3. ䷂ Chun / Difficult Beginning
On Tuesday 14 April I walked Hexagram #3, ䷂Chun/Difficult Beginning. I woke at 6am, left at 7 and returned at 8:30pm. After 30 miles and 13½ hours of hiking, my left toe was worse, but I had a seed of quiet in me that could see obstacles as teachers and recognize the nonexistent adversary I was dragging about, how that was damaging my inner treasure. The frogs were back in their ponds, the woodpeckers tapping out their messages and the yellow trail flowers beginning to show. For the 5 hours I walked through Pisgah State Park, not one person passed. I was utterly alone, until at sunset I passed two large, loud parties, smoking and drinking at Indian Pond.
Poor toes. What started with a stupid over-the-counter drug for nail fungus, became a serious bacterial infection. I used that evil nail wand once, on my big toes, the day before my first Mountain Tea marathon. The medicine burned the skin around my toes and caused blistering under the nails within a day. I couldn’t walk then for 2 days. When one of the blisters broke, I extended my rest time to 4 days and applied antibacterial ointment. In 4 days I could walk and so hiked two more marathons, one on Saturday and one on Tuesday. After my hike on Tuesday, I could see the left toe was getting infected. I was diagnosed with cellulitis, a dangerous bacterial infection. My hiking partner on the PCT got this on his foot in southern CA. He had a blister that went from a small concern to an unusable limb in two days and ended up on crutches. I am on antibiotics now waiting for the infection to recede, learning to make vegetable broth, sourdough starter, homemade bread, pizza dough, pizza sauce, practicing my tea skills, reading the I Ching, reading your questions, trying to understand the answers.
But I need the mountains to be healthy. We all need them, and the other animals too, and the forests and the ponds and the parks and the preserves. Sometimes I hear the distant gunshots of hunters. I have not yet seen a deer. Our large animals are absent.I have been waiting to address a condition that started in Paris, what might be Selective IgA deficiency. IgA is a protein that fights infection. Between Paris, Pennsylvania and Mongolia I experienced 6 back-to-back sinus infections in 3 months, along with a new job and 6 major leaks in my apartment. I thought I was dying. So many new obstacles! I have been busy, moving, uninsured for a year, but I have tried to heal myself with cider vinegar, honey, tea, music, sleep, art, a 6-fingered shaman in Russia and with meditation. But mountains work best.
In 2005, I was healed by Mount Rainier in only one week after 2 intensive years of overwork, under-sleep and repeated exposure to toxins in a carpenter's spray booth in NYC. I spent that summer on the upper mountain and returned to the city feeling downright athletic. In 2014, the Pacific Crest Trail healed me from a chronic sinus infection, probably from years of work in a boatyard, a stressful relationship and a compromised life too long below poverty line as an artist. Now after several stressful moves, from Paris to the apocalyptic Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (2nd worst air pollution in the world) to the USA, I am once again facing life as an artist in a country that doesn't value art and find I need the mountains. I have healthcare now, but my first appointment was delayed by two months due to the pandemic. So I walk, I meditate, I go to the mountains, I breathe deeply, I heal as the earth heals, as COVID-19 instructs us.
As ䷀Heaven interacts with ䷁Earth, it produces something new, ䷂Chun / Difficult Beginning. Through the soft spot on top of our head, we receive energy from the heavens. Below our feet, we receive energy from the earth. These energies gather in our belly. Sitting meditation permits it to circulate and to feel at one with the universe. 17th C. Japanese Zen Buddhist master, Hakuin Zenji, said with each exhalation and inhalation we move qi through our body. This energy flows along our meridians. Moving our qi, we stimulate these meridians. In a single day, we circulate the qi through our body 50x thus maintaining our health.
When this begins in earnest, I will meditate 4 days/wk. I will repeat this same walking meditation, from Brattleboro to Monadnock and back, for 16 weeks (4 months), walking 64 marathons along the WMT, between Wantastiquet and Monadnock. I have completed 3 marathons so far, 3 hexagrams, Heaven, Earth and Difficult Beginning. You can see Mountain Tea 2020 on Google Earth. Click "present" to follow the trail. My journey begins in Brattleboro, VT, quickly crosses the Connecticut River (VT/NH border), joins the Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail and climbs Wantastiquet, Daniels and Bear before heading east to Pisgah State Park where it follows Davis Hill Trail to Horatio Preserve. Soon I hope to get beyond this to the Cheshire County Rail-Trail which will take me south, 15 miles from Keene to Troy, and on to Mt Monadnock. While I wait for my gear, and now for my toe to heal, I am studying the I Ching.
Zen master Tozan Osho said, “Go to the place free of emotions. When it is cold, become the cold. When it is hot, become the heat. Don't look away from this moment's reality. Gather the energy in your belly. Take this essence and see, hear, smell, taste, feel and think about this world as it is. Perceive this very reality. But do not get fooled by it, only reflect it.” In my art and life this has been my goal, to unbuffer, to feel what is, feel fully.
In 2005, I was healed by Mount Rainier in only one week after 2 intensive years of overwork, under-sleep and repeated exposure to toxins in a carpenter's spray booth in NYC. I spent that summer on the upper mountain and returned to the city feeling downright athletic. In 2014, the Pacific Crest Trail healed me from a chronic sinus infection, probably from years of work in a boatyard, a stressful relationship and a compromised life too long below poverty line as an artist. Now after several stressful moves, from Paris to the apocalyptic Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (2nd worst air pollution in the world) to the USA, I am once again facing life as an artist in a country that doesn't value art and find I need the mountains. I have healthcare now, but my first appointment was delayed by two months due to the pandemic. So I walk, I meditate, I go to the mountains, I breathe deeply, I heal as the earth heals, as COVID-19 instructs us.
As ䷀Heaven interacts with ䷁Earth, it produces something new, ䷂Chun / Difficult Beginning. Through the soft spot on top of our head, we receive energy from the heavens. Below our feet, we receive energy from the earth. These energies gather in our belly. Sitting meditation permits it to circulate and to feel at one with the universe. 17th C. Japanese Zen Buddhist master, Hakuin Zenji, said with each exhalation and inhalation we move qi through our body. This energy flows along our meridians. Moving our qi, we stimulate these meridians. In a single day, we circulate the qi through our body 50x thus maintaining our health.
When this begins in earnest, I will meditate 4 days/wk. I will repeat this same walking meditation, from Brattleboro to Monadnock and back, for 16 weeks (4 months), walking 64 marathons along the WMT, between Wantastiquet and Monadnock. I have completed 3 marathons so far, 3 hexagrams, Heaven, Earth and Difficult Beginning. You can see Mountain Tea 2020 on Google Earth. Click "present" to follow the trail. My journey begins in Brattleboro, VT, quickly crosses the Connecticut River (VT/NH border), joins the Wantastiquet-Monadnock Trail and climbs Wantastiquet, Daniels and Bear before heading east to Pisgah State Park where it follows Davis Hill Trail to Horatio Preserve. Soon I hope to get beyond this to the Cheshire County Rail-Trail which will take me south, 15 miles from Keene to Troy, and on to Mt Monadnock. While I wait for my gear, and now for my toe to heal, I am studying the I Ching.
Zen master Tozan Osho said, “Go to the place free of emotions. When it is cold, become the cold. When it is hot, become the heat. Don't look away from this moment's reality. Gather the energy in your belly. Take this essence and see, hear, smell, taste, feel and think about this world as it is. Perceive this very reality. But do not get fooled by it, only reflect it.” In my art and life this has been my goal, to unbuffer, to feel what is, feel fully.
Hexagram 3, ䷂Chun / Difficult Beginning is the result of the encounter between two powerful opposing forces. ䷂Chun embodies the dream coming into existence. It is made of the trigrams, Water ☵ and Thunder ☳. It instructs us to see obstacles as opportunities, conflicts as the driving force of evolution. "Obstacles refine our sincerity about what we are doing and hone our inner vision." (Cafe au Soul) Having enemies allows us to blame others for our condition. Knowing there are no adversaries, we move forward with a sense of power. We learn to see teachers in those who challenge us.
Thank you to Mary Louise Carter of Corralitos, CA who donated a beautiful handmade chawan (tea bowl) to the project. I requested Mary send me a story to impart, something personal. She reminded me of the simplicity of the chawan. “As a functional potter the pieces I make are not complete until they are in someone else's hands - perhaps in everyday use to contain something of sustenance, then sitting on a kitchen counter, into the dish drainer and then back in the cupboard. Important I think, but rather mundane service. My hope is that the bowl will be a worthy companion as you undertake your journey.” I take into hand a new companion.
Do you sense, as I do, that the world is joining in a mass meditation of inaction, localizing, going in and beginning to heal? With Coronavirus as our teacher, we are recognizing the value of our health, our homes, our friends, our service workers, our health care workers, all the unsung helpers and healers that make up our community. How complex the web between the weak and the strong we've made! We are, yet again, I believe, learning to quiet our minds to the noise of the numbers.
