Sometimes when I wake up I'm fortunate to remember my dreams. I try to so that I can discover anything I need to be paying attention to that day or during that life phase. Today I learned that it is a normal part of Hawaiian tradition to look for dream indications of what one needs to attend to. I suspect that this is a part of many traditions that are guided by a connection to Earth cycles.
Fortunately, this was a morning when part of my dreams from last night came back to me.
Recently I've been contemplating The Gene Keys, a mystery system for activating one's latent DNA at a spiritual level by contemplating a sort of poetry of the Self. In my dream I was discussing the 42 pattern with some people, and we were saying that while we had fixed a problem for now, it was going to keep coming back now that our civilization had reached a certain point in its development. We were now going to have to always be alert for the signs that the problem we'd just solved was re-emerging, and once again be ready to heal the situation with our wisdom.
Once I got up I thought the 42 probably related to The Gene Keys, since I've been studying them daily and also had a conversation with a friend about them just before bed last night. So today I took a look at the 42nd Key, shown below.
Here's the back of that same card (from the Rave I Ching card deck).
The 42nd Shadow
"The 42nd Shadow is that aspect within your genetics responsible for keeping you always sitting at the expectation station. It does this by entangling your desires with your mind....
The 42nd Shadow is actually one of the Shadows at the source of all human mental fear, because the 42nd Shadow concerns death. This is the Gene Key that literally programmes us to die and it exists in every living cell as a built-in design for decay. Because our neocortex perceives life as time flowing by, it is the source of our anxiety about time running out. The notion of time and your response or reaction to its passing is rooted profoundly in this 42nd Gene Key which closes all natural life cycles, and in particular the seven-year cycle of growth and decay....
When expectation manifests through a repressive nature, it becomes an inability to let go and a continual grasping at life. These people simply do not want things to end, and do anything to keep everything the way it is. This is a deeply rooted fear of change. Obviously, everything in life does come to an end in order that something new can be born." -- Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys
When I reflect on this, and recall more of the dream context in which it was brought to my attention, I do feel like we are at a turning point between cycles right now.
Something is dying that needed to die, just as something new is being born. Yet that which has died is not content to stay dead. It will keep trying to reassert itself, pulling us backward into a death that does not lead to rebirth, thus ending our evolution.
Much of what we are needing to leave behind is the insatiable grasping at more, more, more with this expectation that somehow that will give us fulfillment. That unquenchable thirst is draining our planet, undermining its ability to sustain our lives and that of so many other species who are living in right-relationship with the Earth already.
Another aspect of this Shadow element in our culture is not ever committing to anything to see it through to completion. Instead of holding on to what is complete and ready to evolve into something new, nothing ever completes in the first place. There is the fear of being owned by that which we dare to care about, so that one never really invests themselves in anything. Instead round and round they go, repeating situations setting them up for the same growth opportunity/lesson they keep avoiding.
Taking the Goldilocks attitude, not too hard, not too soft, is what is needed in either case. We don't want to be hard and rigid, so grasping, or too soft so avoiding responsibility or growth.
What Health Looks Like
In so many ways, health comes down to acceptance of what is emerging and a willingness to remain responsive whatever arises. When we try to control what is beyond our control, it wears us down. Similarly when we resist change that is inevitable, we wind up breaking ourselves against that tidal wave.
We can't control what happens in life, but hopefully we can develop the ability to control how we respond to life.
As the cycles of life swirl, how comfortable can we be in flowing with them?
How do we greet the idea of being made new?
Do we fear allowing life to change us? Does the very idea feel like the threat of death?
This is not something taught particularly well in the culture I grew up in. Some cultures are more supportive of the idea of a give and take with the cycles of life. Those living close to nature are going to naturally have an advantage in doing this, because nature's cycles are obvious and inescapable. So if you are taking cues from nature as to when to plant, when to rest, when to feast, when to celebrate, and so on, you have a natural corrective system available to you.You don't even have to think of it in these terms. It just is the way everyone around you is living, so it's fully supported unconsciously.
Where I am, we have to be more intentional about implementing new habits and rituals that support a life of responsible responding on a path of wonder, curiosity and joy.
Seeing continuity within change is one thing that makes it a little easier.
Beyond Mere Health
"The joke at the heart of all creation can only be experienced directly. It lives within the heart of every cell of your being. You are constantly in a state of dying — every cell within your body is dying from the moment it is created — so in essence you are not really alive at all — you are simply a passage through which matter is endlessly converted into energy.... It is rather like sitting by a river and following the currents and eddies with your eyes as they continually disappear from view. If you stop watching the river and simply gaze at it with your peripheral vision, you often have a curious experience of timelessness. The river no longer has a direction — it simply comes at you and out of you from every part of your being.... Celebration is the direct manifestation of true awakening, rooted as it is in the utter helplessness of what it means to be alive and dying inside a human body." -- Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys
If you've never read from The Gene Keys before, that last quote might be sending you for a loop right now.
I find that I always have to read the sections on the Siddhis of each gene key several times. It often helps to draw or stare at the image from the related card from the Rave deck until something just shoots through me. It's like awareness dawning, but without words.
Having to pass everything through our language processing centers really limits us. If we can access a knowing that is without language, that's the transformative experience I think. That's where we get the transmission of the state the words are trying to point at. I believe this can in fact come through the written word if we are willing to be creative in how we approach what we're reading.
That's why the gene keys are called "keys." Their contemplation literally unlocks something within your DNA, activating what had been only latent potential.
In Summary
My takeaway is that with a lot of what I've been doing there is a completion happening right now, as I prepare to enter a new revolution around the spiral.
It's important as I do this to be conscious of my fear of letting go, even as I look forward to what's coming. It is easy to fall into a hope that puts expectations on the future, then fall into despair when things turn out differently. It sets one up for disappointment to put conditions on the future, however positive they may seem.
The challenge for me right now is to fully commit to this in-between place on the path of what I'm helping be born into this civilization also at a turn in the road, without creating a duality between wanted and unwanted. To surrender to The Good so thoroughly that you trust it is being served through your actions when you simply ground in love then move where you are being carried, that's the task at hand.
At least, according to my dream, that's the task I need to be thinking about today. Perhaps this serves your journey too. Namaste.
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(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)
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