What Kind of Man Am I? Pt 1.
What Kind of Man Am I? Pt 1.
Just An Endless List In Mimesis of The Liberalisation Of Language Into Babeldee-Gook
To Begin: Here are Some of the Liberal Outsiders’ Views of What Kind of Man I Am Because I Am a Man — With An Opinion or Two
An abusive, gullible, self-aggrandising arrogant English language kindergarten masturbation crap-head fakir and liar who presumes to be a teacher of bullshit with a dead brain. Really? That’s it? Nothing more? Of course there’s more! Lots more, especially in this age of an officially denied ascendency of ‘kind’ accommodating compassionate left-bent hell-bent liberals who have jumped with joy to stamp the likes of me out as one of those contemptible caucasian white males that has me by birth a member of the overprivileged undeserving human modoki§ and a party to and beneficiary of the patriarchy who would best serve humanity by admitting to his inhumanity as defined by the militant feminists as something that the woke-Baalites will happily serve to their god on a gore-splattered platter, with a side of my blood pudding, fava beans cooked with adrenalchrome and fetal stem cells.
§Modoki is a great Japanese word for people not quite what they present themselves to be. Charlatan.
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Anti-Male Animus (Pun Intended§) and the Kind of Man Who Dares Talk About Women as If That Could Be Useful
§Note: ‘animus’ has built into it an amusing/interesting (to me) hint of something about the anti-male animus of our times. Before I go there, bring to mind the image or definition that ‘animus’ engendered in your mind or inner eye when you read the words Anti-Male Animus. [Seven second time clock.]
Since language is being muddied by our ‘authorities’ of language and those wanting to weaponise it, here I will add some clarity — and ground the pun into the dirt, so-to-speak. Standard dictionaries go something like ‘a feeling of hate or anger toward someone or something.’ Cambridge.
Merriam-Webster has a deeper elaboration that points to my pun:
Animus has long referred to the rational or animating components of a person's psyche (it derives from Latin animus, which can mean "spirit," "mind," "courage," or "anger"). Since a key animating component of personality can be temper, the word came to mean animosity, especially ill will that is driven by strong prejudice. The term is also used in the analytic psychology of C. G. Jung in reference to an inner masculine part of the female personality. The English animus is closely related to words such as animosity, magnanimous, and unanimous, but it is not as closely related to other similar-looking terms such as animal and animate. Those latter terms derive from the Latin ‘anima’, a distinct term that means "soul”, [spirit] or "breath" and that suggests someone's physical vitality or life force — the breath of life (my emphasis). (Merriam-Webster.)
Merriam-Webster didn’t note that animus is the masculine formation of the Latin anima, and so it points to the same energy. And this is where the pun rests or perhaps animates: the animus that militant feminists extend tyrannically towards non-believers, male and female, is the expression of their unintegrated inner animus! In Jungian psychology the phrase is animus-possession*. Okay, okay. Well I found it funny. And here is a pointed way to see its delusional nature followed by a Jungian’s description of the pernicious nature of an animus-possessed woman:
*Animus Possessed:
... a woman who has become possessed by her Animus [often becomes] a ball-busting bitch. These women walk around with stinkwood penises, beating both men and women over the head with it, insisting that they know it all and know it all better than everyone else! This Animus Hound is never wrong. She knows everything. She inflicts an unstoppable, unconscious flow of talk on others, in which she has an unyielding conviction. ("Animus Possession: Are You A Ball-Busting Bitch?" by Anja van Kralingen at the Centre of Applied Jungian Studies.)
When Jung did his shadow work he became aware that his soul was, through dreams, intuition and creative expression — Jung was an excellent painter — doing its best to properly animate his life with a connection to the life-force-energy. His sense of that animating energy was as female, a definite feeling that that creative force was a she. So he gave it the name ‘anima’ from the Latin ‘spirit of life’.
From his female patients he came to conclude that women also have an animating energy or drive towards integration of mind-body-spirit and that it was very distinct from what he experienced and observed in himself and his male clients. So he called it ‘animus’ and said, paraphrased, because I’m a man, I have no way of truly experiencing it knowingly. In one of the research books I no longer have, the writer was looking at the feminist animus towards Jung in no small part because of his use of ‘animus’ to describe the masculine energy within a woman. Jung has been excoriated by the 60s-70s feminists for his male-centric bias and misogyny and for the audacity to infer such a thing could overtake a woman’s reason. In short, his psychological description triggers the animus in some (the militant?) feminists who then project their lack of integrity outwards as animus and ‘beat the world with their stinkwood penises’. That book, Jung and Feminism: Liberating Archetypes by Demaris S. Wehr, very softly suggests that feminism got Jung wrong. And for an interesting look at the concepts of Anima/Animus, I recommend Animus and Anima: Two Essays by Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz.)
Back on the Man-That-I-Am Track?
I was challenged to put this together. When initially I posed to myself this question I had thought it would be a fun tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. Although with something serious too, of course, because of the ubiquity of the acceptance of anti-male rhetoric. And self-deprecating because, in very recent years, I’ve seen that the anti-male — especially the anti-white caucasian male — societal energy that was consolidated within the so-called ‘goods’ of New Age and its associated feminist denialisms, had become the unwanted and embarrassing boner of the man I was. Those energies had entered into my unconscious as well as my body. For we, of this head-centric society, the penetration of that cultish ideology into my (and other males’ and females’) unconscious is likely deemed ‘easy’ to understand if/when actually perceived. “Ahhhh, trauma, let’s pile it on!” (Pile on it?)
So, with that being just a trauma, we use our heads to think that we can see its existence in our lives by how it makes itself manifest in our habits of thought, speech and action. Although only when we have the courage to see ourselves in thought, speech and action, because, as Jung wrote and taught, ’the unconscious really is unconscious’ (CW9). The unconscious is invisible to the intellect that tricks itself into thinking that calling or naming something ‘unconscious’ is to see it.
And some of the key anti-male manifestations are all the ways that we self-diminish our autonomy, authority, agency and place as worthy and valuable members of the community in our ‘noble’ effort of Self-sacrifice in order to uphold the delusion of those moral anti-male ideologies. And it allows for such open contradictions as feminists aspiring to the be equal to men in their power while with a straight face espousing their rabid hatred of all things masculine as if masculinity can be separated from being a man.
And of course, this anti-male rhetoric has become a deep core acceptable ‘truth’ and moral trope. How so? By having become mostly invisible to the majority of the people of our society who express its delusion by condoning, denying and/or elevating as true the caustic vitriol and many hateful manifestations that comprise this moralistic ideology in action.
WTF? Watching ‘Lefties Losing It’ and Other Cants on YouTube!?! Is That the Kind of Man I Am?
In recent weeks I have found myself, for the first time, sort of binge-watching YouTube people debunking some of the blind proponents of these anti-male, ie (militant) ‘feminist’ ideologies. For example, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, Pearl Davis and a few others.
And of course, I was one of those who hadn’t even partially seen it in myself until relatively recently. Even as far back as eight years ago, after being introduced to Jordan Peterson (with the ‘infamous’ Cathy Newman debacle of an interview) and then later seeing his literal tears for the malignancy directed towards young men, I didn’t know the depth of my disengagement from my own somatic experience. With that disengagement I did not (could not at the time) understand that what I was head-learning stayed only in the superficial level of my intellect and mind. In straighter words, Peterson’s clearly felt and openly expressed pain for our debased young men did not touch my heart. I didn’t want to feel my own pain, a pain my intellect didn’t know was there despite thirty-five years of intense psychological self-study.
For an interesting look at a young woman exploring her having been unconsciously and osmotically poisoned by societal anti-male animus, watch my recently discovered Gabby Marie. She examines why prominent British journalist Piers Morgan is an example of how deeply unconscious is the anti-male animus problem when Peterson begins to cry at Morgan having unconsciously man-bashed the incels: ‘Stop Saying Toxic Masculinity’.)
Stockholm Syndrome as Survival Technique Against the Animus-Possessed Partner that Encouraged Me to Be Small
And even before that, it was likely around 2010 or so, I came to see clearly that a major part of the co-dependency aspects of my relationship (that was to last for seven more years) was my ex’s efforts to ‘smallify’ me. At that point in the relationship, about 30 years into it, I knew in my head what she was doing. And thought that that head-knowing was enough. I didn’t see that my acquiescence to that denigration was my having accepted that my space in existence, my place in life, was as a less-than, a kind of drudge unworthy of even carrying her luggage. Furthermore, I did not see that to a very large extent I had diminished myself in order to survive the familial childhood, marriage and community animus directed towards me as, originally when a frustrating infant, then with expanded rhetoric as I grew into (a sort of) male adulthood.
As I explored this I realised that, like the invisible and ubiquitous use of bully language, my self-diminishment was simply typical Stockholm Syndrome behaviour: to survive the threatening milieu of my experiences I became an unconscious creature of the anti-male environment. (For my look at the blind use of bully language and its role in disempowering us as Stockholm Syndrome, see:
Unseen Stockholm Syndrome And Other Oddities of Being Alive in a MisSpelled See of Words.)
Girardian Mimesis: Introduction, Consideration and Critique
Recently my sister and her husband and author Jasun Horsley, who is an interesting contributor here on Substack — Children of Job — have been consistently bringing to my attention Girardian mimesis as a key component of the (inevitable?) social destruction we are seeing. I’ve not read anything significant of Girard’s idea of mimesis and scapegoating directly. My knowledge of it was limited to discussions with my sister and others, and listening to others using it to describe the apparent cyclical nature of social destruction through copycat-jealousy and scapegoating.
As I was looking at my survival from under the anti-male sentiment of my life, I had a curious ‘aha’ moment. ‘Is not,’ I asked myself, ‘Stockholm Syndrome simply a form or manifestation of [my limited understanding of] Girardian mimesis?’ My thoughts turned to my need to conform into the self-denigration by mimetically becoming a participant of the community that was debasing me. Surely that, my mimicking conformity with anti-male animus, is an example of Girardian mimesis.
So the time had come for me to do a bit of digging. Here is a snapshot of Girard’s literature-based or inspired theory. Nothing to worry about having rapidly transposed an idea of literary patterns of behaviour to the stranger-than-fiction reality of life! From “What Is Mimetic Theory?”, a web-page devoted to all things Girard:
If the image is too hard to read, here it is in text [with my comments appended].
1) Mimetic Desire
After basic needs are satisfied (food, sex, safety, shelter), people move into the realm of desire in which there isn't a biological "radar" or instincts to guide them. Instead, their radar becomes other people. People want what other people want. Desire is social. [Q: is this perhaps grounded, loosely, with Darwin’s (false) ideas of evolution? What about the face-mirroring ‘mimesis’ that is an important part of Donald Winnicot’s ‘good-enough’ parenting? It has nothing to do with scarcity of goods and everything to do with being seen.]
2) Conflict
Because people want what other people want, there will inevitably be conflict as people compete for the same goods. Mimetic desire leads to mimetic rivalry. [This seems to me to be founded in the inculcated, although in reality incorrect, economic ideology of scarcity as ubiquitous that has been successfully perpetuated and gaslighted as a key social rigid truth.]
3) Scapegoating
When mimetic contagion has spread throughout a community and led it into chaos, the typical way that human communities have dealt with the chaos has been the scapegoating mechanism, in which groups (through a mimetic process) single-out a single individual or problem as the source of their problems and violently expel or eliminate this member from the community. [This idea appears to be beholden to Hobbesian (William Golding’s) mostly false conceptualisation of the human animal as absolutely without compassion and completely besotted with violence without an authority structure to pen them up.]
4) The Cover-Up
After the scapegoating mechanism has been enacted, human culture springs up around it as a way to cover-up the founding murder. Taboos, prohibitions, and other laws are enacted [to] prevent the spread of [the] violence that led up to the original founding murder, and the founding murder is ritually enacted over and over again as a means of catharsis and a way to prevent the spread of further violence. This amounts to an elaborate, cultural cover-up. This is true of nations, communities, organisations, and even families. [Really? The murder of a single entity is enough to mobilise the entire society in this way? Doesn’t seem likely. Girard specifies the scapegoat as an individual in this presentation. And his description, summarised here, doesn’t provide a mechanism by which the society as a whole mobilises against a group. Matthias Desmet’s proposed mechanism of ‘mass formation’ does a much better job at this. Although when I examined it, I became convinced that the deeper issue that allows mass formation is actually obedience to authority. See:
On 'Mass Formation', Woke and Corporatist News: Saviour from What?]
So, To My Surprise, Stockholm Syndrome Isn’t An Example Of Girard’s Principle: My ‘Aha’ Was A False Flag
By this definition my ‘mimetic behaviour’, ie Stockholm Syndrome, in itself falls outside Girard’s paradigm because mimesis as a survival (or coping) technique is excluded — Girard limits his mimetic theory to only confrontation and scapegoating. I don’t think that is a tenable argument! Certainly my having used mimesis to survive the conditions of my early life may ultimately result in my scapegoating an other at some point in the future. And that that would be at the direction of the society’s morally respected authority figure(s), who used some kind of ‘big mother’ psyche-social techniques of manipulation to have arbitrarily designated or assigned this or that non-conformist group as being comprised of those undeserving respect except as becoming a worthy scapegoat. And yet that ultimate conclusion, that I may collude with or be the victim of scapegoating even if tenable, still renders Girard’s theory woefully inadequate. It is interesting to note that I had become a member of the scapegoat group when I rejected the jab and lost my job and the respect of the community and became an undeserving.
Hmmmm. As I wrote that, a curious thought came to mind for future consideration. And that is to what extent are all psyop operations are by their forms of action, energy and effect, big mother ones. And that they have been incorrectly — or by deliberate psyops — ascribed to big brother, ie the ubiquitous masculine toxicity and the so-called evil of ‘the patriarchy’. To hide an evil, put it plain site and babel the language used to describe it.
Anyway, I became curious if I could find someone else having seen this correlation or partial overlap between Girard’s mimetic theory and Stockholm Syndrome. And so I non-Google searched through about a dozen papers over four web-pages of links. I didn’t find that. I did find some interesting stuff including actually dipping my toes into some of the details of Girard’s literary plot theory of mimesis as the singular expression of the evolution of humanity and its social organisations. By chance, after having expanded my understanding (or at least reading) of the theory, I came to a really good and interesting explanation of a significant problem with Girard’s simplistic transposed literary description of the complexity of human interactions and social structures: it puts these complex behaviours of societies and their individual constituents into a very simple and tight structure (literary plot-like?) that, in order to be seen as valid, ignores or suppresses contradictory evidence. A nice critique here:
“Girardian doctrine is a theory of everything, on the cheap. It’s one of those systems that make you feel as though you know everything about everything while in fact requiring you to know almost nothing about anything; it’s enough to “know” the four stages [of the theory] mentioned above and bingo, you have an explanation for the stock market crash, the evils of capitalism, and your neighbour’s ugly divorce. (As a bonus, you can also feel superior to those who don’t see the deep truth of such things.)” (Joshua Landy, cited at “Where The Mimetic Theory by René Girard Fails” by Soundarya Balasubramani.)
(Another more nuanced critique is to be found in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays by Edward Said, pp 137-9 available as a pdf here.)
This argument sits well with me because my observation of the singularity of problem and solution that comprises the organised roll-out and purpose of the convid and, with time, the increasingly organised and singularity of problem and solution in the counter reactions and/or movements to it. Both sides are largely, although not completely, aligned mimetically(?) with the energy of simplistic singularities of problem and solution.
Wow! I just started laughing at the thought that that is one of the cornerstones of both New Agism and militant feminism: there is singularity of solution and problem. And both rely on disembodiment and a kind of blaming victimisation: the latter, of men and their structures which are to be eliminated; and the former, to embrace the reality of human form as a kind of foul pustule on the planet that needs be purged with the full acceptance of striving towards an anti-life disembodied ‘enlightenment’.
Uh-Oh! My Brain Went on a Tangent and I Decided that I Would Replace Girard with My Own Theory of Mimesis
If the images are too hard to read for you, here are the texts:
1) Mimesis As Adaptation*
After basic needs are satisfied (food, sex, safety, shelter), people move into the realm of adaptation to their environment. With 'good enough' parenting the minimal threats to the child's state of well being allows for a form of mimesis that doesn't inhibit future curiosity about the world or of the self reforming itself and/or the world. On the other hand the threatened child [with inadequate parenting] will develop mimesis in order to survive. This is early onset Stockholm Syndrome that will tend to inhibit future curiosity and create moralistic and social rigidities about what is true and what is unacceptable in society.
2) Rigidification Of Truth
Because conformity is survival for people with Stockholm Syndrome, especially for infant or childhood onset, anxiety is a base level and usually an unconscious substrate-feeling that demands address.
Usually this appears as addictive behaviours of all kinds and an unbalanced deference to or, sometimes, an unbalanced rejection of, authority structures of various kinds. In both cases the morality unconsciously guiding them re-creates the system of authority that birthed the annihilation anxiety. The overriding desire is for the anxiety to go away, and the seeker of relief looks for conformity with, or absolute rejection of, the 'norm'.
3) Scapegoating
When the energy of annihilation anxiety permeates the society to a high enough pitch a scapegoat group will be manufactured by authority, or less commonly, spontaneously. The scapegoat group is comprised of any who do not conform to the arbitrarily 'required norm'. This creates the emotional lightening rod that can temporarily ease the perceived threat to the community’s survival and personal annihilation anxiety.
This mechanism is frequently used by the authority structures to build and maintain their base of power and the associated benefits they perceive that derive from that power.
4) The Cover-Up
After the scapegoating mechanism has been enacted, the authority mechanism initiates control actions to restore the society to one of an ordered and manageable anxiety. Those actions will include gaslighting, taboos, new or renewed prohibitions and the rewriting of history.
This creation of a believed false reality allows for the authority structure to recreate scapegoating as a mechanism of control at anytime by either creating the situation to exacerbate anxiety (ie, create [wars or] plandemics) or to manage the society when the anxiety is perceived to be at a turning point.
*This has Limitations Because of the ‘Problem’ of Choice
* Fortunately this description is not universal. There are extraordinary people who are, for unknown reasons, able to go against the stream of this form of mind control. And even more extraordinary people who have provided guidance to do that.
For example, Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ. Gautama was very specific about the means of breaking this cycle. It is comprised of the principle of reducing suffering using the eightfold path as a guide.
And, similarly, Christ's advocation of loving thy neighbour as thyself as a mechanism of disempowering the authorities. Both advised that the truth lies within our own hearts, to trust our deepest Selves, not our anxious and poorly reasoning minds.
I am surprised at the prominence given to Girard. So, I am open to my quick investigation to be extended to test the waters of my understanding of how his literary theory can viably attach itself to explanations of life’s inexplicable magics.
Have I Even Come Close to Answering ‘What Kind of Man Am I?’ Where Can I Find the Answer!?
Olivia: What kind of man are you? Guy: Why, of mankind. Olivia: What manner of man? Guy: Of very ill manner; Once I’ve cleared my shadows I’ll speak honestly with you, will you or no. Olivia: So you dissemble even so quick! For this means you shall not speak to me. (Adapted from Twelfth Night, Act 5 Scene 1, 149-153, by Edward de Vere (aka Shakespeare.)
I looked back at my original writing and it began with looking outside myself for ‘manly’ examples and quips. Such as the Twelfth Night rephrase above. I spent time thinking about Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew as some kind of mentor-figure. (In the 1990s I lambasted a (male) newspaper critic who condemned Shrew as so misogynist that it needs to be permanently removed from repertoire. I pointed out that the men of that play are all but one, weak, lazy, lying, manipulators. If anything it is misandristic far more than it is misogynist. And all the weak men embarrass themselves in the end by assuming a masculine authority that they assumed came with dropped testicles rather than with the character walking them as was done, controversially, by Petruchio the tamer.)
In a sense, the kind of ‘man’ (human, in reality) I am is one exploring truths and arguments with curiosity and a more and more opening mind and heart. And my notes tell me I started this in late May, shortly after my partner re-joined me after a fourteen month absence. That seems to have triggered deep shadow work in me, poking at my annihilation anxiety I had from infancy when my mother brought me to an early near death experience. And that shadow ‘work’ may have culminated in pacemaker surgery for my heart in July.
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The pacemaker surgery has cleaned out my bank account and has me asking for monetary help. If you think you might want to help me out, I’ve detailed my situation, the reason for my request, and the objective to be reached, here:
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This is to be continued. I’ll end this now, although I’ve added an appendix of the I Ching casting I did immediately before beginning writing this a few days ago.
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Appendix
I Ching 2024.09.06 Friday: The Query
Good evening, Sage. It is about 21:45 and it has now been several months since I began to explore this idea of my being a man. What is that? The last two Fridays I’ve actually attended a mens’ group meeting for the first time, I think. I’ve had thoughts swirling around seemingly not coming to a point of writing something coherent. I’ve laughed at myself for thinking about Nikki Myers’ introduction to herself as a multi-faceted woman / human being, and that an addict in recovery or her being a yoga master is too narrow a description. [Stories of Victory with Nikki Myers: Struggle Made Me | Recovery 2.0.]
I have been drawn to write about this, get my thoughts down. Perhaps begin to bring myself back to a weekly effort [in substack]. Anyway, with PS-RAP, [Psyche-Somatic Awareness Process] I have been directed to consult with your wisdom. And so my question is: ‘What kind of man am I?’
The casting and results.
13. ——0—— 27. Jaws of it All; becomes 17. —— —— 24. Return (Hinton) 17. —— —— 17. —— —— 27. I / Corners of the Mouth (Providing Nourishment); becomes 17. —— —— 24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point) (Wilhelm/Baynes) 21. ————— Highlights. Note: for the really curious I've included the complete text of Hinton below. And the Wilhelm/Baynes I link to the complete text. Hinton's Translation 27. Jaws Of It All In the jaws of it all, good fortune is inexhaustible indeed. Looking into the jaws of it all with that heron's-eye gaze, we each hunt out food to fill our bellies. [Yes. I am looking with great intensity for the ‘truth’ of Self, of shadow in the unconscious (under the water’s surface) for what will feed my spirit, the eccentric interests of my ‘soul’ — whatever that is.] … Like heaven and earth fostering the ten thousand things, a great sage fosters wise elders and thereby brings wisdom to the ten thousand people. … Image … the noble-minded instill their words and voices with caution, their food and drink with simplicity. 24. Return All return penetrating everywhere, things emerge and die back without any anxious longing. Friends come without going astray. They turn back, returning to travel their own Way, and after seven days come, returning again. Setting out toward a destination brings forth wild bounty indeed. Presentation All return penetrating everywhere, everything steely as a mountain in cloud turns back, moves with the dragon's inciting force, yielding and devoted as a river. This is to emerge and die back without any anxious longing. __________________ Wilhelm/Baynes: 27. I / Corners of the Mouth (Providing Nourishment) … The Judgment … Pay heed to the providing of nourishment And to what a man seeks To fill his own mouth with. In bestowing care and nourishment, it is important that the right people are to be taken care of and that we are to attend to our own nourishment in the right way. If we wish to know what anyone is like, we have only to observe on whom he bestows his care and what sides of his own nature he cultivates and nourishes. Nature nourishes all creatures. … The Image … the superior man is careful of his words And temperate in eating and drinking.
(My emphasis — as I’ve written elsewhere in Substack, what I put into my mouth has been of utmost importance and a sacred act, perhaps my most sacred act, since 2016. See my ‘Body’ series starting with:
how now to know how the body is true beyond the need for truth or believe?)
Words are a movement going from within outward. Eating and drinking are movements from without inward. Both kinds of movement can be modified by tranquillity. For tranquillity keeps the words that come out of the mouth from exceeding proper measure, and keeps the food that goes into the mouth from exceeding its proper measure. Thus character is cultivated. The [Moving] Line Nine at the top means: … This describes a sage of the highest order, from whom emanate all influences that provide nourishment for others. Such a position brings with it heavy responsibility. If he remains conscious of this fact, he has good fortune and may confidently undertake even great and difficult labours, …. These undertakings bring general happiness for him and for all others. 24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point) … The Judgment Success. … After a time of decay comes the turning point. … the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results. Societies of people sharing the same views are formed. But since these groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony with the time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is made. … The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. … The Image … Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it [is to] be strengthened by rest so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely. This principle, i.e., of allowing energy that is renewing itself to be reinforced by rest, applies to all similar situations. The return of health after illness, the return of understanding after an estrangement: everything [is to] be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return may lead to a flowering.
David Hinton’s Translation of the I Ching: The Book of Change: A New Translation.
Full Text of Casting 27 and 24.
27. Jaws Of It All In the jaws of it all, good fortune is inexhaustible indeed. Looking into the jaws of it all with that heron's-eye gaze, we each hunt out food to fill our bellies. Presentation In the jaws of it all, good fortune is inexhaustible indeed. It's fostering the hinge of things that brings forth good fortune. Looking into the jaws of it all with that heron's-eye gaze. This is the heron's-eye gaze into whatever fosters you. We each hunt out food to fill our bellies. This is the heron's-eye gaze into whatever fosters you. Like heaven and earth fostering the ten thousand things, a great sage fosters wise elders and thereby brings wisdom to the ten thousand people. How vast, how utterly vast it is: the jaws of it all following their proper seasons! Mountain (Still, Abiding) Thunder (Dragon, Inciting) Image Beneath mountains, thunder: that is the Jaws of It All. Using it, the noble-minded instill their words and voices with caution, their food and drink with simplicity. [Moving] Line … 9 in the 6th From the jaws of it all comes affliction and good fortune. Crossing a great river brings forth wild bounty. 24 Return All return penetrating everywhere, things emerge and die back without any anxious longing. Friends come without going astray. They turn back, returning to travel their own Way, and after seven days come, returning again. Setting out toward a destination brings forth wild bounty indeed. Presentation All return penetrating everywhere, everything steely as a mountain in cloud turns back, moves with the dragon's inciting force, yielding and devoted as a river. This is to emerge and die back without any anxious longing. Friends come without going astray. They turn back, returning to travel their own Way, and after seven days come, returning again. This is the movement of heaven. Setting out toward a destination brings forth wild bounty indeed. In this, everything steely as a mountain in cloud persists. In return itself, you can see the very heart-mind of all heaven and earth. Earth (Yielding, Devoted) Thunder (Dragon, Inciting) Image Thunder at the earth's abiding center: that is Return. Using it, the first emperors closed borderland gates at the winter solstice. Merchants and travellers stayed home from their journeys, and lords stayed home from the inspection of their lands.