The Theme is "Change"

A number of years ago, quite a number of years as I add them up, my church was the center of a large study of the ideas of CJ Jung.  The times were right for it.  I will never forget the first full presentation that I heard, a lecture called, "The Death of Metaphysics," by the Rev. John Sanford, who was our priest at that time.
It struck me as deeply right, as if someone finally had some answers for the workings of my chaotic soul.

Not to dwell untimely on that part of it, I'd like to mention a series of lectures I was fortunate enough to attend during the several years of these studies.  Father Sanford got Dr. EE Anderson to come to give us a series of four lectures on the  I Ching.

Dr Anderson was an Anglican priest who was a Professor of Religion at San Diego State College. He was an expert in studies of Eastern Religions.  He was quiet, expressive, astute.  All of us who attended the four lectures received an education  that I can only describe as unique.

The I Ching is a Chinese (or Indian) book of divination. That does not sound quite right in these more rigid times,  so let us say a book for meditation. Its main message is: Change. Everything is changing all the time. Change is the one unchanging thing in our universe. Dr Anderson taught us how to throw the yarrow sticks or the coins in order to form hexagrams. The I Ching book has the keys to the results of these lines. Proper study and daily use of these hexagrams can do a great deal to ward off anxiety, I found, and to stabilize a fractious nature such as mine.  I will not go into detail as to the procedures and use of the book, because that info is available all over the web now. 

I would use it daily and copy down in a notebook the results of each day's perusal. I soon learned to stop trying to understand it. I just took it literally. If it said it was going to rain, I expected rain.  In a time of tumult in our marriage when my husband would be absent for months or finally years at a time, I 'd consult it daily. I got to the point finally where I felt that I didnt need it any more and a wise friend told me that that's the point of it. You are supposed to use it until you don't need it any more.  How wise of the Chinese to think of that all those years ago.  But its principles do not change. All is change. 

This blog is going to change. Slowly and little by little  I am going to lighten it up, put on more pictures, see what I can do with it (translation: what it can do with me) to make it better.  We shall see.  There will be change. YAZZYBEL