Honouring Heaven and Earth. Celestial Outreach Ritual

Heaven creates divine things; the holy wise man uses them as a model. Heaven and earth change and transform; the wise man imitates them. There are images in heaven that show good luck and misfortune; the holy wise man reproduces them. The yellow river gave birth to the map, and the Luo River gave birth to writing; the wise man used them as models.

The Celestial Outreach Ritual, or the Big Dipper Ritual, is aimed at comprehending the nature of the primordial spirit, which is the true inner master for each of us. It helps us understand the Unity of Heaven and Man (Tian Ren He Yi, 天人合一) and to improve the nature of our spirit, taking into account the nature of the body. By developing a special attitude towards perfection, we are already creating a ritual, we are paying attention to the star that corresponds to our spiritual planetary body. This connection is revealed by a special astrological system called Tai Sui (personified in the image of the deity Tai Sui, 太岁).

Regardless of who we are and how we live, we sometimes experience problems – a pattern that follows the laws of our nature and the space where our improvement occurs. According to the Daoist concepts, our destiny depends on the nature of the original heavenly spirit that controls us. When we break the connection between our original nature and our original spirit, we disrupt the flow of energy.

To achieve positive improvement, we need an axis that connects us to the sky, which allows us to have an additional source of energy that supports or improves our original spirit Yuan Shen (元 神). This is our ultimate primordial and the ultimate source we access through ritual.

By connecting the highest in us with the highest primordial we understand, on the one hand, the resource from which everything began, and on the other hand, we comprehend the inner altar. This gives us insight into the primordial light that our personal spiritual body (consciousness) can also represent. All higher macrocosmic elements have luminosity, and they are interconnected, like the constellation Ursa Major, which revolves in the sky around the North Star. Light is important to us so that we can go beyond our physical self.

This is the spiral that contains both our higher and our crude nature. We are physical beings, which gives us the ability to absorb the higher into ourselves, and also to be the light and interact with the energy outside of us. By learning how to interact with things outside of us, we can also learn to interact with what is inside of us. This is what makes the ritual important. We do not cultivate the truth within, until we have attained the knowledge of the inner altar, the light.

Of course, it is not easy to understand the idea of primordial light, but unless we study it, we will remain trapped in the darkness of our existence. Ritual is an effective way to start walking on the right path and in the right direction, which will help us realize what we need.

Daoism teaches us to the search and improve our Shen (神) spirit, which develops not just a certain desire to live, but the need to live with the goal of improving your resource. Man lives within a three-level structure of earth, sky and man. The only thing that connects us is the original Spirit. And we need strength so that our spirit does not weaken, so that we can create and not just exist.

Our physical body is the receptacle containing our spirit, and we are responsible for our actions. We need to nourish our brains with light and be the light in order to maintain the planetary connection with the universe.

We must determine where we walk, where we step. A true step is a harmonious step, or Yubu’s step (Yu Bu, 禹 步), which sets the true rhythm of existence leading to true breathing. This is the heavenly principle, which saves us from the flood (immersion in chaotic energy). This basic step of the ritual is also called “walking on the stars of the Big Dipper” and its goal is to help us reconnect with the energy of celestial harmony.

Yubu’s step helps us cultivate our own luminosity, it is our search for a Dao that can contain us and provide us with a resource. For seekers of the path, attunement to one’s own destiny is an extremely important action, as it is the forerunner of deepening, of ritual.

This path was followed by Emperor Yu the Great (Da Yu, 大禹), the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty (2070–2025 BC). It is to him that we owe the formation of the ritual. He fought against darkness. As darkness has movement, he thought, we need to create a movement that will not allow darkness to envelop us, a movement that will help us to resist dead energy.

When Yu tried to stop the dead energy, he changed the direction of the energy in his body and created a connection with four non-activated body parts and nine vessels. Yu worked on this inner connection constantly, and used it to create a ritual that would benefit everyone in the Celestial Empire. He was inspired by the turtle shell patterns from which Fu Xi (伏羲) developed the “eight trigrams” of bagua, seeing in this the laws of circulation, also known as the Yellow River Circulation, or the He Tu (河 图) pattern.

Yu developed movements that follow from the scheme of the magic square (magic movement), which lead to a state of fullness – similar to what happens in nature on a full moon (15 lunar day).

Loshu (洛 书) is the circle that Yu walked on. Each circle improves 8 efforts, and together they create 15 efforts. 24 circles form 1 order. It fits in 1 of 9 rooms. When all 9 rooms are full, a core is created. Yu improved by practicing not only the steps, but also the power in his palms, so that there were no nails on his hands and no hair on his legs.

This helped him become one with the ultimate state of walking, when you do not need to move your legs as they are moved by the energy. On the outside, this can be perceived as paralysis, but in fact it is the rhythm of heavenly walking, where the legs do not need to be moved physically.

This celestial rhythm, or Yu’s rhythm, became an important part of Daoist rituals. Yu made the external movement dependent wholly on the internal energy, then the art of Yu’s steps, or the magical steps of wubu [ 巫 步] began to develop, and later formed the practice of baguazhang.

Yu’s steps allow you to merge during the ritual with your inner core, to achieve harmony and be filled through celestial outreach, to get in touch with your Shen spirit (regulation of the spirit, Tiao Shen).

Each step of Yubu consists of three steps, and they are associated with the movement of the practitioner through the three levels of space. The three steps, or stars inside the Big Dipper, are the three steps along the earth, air and sky.

 

Yubu’s three jumps

Yui’s three jumps come from three flashes of the Big Dipper, which form three pairs of luminaries.

First jump. Stars Nu (Alula North) and Xi (Alula South) of Ursa Major. The first is a double giant. The power of the first step. Efforts are the same in both feet.

Second jump. The star Lambda (North Tania) of the Big Dipper transfers the effort into Mu (South Tania). Represents the transfer of force from the rear foot to the front foot.

Third jump. The star Iota (Talita North) Ursa Major transfers power into Kappa (Talita South). The force is transferred to the toe of the forefoot.

 

Thus, Yu’s steps are associated with three pairs of stars, or three feet of the Big Dipper. Having learned how to perform these steps, we climb the heavenly ladder, approaching the concept of heavenly breathing, or energy breathing. In Daoist alchemy, this is regarded as collecting the sacred ingredients.

Jie Kong (Oleg Cherne)