Whether we like it or not opposite terms tend to rule our thinking, especially about people. Here is a simple list of such terms:
good/bad easy/hard soft/loud high/low above/below superior/inferior light/dark
warm/cold near/far young/old thin/fat rich/poor physical/mental body/soul
fast/slow smart/dumb top/ bottom
All too often such terms invite UNFAIR JUDGEMENTS of others and even of yourself. My own special interest in such opposites starts with our globe and the human body. Consider the following illustrations:
Yes, it is the unexamined use of opposite terms which often triggers assumptions which, when examined carefully, prove to be otherwise. Certainly, you must recognize how much damage has been done by the "top and bottom" thinking about our globe and it peoples. But who thinks seriously about the damage we do to others and even to ourselves when we use such opposite terms in thinking about the human body?
Therefore I ask you: Are there really any "superior" and "inferior" parts to your body? Aren't all of its parts very necessary to the functioning of the whole? And what about those terms left/right and back/front? Yes, people who are left-handed do fare better these days than they did a century ago, but we still tend to consider the word "left" to be something "sinister" like communism. And just think how rarely we identify ourselves and others by a back view of the body. However...
THE BACK VIEW IS BETTER FOR YOU
What? Yes, I am now going to advise you to think of your own body NOT from the front but from the back. The front view of your body is bound (almost enslaved) to the idea, not of yourself but of others! We pose for pictures and check our images in mirrors so as to present a somewhat false, left-right, reversed, OUTSIDE image to others. This is a mask.
But the real "feeling image" you have of yourself is not the one seen by others from the front. No, your own body image should always be viewed from the BACK to be "authentic". It is from this INSIDE, true-view, that your best decisions in life are usually made.
MY LARGER MISSION
As a teacher, it is no accident that I have focused my attention on both the world globe and the human body in this discussion of OPPOSITES. These two examples introduce you to the major work of my life, my book entitled "The I-CHING Ecliptic Tuner". See:
I began this book with its related projects in 1976 so as to correct what I considered to be some serious errors in Traditional Western Astrology (TWA) and to suggest that rather than to completely abandon the whole idea of a body-globe-Sun-Moon-other planets CONNECTION, I would present some new scientific (non mythological) information to you (the public) and let YOU decide for yourself if there is any way to "tune" your body to the larger structure of our Solar system. This means that the following OPPOSITE TERMS come from what I learned while creating my book and its related projects.
Traditional western astrologers relate the twelve signs to different parts of the body. Unfortunately, they assume that ARI belongs to the head and that PIS belongs to the feet, so that when the circle is closed, they give us a picture of a man standing on his own head as is shown below.
Relating Signs to the Body
Traditional western astrologers relate the twelve signs to different parts of the body. Unfortunately, they assume that ARI belongs to the head and that PIS belongs to the feet, so that when the circle is closed, they give us a picture of a man standing on his own head as is shown below.
The Impossible, traditional division of the body into twelve signs
They try to justify this contortionist’s position by referring to the orouboros, a Gnostic symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail. What this symbol truly means is difficult to say. It seems to suggest that a living organism can sustain life by feeding on itself. This, of course, is not Nature’s way, no matter what theories of self-sacrifice the Gnostics may have entertained. Research suggests that this symbol was originally two snakes, one white and one black (to represent Daye and Nite?). Neo-Darwinism might better make one snake green and the other red to represent the “sacrificial” feeding and fertilizing relationship between the green (chlorophyll) plant world and the red (hemoglobin) animal world. But let’s forget the snakes entirely and keep the idea of two forms of energy-flow operating in the body. Let’s have YANGING energy going up the front of the body and YINNING energy going down the back of the body as shown in figure 22 below:
A more sensible division of the body into the twelve signs
