䷮
Hexagram #47 for Inauguration Day January 20, 2021.
47: Out of Darkness
above TUI THE JOYOUS, LAKE below K'AN THE ABYSMAL, WATER
Its inner trigram is ䷜ (kǎn) gorge = water, and its outer trigram is ䷹ ( duì) open = swamp. 1
Walk through the canyon and you will appreciate the wide open spaces. Much life happens in a swamp, but a walker wants clear water.
Maintain self-control. Get hold of yourself, realize your mistakes and your shortcomings and the improvement will continue.2
Kùn (Oppression/Exhaustion) Action: Adapt
Success is a pathway of self-completion and the seed is always within you.
"I dredge allegedly
to repair and upgrade the Port of Umm Qasr
I edge a legibly duty free
transrational contract drag
well I pledge alien
lesions will be doled
expensively (not on the cheap)
and not to um miss explosives
who shell
Bechtel by the—that is Shell it by the
shore Bechtel sells
unflaggingly to the drag of the dividend
rates of America I pluck allegiance from
an estimated 1.8 billion
and to the executive committee –"
...
allegiance. The friction has its machine – as you choose it?
- Jennifer Scappetton, from Delection Even
All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.
- Henry David Thoreau, from Civil Disobedience
I understand Thoreau when he says the machine has friction and it's good. I understand it as the steam-roller machine being slowed by friction so that problems can be worked out before it rolls over all the people in front of it. But I've been having trouble fully understanding the converse : friction has its machine.
Instead of friction being an expression of protest or debate regarding government does it become lobbying? Is this new friction (with a machine made of money and enough history to feel as if it's always been) something like neo-liberalism? Like, for example, the skim that a bank gets for every PPP loan given by the government. ($495 for the business, $5 for the bank that made the loan).
~
Hu Gua (hidden influence) 37 Family: Support
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2021
Chicago – the world's fair – and to Columbus
Day in the park – I think it was the fourth of the
reprivate which it hands
to the drooling class – I mean the measuring
cache watch this base – I a semifree colonist in gall –
- Jennifer Scappetton, from Delection Even
The combination of words and word play in Scappettone's poem don't tell us how to feel, but all of my global study group has read it and come away with the idea that each of us – we – should do more of what's right for all. Or less of what's wrong. The emotions we had are different: shame, confusion, anger, exasperation, frustration, powerlessness, zeal. But all our reactions are responses to her indirect call to action. Be more activated citizens.
I've also been reading Juvenal, the Roman satirist:
But these days there is greater concord among snakes (than between humans)
He goes on to ask if you've ever seen lions rip each other apart?
In an earlier satire, Juvenal talks about a feast where the rich get fresh wonderful fish and the regular folks get catfish. I imagine Trump's heathcare when he got Covid compared to my friend's experience back in March. His business connecting students with overseas interships was going to zero clients, and he had to pay $100 just to get tested. Then he had to pay again to be tested to see if he had antibodies. When he did, and gave plasma, he had to pay again.
Juvenal is criticising the regualar folks who didn't complain about their bad meal, getting less because they have less income or fortune. If you accept that the healthcare system is right, then you’re getting what you deserve - Juvenal would tell us today.
Satirical siblings are Scappettone and Juvenal.
References to Shakespeare in the Scappettone poem make me think of As You Like It and reading it I come to the epilogue and think that Rosalind (Resiland) is neither all feminine or all masculine, and that she is asking you to take her, as you like it, which she hopes is also as she likes it. Or, as she presents herself, just as we should also take the world and other humans in it with a generous spirit. There are many things we're doing wrong in America. Thanks Trump, for helping to point those out with your behaviour. But we need to talk, debate, offer new and old ideas to fix things.
This brings me to the manifesto for my think tank, Limitless Idea Project. Yeah, this name is what I write on my tax returns and my W-4s since 2004, but it was invented to serve people rather than just be a legal partnership.
Limitless Idea Project is an idea-oriented think tank of original leaders who use creative problem solving to make democracy work for its citizens. Generated by artists of all stripes and flavors, we serve ideas for action, debate and trial for use in public policy by taking on problems that should be obvious to all but have remained.
Zong Gua (underlying cause) 22 Grace: Accept
"All voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote."
- Henry David Thoreau, from Civil Disobedience
Scappettone's poem caused me to reread Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, and I didn't recognize where I got what I thought it was about for the past 50 years. When I studied it in high school, I must have let someone else tell me what to think.
Thoreau's against the Mexican War and slavery which was a big reason Texas wanted to be separate from Mexico. Slavery was illegal in Mexico.
I'm wondering how one avoids becoming a slave in Thoreau's eyes, and asserts their own freedom by their vote. Maybe for some people today, it is giving money. My husband didn't want to put up the Biden/Harris sign in the yard for fear that someone would throw a rock through the window.
We vote because we think we should, and we try to make the right choice, but as Thoreau says we don't stake much on ensuring that what is right prevails. We feel powerless to ensure it. Where is our involvement in government. Where are the real debates in lawmaking houses where we can comment as if it were a Twitter feed?