Frost Descends

Disability, Demons & Dignity

updates from hell realm #beta456.718245 aka Earth, Anthropocene Era, Terminal Stage

sky has fallen (burned, more accurately), humans outsource their agency to imagined dreams, yin grows in disobedience to yang derangement, ghosts flourish (oxymoron), imperial urge to consume youth/future continues unabated, Ideology Wars maintain supremacy in the hearts of many humans.

War, threat and manufactured scarcity is the default “normal” for humans of this era, who have overpopulated and mishandled their stewardship of the terrain they require to continue genetic propagation. the carrying capacity of the earth has therefore diminished and will not sustain the load.

enduring my mission on this outpost, i await my return to the Purple River by practicing this thing they call “daoism” in this realm, which appears as close to accurate as is possible given the constraints of human perception.

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Housekeeping

donations requested & happily received at venmo at dare-sohei or paypal.me/daresohei

you can check out the sessions tab if you are serious about getting real support to apply any of these concepts i write about in your own real life, right now.

Disclaimer:

This article and my work are directed towards people who practice cultivation deliberately.

My writing is primarily written to and for people who can take responsibility for their own life. People who work to help others - their students, clients, communities, etc. As such it may “skip over” very beginner level skills and ideas. You can search the vast archives of articles, YouTube videos, podcasts etc for more content that may help you if you are a beginner at managing internal phenomena/symptoms/pathologies. It’s my intent that by setting a higher standard your natural upright qi will follow and align to the standard! My work is for everyone, but not everyone is for my work. Thanks for practicing with me.

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i interrupt my update to the Twilight Bridge to speak to you today dear readers, a brief update of sorts.

premium subscribers meet this weds, 10am pst to speak of ghosts. well, i will speak of ghosts and how to detangle your misperception of the phenomena called ghosts, in a foolish attempt to help you die well which might give your ghostly ancestors what they really want but can’t perceive.

all productivity has nearly ground to a halt, in part because this is the seasonal qi, regardless of capitalism’s mandates, and partly because i have been struck my extreme pain from haunting/illness. my spine is inflamed, and the last week has been a real challenge. i have been able to maintain food quality and basic hygiene, but not much else other than keeping the demons in their little caves and the ghosts in their padded rooms where they can’t cause too much harm. (this is what real emotional regulation is btw)

there will come a day not too far off in the chronal distance where i will finally die, most likely alone in my apartment or on the streets, from various side effects of an ancestral-cultural-social disease and all of its parasitical resonances.

i say all this, not as hyperbole or emotional consumerism, trying to hook you into “feeling bad”, but as a way to engage transparently in real reality, at least this appearance of reality my localized consciousness appears to be experiencing alongside of genocide, ecocide and the suicidal ideation of the human species.

you see, my practice is not a hobby, not window shopping for comforts in a delusional rat race. i am passing through, and i will not think of my time here fondly. no. but neither will i hold a grudge and wish to “do it over”.

the amount of undigested/unresolved material in the ghost stream is a self-induced prison that many, many ancestors have decided to play out. the inability/unwillingness to let go, to forget. while there are perhaps necessary and important things to remember, we often get them confused with our “trauma identity”, entangling the useful with the useless, and elevating the useless to godlike status.

this is, unfortunately, the emotional supremacy we see day in and day out on social media, the ideology wars, the exceptionalism wars, the oppression olympics.

no one really wins the oppression olympics because the prize is becoming a ghost, before and after you die.

good news is though that even ghosts have a shelf life, but from the inside, from a ghost point of view, that shelf life is eternal.

bad feelings feel forever in the bodymind of a ghost.

if bad feelings feel forever to you too, you might wonder if you are already very far on your way to becoming a ghost. you might wonder if your addiction to feeling bad is preventing you from showing up with dignity, despite the material limitations and constraints on your blood vessel.

i have spent most of my 45 years battling ghosts, demons and forces that are far stronger than humankind, because their strength is weakness. it is despair, grief, fear, rage, revenge, envy, fragility, shame, blame, scapegoating, depression, anxiety, worry… all disguised as very valuable, real and important narrative landscapes.

i say all this to attempt to describe an almost indescribable reality, to float between Scylla & Charybdis. Neither EXALTEDHEAVENLYPOWER, nor ETERNALDAMNATIONPAIN are the choices here.

the third option is always available, like a secret door in the world. the world is in the blood, in the void before thoughts and feelings.

as pain, fear and desire flare up like nightmares we secretly need, we must, as practitioners, see through the intensity towards non-conceptual reality, beyond ideology and beyond preference. that beyond is closer than you think. not “out” there but “in” here. if the ghosts are coming from inside the house, the Dao is also there too. Outer and Inner are the reflective play/dance that is Nature. Somersaults on the Titanic.

The practitioner knows that all phenomena are temporary, and that addictions and “evil” boogeyman are somehow sheltering us from the true reality. It is easier to have a scapegoat, in the form of “trauma”, villainy, an “other”, than it is to move past that narrative framework into an amoral, non-materialistic Nature.

That’s nondual animism.

But we love to cling to our feelings as facts. And we love to defend those supposed facts in the gladiatorial arena of society. As if we’ve done anything good. As if achieving an identity of a “good person” will really liberate anything.

Question your Answers. Practice meditation so that you understand the death process and won’t seize up when it happens. Distribute your resources and merits, whatever they may be, in the least ideological ways possible. Integrity and Dignity are the rewards.

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Frost descends qi node begins Tuesday oct 22 4pm PST until 11/6

18. Frost Descends: Yin Encloses Yang 

Inter-seasonal EARTH buries Fire (earth element governed seasons are transitional, in this case, we are moving from the metal of autumn to the water of winter)

(8pm Heart Governor) Shuang Jiang "Frost Surrenders" 

The Dipper points to Branch Xu Dog - means destruction (read hexagram 23 - bo - erosion/flayed)

The Frost Descends qi node is when autumn collapses into winter. Lesser Yin gives way to Great Yin. On Earth stasis and frost are prevalent. As the autumn descends into winter, natural activity appears to subside. In fact, activity simply withdraws deeper and deeper inward and down. The northwest wind carries in the growing cold with transitional damp. Days grow short (yang diminishes). During this period the environment grows ever more yin and is characterized by hoarfrost. Dampness (Earth) rides the cold wind and is variable. Snow threatens. The blustery wind is pernicious cold/damp.

Yang, withdrawing in and downward, must not be called back up and out. Dress warmly and stay out of the wind. During this period qi is best at 8pm. Neigong is practiced inside where it is warm, rub your belly until it turns red. Eat warm and nourishing meals and go to bed early. Even if the weather is not cold (temperature) do not get caught in the wind.

Do not sleep near a drafty window or run down the driveway for the newspaper in your pajamas. Do not jog in shorts by the coast. If you must jog, wear sweats, a hat and run where there is no wind. If this cold damp wind “gets in" you will get colds and flu, fevers and stiffness of tendons and muscles all winter.

Prophetic dreams are hovering in the night if hot/damp and cold/damp do not hound you.

*good to begin a practice of dream “yoga”, take naps during the day and “trance out”. this allows you to practice oscillating from yang/day/awake/alive to yin/night/asleep/dead more often than just once every 24 hours. the key is not to exert (athletic lucidity) but also not to collapse (no energy to relax consciously) but to find a middle ground between exertion and exhaustion and enter the dark/sleep as mindfully as possible without using lots of energy/qi. this means the judicious use and restraint of techniques like breathwork, visualization, mantras etc. Learn to do only what is “enough” and cease with sufficiency.

the headache and hangover of yang derangement in this culture appear as “sleep deficits”, burnout, adrenal fatigue/kidney qi deficiency, adhd, circadian rhythm disruption, appetite dysregulation, screen/scrolling addiction, emotional dysregulation, ghost possession, extreme cravings, etc.

cultivating yin is not a gender ideology war, it is not about “the feminine”, just as yang isn’t about the masculine. Daoism is about becoming balanced in an adaptive responsiveness to time and nature. this balance does not mean “equal”, it is relational and differential. an ounce of yang may be as powerful as a forest fire, and a pound of yin may appear as nothing at all. materialistic measurements fail at relating to this yinyang chronal balance and dynamism.

*good qi node for slow cooked rice porridge with bupin herbs.

use 8-10 cups liquid (filtered water/broth/stock) to 1 cup grain (usually rice, millet, job’s tears), slow cook 8-20 hours depending on vessel/appliance and heat source. less liquid = thicker porridge. can add dried fruits, seed, nuts, yams, even meat, eggs & veg to make savory, more protein rich porridge.