The YANG! Yin
I had a vision of this thing above in Feb 2018, but this post has been sitting in my drafts. Below is what I wrote then, perhaps slightly edited. The illustration above says “problem worth solving,” and I see now that it’s more like, a “discord worth attending to,” but it’s an important idea, people, so please stay with me.
***
I’ve always called this thing the yin yang, but it’s actually called the taijitu, or symbol of Taiji.
But the image from my vision is not a “yin yang,” it is something different. It’s so full of white, so little black. I notice it. That white is the yang section, yeah? And that’s masculine, right? I think so… the black is the yin, the feminine… oh.
It’s out of balance.
There’s so much yang, so little yin, and the ways in which they’re interacting aren’t equal and harmonious.
The next day I sit down to draw the image above as I see it, and I think about “opposites.” I try to guess which notions are yin, and which are yang, and intuitively, and based on what my female body does and what a male’s does, I can understand where most things fit:
Yin: receptive, dark, slow, soft, yielding, cold, wet, diffuse, passive: winter, water, earth, moon, nighttime, feminine.
Yang: active, light, fast, hard, solid, hot, dry, focused, active: summer, fire, sky, sun, daytime, masculine.
(I cribbed the above from wikipedia for the sake of clarity)
This is what the image that comes to me means: We’re out of balance.
For a long time I’ve been living in a culture where masculine qualities are more highly valued than feminine qualities. This value that we place on masculine qualities is fine to a point, but when we belittle, ignore, or shame the more feminine qualities for the sake of the more “exciting” masculine qualities, we find ourselves in discord. And when this pattern of making masculine “better than” feminine continues for, as I see it, thousands of years, then we experience some intense reverberations of this imbalance.
I think a lot of our societal (and global, perhaps) problems stem from this imbalance. Maybe it’s an oversimplification, but maybe not: To achieve “success” we tell each other to “Aim high!” “Work hard!” We strive for a constant state of happiness, elation, joy. If we’re sad, something is “wrong.” We’ve reached incredible intellectual and technological heights (be it sexist or not, I’m going to call those things “yang”), but as a culture, we largely ignore or “don’t believe in” our intuition, our felt senses, our inherent connectedness (yin.)
•••
Hi, it’s Sept 2019 me again 🙂
I’ve been training in Taiji pretty much every day all summer, so past-me’s newness to the taijitu is simply darling. ❤
It seems that my culture has shifted into a better understanding of yin in the last year, which I think is pretty awesome. I mean, Lizzo has come into her power, and I know a mountain of chocolatey yin energy when I see one. I would like to build a little home for myself in the shade of her mountain…. ahhhh…. Lizzzooooooooooohhhhhhh…..
Back to biz! Vulnerability, self-care, speaking your truth, gender fluidity, awareness of neural diversity, the beginning of scientific understanding of mystical experience (thank you, Michael Pollan) — all of this stuff, I believe, is guiding us on a more harmonious path.
Of course, a lot of things are still really out of whack.
What can I do in the face of that whack?
I can realize that me thinking that things are out of whack is simply my own perception of things…
Perception is key.
If I can shift my perspective, my perception, then my world and my reality shifts…
“Concrete example, Michelle!” I can hear my college English professors saying in my head…
Uhhh, eh, no thanks, not now, I don’t feel like it. (See what I can do now that I’m a grown up! I can break the rules because I know the rules.)
What I will share is this:
When things are unharmonious in my life, while it may not be my fault, it is MY responsibility to attend to the discord. Not to blame someone else for it (though if I need to do that for a while I can and I can see where it gets me…) not to blame society for it (though I could spend a lifetime being someone who shouts at other people to “CHANGE!”) and not to wallow so deeply in self-pity that I become stagnant and depressed (though I’ve certainly done that too 🙂
I just attend to the discord within myself.
So how do I do that? Long answer short, it’s a combination therapy that all boils down to letting myself be me.
Training Journal, D&D, 8/26/19
A Warrior Who Has Dropped Her Weapons…
A WARRIOR WHO HAS DROPPED HER WEAPONS & REMOVED HER ARMOUR
To allow that demon–that pain, that hurt, that choice, that “wrong” to arise…
To hold space for it.
To allow it to be present.
To listen to it.
To be with it.
To be open to it transforming into something sweet…
Or not.
And then to softly release it
back to the earth
while understanding fully
that it might come back to
haunt, sting, bite
at any moment…
And if it does,
when it does,
saying,
“Hello, old friend.”
Standing.
I’ve been training in an esoteric Tai Chi style since last April. Most of the practice is a personal practice, but recently our teacher, who lives far up in Canada from my perspective, came through the Pacific Northwest. While she was in my neck of the woods, I trained with her and a group of my fellow students over the course of six days.
While what she teaches is, on the surface, a physical practice, I find the system holds great value for me as a set of tools for a deeper understanding of self. Within the system my teacher shares, we train together to “increase awareness, expand consciousness, and rest into presence.” (<— I think those are the right words, someone tell me if I’m wrong :))
The method we use in her classes to practice awareness, consciousness, and presence is deceivingly simple: We stand in our bodies and allow resting into center. From there, everything arises.
The problem is, standing and resting into center is soooo very NOT easy to do. Even now, after practicing this “Wuji Standing” regularly since April (which, of course, amounts to a split second in Taiji time) my standing practice goes like this:
I begin standing.
“Okay, here goes, settle into standing. Ahh. That feels nice. Oh, energy down, right, 60% down, 40% up. Oh! My lower dantian, right, I’m supposed to start from there, I’d better start all over again…NO! I’ll go from where I am, that’s what I’m supposed to do. Ahhhh, dropping into the earth earth earth. Good. Oh shit, I’m clenching with the outside edge of my left foot again. Allow that to release. Ahhh. Aaaaand there. The tailbone gets to slide toward the earth, I just learned that one, it feels so good, I remembered when I learned how to allow that tailbone to drop by augmenting the opening with my hands it was one of the best sensations my body has ever felt. Like I’d opened the door to a new room in my house. Maybe that’s what that recurring dream is about! The one where I find a new room I never knew about? The other night I had one where my basement ceiling extended 20 feet higher than I realized. So much space. New possibilities in life, new potential. I should write that down… No! I’m standing right now. My upper back hurts. I bet I need to lean forward just a tad, I’ll try that. No, I won’t “try” it, I’ll “allow” it. And when that happens, head “is invited” back a tiny bit. Thhhhere. Ah. OH! Listen behind, ok, listening. Be aware of back energy. Yes. Ok, now I’m ready to start.”
That’s the first two minutes or so. Two, monkey-minded minutes of what is, in essence, a standing meditation. Then I stand more.
There are worlds within ourselves to discover during standing. For example, very early in my practice with this teacher, seven or eight years ago, I stood in front of her and she observed my posture:
“You’re holding your sternum up. Why are you doing that?” she asked gently and honestly.
I felt for the first time that I was, indeed, always holding my sternum up high. Sticking my chest out. I felt how that posture held residue from when I was the drum major of my high school marching band. How that posture was me feeling “important, in charge, strong, proud.” I let it relax.
“That’s me being ‘proud’ and ‘important,'” I told her. And as I said that, for some reason, tears began streaming down my face. I had emotions tied to that sense of pride and importance.
I remember, I held a little shame when I told her that. I was embarrassed that I had been putting on that posture, and embarrassed that she could see it. I felt that something I was trying to hide, something I didn’t even know I was trying to hide, was obvious. For some reason, I expected her to tell me I was weird for thinking my posture had anything to do with my feelings. Or to tell me why those feelings were a problem.But she just held me in her eyes and nodded.
“So then the question,” she said, “is who are you when you’re not having to be that ‘proud,’ ‘important’ person?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. More crying.
She nodded again. The not-knowing was OK.
To me, the unexpected compassion and lack of judgement she offered in that vulnerable moment was an enormous gift. It was one of the touchstone moments that led me back to training with her all these years later.
So lately, as I practice standing on my own, I have the option to feel what is happening in my body, and I can begin to understand why it’s happening. Where am I holding tension? What are the patterns my body has been gripping onto without me realizing them?
Perhaps the gripping in my left foot is residue from years in tiger stance in my old hard style. That foot turn translates to me trying to “protect” myself.
The arch in my back is, perhaps, residue of my trying to get the attention of the boys in eighth grade. It’s me trying to be “sexy.”
The knit brow is me “concentrating” in a very serious way. Work must be HARD!!!!
My slightly clenched jaw is me trying to grasp onto and control things.
My leaning forward is passion, fire, anger, aggression, excitement.
The days I lean back I feel fear, shame, overwhelm, hollowness.
The purpose of standing practice is not to get rid of all of these things; they make up pieces of who I am. The practice is to become aware of them. To let them come out of the shadows of being unconscious habits and into the light of being understood patterns. Once these patterns of tension– be they physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual tension– come into the light of consciousness, I can notice them. I can accept them, and in turn, accept pieces of myself that had been invisible to me.
From there I can have influence over the patterns, and feel whether it is of value to “put them on” or not. From that consciousness and influence, a greater sense of being in the present moment– a present moment without unconsciously defaulting to pattern– arises.
***
I find many unconscious patterns in my body every time I stand, but sticking my chest out to be ‘proud’ or ‘important’ is no longer one of my main defaults. (At least I don’t think so :)) To revisit the question posed to me years ago, “Who am I when I’m not being ‘proud’ or ‘important’?”
The answer is still that I don’t know.
But as I continue my practice, as I allow more patterns to arise and resolve, I get a feeling of who (or what) is underneath all of those patterns and defaults. The feeling is a sense of self underneath the self, of empty nothingness that is full of everything, of an entirely inclusive but completely detached form of love. The closest word I have to describe that feeling is “home.”
*(To explain the illustration, when I got back from my Taiji workshop, I sat in a bar while waiting for a friend and started to write about the workshop experience. The song “Road to Nowhere” by Talking Heads came on. I thought, “What a perfect song to express a practice where you stand in one place without trying to get anywhere. Or maybe we are actually practicing in order to get ‘nowhere.'” Either way, it’s catchy and quite danceable, and I think David Byrne is probably a genius.)
