

In the background my unpublished dreams provide detail of just how disingenuous and unpleasant various people, allegedly “close” to me in the past, have been towards me. Those dreams have gone beyond what I already knew to be true. I am not surprised, rather thematically bored. I could not be arsed, to recall them, to write them down. Boring.

The Buddhist-thread with Tibetan spices, seems likely to have no physical plane future. I can’t see any trajectory which might make it more substantial or solid. It seems to me “just one of those things”. A possibility in the web of life, unable to manifest, due to the reality of life circumstances. Practicality aborts dream, if you want to be dramatic.

It may be simply a ghost, an echo, that I need to let fade, to work through my system and to let go of. There is no vicinal or proximal context.

My little dream-world does not impinge exterior. There is no data.

Of late there has been a tiny hint of something I might do were we to have a UK small-garden property. It is the merest hint of a thread. The conceptual difficulty I have is that it pertains to the “leadership” red herring. Someone gaslighted me into this notion, when in reality I have always been more about teaching, possibility and not manifestation. I cannot lead in a socio-political sense because I cannot be bothered with fake niceties and bartering politics.

For some bizarre reason some expect me to do, when I would much rather research, think and speculate. I enjoy planning and envisioning; I don’t fuss if these get binned or forgotten.

The only thread that I can start to picture is the first. I could see the bathroom of the house we saw yesterday adapted for grip bars in the shower. I questioned whether the tiled stud-wall could support a fraction of my ~100kg. I would need a second look.

For now, these are the three threads in order or increasing tenuousness.

2025 I Ching Consultation

Please comment on the nature of 2025 for me…

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44. Kou / Coming to Meet

above CH’IEN THE CREATIVE, HEAVEN
below SUN THE GENTLE, WIND

This hexagram indicates a situation in which the principle of darkness, after having been eliminated, furtively and unexpectedly obtrudes again from within and below. Of its own accord the female principle comes to meet the male. It is an unfavourable and dangerous situation, and we must understand and promptly prevent the possible consequences. The hexagram is linked with the fifth month [June-July], because at the summer solstice the principle of darkness gradually becomes ascendant again.

THE JUDGMENT

COMING TO MEET.

The maiden is powerful.
One should not marry such a maiden.

The rise of the inferior element is pictured here in the image of a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself and thus seizes power. This would not be possible if the strong and light-giving element had not in turn come halfway. The inferior thing seems so harmless and inviting that a man delights in it; it looks so small and weak that he imagines he may dally with it and come to no harm. The inferior man rises only because the superior man does not regard him as dangerous and so lends him power. If he were resisted from the first, he could never gain influence. The time of COMING TO MEET is important in still another way. Although as a general rule the weak should not come to meet the strong, there are times when this has great significance. When heaven and earth come to meet each other, all creatures prosper; when a prince and his official come to meet each other, the world is put in order. It is necessary for elements predestined to be joined and mutually dependent to come to meet one another halfway. But the coming together must be free of dishonest ulterior motives, otherwise harm will result.

THE IMAGE

Under heaven, wind:

The image of COMING TO MEET.

Thus does the prince act when disseminating his commands
And proclaiming them to the four quarters of heaven.

The situation here resembles that in hexagram 20, Kuan, CONTEMPLATION (VIEW). In the latter the wind blows over the earth, here it blows under heaven; in both cases it goes everywhere. There the wind is on the earth and symbolizes the ruler taking note of the conditions in his kingdom; here the wind blows from above and symbolizes the influence exercised by the ruler through his commands. Heaven is far from the things of earth, but it sets them in motion by means of the wind. The ruler is far from his people, but he sets them in motion by means of his commands and decrees.

Nine in the fifth place means:

A melon covered with willow leaves.
Hidden lines.

Then it drops down to one from heaven.

The melon, like the fish, is a symbol of the principle of darkness. It is sweet but spoils easily and for this reason is protected with a cover of willow leaves. This is a situation in which a strong, superior, well-poised man tolerates and protects the inferiors in his charge. He has the firm lines of order and beauty within himself but he does not lay stress upon them. He does not bother his subordinates with outward show or tiresome admonitions but leaves them quite free, putting his trust in the transforming power of a strong and upright personality. And behold! Fate is favorable. His inferiors respond to his influence and fall to his disposition like ripe fruit.

Nine at the top means:

He comes to meet with his horns.
Humiliation. No blame.

When a man has withdrawn from the world, its tumult often becomes unbearable to him. There are many people who in a noble pride hold themselves aloof from all that is low and rebuff it brusquely wherever it comes to meet them. Such persons are reproached for being proud and distant, but since active duties no longer hold them to the world, this does not greatly matter. They know how to bear the dislike of the masses with composure.

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Changing to:

32. Hêng / Duration

above CHEN THE AROUSING, THUNDER
below SUN THE GENTLE, WIND

The strong trigram Chên is above, the weak trigram Sun below. This hexagram is the inverse of the preceding one. In the latter we have influence, here we have union as an enduring condition. The two images are thunder and wind, which are likewise constantly paired phenomena. The lower trigram indicates gentleness within; the upper, movement without. In the sphere of social relationships, the hexagram represents the institution of marriage as the enduring union of the sexes. During courtship the young man subordinates himself to the girl, but in marriage, which is represented by the coming together of the eldest son and the eldest daughter, the husband is the directing and moving force outside, while the wife, inside, is gentle and submissive.

THE JUDGMENT

DURATION. Success. No blame.
Perseverance furthers.
It furthers one to have somewhere to go.

Duration is a state whose movement is not worn down by hindrances. It is not a state of rest, for mere standstill is regression. Duration is rather the self-contained and therefore self-renewing movement of an organized, firmly integrated whole, taking place in accordance with immutable laws and beginning anew at every ending. The end is reached by an inward movement, by inhalation, systole, contraction, and this movement turns into a new beginning, in which the movement is directed outward, in exhalation, diastole, expansion. Heavenly bodies exemplify duration. They move in their fixed orbits, and because of this their light-giving power endures. The seasons of the year follow a fixed law of change and transformation, hence can produce effects that endure. So likewise the dedicated man embodies an enduring meaning in his way of life, and thereby the world is formed. In that which gives things their duration, we can come to understand the nature of all beings in heaven and on earth.

THE IMAGE

Thunder and wind: the image of DURATION.

Thus the superior man stands firm
And does not change has direction.

Thunder rolls, and the wind blows; both are examples of extreme mobility and so are seemingly the very opposite of duration, but the laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure. In the same way the independence of the superior man is not based on rigidity and immobility of character. He always keeps abreast of the time and changes with it. What endures is the unswerving directive, the inner law of his being, which determines all his actions.

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44 Keou / Venir à la rencontre
En haut K’ien : Le Créateur
En bas Souen : Le Doux, le Vent

L’hexagramme indique une situation où le principe obscur se réintroduit secrètement et de façon inattendue de l’intérieur et d’en bas après qu’on l’avait écarté. L’élément féminin vient de lui-même à la rencontre des hommes. C’est une situation dangereuse et non favorable à cause des conséquences possibles qu’il importe de reconnaître à temps et, par suite, d’enrayer. Ce signe est rattaché au 5e mois (juin-juillet) parce qu’avec le solstice d’été le principe obscur recommence peu à peu son ascension.

Le Jugement

VENIR À LA RENCONTRE.
La jeune fille est puissante
On ne doit pas épouser une telle jeune fille,

L’ascension de l’homme vulgaire est représentée sous les traits d’une jeune fille effrontée qui se livre facilement et prend ainsi le commandement. Cela ne serait pas possible si, de son côté, le principe fort et lumineux n’était pas venu. Lui aussi, à sa rencontre. L’homme vulgaire paraît si inoffensif et si doucereux que l’on s’en fait un ami. Il paraît si petit et si faible que l’on pense pouvoir plaisanter avec lui sans inquiétude. L’homme vulgaire ne s’élève que parce que l’homme noble ne le tient pas pour dangereux et lui prête de la puissance. Si on lui résistait au début, il ne réussirait jamais à acquérir de l’influence. Mais le temps où l’on vient à la rencontre a cependant encore un autre aspect qui mérite examen. Si la règle ne doit pas être que le faible vienne au-devant du fort, cette attitude revêt cependant à certaines époques une signification considérable. Si le ciel et la terre viennent à la rencontre l’un de l’autre toutes les créatures prospèrent. Quand le prince et son ministre viennent à la rencontre l’un de l’autre, l’ordre s’établit dans le monde. Il est indispensable que des principes destinés l’un à l’autre viennent l’un vers l’autre. Cette démarche doit seulement être libre d’arrière-pensées, sinon ce serait mauvais.

L’image

Sous le ciel est le vent :
Image de l’acte de VENIR À LA RENCONTRE.
Ainsi fait le prince quand il publie ses ordres et les fait proclamer aux quatre points cardinaux.

La situation est analogue à celle de l’hexagramme Kouan « la contemplation » (n° 20). Là le vent souffle sur la terre, ici il souffle sous le ciel. Dans les deux cas il entre partout. Mais, là, le vent était sur la terre, donc en bas, et symbolisait le souverain prenant connaissance des conditions du royaume. Ici le vent souffle d’en haut ; cela indique l’influence que le souverain exerce par ses ordres. Le ciel est éloigné des choses qui sont sur la terre, mais il les meut par le vent. Le souverain est éloigné du peuple, mais il le meut par ses ordres et l’expression de ses volontés.

Neuf à la cinquième place signifie :
Un melon recouvert de feuilles de saule.
Traits cachés.
Cela nous tombe alors du haut du ciel.

Le melon est comme le poisson une image du principe obscur. Il est sucré mais pourrit facilement ; c’est pourquoi il est recouvert de feuilles de saule protectrices. La situation est celle où un homme fort, élevé, ferme en lui-même protège avec patience les inférieurs dont il a la charge. Il possède en lui les traits fermes de l’ordre et de la beauté. Pourtant il ne les fait pas valoir. Il n’importune pas ses subordonnés par son éclat extérieur ou des avertissements fastidieux, mais il les laisse entièrement libres, faisant pleine confiance à la puissance transformatrice qui réside à l’intérieur d’une personnalité forte et pure. Et voici que le destin est favorable. Les inférieurs sont influencés et lui tombent comme des fruits mûrs.

Neuf en haut signifie :
Il vient à la rencontre avec ses cornes.
Humiliation. Pas de blâme.

Quand un homme s’est retiré du monde, l’agitation profane lui devient souvent insupportable. Il y a souvent des hommes qui, dans un noble orgueil, se tiennent loin du vulgaire et le repoussent avec rudesse s’il vient à leur rencontre.   De tels hommes sont réprimandés d’être durs et inaccessibles ; toutefois comme ils ne sont plus liés par le devoir d’agir dans le monde, cela n’a pas grande importance. Ils savent supporter avec calme l’aversion de la masse.

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Changing to

32 Hong / La Durée
En haut Tchen : L’Éveilleur, le Tonnerre
En bas Souen : Le Doux, le Vent

Le trigramme fort Tchen est au-dessus, le trigramme faible Souen, au-dessous. Cet hexagramme est l’inverse du précédent : là l’influence, ici l’union comme état durable. Les images sont celles du tonnerre et du vent qui sont également des phénomènes associés de façon constante. Le trigramme inférieur indique douceur au-dedans, le trigramme supérieur, mouvement au-dehors.
Si nous appliquons l’hexagramme aux rapports sociaux, nous sommes en présence de l’institution matrimoniale comme union durable des sexes. Lors de la demande en mariage, le jeune homme se tenait placé au-dessous de la jeune fille. Par contre, dans le mariage qui est représenté par la réunion du fils aîné et de la fille aînée, l’homme est à l’extérieur fournissant direction et impulsion, tandis que la femme demeure à l’intérieur, douce et obéissante.

Le Jugement

LA DURÉE.
Succès. Pas de blâme.
La persévérance est avantageuse.
Il est avantageux d’avoir où aller.

La durée est un état dont le mouvement n’est pas annihilé par les obstacles. Ce n’est pas un état de repos, car la pure immobilité est recul. La durée est plutôt un mouvement s’accomplissant suivant des lois déterminées, refermé sur lui-même et, par suite, se renouvelant sans cesse, d’un tout organisé et fortement centré sur lui-même, dans lequel toute fin est suivie d’un nouveau commencement. La fin est atteinte par le mouvement vers l’intérieur, l’inspiration du souffle, la systole, la concentration. Ce mouvement se change en un nouveau début dans lequel il est dirigé vers l’extérieur : c’est l’expiration du souffle, la diastole, l’expansion. C’est de cette manière que les corps célestes accomplissent leur course dans le ciel et peuvent en conséquence briller d’une manière durable. Les saisons se déroulent suivant une loi fixe de changement et de transformation et peuvent par suite œuvrer durablement. Ainsi l’homme qui a entendu l’appel incarne une signification durable dans sa manière de vivre et le monde reçoit par là une forme. A partir de ce en quoi les choses puisent leur durée, il est possible de reconnaître la nature de tous les êtres dans le ciel et sur la terre.

L’Image

Tonnerre et vent :
Image de la DURÉE.
Ainsi l’homme noble conserve une attitude ferme et ne change pas de direction.

Le tonnerre roule et le vent souffle. L’un et l’autre représentent un phénomène extrêmement mobile, si bien que leur apparence est à l’opposé de la durée. Toutefois leur apparition et leur disparition, leur mouvement d’aller et de retour suivent des lois durables. Ainsi l’autonomie de l’homme noble ne consiste pas en ce qu’il serait rigide et immobile. Il suit toujours le temps et se transforme avec lui. Ce qui dure est la direction ferme, la loi interne de son être qui détermine toutes ses actions.

Dreams and Life Changing Decisions

To be specific in what follows dreams refers to passive nocturnal dreaming, most often in the 4-7AM time frame. I am lucid in these dreams, knowing that I am dreaming, they are then either written by hand down in a journal on waking or typed into a word document.

The theory is that the reincarnating entity or dreamer selects a dreamed for each life in order to evolve, learn and thorough fulfilling a fate work at its destiny. The dreamed is the physical body or apparatus, its personality, weaknesses and abilities. In this context, I the dreamer, chose my parents, their circumstance and this lump of meat. Both my parents had a scientific leaning, it was fairly natural that I became a scientist of sorts. I was perhaps fated to study at a world top ten university, do my Ph.D. at a place with the world’s highest per capital Nobel prize density and later teach at another world top ten university in London, the capital of the UK. I am a trained chemical physicist.

In order to work with the theory above one has to literally follow, to the best of ability, what happens in dreams, even if that goes against “common sense”, plans and ambitions. The dreams may suggest things which you would prefer not to do and things which you do not like. This means that my orientation to life differs from the bulk of humanity. It may not sound too much but in practise it can be radical.  It would be very scary for someone prone to control freakery.

The dreamer tries to guide the dreamed towards the purpose of any given birth. The dreamer senses a destiny and needs to complete the fate for a chosen life. Fate being an integral over all karma.

People can play lip service to fate. They like to imagine that they are in control of their lives and that they direct life, that they can have life on their own terms.

At the moment I am fated to live outside society, physically adjunct. I got a new passport today. It has space for two emergency contacts. I was only able to fill one of them. I am not socially connected and that extent of disconnection is hard for most to comprehend or imagine. Few would believe how very little I use a mobile phone, despite the fact that I am reasonably computer literate.

I have made around six significant life changing decisions based on my interpretation of dream contents. Each one of these set off a sequence of events which were unexpected. I have had dreams which vastly altered my understanding of this current life. In making offerings after some of these dreams I have largely been ignored. A common theme in my dreams is that I will not be believed. I have rationalised this that I am fated not to be believed. It does not particularly bother me. That seems to be how it is.

There is “evidence” in my dreams of 7 or 8 previous incarnations, one of whom is a named historical figure. In most of these lives I have been associated with the “priesthood”. There is no way of proving this, I myself and inclined to believe this explanation. We have a pukka erstwhile ex-scientist believing something which would be for most of my ex-colleagues something of a stretch. It is a strange fate to find myself in this position and I do no know what if anything to do with it.

My interest in dreaming was rekindled by “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.

For eight years I did a dreaming practice specifically to allow the dreamer, the Soul, to advise thence to take over the steering will of my mundane vehicle, the dreamed. I am a dreamer by predilection and in some arrangements, I am “in” the place of dreams the South. I lived as a child under the light of the Southern Cross. It is not too surprising that my dreaming is vivid and extensive.

Letting go of the steering wheel and handing it to my dreamer, the real me, was not easy.  However, retrospect suggests that the dreamer knew what it was doing because things unfolded. You need to have faith and courage to try this.

At the moment it looks as though there is not much complexity to my remaining fate. But one dream could alter all that dramatically…

It has happened before a sudden turn…

We shall see…