Flowing with Fierceness
Diving into the stream...
Yesterday I created a hybrid East/West oracle: a random I Ching hexagram, paired with a random Tarot card. The question I posed was “What now?”
The hexagram thrown up was #17, Sui, usually translated as “Following.” The tarot card was The Chariot, taken from the Mary-El Tarot deck.
I looked in my reference books for commentary on the #17 hexagram. From Hilary Barnett: Energy flows strongly into life's landscapes, bringing a great creative drive, from the source through towards fulfillment. Following it means a willingness to honor the flow and align actions with it.
Stephen Karcher’s interpretation is: Follow the stream – insert yourself into the flow, and let it move you. The hexagram also reminds me of the Joseph Campbell motto: “follow your bliss.”
But there could be darker meanings to Following. The magnificent opening song on the debut U2 album is “I Will Follow.”
Over the years Bono has offered various interpretations of the song, including that “the song is a suicide note,” about a teenager yearning to follow a loved one to the grave:
If you walk away, walk away
I walk away, walk away, I will follow
If you walk away, walk away
I walk away, walk away, I will follow
And during yoga this morning, the radio played Bob Dylan:
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
So the oracle could be advising me to join a magnetic cult leader shaking his rattle.
The original image of The Chariot card is taken from a Roman victory parade. By tradition, the card is taken to symbolize the calmly rational Self controlling its powerful passions so as to drive forward.
In this deck however, the artist Mary White was inspired by Nordic myths of the wolfpack. There are no reins here – this woman is happy to follow her pack. In this case, all elements of the psyche (Passion, Reason, the Will, and the True Self) travel in natural alignment. (The image also reminds me of the La Loba folktale, popularized as “women who run with the wolves.”)
So anyway, returning to my original query: “What now?”
Looking at The Chariot from the lens of the #17 hexagram, the term flow comes to mind again, and this alternate version of a surfing charioteer:
In Buddhism there is a key meditative stage known as “stream-entry,” where the seeker has reached an irreversible momentum that will ultimately lead to liberation. By deepening their awareness and practicing virtuous habits, the seeker is carried along by the flowing river to maturity.
So a possible answer from this East/West combination oracle could be: “Align with the Flow to move Forward.”
That sounds like pretty good life advice, I guess.
Though I could use some of that wild wolf fierceness too.
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