11 YuFengXiaShan 御風下山

Ride the Wind Down the Mountain

IX: The Hermit

Coming down fast

I wanted to say that The Hermit is traditionally depicted standing on a mountain top, but then I went to look for examples and discovered that.. I get this idea from gatefold jacket of Led Zeppelin IV.

Crowley & Harris's Hermit is all about descent, though. He dives through wheat into the underworld. There is an Orphic resonance here and a sort of gender-flipped Persephone thing going on. Virgo. The wheat. The seed. Transmission of the Word through the physical world. Cerberus as psychopomp, echoing the Fool's animal companion on the clifftop.

Master Wu writes: "Xia means descend, lower, down. Shan means mountain. XiaShan symbolizes the return of the enlightened hermit to civilization. YuFeng literally means riding the wind – in other words, learning how to control the energy and live in a harmonious state. YuFeng also symbolizes flying."

"Ancient shamanic stories tell us that the tiger is a bridge for human beings to reach Heaven. The symbolic meaning of this movement is that a hermit, having attained Enlightenment, descends back down to the mundane world to assist the rest of humanity.

"After his/her stay on the mountain, he/she has achieved the capability to “fly,” and it is now time for the hermit to remember his/her humanity and help others. In our own cultivation, we need to remember this aspect of being human. In the energetic layers of the body, when you build up stronger Qi through your practice, Qi will “come down” to help weak parts of the body."

There is a descent here, a bearing of light and spirit to the lower DanTian's Orphic Egg, a descent into matter reminiscent of the movement of Qi down the Conception Vessel during microcosmic orbit.

The homunculus-bearing spermatozoön reminds me of Jing.

Jing is specific to living beings. It is a juiciness, and unfoldingness. It is subtle and runs through a life, imperceptible movement like a wide river, splashy up close, inexorable and unstoppable at scale.

Something Dr. Ted Kaptchuk wrote that made the idea of Jing click for me: "It is time that goes through a person"

Conception as a transmission of Jing through the generations.