I Ching Roll

Three or so years ago, I learned from my master how to speak to Spirit. How weird do I sound?! But the truth is, we all can talk to Spirit. There is only ONE Spirit and it is Holy. Spirit speaks truth and truth only. There is no interpretation or versions of truth, truth is just what it is: Truth! My master (Sifu) said that the first thing I should do in the morning is get out paper and just write. Keep writing and don't stop and don't think. Before I knew it, the pen was going on it's own and the most amazing things would appear on paper.

It's kind of poetic language. It's a shame in times of chaos and uncertainty, I did not do this when I needed guidance and answers. It's a shame anyone who knows how to do this forgets to for the important things. It's easy to say one has rolled "retreat" when in reality that's only what the ego wants to do. After doing this Spirit writing for several months I learned to still my mind. Not clear my mind, that is something entirely different.

Keeping the mind still is a challenging skill, but very excellent to have. You never lose it once you have done it, and those who say they forgot or it's too hard, never had it (in my experience). When your mind is completely still, everything we know that is inside of us comes forth. Your senses are also extremely heightened. Do you know what it is like to hear the fly's wings fluttering that is above the ceiling tiles, or the scraping of grass hitting each other in the wind, or the scrape of the paper turning of a magazine or book from a distance, or the breathing of a person sitting on a bench so many yards away.

I guess through high levels of meditation you can do this. But you can also physically hear the voice of Spirit. It is s stern voice and yet again sometimes is very poetic. How crazy do I sound yet?! When my mind is in chaos, I do not hear the voice of Spirit. This is not natural to me. I have to work at it. It doesn't happen on command, and sometimes it gives me a headache. But it's so valuable. I am NOT a psychic or psychic by any means, but I guess you can say I am a "trained clairvoyant". I see things and information comes to me and I don't know how I know it or why I see what I see. People I have worked on can vouch on the coincide-ances that occur.

The Book of Changes, or I Ching has been around for thousands of years. Through special type of coins or yarrow sticks, one can create a hexagram. There are 64 hexagrams, two tri-grams over another encompassing all of human experience, verbal formulations, and cultural evaluations of the experience. It's an amazing art to know and I am privileged to know how to do it. I have a very old book and what I was warned years ago is that if you don't want to know the answer don't ask. What I have also found is that whatever the interpretation is, whatever it means to the one asking the question is what it means for them, period! I avoid yes and no questions.

The interpretation has an oracle meaning, then an interpretation known as ARTHA explaining the pursuit in prosperity in practical life. KAMA deals with relationships to people. MOKSHA is striving for spiritual liberation. (It's not voodoo or withcraft!) As the yin and yang lines are formed to make a hexagram, hard lines can change from yin to yang which can show the inevitable change in the lines. I have the three I Ching coins which are very special to me.

It's been a long time, but I rolled the coins for I Ching. I had a question and I'll share some of the interpretations which still fascinate me. This is what spirit had to say. I rolled #38 which was Neutrality.

ORACLE: 

Fire over the marsh. 

The superior man allows 

variations to the norm. 

Success in minor details.

This hexagram represents a stand-off neutrality between the counteracting forces within you....you are involved in a situation where two opposing viewpoints, two opposing sides, irreconcilably neutralize themselves into a stalemate....You constantly feel pulled in opposite directions. Whenever you consider acting, inactivity seems just as desirable.....You are not in a state of neurotic indecisiveness, although it might seem so. 

He has lost his horses.

He need not search for them;

they will return by themselves.

If he meets bad men

he can speak with them.

Guilt disappears.

You feel you have lost something. You have. Because of your new inner neutralization, [everything] have lost their traditional meaning for you....Do not regret these things. 

He meets his master in an alley. No mistakes....Your ambiguity about a factional dispute makes your relationships with a close friend, who is involved in the dispute, embarrassing from his point of view. It pains him, but he feel he must avoid you. 

You must eventually open up and accept this sincerity. 

The moving lines turned Neutrality into #16, Enthusiasm.

ORACLE:

Thunder is music to the earth.

The ancient kings composed music

in honor of their own virtue,

and presented it to God,

inviting their ancestors to be present.

Rally your forces 

and set them moving.

This is the hexagram of music that moves. This is the music that gathers together and inspires feelings of brotherhood and common cause. It is music without pretension  that seeks and woos and loves those who listen.....If you are not a musician, you still make this kind of music in whatever it is that you do and inspire similar enthusiasm with those with whom you work or live or socialize. You are an instrument on which you, yourself, play -- in an intense search for common bond and common mind and common breath among those around you. 

Music is the art of patterns in time. Dance is the art of patterns in time and space. Music and dance can bring about ecstatic enlightenment as no other art forms can. 

Some of it makes a great deal of sense, some of it is merely theory. But it certainly does amaze me what Spirit says sometimes. But it is not our abilities that determine who we are, it is our choices. And we always have the choice. (BOWS)

Yours in service,

MASTER A TRENTO