Two days before leaving for Peru, I throw the I-Ching to gain clarity about how best to maximize my healing opportunities during this trip. This is a ritual I have done for many years before embarking on a new adventure. Stilling my mind and calming my heart, I hone my question: What do I need to pay attention to on this trip in order to gain the greatest benefit? Then toss three coins six times.
The first hexagram, Dangerous Depths, tells me, “Exposure to danger brings good fortune.” The key is to give myself permission to move beyond it. Like boaters passing through whitewater rapids, I need to stay alert, take available precautions, and above all else keep moving forward to remove myself from harm’s way. “The benefit of danger,” the reading continues, “is it offers an excellent chance to cleanse the senses and strengthen the spirit” because surviving danger brings with it “tremendous reinvigoration and sharpens the eye and mind for future challenges.”
While it is “reckless to court danger,” the I-Ching tells me, “it is critical to inner development not to shrink from it.” The reading further suggests establishing “an inner bubble of calm in the midst of the action.” The hexagram has two changing lines that offer the most powerful advice. The first describes a rock climber stuck on a narrow ledge high on a cliff — “any move, forward or backward, leads to trouble” — and cautions that the only thing to do is “wait for help.” The second changing line advises “cooperation and mutual aid” as an immediate priority. Due to the two changing lines, a second hexagram results that speaks to my future.
The first hexagram, Dangerous Depths, tells me, “Exposure to danger brings good fortune.” The key is to give myself permission to move beyond it. Like boaters passing through whitewater rapids, I need to stay alert, take available precautions, and above all else keep moving forward to remove myself from harm’s way. “The benefit of danger,” the reading continues, “is it offers an excellent chance to cleanse the senses and strengthen the spirit” because surviving danger brings with it “tremendous reinvigoration and sharpens the eye and mind for future challenges.”
While it is “reckless to court danger,” the I-Ching tells me, “it is critical to inner development not to shrink from it.” The reading further suggests establishing “an inner bubble of calm in the midst of the action.” The hexagram has two changing lines that offer the most powerful advice. The first describes a rock climber stuck on a narrow ledge high on a cliff — “any move, forward or backward, leads to trouble” — and cautions that the only thing to do is “wait for help.” The second changing line advises “cooperation and mutual aid” as an immediate priority. Due to the two changing lines, a second hexagram results that speaks to my future.
This hexagram, Excessive Pressure, describes something being out of balance that needs correcting, and advises that the moving out of the way is the most effective way to create the needed change. This is, “The moment that I have been waiting for,” the I-Ching tells me, “I will never discover the true extent of my own abilities unless, at least once in my life, I dive into a crisis with complete abandon and dedicate every ounce of energy, every fiber of my being, to the cause at hand. Dare to win.” WOW!
Equipped with warnings and advice, at 48 years of age and a western medical diagnosis of leukemia, I am about to embark on my first solo international adventure. Well, not exactly, solo. From Santa Barbara, California to Lima, Peru, I fly alone. Once in Lima, I will meet up with a friend and fellow traveler for the flight to Cuzco. Here we will spend five days acclimatizing to the altitude before joining our mentor Alberto Villoldo, twenty-eight other initiates, several tour assistants, and five Q’ero medicine men and women. No, I will definitely not be alone.
Equipped with warnings and advice, at 48 years of age and a western medical diagnosis of leukemia, I am about to embark on my first solo international adventure. Well, not exactly, solo. From Santa Barbara, California to Lima, Peru, I fly alone. Once in Lima, I will meet up with a friend and fellow traveler for the flight to Cuzco. Here we will spend five days acclimatizing to the altitude before joining our mentor Alberto Villoldo, twenty-eight other initiates, several tour assistants, and five Q’ero medicine men and women. No, I will definitely not be alone.