When I woke this morning, my soul was slumped. It's a sensation I'm familiar with. The feeling is an internal heaviness. In its physical impression, it is in the same class of a common self-pity. But it doesn't really matter to dissect it in detail—not that I ever could—what's important for me to know is that the soul slump is the fertilizer for an eventual root of giving up. And if some alchemy is not performed during fertilization, there will soon be a fertile field layed within me, sprouting the seeds of giving up. I'll call the slumped soul sensation, the sagging ridgepole; a term used in the I Ching, Hexagram 28.
Don't Give Up: An Alchemical Process
I am no expert on this ancient book. But it has such great imagery in describing the cycles of our life and I'm an artist, and I love imagery, especially imagery I'm free to interpret.
I find myself perusing The Book Of Changes often. In Hexagram 28, there is this picture of a sagging roof, with a ridgepole bent, about to buckle under the weight of the roof.
The book is usually used for divination (but doesn't have to be), so, depending on the conditions under which it is read, it may come across with different applicable meanings to each reader. But this one image always comes to mind when my soul is slumped and sagging.
There are quite a few translations and commentaries of the I Ching, and I'm not attempting so much to explore the I Ching. I just want to use its superb imagery to make a point and it's necessary to explain it a little bit.
Hex 28 remedy for the sagging ridgepole is, 'Move any direction whatever"
...depicts a weak beam. Under such conditions, it is advantageous to move in any direction whatever. Success is indicated.
Its prescription for this sagging roof is a little surprise each time I read it. I think, "Sagging ridgepole? get out your tools, the hydraulic jack and start wedging in a new beam. But, the book of changes, is not for home construction... it's about the moves of the Tao (Dào meaning 'The Way'), the changes and cycles of life. An intuitive exploration into a framework of the ever-changing landscapes of our life. It's like a chess game for the soul: life makes this move, then try this move.
Its prescribed moves are further explained by commentaries on 'The Image' and the 'changing lines' Don't worry if you don't know what those are because I'm not going to get into it. Except to relate it to my ideas of the sagging soul and maybe find its actual basis in this case.
The general concept I get from several commentaries is that:
- There is a load too heavy for you in this 'change' of life.
- It is threatening the very structure of your 'path' at this juncture.
- 'The load' is actually only ideas. Cultural ideas, expectations based on your outside surrounding community/world, political correctness, Family expectations, inner fear (paralysis) toward such things.. etc.
- In these conditions, The answer is to stand alone—against the world, if need be—because it is the world's ideas (expectations) that has finally become too heavy... buckling your roof, causing inner fears.
And finally - It is a time to follow your 'Best' intuition wherever it may lead. And that is the 'move in any direction whatever'. The weight is actually based on too much reliance on the outside illusions in society. The answer to the slumping soul is to walk out alone and follow your intuitions.
In case this might be taken as a general prescription to all of life, the I Ching is not like that. It assesses ( The judgment) the 'situation' and addresses it according to the conditions.
In the slumping soul conditions that I am exploring, this seems to be what's going on within me. You may need to expand the outside 'weights' on your roof to your own particular outside pressures... but the slumping soul is caused by too much digestion of the expectations placed upon us— willingly, unwillingly or subconsciously—from the outside world. And the answer is to take a break from what you think you should be doing and do whatever—whatsoever—your 'best' intuitions say to do at this moment; regardless of the world's ideas, and especially in an inward stance of 'Standing alone, against the norms' of your community, family, cultural and political correctness and so forth. This may cause a great breakthrough, or may only just sheer up the beam, but in the least, it will jostle your world enough to pull out of the slump and back into your day's path.
Transformations
This is an alchemy of sorts. In fact, I just played a little game with the reader. If you read the above paragraphs, you just witnessed me performing an intuitive alchemy. A construction, or a framework around the inward material of my slumping soul, with real physical tools: words.
I knew as I sat down today to write that I was here to perform an alchemy on my slumping soul (or my melancholy mood), a transmutation of one material into another material. Usually one common material into a precious material. That is what alchemy is in its essence.
We think of it because of popular stories and historical depictions as turning an actual physical material a mineral, into another material, such as turning lead to gold. Some historical information still acts as though that was what it was really about, where alchemy was a spiritual science and very much occulted (hidden).
But it need not be any more dazzling than turning one mood into another. If you can perform this, you have performed a very powerful transmutation. If you perform it often and study the architecture of your efforts and findings, well, you might as well be an Alchemist. No magical cauldron needed.
Rocky The Alchemist
There is a type of alchemy we do all the time yet we may not be aware of it. Watching a movie, or reading a book. An instance of Alchemy in my own movie watching is the movie, Rocky. Now, I seriously have no reason to watch this movie ever again. I know it so well that I might be able to quote the whole damn thing. But, I use it directly as an alchemic formula. Through studying my own moods, and pitfalls, and wanting something more, something 'transformed' in my life, I have found common ways to change my mood (substance) powerfully, into another substance.
For me—and even my family knows this: If they hear the Rocky soundtrack coming from the other room, they know that I'm in a bad way. In a hole, I can't get out of mentally. And that I'll be better in about two hours. This trick is my own, and might only work for me in this way. it has something to do with my childhood, and me calling forth something that is in me, from those days, that I lose touch with in my older years. I call it an Alchemic formula because I studied myself. Each mood has different 'classes' within it; shades, colors, properties and textures. There are levels of a mood, and Rocky will not work for all levels of the 'defeated' mood. But there is a certain class of my own 'defeated' moods, in which it works quite well.
The Alchemist in leather pants
Another one is music. But not just turning on any music that fits my current lousy mood. Which was my practice in youth (i.e. I'm depressed: Album Choice - Elliott Smith).
As an Alchemist, the last thing I would do would be to reinforce a slumping soul with 'slumping soul train'. I want to change these properties of the soul, into the material I am desiring. But I can't trick the circuitry of my inner workings by throwing on happy music... i.e. The happiest song on earth.
I have to work within its circuits, to perform a true transformation. So a musical alchemy might be to start off with that sad defeated music, then listen to one song that is slightly more elevated toward the 'quality' of spirit I'm seeking to obtain... then once again, the next song one step closer to that quality.. and so forth, until my soul is well enough changed to jive a bit to Django Reinhardt while I clean up my studio. The quality of mood has then been transmuted, and in such a way that it is real—not forced, not hypocritical.
The DIY Alchemist
Then I have more formal formulations and experiments and recipes. Such as the I Ching transmutation above. And that was a true transmutation. Right after that section, I had to run some errands. I realized in the car that my soul slump had been completely elevated and replaced with a calm determination to do my work today.
Here is some alchemical work from my own personal Journal. It is a construction and experiment of my own work, with my own materials. Though these are more just thought experiments. Understanding more the inner workings of an issue, of a 'material' that I am trying to transform into another. This one being my bothersome and ever frustrating way of procrastination. I deconstruct some 'properties,' such as my moods, limiting beliefs, habits, natures... etc. Into something more like the workings of a clock; this I do to grasp these etherial intangible objects that seem to run my life.
It is more formal in its formulation, because I may use one material, in this case, the wisdom of the I Ching, but then apply it to my experiment: Transmutation of the slumping soul into calm productivity. It did not matter that it was the I Ching, it could have easily been a thousand other books of imagery, even a painting, or a poem. The Alchemy is that I leveraged its elements into something useful for my own experiment.
I sometimes even have no outside help, but instead, design my own languages or pictorial forms. I may design a process of immaterial soul objects to construct a workable plan for the material accomplishment of a music project.
And that gets into more complicated boring ideas to write about... what is important to take away is:
- First is the knowledge that we can 'transmute' our feelings, moods, limitations, prejudices, fears, into other 'materials' more useful for our desired state of being.
- A willingness to do this, and to practice it. Even in the smallest ways, such as music and movie formulas.
- Willingness to work at it. There is no easy way out on the self-exploration path. It's a lot of hard work sometimes. The hardest of it all is just allowing enough quiet uninterrupted time into your days to work your 'experiments.' To stop and asses the outcome, to tweak it and try again the next day.
- Much like the findings in my own Hexagram 28 experiment today. We have to step outside the norms. This is a path that takes you out of the mainstream. The mainstream looks outside for answers. The Alchemist looks inwardly. And, yea, you can go buy books on alchemy and get lost in a bunch of arcane knowledge. Or, you can just do the work yourself, with your own imaginings, your own drawings, your own music, your own 'best' intuitions of what formulas to try on yourself. With the materials of your own spiritual lineage, with the materials of your own soul; knowing the qualities you want to achieve in your life.
Howdy, I'm 
image hex 28
image 2 hexagrams
alchmist painting
rocky
django