Its 3pm on the Gregory Canyon trail on a sunny afternoon – the apple trees cover the canyon floor and shed their ripening fruit. The insects burrow inside, leaving small holes in the round yellow and red apple bellies. It's a cloudless, gorgeous sky. When I walk along this trail I see so much abundance of fruit, berries and flowers. The bees are circling around, butterflies settle on the flowers and nature is abuzz eating the bounty. The smells are lightly fragrant. The seedpods wither, becoming musty yellow. The Earth is sympathetic to all forms of life. Everything walks, tramples and trashes all over it. It accepts it all, takes it all in, in stride.
Because all of life manifests upon it, it is abundant and constantly overflowing. But because it is slow moving, it churns very slowly to integrate the abundance that is occurring around it. Fire is also needed to purify the earth of all the stuff that happens on its surface. All the unneeded unnecessary growth must be cleared so that all the ideas of Wood don’t overwhelm Earth’s ability to provide results. Too much growth in all directions in life would sap the Earth of all its nutrients and ability to integrate the experience.
Through the power of Wood we have a million ideas a day, and an abundance of growth in all directions feeds the fires of purification. Through purification, the essence of the plans and ideas are given over to the Earth to integrate into itself. Through Fire’s purification the ideas of Wood are turned into fertile soil.
We simply cannot integrate everything that's possible to integrate in life. There are too many ideas, too many possible avenues and plans, and we can become exhausted trying to integrate everything faster than our capacity to chew over it, break it down, and integrate it into our lives.
I’m reminded of the Stomach point XI 23, Great Oneness which can help the Stomach to break down all of life’s experiences into a meaningful and integrated whole. Among other things, this point would be useful for someone who’s life appears or occurs as an accumulation of unrelated, fragmented, and disjointed experiences. This point can help integrate these experiences into the self so that the individual can learn from them and move on in their life.
I just saw the minerals sparking in the ground. The Earth contains the Metal, the Earth contains the Earth, the Earth contains the plants of life, the Earth contains the Water, the Earth contains the purifications of Fire – therefore Earth contains them all and when Earth contains all, it has everything it already needs – because it’s all part of itself. In it’s motherly embrace, all can grow.
I’m reminded of the Spleen point, XII 21, Great Enveloping. This point empowers us to feel surrounded by the unconditional nourishment and love of the mother in our lives as though we’re in the womb. When we feel cut off from sources of nourishment in life, Great Enveloping wraps our whole being in the gentle care of the Earthly mother’s warm blanket.
The temperature here is cool, the hot summer sun has waned and the temperatures are receding and cooling down to a comfortable medium level. The smells are still primarily scorched of the pine and of the yellowed grass heated by the sun. So within its scorchiness there is a sweetness to the grasses, flowers, and definitely a sweetness to the fruit that right now is still not fully ripe. This stability of Late Summer ambience is reminiscent of the stability of a lot of Earth constitutional characteristics – running neither hot nor cold, just occurring at a stable, steady, rhythmic pace, changing slowly and methodically.
I came across a wonderful bee airport. As they’re buzzing, taking off, and coming in for a landing, and taking off again – they all congregate around their nest, bringing nourishment in during the season. As they do so, a hum, a buzz emanates from the hive. The droning hum provides a rhythm, a song for their busy work – signing why their work.
Like the bees, the Earth constitution can become preoccupied with the harvest year round, never ceasing, never resting. Obsessed with acquisition of more experiences, knowledge, information, education and self care, the Earth constitution can open up, like a hungry pit, ready to ingest more, become more, and integrate everything they possibly can. With an insatiable appetite, yearning for that which will nourish them the most, they are never satisfied with what they have attained. Likewise, they can be unsatisfied with the amount of attention, help, care, support and nourishment they have received from others, their relationships or their occupational and educational pursuits. Obsessed with getting, learning, making, harvesting – things are never enough.
I’m reminded of the Stomach point, XI 45, Hard Bargain. This point can be excellent for the individual who feels that their needs are never met. This person may be constantly whining, complaining and demanding sympathy for their self-imposed burdens. Running a million miles an hour and obsessively harvesting, this point can calm the Earth’s need to constantly harvest by instilling the virtues of Metal in the Earth’s constitution. XI 45 can provide the self-recognition of what food brings the highest level of nourishment, and the balanced required to wisely taking in and letting go of what no longer serves. By this the Earth is better able to make clear choices about which sources of nourishment are the best, and discard that which doesn’t nourish it anymore. This point can help a person let go of that for which they no longer have appetite for, but which they continues to chew over out of habit and worry that something tastier will never come along. This can manifest as being stuck in lifeless and unsatisfying routine, job, or profession which the Earth is bound to repeat endlessly but form which it no longer receives any nourishment.
By getting the Earth constitution unstuck from their poor sources of nourishment and obsessive harvesting, XI 45 can restore the Sheng cycle for the stuck Earth Element. Through clarity over what truly nourishes, and what doesn’t, the Earth can let go (Metal), take confidence in their available resources and skills (Water), create ideas, make plans, get into action and execute decisions to pursue what will be most nourishing (Wood), and get back into communication with the community of support (Fire), to once again harvest the most satisfying and nourishing fruit of their labor (Earth).
XI 45 can also mitigate the excess presence of Metal in the Earth constitution where an individual has become cold, rigid and inert, manifesting as a lack of sympathy towards the self and towards others, resulting in ruthlessness in their pursuit of fulfillment. Such a point selection may be coupled with XI 20, Receiving Fullness, to provide satiation to one’s needs, so that one can experience abundance in life without wallowing in feelings of neediness and over production.
…
Now atop the mountain, I’m looking at a big rock and seeing all the lines of structure that compose it. It’s very linear, straight forward, very direct, clear in its demarcation of mineral content. Here’s what’s precious and refined, and here’s what’s not. Metal builds such lofty edifices to its purity. The rocks climb ever higher, creating treacherous terrain, treacherous pinnacles and peaks of the highest discernment, ever reaching towards the perfection of heaven.
We human build ivory towers, belief systems and ways of thinking, and declarations of our ideals. Through our elevation of what is precious, we create that which is hard to get to, and out of reach like the heights of the mountain. The higher we climb in our thinking, the further we can fall. As you stand at the precipices of these lofty places you feel a fear. You feel yourself freezing as danger lurks.
The mountain is the perfect metaphor for our spiritual lives. I climbed one of these edifices of perfection, and though the climb was treacherous, and firm footing hard to find, I made it to the top. And on who’s made it to the top definitely has a loftier perspective and call see all that is below in all directions. The question is what we do once we’ve reached new perspectives? Do we throw stones, judge and condemn all that’s below, or do we commune with the unity of all that we behold?
On this rock I had a 360 panorama for miles around, I surveyed all of Boulder county and the mountains behind me. With this amount of knowledge these places offer, no wonder these lofty places have so much attachment for us as human beings. We quest for these spiritual experiences even though they are dangerous and we can fall very far, the further up we climb. We listen to inspiring preachers from on high. We believe. We listen for the word of the Lord from on high. We believe. We climb mountains of self-knowledge, and deep penetrating insight through meditation, prayer and contemplation. We join religions, cults and groups, have drug-induced spiritual experiences, ecstatic dancing, speaking in tongues, snake charming, etc - all of these pursuits to give us insight. My, what lofty mountains of world-perception and potential self-righteousness we climb, being blissfully unaware that we may fall from our perches at any moment.
The Earth says – it’s safe to stay low to the ground. Don't stir the pot. But Metal stays - reach for the skies so that you can fall in wondrous delight, and can plummet into the depths once you have touched Heaven itself.
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