As I watch the news with a sick feeling in my stomach, seeing the beginnings of the largest man-made disaster of my lifetime start to appear on the shores of the Gulf Coast, I wonder when we as a people will start caring for the Earth that has cared for us for millions of years. Politics aside, our attitude and behavior towards the world around us is in serious need of an radical adjustment. The I Ching refers to K’UN, The Receptive, as "natural response." All six lines are Yin, feminine, open, and willing. Most of the translations say that Natural Response "brings exceptional progress" or "sublime success" with "quiet perseverance bringing good fortune." One of my favorite translations from Carol Anthony states "Bear with everything as the Earth bears with all that lives on it."
The Earth really does bear with us, doesn’t it? It is rather upsetting, then, as we watch slow-motion disasters creep upon on our shores with people running around, confused, panicked, and desperate. Considering that we tend to have ample warnings from scientists about situations like this, money and corporate profits seem to always beat out Brown Pelicans, shrimp, and coastal grasslands. And people. People who survive on those delicate ecosystems that don’t have as much money and power as BP and Haliburton. This is all eerily similar to watching Category 5 Katrina bearing down on Louisiana and us not having a clear path to deal with the impending doom. We are in a Metal Tiger year and as I warned in February, Tigers are notorious for natural and man-made disasters that force us to deal with our screwed up priorities, our lack of common sense and forethought, and our lack of compassion for the planet and its inhabitants.
The roar of an angry (and near-extinct-in-the-wild) Tiger is there to remind us of what is really important in the long term and to get our attention before it is too late. Relying on miracles and corporate titans to be responsible is no longer an option. In the last 2 years, we have seen what happens when you do rely on people self-policing: Wall Street greed collapsing the economy, environmental disasters, coal mine and oil rig explosions, and the list goes on. The root of the word "responsibility" is "response" or our natural ability to respond.
What will our natural response be now? Our culture, so heavily invested in Yang energy (consciousness), loves to ignore the soft, willing, flexible, nurturing energy of Yin. But it is incredibly important to realize that Yin is power. Yin controls Yang. It seems counter-intuitive, but think of the wind. It appears to blow, push and force its way; but in reality, it is pulled into low pressure, which is Yin.
My sincere prayer for our current state of being is that our collective natural response becomes compassionate, caring and nurturing for the long term. That we begin to really get the consequences of our Yang addiction, that money and corporate interests are no longer seen as more important than human beings, Brown Pelicans, shrimp, and coastal grasslands. Ignoring our Yin Mother is no longer an option.