Breakthroughs aren’t always a good thing.

Hexagram 43: Breakthrough of the I Ching is the image of a lake that has risen up to heaven, ready to break through in a cloudburst. To avoid this cloudburst, the hexagram warns us that it is best to distribute while accumulating, instead of piling up riches only for oneself.

Richard Rudd says that is the accumulation of noise that prevents insight, which is the positive form of breakthrough.

“We often think of deafness as silence, but it’s not. It’s noise and activity, ‘a life of sound and fury signifying nothing’ (Shakespeare’s Macbeth).

“Deafness is about trying to escape the silence. Insight is about listening to the inner ear, which gradually allows us to adjust to the silence by cutting out the noise wastage from our lives. Epiphany brings us back to the silence once again. Finally we’re ready to embrace it, and wow is it loud!”

The Mars-Uranus opposition I talked about in my last post continues into next week. It is all the more accentuated by Monday’s New Moon in Scorpio, which will interact with the Mars-Uranus opposition.

This volatile energy can indicate an unwelcome cloudburst is on the horizon, due to an accumulation of unshared wealth or talent, or an accumulation of repressed energy. So it’s time to pause and contemplate:

What have you been accumulating that you can start sharing with others?

Where is the “sound and fury” in your life that is preventing the silence that can lead to epiphany?

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References:

The 64 Ways by Richard Rudd

As we rapidly approach Sagittarius, the season with the least amount of light symbolically (and literally, here in the northern hemisphere) we have Hexagram 1: The Creative as our host for the next week.

This hexagram is a doubling of the Heaven trigram. Per Wilhelm’s translation, this creates the idea of duration and endurance: “[The sage] must make himself strong in every way, by consciously casting out all that is inferior and degrading. Thus he attains that tirelessness which depends upon consciously limiting the fields of his activity.”

This is in keeping with the fixed waters of Scorpio we are currently swimming in. Casting out all that is inferior and degrading, and limiting the field of activity, also reminds me of the introverted feeling function, which Michael Pierce associates with the heaven trigram, which also has Scorpio undertones:

“Fi is the made-up mind…Opinions are usually in conflict, so there is no room left for receptivity or compromise. Fi poses ideals and goals…drawing one on to greater heights (and depths). It is the expression of Man’s active hoping.“

Richard Rudd says about this hexagram that “Joy comes from numbness. The numbness is the kindling, our awareness is the breath fanning the first sparks and then the joy emerges as the fire catches.”

We all experience patches of numbness in our lives and “here we are just trusting the numbness, just being with it.” Rudd also says the foundation of creativity is “to be unafraid of making mistakes.”

The biggest astrological configuration beginning this week is Mars in Scorpio’s opposition to Uranus in Taurus. This is powerful and potent. Although it can be uncomfortable – at the collective level there could be sudden outbursts of violence and/or struggles for independence – it should be perfect on a personal level for breaking through any numbness. Making mistakes will be more likely.

Perhaps you can also work with the introverted feeling function in your personality type while doing this work.

If you have natal placements in Scorpio and/or Taurus – especially any of the big 3 – this should be especially impactful.

Where are you currently numb? Do you trust it? What kind of creative fire is going to emerge from that kindling?

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References:

The 64 Ways by Richard Rudd
I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm Motes and Beams by Michael Pierce

There’s something appropriate about Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet beginning on the day of Halloween.

“Coming to meet” is about meeting a situation or person halfway, but not to the point of compromising our higher ideals or inner dignity.

Wilhelm’s commentary notes that the “inferior man rises only because the superior man does not regard him as dangerous and so lends him power.” We need to be aware of flattery and seduction, as they may be attempts at seizing power.

Taking care to see beneath the superficial, and not fully trusting, is in keeping with the nature of Scorpio, the season in which Halloween falls.

Halloween, even amidst the fun, has long come with an element of suspicion. Back when I was a kid there was worry of razor blades and other nefarious things being put into the candy. There was paranoia regarding the possibility of receiving “tricks.” Today parents are more selective about which homes they let their children go to for trick-or- treating.

Regarding power and suspicion, I’m currently rereading The 48 Laws of Power of Robert Greene as a way of better understanding the power aspect of the Pluto archetype. There are also Scorpio themes throughout, including this one that pertains to today’s topic: “People are of infinite complexity and you can spend a lifetime watching them without ever fully understanding them. So it is all the more important, then, to begin your education now. In doing so you must also keep one principle in mind: Never discriminate as to whom you study and whom you trust. Never trust anyone completely and study everyone, including friends and loved ones.”

That reminds me of my favorite Robert Greene quote, which I appreciate as an enthusiast of personality typology and astrology: “Make understanding people a fun game, the solving of puzzles. It is all part of the human comedy. Yes, people are irrational, but so are you. Make your acceptance of human nature as radical as possible. This will calm you down and help you observe people more dispassionately, understanding them on a deeper level. You will stop projecting your own emotions on to them. All of this will give you more balance and calmness, more mental space for thinking.”

We’ll still have three planets in Scorpio in this next week: the Sun, Mercury, and Mars. Eclipse season is over until April. Whew. Saturn will end its retrograde and turn direct. Conditions are right for dispassionate observations, solving people puzzzles, and understanding others – and yourself – on a deeper level.

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References:

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm

“Preponderance of the Great” (Hexagram 28 of the I Ching) is an elegant way of saying the stress is at a breaking point.

The current support systems are inadequate.

Or, to use the nature imagery of this hexagram, the lake is flooding the trees.

We can all think of times when we were flooded with demands and expectations.

Maybe you are in such a period right now.

It’s easy to get lost in all that.

Hilary Barrett’s translation says: “It is fruitful to have a direction to go, to reach out imaginatively and explore. Since things cannot hold up as they are, there must be movement.”

Or, as the Richard Wilhelm translation says, “It furthers one to have somewhere to go.”

This isn’t escapism or shirking responsibility.

Barret again: “So a noble one is not afraid to stand alone, nor is she depressed at leaving society behind. She is moved by an inner purpose, and not a product of her environment.”

During this next stretch of Scorpio it might be helpful to ponder:
Where are you overloaded?
What have you outgrown?
Do you have a direction to go?

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References:

I Ching: Walking Your Path, Creating Your Future by Hilary Barrett

I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm