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View Full Version : Hexagram 23 - Po - Splitting Apart


Naomi
03-04-2008, 11:12 PM
822

I wanted to talk a little about this hexagram. I like it. The placement on the elegant Tree Fields 001 (http://www.abrahadabra.com/treefields001.htm) mirror places it on the 32nd pathway, associated with Saturn. This is appropriate considering the reputation of Saturn as the domain of the reaper. Myself, I've always taken a different approach to Saturn than traditional alchemists. To me it's the domain of hell and divine justice. You get a lot of associations with Time too, but let me put it this way - do you really think Saturn is going to be limited by human misunderstanding of its influence? What needs to be done is a study of Saturn's actual physical attributes gleaned from modern science. Until that is done these kinds of alchemical theories will remain dusty and outdated. I don't want to go into that right now though. Saturn is Satan himself to me.

The path of the universe connects earth to sky, likened to a bridge between the physical and the astral. I am of the opinion (thanks to m1thr0s) that the astral is as much "physical" as anything else, but we don't understand the mechanics much at all really. It may not be another dimension or plane at all, rather a state of mind produced by focus on the ethereal aspects of nature. It may be that it is heightened awareness or balance of logic and intuition itself brought to bear on observation and accruement of personal growth.

From what I understand looking at the opinions of various netizens, this hexagram is seen as a negative influence. It's related to the ninth month which is said to be the season of the harvest. How curious then that it's pathway is associated with Saturn in traditional alchemy.

The hexagram is called unstable, the single yang line at the top is being overtaken by the 5 yin lines below it, it's falling.

At this point I want to instruct myself on an ulterior viewpoint. If we take the archetype Siva who is closely associated with time due to his marriage to Kali (as Parvati) who is the goddess of time, we see in his stance of The Nataraj, where he crushes a dwarf beneath his foot (associated with ignorance) an alternative view of splitting things apart. The dwarf, as a symbol is associated with earth, and materialistic viewpoints in general, dovetailing nicely with our placeholder for hex 23 on The Path of the Universe hovering about Malkuth (and Kether - Malkuth all sandwhiched in between there) Siva balanced perfectly, just as the yang line appears to balance (precariously) above the five yin lines.

Another aspect (that I find intriguing) is the relationship between nine months of the aftermath of sex and human gestation rates. You know, there's really nothing bad about being split apart to have a baby except that it hurts, for one thing, and it's usually pretty messy, otherwise one could definately view it as a creative process. In other words, I think the hexagram has been falsely translated from the original unsolicited binary form.

Yin, the receptive is enmassed below the yang line like a bunch of nothings all lined up to get beat down by the encroaching yang, I supose Siva is the only sort of archetype (and others like him) who could handle such a mess with perfect balance and poise.

On the Nu Kua mirror or Tree Fields 002 (http://www.abrahadabra.com/treefields002.htm), the placement is quite different, 23 is on the path veering off to the left of Malkuth, pathway 31 associated with judgement! In my reasoning I always use Saturn as the purveyor of illness and suffering in magick as it does it with the skills of a judge and not a butcher, I reason that this is the only way to do curses right since one cannot weigh karma on a global scale at all, even if you know a person well.

So, all in all, an interesting little exploration, I wonder what the other hexagrams are up to on the tree...

note: the hexagram graphic is m1thr0s, I used it and hope he doesn't mind because my stylus is still lost and I am feeble artistically without it, I'm not going to get out the calligraphy paper either...

m1thr0s
03-06-2008, 11:48 PM
Sometimes I think I should pull the Yin completely and reintroduce it a few hundred years down the line...so complex are the deviations it asserts and so seemingly out of sync with everything we have down to the present day...unfortunately, I have to let it stand since it is rooted in in the numbers the same as the Yang...

But I can tell you that - as a matter of familiarizing yourself with the hexagrams and how they interact with other systems (particularly Thoth), it is the Heaven Descending (Yang) pattern that yields the most immediately recognizable relationships. Po (called Splitting Apart) is just another great example of this, since in the Yang it manifests exactly where we might expect it...on the very last path marking the end of a complete cycle and so the beginning of the next...

Xst only knows what it's doing in the Yin...so foreign is that Tree to me really at this point, though for the moment, I have no legitimate reason for dismissing it. Somehow I think this is exactly as it must be...one thing lucid and the other oblique. I don't mind saying that the Yin side is a great bafflement to me and almost single-handedly destroys all possibility of this system being very widely embraced...so hard does it seem to be pushing in completely uncharted waters...

It leaves us no alternative but to completely rethink our entire understanding of the trigrams...the only upside to this being that we know so little to begin with! And yet, somehow...all of my experience tells me this is the mark of a supremely intelligent design...it simply will not allow us to rest casually on the familiar.

m1thr0s

Naomi
03-07-2008, 08:26 AM
Recognizable to who, anyone, or someone who has studied traditional tree of life associations and path natures? I'm neither familiar with the I Ching either so it all makes sense to me.

gotta run...

Naomi
03-07-2008, 06:49 PM
I think that these puzzles will become clear once we start applying study to the hexagram relationships to the tree intuitively and with consistency. If everything is put together it may form a larger picture we're not seeing. The Yin tree may introduce a new paradigm shift of what Yin is about, how it relates to humanity and what it means for our entire worldview. Hopefully it will destroy a few thoughtforms as well. I like it myself, I feel the energy from it easily and this does not happen randomly it happens only as I scan the trees in a routine developed by interaction with the tree, somewhat but not entirely comparable to your Elemental Fields Epiphany zig zag pattern thing.

I want to research the whole tree, piece by piece but I simply havn't the time at the moment, life works in mysterious ways that way...what I want is an interactive tree that I can map and click on that will take me to not only the I Ching entry but the entire corresponding relationship both Western and Eastern as far as it can go. What a project that would be.....eh?

m1thr0s
03-07-2008, 08:14 PM
I want to research the whole tree, piece by piece but I simply havn't the time at the moment, life works in mysterious ways that way...what I want is an interactive tree that I can map and click on that will take me to not only the I Ching entry but the entire corresponding relationship both Western and Eastern as far as it can go. What a project that would be.....eh?
yeah...it's not hard to visualize the benefit though...

I think you're probably right about the Yin naomi and in a way it's hardly surprising...

m1thr0s

Naomi
03-27-2008, 01:44 AM
Oh and this is the post that got me started on 23 before we even saw it was on the path of the universe:

http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showpost.php?p=11847&postcount=25


A very important hexagram from a number of standpoints but one of the real shockers was when it was discovered that the 23rd word in the DNA chain is a "split" word...it tells the chain to split and begin again etc...