I-Ching 28 Excessive Pressure

The end is the beginning is the end. This is not just a song from Smashing Pumpkins, but it reminds me of the scripture “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending” and lastly, the Greek word, Ouroboros- the symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, It all sums up hexagram 28, Excessive Pressure: 

 Extraordinary times bring out the best and worst in people. Natural disasters produce stories of heroism but also of looting and rioting. When a great weight is upon your world, powerful moments present opportunities to make great gains, because everything is in a state of flux. One can either move in the direction of positive change and improvement or toward stagnation. To achieve the former, one must go gently to the heart of the issue—to the cause. Then a smooth transition is assured.

One journey was ending as another was fast approaching and with much attached to my mind, I was losing what my heart was learning that entire journey. Another quote came to mind at this stage: 

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

I was nervous about saying goodbye to anyone or anything as I had grown to care for the journey and the people I had met along the way. I could feel myself becoming more sensitive to every little thing, but there would be no tower moment without the collapse of something that must be revealed and released. This was not a time to hold on to anything that could be repeated; we all had to choose to evolve or repeat. We can do everything we can in different ways to aid to our spiritual and mental wellness, the yoga, the supplements, the affirmations etc, but when the time comes for the true lesson, we must create a new way of being. New ways of being mean altering the future, shifting reality into the desired state you would like to operate in. Evolving allows you to live differently in a new state. I ask myself, when did we stop developing as a collective? Why isn’t evolution of humanity a priority? I would instead learn about the continuous cycle of evolution that then taxes because taxes aren’t even real. 

In life, as many of us have found, situations can repeat themselves unless we are ready to learn the lesson and our role in the lesson. I had found myself completely sensitive and ready to throw in the towel and repeat a cycle of running away from vulnerability, but if I had, I might as well have packed my bags and gone back to Utah. Not that I don’t love Utah, but I love my journey more. The journey reminds me of the symbol of the unalome, a sacred Buddhist and Hindu symbol that represents one’s spiritual path. The necessity of the spirals and loops, the ups and downs. Healing is not linear, life isn’t perfect, yet pressure makes diamonds. As I was focusing on this time in life, where I am doing my best to hold steady to an intention, I could feel the pressure inside me build from moving forward to destroying all the work in the blink of an eye. I think it made me realize how easy it is to fall into the worst thing you can feel, in my opinion, indifference. Pretending that you don't care. I know I cared, I more than cared, I loved. Love is a complex energy, elusive and challenging to tap into. It demands truth—both personal truth and an understanding of existence. Despite the teachings of various religions that emphasize love, it seems that these messages haven't always stuck. So, what's been missing? What disguises itself as truth, preventing us from truly embodying the frequency of love as a standard? How can we learn to practice and teach it effectively?

For me, the path to experiencing love meant confronting my own darkness. It's a fundamental truth: if we can't love ourselves in our darkest moments, how can we expect the universe, other people, or anything else to respond with love? In these recent moments, I have felt eternally grateful for the people who stood by my side as I battled it. The threshold was real, the habits were crystal clear and the opportunity to create a new path was right in front of me, I just had to do one more extremely uncomfortable thing: SAY IT. Say my truth, my wants, my needs, even writing this now, I am making a face of disgust as I am still transitioning into a standard state of saying my needs. What was it about expressing what I wanted that made me so uncomfortable? Much has come from the upbringing that wanting something for yourself is seen as wrong or selfish. I want what everyone wants, for things to fall into my lap, telepathy, no words needed, just sudden manifestation. But, that’s not how this world works and I was desperate to operate in different dimensions to avoid the hard lessons. 

I looked at the world we are in, on a bigger scale, it was as if all our unspoken needs basic human rights were not being spoken or put into action and, creating massive pressure that would have to force all of us into a new way of being. I thought that maybe saying my needs would help take a tiny bit of pressure away from it, and maybe that was true in some capacity. If we all got into the practice of checking the truths behind our needs and then speaking about our needs openly and directly, we could be releasing this excessive pressure that humanity is going through. Was it just wishful thinking? No, I don’t think so. Does pressure sometimes cause chaos? Absolutely yes. Does it have to end in chaos? The choice is ours. Do we choose to love or choose to repeat a cycle that forces us to deal with our issues with love overall. It is a reminder that we do need each other to make these transitions a little brighter and lighter. If we don’t choose love, then what are we choosing to live with?

Is the opposite of love indifference? Do we choose to be indifferent because we are afraid? So is the root of chaos really fear? Do we fear love? Besides the obvious reasons that we would fear love, I wanted to ask myself why I would fear it, love in all ways, not just romantic. In the end, would I choose it? I am starting to and I know a few libras who i'll make very proud. Deep down, we want to experience the beautiful things we’ve heard as possibilities: Heaven, Nirvana, Shambala etc, we know it could be possible, but here we are, in the thick of it, in our most “advanced and peaceful time.” I just don’t know, I have no more words to write. The pressure was slowly released, I can only slowly become the next state of being and that pathway is still connecting itself.