Fire on the mountain…then thunder

In the I Ching, hexagram 56 is Lu / The Wanderer. The image provided with this hexagram reads:

“Fire on the mountain:
The image of the wanderer.
Thus the superior man
Is clear-minded and cautious
In imposing penalties,
And protracts no lawsuits.

As a changing line…

“Nine at the top means:
The bird’s nest burns up.
The wanderer laughs at first,
Then must needs lament and weep.
Through misfortune he loses his cow.
Misfortune.”

And thus the initial Hexagram changes into that which follows: Hexagram 62.  Hsiao Kuo/ Preponderance of the Small.

“Thunder on the Mountain:
The image of Preponderance of the Small.
Thus in his conduct the superior man gives preponderance to reverence.
In bereavement he gives preponderance to grief.
In his expenditures he gives preponderance to thrift.”

As Jung points out in his foreword to the Wilhelm/Baynes edition of the I Ching (the edition the above quotes are rendered from):

“Whatever happens in a given moment possesses inevitably the quality peculiar to that moment. This is not an abstract argument but a very practical one.” pg. xxiii.

Consulting the I Ching is a bit like the practice of cutting the Bible, whereby one opens the book confident that the page one chances upon has a message one needs to hear.

Let it suffice to say… the above imagery aligns with my current dream imagery in specifics details which would startle one that did not consider such results to be plausible.

And then @hennartonline shared this with me on twitter as I was drafting this post: “A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.”~Carl Jung

This little nugget returns much like a flourish…like the cherry atop an ice cream sundae…I had cast the same message upon the waters a few months back.

It fits this moment exquisitely.

Often people ask me how the collective unconscious manifests in these social media platforms.  The question digs into the relationship of Psyche and Techne.  This post in a small way serves as a forward to an answer…