Connecting the Dots Between I Ching and 2012

HEXAGRAM # 46: ASCENSION
                       
This time of ascension is tremendous in scope, since its foundation has been
developed with true devotion over an extended period of time and is in
alignment with the cosmic flow. Through the steady force of your will, you will
rise to great heights in all worthy endeavors.

                                                                            I  CHING, BOOK OF CHANGES

The I Ching may well be the oldest book on the planet, originating 5,000 or more years ago as a cooperative effort spanning many centuries. It was passed down in the form of trigrams and later hexagrams of profound oracular significance. The authors of the I Ching observed the stars and tides, the plants and animals, and the cycles of all natural events. They observed the patterns of familial and societal relationships, as well as the inner workings of the human psyche. Finally, these ancient shaman/mystics turned profoundly inward to the very heart of things, to the quantum world of what we in the West have come to call the soul. Through careful investigation on both micro and macro-cosmic levels, they discovered that, fundamentally, we live in a world defined by the delicate interplay of dualistic pairs and that the most essential duality is that of feminine and masculine, or yin and yang, principles.

Fast forward several thousand years to the Summer of 2007 and the charming, alpine village of Whitefish, Montana, on the other side of the world, in time and space, from ancient China. Nestled at the base of the Rocky Mountains in a valley 3,000 feet above sea level, Whitefish is home to 8,000 hardy souls, plus yours truly, a not so hardy soul, having recently relocated from the beaches of Malibu, California. I had lived in various places on the West Coast, in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Midwest, not to mention Ireland, and Japan. Now, finally, I had come to rest in a very rugged, pristine part of the world, for reasons I did not fully comprehend. Something about the wildness of the place spoke to me and I impulsively heeded the call. Only later did I come to understand, through first hand experience, that Whitefish is a vortex of intense spiritual energy, in fact, one of the Golden Cities, complete with its own bona fide crop circles to prove it.

One night in late June, shortly after my arrival in Whitefish, I had a powerful, life-altering dream/vision in which I was standing in the middle of a large, circular field of green, green grass under a cloudless sky in the shade of a majestic tree. Judging from the way the shadows were cast from the tree, I knew it was fast approaching high noon. Suddenly, I became aware of three ferocious, black bulls charging toward me from the edge of the field. Alarmed, I leapt into the tree, wrapped myself around its trunk and began climbing toward the light. From my vantage point high in the tree, I realized I was at the center of a giant sun dial and that the three bulls had emerged and begun charging toward me from the 11:00+ position.

I looked down into the menacing, red eyes of the bulls, who now stood gouging the earth and snorting below me, and then upward into the shimmering, green light filtering through the leaves of the tree. In that instant, I felt myself merge with the tree: my arms becoming its branches, my body its trunk, my legs it roots, my blood its sap. I understood I had become ONE with the Tree of Life (though, at the time, I had only the vaguest notion what it was). In my mind's eye, I saw an astrological formula for the Tree of Life, along with an image of a Tree of Life mandala. Shocked out of my slumber, I awoke to the experience of my entire being illumined and enlivened with green light. For several subsequent mornings, during that twilight zone transition state between sleeping and waking, I experienced myself shape shifting into the Tree of Life.