Yang Wood Dragon: Daoism, Degrowth & Decolonization
Neolithic Animism as perceived through a modern perspective.
Before we begin, a few notes. One, this is a very long post and contains references to subjects that some readers may not be versed in. This is okay, as learning cannot always be 100% palatable to beginners. However, it may be useful to read some of the writing on this page in order to understand the greater context I am responding to. I don’t claim to be an expert on Daoist Polestar astrology, but I felt it was time to throw my hat into the ring so to speak. Secondly, as is often the case with astrological reflection, digesting the ideas contained here might happen repeatedly over the entire year, coming back to the writing and refreshing the transmission from various positions over time. Thirdly, donations are one of the only ways i can continue my rogue-outsider research and bring insights like this to the people without a middleman or institutional funding. I am attempting to continue my ancestor’s lifeways of folk medicine in the modern era. You can donate via venmo @dare-sohei, or paypal.me/daresohei as well as contacting me for a session in the various practices I employ, including yijing divination. Thank you & may this be of benefit for all beings. Let’s begin.
Overview
In Daoist philosophy, human life is oft perceived as an opportunity to resolve one’s fate. Fate, meaning the unique combination of ancestral and astro-geomantic qualities that coalesce into a human life - their “luck”, their privileges, their burdens, their karma… all the myriad factors that make a person “who they are”.
Resolution, meaning…?
It’s not the same for everyone, yet we can find common ground. In fact, this perspective itself, that diverse perspectives are all borne from the same root, is key in understanding our differences and similarities and how to navigate them in accordance with one’s own fate.
So, to resolve one’s fate is a big question, yet also the most common and natural thing. It is happening anyway on every scale, whether you like it or don’t like it, whether you align with it or oppose it.
I am framing this “fate resolution” as a play. So, we can look at it as a play, as a game, as a dance, and as ritual dream theater. This is important enough to harp on. Because if we truly believe that resolution is a serious matter with winners and losers, we are already feeding the curses and ghosts that lie within our ecosystem of spirits. When in fact it much more like masked theater & mediumship as seen in pre-agricultural hunter gatherer groups & their still practiced ritual actions that have been maintained in the present day all over the world, even hidden from oppressive cultural and governmental regimes.
All societies go through terrible “reformations” in which the old is scapegoated and genocided to make way for the new. This process is ongoing and within the terror and injustice, sometimes beautiful integrations happen. Sometimes they do not.
It is important to remember that indigenous tribes and clans all over the world are still fighting against colonization even if the state sanctioned narratives have erased this.
In many ways this tragi-comedy of human “reality wars” may be the way that fate is being resolved. That is, being transformed on a time scale impossible for a single human to truly grasp.
About me
For those who don’t know me, a new introduction may be necessary.
I am a mixed-race Puerto Rican American who was raised as “white male” in New England, Hartford, CT, USA. I was born in 1979, meaning i am Yin Earth Goat in polestar astrology. The goatiest goat in its native element. But i am also born under three other pillars: Yang Earth Dragon, Yang Wood Dragon & Yin Wood Pig. It just so happens that this year 2024 is a Yang Wood Dragon year. Wood dragons are baby dragons, the youngest of the elemental cycle of dragon qi. Earth Dragons are the eldest. So, I contain the infant and elderly dragons within my chart. This “Double Dragon” set is strong enough that it is almost as strong as my natal animal, the yin earth goat. Yin wood pig has to do a lot of the diplomatic integration. Which is good because pigs like everyone to feel good at the party, wood dragons like to play big, goats like to flock with others, and earth dragons are smoking on the roof or in the alleyway.
In addition to this my “MING” palace or my natal fate palace in my chart has the most difficult stars within it. The most difficult position to resolve fate. People with this placement are likely to die young or go to prison. They are essentially one of the true “cursed” archetypes. The fact that I have survived to the age of 44 speaks to other blessings and assistance within my chart and to the ancestors of my/our lineage that were ‘priests’ who understood that resolution of fate is possible even in the most compromised bardo realm or dream state.
You see, there is no “real reality” that is more real than some other, false reality “on the other side”. Just as we sleep every day, we are born and then we die. This cycle of “appears to be alive/awake” and “appears to be dead/asleep” is a kind of trick in the larger sense of reality. The totality of the dreaming that we call existence is like an infinite prism within an infinite sea of light and darkness. It is a mirror within a hall of mirrors, with no up or down orientation. This creates the appearance of the many kinds of realities, delusions, heavens and hells that we imagine and experience as humans. It is from within this more accurate cosmology that we must hunker down and make ritual actions that may or may not resolve our fates.
All of the forms, appearances and differentiations are manifestations of the post-heaven qi, which is to say they are what and how the formless becomes form, becoming more and more specific and less and less universal or general. The trap of focusing heavily on post-heaven qi forms (like our natal astrology animals) is that we can develop identifications & fixations — another way to say it is we can begin to crave and become addicted to our fabricated identity and the narratives around our personality and the oppositional polarities we see in society. We have to remember that resolving fate is not only about our post-heaven qi.
Historical context
Daoism as a philosophy-religion is actually a fairly new iteration in terms of historical context. The Daoism we all know is a product of a post-agricultural warring states period in Asia. It exists within a web of modalities and ideologies that cross-reference and inform each other such as various styles of Buddhism, Confucianism, and so forth. All of these philosophies were jockeying for position, for political and cultural status, validation & privilege during a long period of time where wars, uprisings, revolts, rebellions and genocides were quite common. Life was cheap and IS cheap in agrarian-based economies with patriarchal and patrifocal governance structures.
The roots and origins of Daoism are perhaps more pertinent to what I am speaking about, even as they are more obscure. After all, there were no books at this pre-agrarian time, no organized religions that were designed to accommodate thousands of people. Neolithic animism was clan-based and region-specific. It was local. Yet during the long, bloody and violent transition from neolithic hunter-gatherers to agrarian-based caste system organized city states, the basic principles of neolithic animism were powerful enough to become integrated into what we now call Daoism, and also into many other modern forms of religious and spiritual practices such as Dzogchen, Shaivism, Buddhism, etc.
When we read the Daodejing or the Yijing/Zhouyi (i ching/book of changes/book of zhou) we can see those authors grappling with the colonization of the ancestral lifeways that skillful practitioners recognized as more pure and closer to the heart of right relationship, even as they modernized and adapted those lifeways to apply to a growing structure of caste, hierarchy, city & nation-states containing thousands and millions of clans, tribes and families.
Here now in modern times we are in many ways far removed from the lifeways of both neolithic animist hunter-gatherers as well as the times in which Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and so forth were helping to smooth over the terrorism of patriarchal “progress” and the inconceivable number of murdered bodies that went hand-in-hand with that “progress”. And as far away as we are behaviorally and culturally, we are up close and personal with the ongoing multiple genocides, slavery, human trafficking and ecocide that is inextricably woven into the core of patriarchy, colonization and nation-statism.
Both very close & far away is a perfect example of dragon qi.
Wood & Earth Elements
The native element of dragons is earth.
The energy and element of Wood is the disruption and destabilization of Earth, which is the ground and stability we base our behaviors on. The trillions of small seeds of the wood element springing forth, breaking and cracking the dense cold yin earth of the winter season is both indicative of spring and of the liver organ which detoxes our blood and brings with it the feelings of growth, frustration, anger and hate. This entire year of the yang wood dragon is like a year of this springtime energy. The revolt of the young to become born and thrive within the earth of the old, the past, the ancestors. This may also be a direct correlation to how social media is connecting the powerless, voiceless and marginalized against the cronyism, elitist entrenched power structures of imperialism and colonization.
Will the youth (progressive ideology that harkens back to neolithic animist ancestors) survive the birth from seed to sprout to new growth forest? Yang Wood Dragon qi would seem to support such a treacherous journey.
Hexagrams Thunder & Mountain
As the thunder & lightning of springtime shakes the heavens, the nascent gestating seeds below the ground also stir and shake and erupt from their shells.
In the Yijing, Hexagram 51 is Zhen, thunder and following it is 52 Gen, stillness which represents the Mountain. In 51 Zhen Thunder, the thunder, shock and arousal is associated with the third month (spring) when the earth cracks open after a freezing winter. The poetic application is thunder booming during a ritual offering, but the wine is not spilled. This indicates that the ritual practitioner is attuned with the ecosystem and is not surprised or startled by the thunderous emanation of yang qi manifesting from the formless like magic. The fearlessness and focus of the libationer is likened to the inevitability of the arrival of spring rains.
Zhen indicates a time for dramatic breakthrough from lethargy. But good fortune here has everything to do with staying calm. This is a situation where things are in turmoil yet sort out and become beneficial in the long run. Regardless of your position within the caste rankings, proceed with good manners (diplomacy and ritual hygiene) and determination (inner confidence gained from non-conceptual meditation).
Following 51, 52 is the epitome of non-conceptual meditation and the gradual, embodied pathway of its long-term practice. 52 is the image of two mountains, one on top of or inside the other. There is the superficial or external mountain, and there is the inner, dark, mountain. This poetic imagery relates to the seeming contradiction of the soul with its secret inner unknowable aspects and the outward manifestation as our personality and behaviors. 52 is also my natal hexagram.
52 indicates that the above mountain represents the clarity and calm of meditation, spiritual realization and the mystical inspiration of divination. The mountain below represents the courage of restraint in the face of physical punishment or suppressive discipline like the slow humiliation of sacrificed captives. This sort of courage transforms negative emotions into inner peace. Together the two images represent the view, path and fruition of meditation.
This hexagram and its instructions for meditation advise us to keep still and enter the unseen, two actions which are non-actions. Good fortune comes from keeping still and letting things arise of themselves. Do not struggle. The restraint here can become transformed into ecstatic restraint. At first, the discipline of stillness and restraint can create a pressurized stillness that smolders like a volcano from below and can lead us to fantasies and delusions of spiritual heroism. But in continuing past this ghostly temptation, we find the true nature of stillness that is simply found, simply self-evident. The stillness of non-conceptual, apophatic meditation and deep trance — dreaming without attachment. This natural and effortless expression of our true nature is revealed as we remove our obstructions to receiving it. The process of maturation from the volcanic struggle to the natural equanimity and stability of a mountain range is the definition of refuge, relief and liberation — the path of wisdom.
Meditation exercise one: Clear Dark Mountain Receives Yang Qi
As we continue this exploration of the qi of the year i invite you into a first meditation:
Perceive your body as a mountain and slowly become invisible. The mountain of your self/body becomes clear and luminous like a hologram. You slowly forget your human name and your humanity and become or discover this clear-light mountain. Even in the deepest most secret depth of this mountain where the density and stability and stillness are almost claustrophobic, there is a sense of perfect lightness and ease. The underworld is revealed to be just as it is, with no opposition with an “overworld”.
Hear Thunder & Laughter coming from inside the body.
In the sky around the mountain, thunder and lightning swirl in dance of dragons. The thunder and lightning explode and strike at all angles with no predictability as they play and dance across the sky. The lightning strikes the mountain furiously and the mountain receives the yang qi with no damage or pain, there is no “heart shock”. The mountain absorbs the bright yang qi from the lightning, the roaring laughter of the thunder, and the howling winds of the hurricane equally with supreme and perfect grace. These energies are distributed to the secret underworld without narrative or exposition.
Dragon Dreaming Light
What’s the difference between dreaming towards a more liberating future for all beings and being lost in a maze of your own ancestor’s and culture’s fabricated delusions? I believe that this yang wood dragon year is going to give us the opportunity to learn that, for better and for worse.
The immaturity of dragon qi in general is selfish, solipsistic narcissism. Hoarding, dissociation, arrogance. Wood dragons are the most immature of the dragon family. However, they also bring the fresh play of innocence which can sometimes be sharp and biting wit without even knowing that we shouldn’t say things like that in polite society. The childlike nature of this dragon year might give us all the inspiration to say the wrong things at exactly the right time in exactly the right ways to cut through illusions. If we can temper their grand aspirational dreaming nature with intersectional solidarity ethos, then perhaps we won’t overextend our qi and start projects we can’t finish. It may be good to set up a personal baby dragon play laboratory for yourself so that you can experiment freely without over-promising anything to anyone, including yourself.
The exalted or mature nature of dragons is that of the benevolent leader that distributes wealth to the people and the land. We can think of this year’s qi as the leader’s newborn apprentice, born into a great lineage of wise leaders but still having to go through the training and tribulations to learn just what that actually entails here in the dual world. The child born with and from profound dreaming that reaches past our differences into a common wholeness that goes beyond the dual world and yet does not bypass the dual layer of reality. How we can align with nature and the dual world to transition into the formless, breathless open dark expanse of the Dao. Just like the practice of non-conceptual meditation and shamanic dreaming, by going nowhere we allow the myriad pathways and symbols to arise, arrange and fall. The dragon flies without flying.
The context of time and the cycles of cultural change
We have arrived here at the yang wood dragon in 2024 AD after a year of yin water rabbit 2023 AD which was preceded by yang water tiger 2022 AD.
Afterwards we will enter yin wood snake 2025 followed by yang fire horse 2026.
Two years of water followed by two years of wood. Water is the death element, dissolution, the dark depths of the unknowable yin. Wood is the element of growth and renewal. But renewal of what? Our idealism? Our hope? Our fantasies and delusions? Our rampant solipsism and addiction?
Or will it be the renewal of neolithic indigenous wisdom and real, unfabricated honesty? The kind of collectivist honesty that seems impossible for colonized, western/white bodies to embody?
The yang wood dragon seems to be a kind of crucible. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the qi of the year seems to support the kind of selfish narcissism of a young dragon, but can the earth and our species withstand more of this consumptive vanity? How many more children must be sacrificed at the blood altar of colonial madness? How much more can our souls withstand white feminism, white patriarchy?
When i speak of whiteness it is not really about the color of our skin, though that is connected. No, it is more about a kind of willingness to side with the oppressor in order to benefit and/or survive the genocidal massacring that colonialism entails. To benefit from outsourcing burdens onto other people in ways that are cruel and unusual, all in the pursuit of some individualistic self-absorbed story of being a victim. There comes a time during chronic injustice where death is a relief from the nightmare of samsara. There comes a time when keeping silent and neutral about insanity takes a toll that is unbearable. For the dragon, death is not the end, it is a cauldron of transformation just as any other moment in space-time. The dragon is bigger than the veil of life and death, it perceives no opposition or duality between these two sides of the same coin, just as it sees that addiction and creativity are also two sides of the same coin.
I myself am always on the edge of death, homelessness, etc. It is unwise to attach to these narratives, but I hold this reality loosely and will breathe a great sigh of relief once my sentence is done. While I am here i endeavor to be generous and help those who are curious towards what i am perceiving, and to those whose fates are asking for help to be pulled to the other side of the pit of false perception. The amazing freedom we are given via our human incarnation is a double-edged sword, a sacrificial blade we can use to heal or to harm, with almost no immediately perceptible punishment. This is the freedom that allows people to “choose”, on behalf of their ghosts, the way of wisdom that is RED in nature.
Liu Ming spoke of the three paths. The red symbolized by the abandoned and betrayed mother wolf who learns wisdom in the most difficult way imaginable, alone and personal. Revenge, resentment and hate are valid qualities of the red wisdom path.
The black as symbolized by the crow/raven which learns via community and the aggregate wisdom of the collective but that can easily succumb to righteous, cultish zealotry and conservative delusion.
And the white or clear which is symbolized by the wolf and the raven going together to the mirror and seeing something that cannot be seen alone. It is only through this coalition towards Death, the great mother and true mirror that a soul is able to break free of its own inherent addictions and imprisonment.
This path was shown to me as the three wisdom forces of Pain, Fear & Hunger as guardians of the gate of life & death— the gateless gate, beyond which the Dreaming (Mother) roams the infinite darkness of potential.
To pass through these three gates (Pain, Fear & Hunger-desire) requires a dedication and commitment that will never be appreciated or validated by the common society that is addicted to comforts and preferences. One must be part of a secret lineage of outsiders and make peace with that process. To discard heroism and glory to find true peace and refuge. While other souls decide to cannibalize each other, point fingers of blame and dishonesty, the adept refines their skills through the passage of life & death. My experience is that the dragon qi is a guide through this crucible as the dragon is able to pass through these seemingly harsh thresholds with ease and play.
The dragon is able to carry the impossible number of sacrificed children and ancestors into a field of awareness in which no resentment or grudges are stored in the realm of the dead and unborn. But it is only with skill that we can follow them to that place of unstained beauty and power. If we do not practice enough, we will fall back into the realm of samsara with grudges, debts and delusions of madness, inflicting harm on everyone around us to “prove” our own “trauma” narratives.
Meditation exercise two: shaking/drumming/slapping
Following from the first meditation, I invite you to set a timer for around 15 minutes.
During this time breath naturally, or rather, allow your body to breath as needed, with no forcing or inhibition. Yawn, sigh, belch, growl, hiss and moan as is the need of the body.
Begin to slap, drum and pound the body with the hands. Begin at the lower abdomen, between navel and pubic bone. Another good spot is the top of the head. Proceed to every other part of the body including armpits, inner elbows, groin and back of the knees. Stomp the feet and feel the vibrations ripple. Shake the body and move in a thunderous way, giving the entire body a much-needed massage. Get into it and allow the yang qi, blood and lymph to move. Yawn as much as possible.
It is good to do this in the morning before noon when the yang qi is still rising. (But sometimes i also do it before bed, your mileage may vary.)
When the timer goes off, slow down and return to the mountain. Rub your hands together and feel the blood/qi within them radiating out. Notice your entire skin layer vibrating with increased blood/qi.
Slowly seal the qi of your body by attentively rubbing every facet of your body with your qi-engorged hands.
Before you end this exercise, sense your entire body, your entire skin layer at once. Allow your breath to breathe through every pore.
Personal Story
I’m writing this nine years after I last saw Liu Ming alive during his annual lunar year talk of the Yin Wood Goat year 2014. Auspicious and ominous for me (a yin earth goat), as I could not have predicted the wild ride i would undergo after his death that would bring me to many teachers, con artists, abusers, psychopaths and lovers. These qualities sometimes mixing together in one body or one relationship.
What I have learned in my own wolf-raven-mirror journey are lessons of wisdom that the immature and naive version of myself would never have allowed inside. I had to be worn down by pain, fear and hunger to a smoldering ember of earth, and then from there begin to grow again in a nondual way which I remembered as a small infant. I had no conception of how difficult my life would be, or how difficult my life actually is, from a fated perspective. I am an outsider, oft perceived as a villain by virtue of the inscrutable forces at play behind my life.
And Liu Ming, Charles Belyea, a white man of privilege, was able to transmit something that helped my ancestors to more fully protect me from the insidious forces that whirl around my existence.
I am not middle class. I am not healthy. I am not loved in the common sense. I am especially attacked and reviled by white women. I have been the butt of a cosmic joke for 44 years. Yet, through dogged determination and ancestral support I have made it here, where i am throwing my hat into the ring.
My experience of Daoism as a mixed-race Puerto Rican American is one of degrowth and decolonization. These words seem like attacks to those who are still addicts of imperialism. Regardless of that perception, I can feel a future that is free from the madness we are experiencing in all areas of our lives. This freedom requires a fierce responsibility. It requires being able to hold pain, fear & hunger without trying to “solve the problem” or constantly predict a way towards comfort. The collectivist lifeways of our neolithic animist ancestors holds more weight, indeed, 250,000 years of weight compared to the 10,000 or so of patriarchal authoritarianism.
The words are there in the Daodejing, barely hidden for those who care enough to examine their perception beyond the palatable routes of assimilation and compromise.
Tying Daoist Astrology to Real World Events
So far, I have hinted at crises behind the scenes of this writing. Make no mistake, I do not view active genocide(s) as metaphors. If anything, such atrocities are proof that the views and methods of nondual animism are needed more than ever, even if only to reduce harm and stave off the immense amount of death portals and revenge karma that are being created. There is no sanity in mass murdering children. The soul cost of this is unfathomable. This goes far beyond even the narrative of “ancestral/epigenetic trauma”.
We are witnessing what pain-based identity narratives and supremacist ideology can do within less than 100 years. A portion of white, European Jewish people, traumatized and abused by Naziism along with Blacks, gays, Roma, disabled and autistic people, have in less than 100 years weaponized their trauma to murder and oppress countless brown Palestinians. This is just one example of the behavior pattern of imperial, colonial supremacy of the last 500 years. A process my Taino/Caribbean and African ancestors know all too well. Genocides do not “end”. They go on and on and seek to assimilate and “reward” all survivors.
I cannot with any integrity try and hand wave the multiple current atrocities away with esoteric ideas from a region with its own inexcusable human rights violations.
While the generosity of Asian/Chinese ancestors is evident and ongoing, there is no methodology that can “explain” why some people are willing to sacrifice so many other beings for their own preferences. Whether we speak of human or more-than-human murder, our species has gouged a scar into the earth that no amount of dissociation can ignore.
Others have made a decent case for this recent inflammation starting in the Yin water rabbit year. It makes sense on some level. However, I find much of our armchair oracle-ing to reinforce western supremacy and privilege.
I know that cycles of life & death will continue long after our species has ripped ourselves into extinction. That being said, as humans we have been given a strange capacity to experience/perceive levels of reality and attempt to describe them. As much as I want to guard my mind from such pain, I am choosing to use everything within my power to perceive, to listen, and to not cater to pathetic, cowardly people. My work will not be palatable to spiritual materialists, imperial apologists, elitist wannabes.
Daoist arts are not “neutral”. Our neolithic animist ancestors did not all go quietly into that dark night of submission, murder and assimilation. Some of them did, and many of us are the children of those survivors who were and are rewarded for their complicity and service to the empire. All animals with righteous, upright qi will fight for their agency and place in the ecosystem against all odds. The yang wood dragon qi is not merely some thrill-chasing narcissist. The seeds that grow within the soil do so against all odds as well. We ought to dream bigger. Dream so big that no child is left to die as some blood sacrifice to madness. Dream so big that the earth and sky would shake with our dreaming.
Dragon’s Tail
As mentioned before, it’s been nine years since Ming died. I’m daring to write this now, even as I perpetually feel inadequate, exiled and unloved. In that time, I have experienced many miraculous phenomena, as well as dastardly injustices and betrayals. It has taken me years to find the inner confidence to stand within this wisdom stream and declare that my perspective is a worthy addition to its waters.
I’m not really asking for Ming’s approval. In some ways I’m giddy with the possibility that Ming might turn in his grave. I’m open to whatever happens as long as it happens honestly. This world is absurd. From the perspective of Death, even our abusive addictions are laughable. Wisdom is all there is and it’s bigger than our point of view. I’m just making some jazz with my brief time here. If you don’t resonate, go fuck off somewhere and find peace.
Meditation exercise three: zuowang — sitting & forgetting, the heart of non-conceptual meditation.
You may find setting a timer helpful for this exercise. Do not do any drugs before or after this exercise. In fact, chronic use of mind-altering substances will make this practice quite dangerous.
Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down (perhaps at an incline so you don’t fall asleep, though, falling asleep may indicate the level of qi exhaustion you need to catch up on.) Prepare by rubbing the entire skin layer so that you can sense it all at once. Allow the breath to become soft and silent, naturally descending towards the lower belly. Yawn mindfully as needed. You may close the eyes or leave them open halfway.
Begin to shut down the senses by turning your senses inward and “off” the way it happens before sleeping (like windows closing and curtains being drawn), but in this case do not black out and fall asleep. Keep “watch” (open, stable, quiet awareness) on the whole (skin layer). Return to the sensation of the breath without manipulation (no “breathwork”) and the entire skin layer at once. Let all thoughts, feelings and emotions come & go like elemental phenomena. There is no need to chase, grasp, chew or retreat from any phenomena. Your open, nonchalant awareness is enough. Continue this practice until you forget more and more “things”, like your name, your gender, your past history, your to-do list… as each of the qi-exhausting obstructions are dissolved you will come closer to receiving pre-heaven qi. Regardless of any “strange” phenomena do not adhere to any fixed narratives or salvational ideas. Do not label things as “kundalini”, etc.
When you finish your session, yawn mindfully and rub your entire body again in an attentive way. Get up slowly and give yourself time to experience outward sensing freshly.
As you discover the true nature of things, hold your thoughts lightly and do not share your story until you have practiced for a year or more, daily. Keep a dream diary/journal.
Dragon Dreaming Dark
This is passage is not for everyone, but it is about everyone. The darkness, the blackness of the void heart contains everyone and everything for we all arise from and descend back into the true underworld, the before place, the unborn realm. For some people, their fate is shaped by the unseen in ways that do not appear to “fit” within “civilized” society. Throughout history, oracles, seers, shamans and witch doctors have had to go outside the bounds of the the society in order to help society. This includes practices like dark retreat, charnel ground living, dream incubation, fasting while being buried up your neck, being hung from hooks, dancing for days until the false mind finally dies, taboo rituals, and more. But this is not some pedestalized hero’s journey that lost, sad, pretentious people embark on because they are bored with their privileges and comforts. We have too many false “shamans” pretending they understand pain, fear & hunger. This all-too common masquerade is nothing but more delusion cosplaying as liberation. The “Shadow work” industry is pathetic and should be treated with the disdain of honesty. Because real honesty is the release of false narratives in order to deal with reality as it is, and some people are forced into such a bind. This does not mean that developing “negative”, pessimistic, nihilistic or cynical narratives is the answer, no, it is about resolving fate via negativity, negation, or absence. This appears to the civilized mind as oppositional defiance or negative personality disorders however I am making a precise distinction between the disorders of ghostliness and the honesty of the death-practitioner, death-clown & death-dreamer. Like walking a tightrope after the sun has died, this kind of person finds themselves in a hell realm, a bardo in which every terror, crisis, challenge and difficulty is another opportunity for practice with no immediate reward except integrity and honesty. In many western countries, we have outsourced this function onto homeless, crazy, psychotic and disabled/sick members of society and they have “picked up the slack” non-consensually. That debt is come due. The interest cannot be paid. I am not saying that marginalized folks are fated to live this way. I am saying that to see reality means seeing how addiction and creativity are two sides of the same coin. How hypocrisy and madness are related. In the grand cycle of formless becoming form becoming formless there is an aspect that cannot be traversed using “daytime” or light-type consciousness. Cannot be conceptualized, named or apprehended in any way by the “positive” aspects of our faculties. Doing so only reinforces addiction, resentment, delusion and ghostliness. In the “Lost” world, becoming found is a supreme disease. To navigate in a “negative” space one must “lose” loss itself. This is why non-conceptual, nondual stabilizing practices are so important as preparatory phases for the real task. One must un-learn and identify with non-identity in order to become honest enough to move from accountability to encounterability. In fact, I’ve said even too much about this at this point. The map is definitely not the territory here. These are the things you say to addicts with suicidal ideation who desperately want to be “saved” from their pain. Open the red door.
Exalted Yang Wood Dragon principles
Privilege & Power must be shared lest it corrupts and spreads corruption.
Dream big but remember the small. Many small actions are greater than one large action. The small succeeds.
Play beyond your preferences and ideologies. Embody, become & receive freshness.
Shake the stagnation out of the blood. Green (spring/wood) Thunder Dragon energy is the righteous qi of the liver.
True radiance (brightness/yang) is like a miracle. No effort. Lightning just appears and disappears. The sun radiates generously over all. Take rest in the shade at midday.
Do not overextend. Be precise.
Find out how you can ride and activate these energies within your unique fate & constitution. There’s no need to pretend to be something you’re not. The qi of the year is yang wood dragon. You be you. But be here. Fly without escaping.
Totemic Protection
The Azure (blue-green) Dragon Qinglong is one of the Five Symbols/Gods/Auspicious Beasts in Daoist cosmology. They emanate from the liver on the right side of the body and manifest on the left side of the body which is the Eastern direction & represent Spring season. They are a Yang Wood Dragon! Visualize them to your left/east and absorb their qi, especially replacing stagnant/frustrated qi in the liver.
You can read more about these forces here and here.
Writing this was/is intense. I was surprised. I give thanks & respect to all the practitioners who make up the great body of practice & who are dreaming (with) us now. Time to fuck off.
A fresh depth of generosity & beauty converged in what might be termed "palatable" within/surrounding this writing. (I definitely dissociated a few words into "Dragon Dreaming Dark." Dear god.)
You've accessed something so powerful, so knowing, so all-present giving/timelessly gorgeous here, Dare, and thank heavens you stayed with the intensity to deliver it.
Blessings...
Dare, you are - without fail - richer in the revisit (which will be assuredly true after you've walked on). I've returned to this for support in understanding this terrifying (to me, at least) "I'm With Her" phenomenon. Immensely helpful: "When i speak of whiteness it is not really about the color of our skin, though that is connected. No, it is more about a kind of willingness to side with the oppressor in order to benefit and/or survive the genocidal massacring that colonialism entails. To benefit from outsourcing burdens onto other people in ways that are cruel and unusual, all in the pursuit of some individualistic self-absorbed story of being a victim."