Let’s do a ritual re-birth into/with a universe populated by postures inspired by the 8 basic Trigrams of the I Ching.

Let’s divide the body like a Trigram: three stacked levels with two states possible at each. We’ll call the two states Yin and Yang. Yang will be an open and expanded position, Yin a closed and contracted position. The three stacked levels will be head/neck on top, arms/chest in middle, and gut/legs on bottom. Fully closed and contracted, we are in the fetal position, when we are completely helpless. Reaching into and out of this reflex kinetically can have very powerful affects upon many aspects of our being, loosening postural patterns we can get stuck in while subconsciously responding to our environments on pre-verbal levels. Here are the 8 trigrams expressed as body postures:

Heaven, The Creative – All yang lines: open and expanded through the head/neck, arms/chest, and gut/legs.

Earth, The Receptive – All yin lines: closed and contracted through the head/neck, arms/chest, and gut/legs.

Lake, The Joyous – Yin line at top, two Yang lines below: open and expanded through the arms/chest and gut/legs, closed and contracted through the head/neck.

Thunder, The Arousing – two Yin lines at top, one Yang line below: open and expanded through the gut/feet, closed and contracted through the head/neck and arms/chest.

Mountain, Keeping Still – one Yang line on top, two Yin lines below: open and expanded through the head/neck, closed and contracted through the arms/chest and legs/gut.

Wind/Wood, The Gentle/Penetrating – two Yang lines on top, one Yin line below: open and expanded through head/neck and arms/chest, closed and contracted through the legs/gut.

Water, The Abysmal – one Yang line in the middle, two Yin lines above and below: open and expanded through the arms/chest, closed and contracted through the head/neck and legs/gut

Fire, The Clinging – two Yang lines above and below, one Yin line in between: open and expanded through the head/neck and legs/gut, closed and contracted in the arms/chest.

There are many ways to navigate the space traced by these postural forms amidst the partially unknown and ever-changing potential of actual bodily existence. How many ways can you move from posture to posture? How can you allow the breathing style to shift in expression of the spirit of the pose? Could a sound enhance you trance depth? Which parts of the body seem reluctant to go into one or both of the postures? How fast/slow can you gather the tissue tensions together into each posture? Which parts want to move as one? How strong/weak can you feel in each posture? Etcetera.

I would like to do a multi-week working with a group of interested parties exploring this and other ways of embodying the I Ching. Contact me for more information on “other ways”. I’ll probably try to post some pictures and videos soon showing what I mean by “expanded and open” and “closed and contracted” in which we may get lost in details. . . .