Welcome to the Tao
Explore the Tao through the Frameworks of understanding
and experience know as Life and Living.
Tone | Emotional Relevance | Energetic Relationship Dynamics (Counterparts)
Before we get started, it helps to look at some context for our discussions on the Tao.
When I say I write about the Tao, or work with the Tao, or even that I feel my own personal sense of devotion towards the Tao, I am almost always met with a blank look.
“The Tao?”
I get it. Sometimes, I even give a blank look back. That’s because for me the definition is mobile; it relates to context. Most times I don’t have a simple answer to give when people want to know more.
It’s hard to define the undefinable, and I think for each of us, we come to our own appreciation and understanding of what it means. There is a beautiful understanding shared in the book Daily Pulse, rhythm of the Tao by Dr. Debra Ford; it is a multi-faceted exploration of the energetics of the Tao, and I recommend you spend some time reading this book in particular to come to your own deeper connection.
For myself, I think of it as everything I experience within a construct or framework; the way the world moves in rhythm with its own need and how that need supplements my own need and also supports me in ways I can’t imagine.
Do you see how I keep saying ‘Me’? That’s because it’s true for everyone. What it means for me is a little different than what it means for you. But those meanings for self and the whole are what drive me (personally) to understand deeper and further every time I turn my focus in this direction.
For me, I tend to think of this ‘Me’ as independence. When I turn my mind and focus towards the collective ‘We’, I see this as interdependence.
The Me that I am, can’t exist without the You that you are; the You that you are, can't exist without the Me that I am.
That is ‘We’. As a whole, we are self-reliant and reliant on each other. We don’t exist in a void, and it’s important to see how those interactions, whether subtle, profound, or progressive, become what we think is happening in the moment.
If you could see inside my mind, you’d probably be startled at how some aspect of my mind is always in consideration of these aspects of the Tao. Observing how they connect, watching it all unfold, seeing which aspect enfolds another, and then how things break apart. It’s a bit analytical and also a bit reverent. And I don’t mean this in a religious context; I mean it as a true appreciation for something so profound, dynamic, and intrinsic to everything that is. It is beautiful.
I see it at the grocery store, in the colours and the vitality of the seasonal fruits and vegetables. I see it in the person who is standing inside themselves, not looking at another. I see it when someone goes out of their way to pick a coin up off the floor and return it to the person who dropped it. I see it when the sun shines through the front window, and it catches a twinkle in someone’s eye that I wouldn’t have seen if I didn’t leave my house and go do a simple thing like buying groceries. I would have missed that moment, and moments are something that I don’t want to miss.
Then I see it in the interactions of the people who are in that shared space—sometimes impatient, sometimes joyful, sometimes friendly, sometimes worried, sometimes peaceful—every one of us standing in the same space but all having a unique experience. And it’s the unique experience that fuels and fascinates me.
That’s the difference between the inner world and the outer world and how both can be understood through the lens of the Tao.
The Tao explains the reason why an energetic pattern moves the way it does; it’s defined through some fundamental relationships that we can understand as counterparts but have been historically understood as hexagrams.
The primary counterparts are the dynamic relationship of:
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Thunder to Lake and also Lake to Thunder
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Mountain to Wind and also Wind to Mountain
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Water to Fire and also Fire to Water
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Earth to Heaven and also Heaven to Earth
Thunder, Lake, Mountain, Wind, Water, Fire, Earth and Heaven are each individually known as Trigrams.
Each individual energetic or Trigram, has its own unique rhythm and movement, its independent nature, and also its supported nature which is enhanced and stabilized by its partner; its counterpart.
These pairings exist because in all dynamic interchanges there must be opportunity for the fullness of experience to exist, and for this to occur, a congruence of harmonious energetics creates a dynamic balance. It is this dynamic balance that stabilizes the whole. The whole is known as Tai Chi.
This is balance in motion and transformation. It is continuously evolving, and so, as you begin to understand the simplicity and complexity of each energetic dynamic, you can see where the counterpart relationship is being expressed in its natural condition or where it has drifted, collapsed, or been impaired by an inability to sustain its own energetic dynamic or perhaps from the influence of another energetic. The dynamic conditions are endless. This is where it gets curious and fun, and also practical and useful for understanding our own experience of life and living.
Here’s the thing: everything (EVERY THING) is in a dynamic interchange, and this is what fascinates me about the Tao and why you will find it is so deeply integrated through everything I think, do, and say. Or maybe it should be everything I think, say, and do!
And well... that is the beauty of the Tao; every order and re-order creates a different context.
So, when I write, and I write a lot, there is always a connection to the Tao. And you might not see it the first time, but the next time you come back and look at it again, there will be a whole new reason or understanding waiting right there for you that you never considered before.
And that is how I look at and write about the Tao—kinda.
Gee! (She thinks.) I really need to work on my elevator speech!
Cheers!
Janice
Go to Janice's Substack Publication:
Symphony of Colour
About Janice
Rev. Janice Brown DTCM, sp.M (master), CS.p
Janice is a specialist in the Tao. If you look at the 10,000-hour rule, she has been exploring the Tao from an experiential perspective a lot longer than that. She has over fifteen years experience in the Field of Chinese medicine and is a Reverend with a metaphysical practice. She focuses her time primarily on writing and publishing metaphysical materials; she writes and talks about life from an experiential perspective.
Her understandings of the Tao and Emotional Relevance come from these two veins of understanding, and she considers the work she does as spiritual care.
The framework she continues to explore is the dynamic relationships of the energies of the Tao. Over time, you'll begin to see patterns emerge that you thought were your own, and you'll suddenly recognize them in the collective experience. So that is the journey you are on together when you listen to her talks or explore her writing.
Janice lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, with her family and lovely pup. She is the Secretary-Treasurer for Mediation Yukon ~ A Society to Promote Peacemaking.
If you ask her, she’ll remind you that being who you are IS the most important thing.
Interested in training on the Tao?
If you are looking to study Foundational materials on the Tao, training is available.
There are wonderful programs that will explore the Foundations of the Tao. Including: SolePath Foundations Program (SFP) and Celebrant and Spiritual Practitioner (CSP) which may be completed through the Academy of Inner Wisdom.