Happy Holidays To All,

I am enclosing Michael Winn's brief but compelling Daoist Newsletter
to share with you several important things about the present time.
We are approaching the yearly stillpoint, the winter solstice
(12/21, 5:30 P.M. PST), the most powerful "moment" of our yearly
earthly cycle. This cauldron of transformational opportunity is
surrounded by significant details- new comets, an unusual planetary
alignment, plentiful meteor outbursts, and, above all, the feeling of
things changing on the subtle levels in a most profound and
auspicious way.
I'm sure that many of you, as I am, have been going through a most
intense and relentless internal critical mass buildup. If there were
ever a time to hold this energy, make our inner space bigger to allow
it all, and have a flexible yet clear vision of the kind of world
we'd like to live in - this is that time. Holding stillness in
surrender through the next two weeks (I'm looking also at Chiron
opposing Saturn on the 27th - a transit of important healing
ramifications which we are being affected by fully now) will allow
the huge incoming wave of cosmic chi to take all that we now are and
recreate that at a higher level. This is the season of the Phoenix.
I suggest making greater contact with the earth physically and going
outside at night to look at the heavens. Bridge the energies from
heaven to earth through ourselves sensorily and then go meditate. It
will be through the realigning of (our) earth energy with (our)
planet and star energies that will recreate the original balance and
harmony we remember as "the divine plan."

Great Cosmic Sounds of Oneness to Everyone,
Alexander



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

"Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home,
the Dao as his door, and who becomes change, is a Sage."

- Chuang Tzu, Inner Chapters

"The Dao is very close, but everyone looks far away.
Life is very simple, but everyone seeks difficulty."

- Daoist Sage, 200 B.C

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