Intense Solar Flares and Sacrifices to The Sun God
Myth for the Time: Sacrificing our obstructions in the wake of increased solar activity leads to flourishing...
If you would like a short ‘bare bones introduction’ to the I Ching, to make use of these divinations, I created this video just for you (let me know if it was helpful). 😉
Lunar Conditions for the Divination
The new moon is occurred in the sign of Leo, which is ruled by sun (an important consideration for this divination), and carries many of the qualities one might associate with solar consciousness.
Radiance
Expression
Emanation
Visibility
Luminosity
The Heart
The Question Posed to The Oracle
I kept it simple:
What wisdom do have to share with those who subscribe to my Substack this new moon?
The Response
A skillful and adaptive response to increased solar activity, that allows one to harness the sun’s intense alchemical impetus towards change.
We do this through our practices, presence and the power held in sacrifice.
What do we sacrifice?
The blockages preventing one’s original and authentic self to emerge more fully…the self lead by love.
We sacrifice the the mask that we wear…which no longer serve us in real time.
The conformity…the ways in which we have warped and twisted ourselves to suit a persona.
Recapitulate to the ‘root’ of the persona patterns.
This sacrifice we make ‘to the sun’. Otherwise, ‘we become the sacrifice’.
In doing so, we can ride the solar wave towards flourishing.
Explosive Solar Flares and Catalytic Changes
The 35th hexagram is often associated with times of good fortune as it is typically associated with progress, growth and flourishing.
It is Fire over Earth, ushers forth the image of a grand campfire in the sky.
The original pictogram is a rising sun, a horizon, and two growing plants.
It carries the energy of a radiant, life giving sun, that feeds the creatures and vegetation below with it’s vital essence, encouraging it grow.
Receiving this symbol (along with the moon in Leo) called me to speak of the sun.
The sun has been bursting with colossal solar flares and bombarding the Earth for months.
The sun goes through an 11 year cycle, and alternates between periods of solar minimum and solar maximum.
Like a great bear, the sun enters into hibernation for a time, and then emerges into the light of day with great activity. We are currently in solar maximum (an especially powerful one).
This has been so radically potent that ‘the northern lights’, a phenomena dependent on solar radiation, and typically reserved for northern latitudes have even been visible in Texas, a Southern most state in the U.S..
From a purely astronomical perspective this interesting, but more importantly is it’s effect on human consciousness.
Solar flares are transmissions from the literal center of the solar system; every flare carries information and intense catalytic signal. Every solar release is a communication from its core, to yours. Center to center.
The sun is a god like force, and takes eminence as a primary deity in many indigenous traditions because we depend on the sun for life itself.
However going deeper than the obvious material need for sunlight…recognize that we follow the sun. As the sun erupts in cathartic communications, we are altered by it’s flow.
The solar system is one unified whole of which you are but a tiny nodule, and the sun is speaking to you like a great heart that touches each cell in the body with the pulsation of every beat.
The effect can be quite intense, and depending on your constitution the effect of these flares can cause:
Insomnia
Heart palpations
Fight or flight responses
Anxiety
Exhaustion
Existential angst
Depression
Anger
Electrical sensation
Excessive heat in the system
And most importantly…catalytic change that overtakes you like the fire that engulfs a phoenix.
If you have been feeling as if you have been swept by the intensity, unsure of the ‘source river’ of this magma like tide, the Sun’s ongoing tirade could be the cause.
This is a time of deep change.
Love as Progress
In many different system, there is a direct link between the sun and the heart. This should come as no surprise, because your heart is the strongest electromatic organ in your body.
The zodiac sign Leo is ruled by the heart, but Leo is ruled by the sun.
And…many of symptoms of caused by increased solar activity coincide with ‘heart disturbance’ in TCM, not to mention the heart is associated with the element of fire.
All this shows a strong connection between the heart and the solar tide.
Yet, even more pertinent…true flourishing cannot happen without the guidance of the heart and wisdom of love.
In this way, I offer you a prompt..
When you imagine flourishing, does it immediately bring up the notion of ‘more love’?
Love of work…of community…of practice…of cosmology…of home…of Ancestors…of self…of body….
If not, I would you invite you to consider that what most of us seek is not an externalized goal, but 'a feeling’. That feeling, is usually ‘love'.
Alchemical Impetus: Can You Harness It?
As the sun transmits to each heart it speaks of quickening, rapid change and ‘advancement’. This aligns with the message of the 35th Hexagram, which does in fact culminate in flourishing.
However, not all seeds that go to ground blossom.
The sun is signaling, and only those who can skillfully harness it’s power, will ride the solar winds like an alchemical wind surfer. With every influx we are impregnated by the suns seminal force.
This is where having established practices that we can lean on and pour the juice into, can serve us greatly.
For those without ways to harvest the force, change still happens, but it is typically less complete and deep.
As the sun impels intense change, each person must adapt as node of the whole.
Obstructions and Sacrifices to The Sun God
While the 35th hexagram is progressive and speaks to advancement, the 12th hexagram is practically it’s opposite, for it refers to standstill, stagnation and blockage.
The original pictograph shows a seedling cut off from the top of the earth.
Older shamanic iterations of the I Ching associated this hexagram with becoming a blood sacrifice and sacrificial victim as well, giving it an ominous sense of ‘ill omen’. It warns of of the danger inherent in the situation.
This is a fitting addition for the I Ching speaks clearly…
To blossom and flourish in the wake of the solar impetus, we must ‘cook though’ our impediments, and consciously make the sacrifice, so we ourselves do not become the victim.
Consider that the sun can just as easily destroy as create. At a physiological level this degree of solar tirade, can contribute to heart trouble, disturbed sleep and fray the nervous system, and leave us worse off for it.
However…
If we harness these forces through the sacrificial discipline and a willingness to accommodate change then we progress in love, but if not, we become the ‘victim’ of the process.
The Fifth Changing Line
It is interesting to note that the 5th changing line specifically ask us ‘not to be a victim’. Timely, considering that the 12th hexagram is about being a victim.
The wisdom here is to become of aware of:
The solar alchemical impetus
We can ride the solar winds towards flourishing
Make the sacrifice at ‘altar of the sun god’
Otherwise we become the sacrifice
Below is a very short but entirely epic video teaching a little bit about ‘the great mystery’ of solar flares: