anyone interested?

Hey all, I’ve spent the fall traveling the long haul to Asheville to take the fundamental and Primordial classes in person. I had done all this material via books and audio/video over the years and then took lesser Kan-Li this summer in person. Wow. What a shift physical presence makes for me. I chose to make the effort and redo the basics and I’m glad I did. I’m ready to jump back into the fray here, it looks like it cleaned up a bit.

Anyway, did anyone read Michaels reflections on the viruses? I thought it needs more talk. I am thinking about it and wanted to open the discussion if you’re interested.
Here it is cut and paste if you didn’t get it:
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Dear Cultivators of the Natural Way,

I’ve been meditating on the inner nature of viruses recently. All kinds of viruses. Computer viruses, because one disabled most of my website on Nov. 2 , Election Day. Should I be paranoid? My webmaster thinks it was not maliciously targeting the site, but rather a trojan horse virus that rode on an unsuspecting ex-employee’s pass word to get past our hefty defenses.

The site is 90% back to normal but it cost me thousands of dollars and a lot of aggravation. Yet it forced me and my webmaster to make improvements that long needed doing – so I am ultimately happy about being dragged forcibly into the maws of Change.

I’m also contemplating Asian bird flu viruses, because World Health experts are saying it could cost up to a billion human lives in the next massive cyclical outbreak. That sounds pretty apocalyptic, and makes my suffering seem rather puny in the scale of viral pain. A billion lives: these are cold scientific statistical possibilities. They’re talking about this winter or next.

It’s not born again fundamentalists (or New Agers) waiting for the End of Time to happen in a vague future that constantly is moving away from us. This outburst of Asian viral influence is well recorded in history, killing millions in the past. The next cycle may kill more because we are so globally connected. Viruses doing a house-cleaning on humanity, or acting as the catalyst for new operating paradigms to emerge?

Why are viruses so powerful? Is it because they are closer to the secret of immortality than humans? They are more intelligent than humans in their ability to self-replicate. They can mutate in the moment, and seem to know exactly where to find the chi to support their life, even if it is parasitic.

Viruses rewrite the DNA and RNA code of other entities for its own survival – whether its the common cold or HIV or herpes or the zillion other unnamed viruses. Viral ability to read genetic code effortlessly is what scientists have wet dreams about doing themselves. A virus could win the Nobel Prize for genetics if somebody would nominate one.

So I ask myself, what’s the spiritual function of the virus? Are viruses the most advanced type of entity that is evolving on earth, and are humans merely a lesser creature or host to serve their needs? Given the high genius-like IQ of viruses, we have to consider this possibility, humbling as it is. There are countless viruses living in our bodies, and they may be essential to maintaining our biological equilibrium – or is it THEIR biological equilibrium?

A Textbook Definition of a Virus

“Viruses are parasites which use almost every kind of living system as host. On the human body, there is virtually no part that cannot be colonized by viruses – brain, CNS, heart, GI tract, blood vessels and blood cells, skeletal muscles, reproductive system, skin, trachea, lungs, lymphatic system.? Bacteria too are susceptible to viral attack; E.coli is host to at least 4 different types of viruses.”

From the viewpoint of Daoist (Taoist) cosmology, we humans are smaller wholes that are part of the process of larger wholes. Each sub-whole – whether its a cell or a human being or a planet – as well as the meta-wholes (galaxies, universes and higher dimensions) are operating from the same chi field. Each entity embodies the same yin-yang pulsation and the same five phase cycles.

If we apply this energetic thinking to viruses, we can understand viruses as “rogue strands” of the collective five phase operating system. They create a certain amount of chaos in the existing order, and that may be a valuable function in helping us mutate to our next level. Mostly, the viruses succeed because of their utter and total openness to embracing any and all life operating systems. Can we learn from that?

Find the Secrets of our Operating System

The key, I believe, is tap into the viral ability to transmute our operating system. Its an un-winable war to battle and kill all viruses. This trans-mutation of our operating system is essentially what daoist alchemy is focused on. It gives us a practical way to capture rogue elementals in the form of dysfunctional energetic patterns or ego fragments, and puts them to work to speed the evolution of the whole.

We constantly exploit the intelligence of other people, and we frequently copy their energetic patterns. Viruses do the same thing, but they lack their own body. They have no earth element. Viruses are the chaotic but powerful aspects of ourselves and the world that seek to ground themselves by chasing after other’s bodies. So they appear perpetually destructive instead of stable and peace loving. They have no way to internalize their reproductive process. But we could internalize the genius of viruses – IF we cultivate our alchemical cauldron, our dantian. The dantian at our personal center of gravity exists by the grace of our having an individual body.

Viruses generally lack their own cell wall, but are happy to borrow the cell walls from other creatures. This notion of viruses as rogues matches scientific speculation on their origins. A popular theory is that viruses are clusters of genes that originally broke off from some primordial cell. They now act as pirates, boarding all descendants of that original cell to plunder their genetic treasures at will.

It sounds like a pop sci-fiction plot. And it resembles one popular theory as to why aliens keep abducting humans – to study and steal our DNA code, considered to be one of the most royal designs in the cosmos. All of this Cosmic Viral drama seems to be about a desire to find our own center of reproductive creativity.

Trans-Mutation at Winter Solstice

Let’s shift from tiny viruses to Big Picture process. As we head into Winter Solstice on Dec. 21, we do well to prepare ourselves for the alchemical transformation that is possible at this time in the annual cycle of rebirth. The scattered parts of ourselves, operating as fragments, and always seeking opportunities to survive out in the world – suddenly are drawn back into a mysterious hole of dark night. Out of that wintry darkness is rebirthed the light of our renewed soul.

Astrologers have pointed out that leading up to the Solstice the planets are flowing into a new pattern of five phase integration, where all five of the visible planets can be seen in the morning sky, in order of their appearance from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. This happens every morning from Dec. 16 to Dec. 22, and won’t happen again for another 12 years. This symbolizes the strengthening of our elemental alignment within as the planets
reflect their natural alignment without.

Can you be utterly open to this process, and capture the cosmic operating system, and use it to reproduce yourself?

I’m getting a strong signal that change is going to happen more dramatically and powerfully in 2005. That we need to learn from our viral guides – our hidden ancient unconscious powers of trans-mutation and flexibility.

May the Inner Sound of the Dao Sing in Us,

Michael Winn