What Is Yin/Yang? What is Heaven/Earth? How the fuck does Astrology really work? Featuring: Verses from the Rigveda (Translated by yours truly).
The universe, as experienced consciously, can be imagined on a scale of 1 to 0, repeating endlessly. Alongside these two poles, there is always the superposition of both, the third state, which I’ll call wuji. So there are three: yin, yang, and wuji; 0, 1, and ~. Everything begins when the one splits into two, but because the one is always itself, it remains present as everywhere at all times. It is a possibility space. As the universe unfolds into what we experience now, this splitting repeats itself again and again. We see yin, yang, and wuji; heaven, earth, and the middle realm; insideness, outsideness, and emptiness.
As things get more local, these energies multiply into further splits. From inside to outside: the Sun inside our solar system, then the planets along its path, the old visible boundaries of the cosmos, then Sagittarius A, at the centre of our galaxy. In our astrology we call the celestials the ghosts, and each of them can be read as a mixture of yin, and yang, and wuji; heaven, and earth, and Midgard; inside, and outside, and here; future, and past, and present; will be, been, and being. In the grand scheme it all reaches balance. From our point of view, all begins from a perfect burst of energy, and returns to inert nothingness before the cycle starts again.
Time-wise, we begin with the Pure Land, reionization, and return to Doom, the heat death of the universe; then it begins again. This is why the past and future are experienced as they are. The past feels bright, but looking back into its depths makes it dark. The future feels dark, but moving into it makes it bright. Jupiter is the past looking forward; Saturn is the future looking back. Both are salves to imbalance in perspective.
Everything reflects this same pattern. Proton, neutron, electron are the same as yin, yang, wuji, but inverted. Heaven above corresponds with the cosmic; the atomic is the same structure, seen from earth. People resist mixing scientific cosmology with metaphysical cosmology, but they align in various ways. "As above, so below.”
This is the pattern of all existence: concentration of potential, precipitation into reality, sudden actuation, expansion, then subtle developments, fading, darkness, and return to substrate. Then it begins again. Fire explains this most clearly. Light is fire, warmth is fire, energy is fire. Agni sits among the gods but also kindly in our hearths. Fire is the seed of becoming: creation borne by flame.
Rigveda X.1
"Omen of the dawn, you ascend high
Your light piercing through the dark
Oh luminous Fire! As fair as can be
Your rays touch all corners of the world
You are the kindling seed of Heaven and Earth
Beloved! Your nourishment touches the wilderness;
Radiant! You circle around the dark veil of night;
From Mother, you awake with a roar
You walk the same road as the Waxer
And so stand watch upon a high throne!
In ritual and song they make poetry, fresh as milk
And their voices join in harmony, rising just for you!
Then the kindlers which tend to you
Nurture you, with fuel and sacrifice
And in turn you nurture their embers
As if a Doomsayer of Manu's line
To you they sing, who rides upon a wheel of flame
The shining beacon of all divine rite
To Fire they sing! Who shares his divinity with all the Ghosts
And yet in his generosity, is guest in the hearths of mortals!
Fire! Who dons vestments of gold and ornaments of heat
Resting within the Earth's navel
Vigorous and flush, alighting to refresh all things!
Oh lord fire, stand afore us and bring our offering to the Ghosts!
For you have stretched to touch every corner of Heaven and Earth
As a child may stretch his arms to hold his mother and father
Go forth to all those beset by longing
And bring the Ghosts down to embrace them
Youngest and most mighty! Fire!"
Rigveda: X.129
"In that day
There existed neither existence or non-existence,
There existed neither airy sky nor heaven beyond!
Could anything stir? From where? In whose protection?
Were there even the Waters, so fathomless?
There was not yet death, nor life,
No night and no day,
The One breathed breathlessly, by its own conscious will,
That was all
It was darkness obscured by darkness,
A murky ocean without differentiation!
There was only becoming, concealed by emptiness,
Borne by the power of Fire
And the will of the One formed the seed of Mind!
An origin which descended into seeking hearts,
Through the kernel of their inner wisdom
Like the rays of the Sun, creation exploded outwards,
Here and there, above and below!
Sewers, reapers, waxers, waners, givers, and takers!
Who can know? Who can say?
When this creation arose and from whence it came?
Even our gods came after, riding upon the rays!
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps not!
Does he who sits atop the highest Heaven know?
Perhaps as little as us"
This is why doing a taxonomy of reality is so hard. The pattern is everywhere, at all times, in all things. It is time, space, experience, quality, movement. It is in the sky, in our bodies, in the rise and fall of empires, in the seasons, in beginnings and ends of life. Always, everywhere, forever.
The most fundamental nature of reality is dual non-dualism: one becomes two, becomes three. Humanity itself undergoes these splits. There are moments in time when humanity divides again. I believe this happened 26,000 years ago at Lake Baikal: the dawn of man as a split of spirit. This is why the Proto-Indo-European creation story is not about “the One,” but about simple men, because it represents the split which births humanity, fractally representative of the split which made the universe. Daoists talk about the original split before all of this, but the pattern is the same. Creation is always happening, always splitting and dancing.
Wisdom is the ability to see the grain of this cycle and relationship, to parse where the lines are at a given moment. By understanding the structure of consciousness, one can align with the Dao. And if you do this, you have mastered existence.