Chaos and Order… yin and yang

The well-known yin-yang symbol represents two snakes, the head of each one pursuing and devouring the tail of the other. The white snake (yang) is usually seen as masculine, and it creates rules, structures, and form (order). The black snake (yin), is generally seen as feminine, and represents nature and wildness, the forces of chaos and disorder.

Order (yang) creates agreements and the stability, safety, and predictability that follow, but in excess, it stifles spontaneity, freedom, and creativity. Chaos, on the other hand, creates new possibilities and an explosion of energy, but this energy can be ephemeral or destructive. Good agreements — with ourselves and others — are necessary if we’re to walk that powerful edge where chaos and order can come together…

This week I returned from a week-long men’s retreat. There I got to see the rich interplay of these forces and the value of crafting good agreements that created an order and structure that would sustain a productive encounter with what was dynamic, wild, and unknown.

Early in the week we spoke about guidelines like a) being on time… b) not engaging in crosstalk or side conversations while another was speaking… c) confidentiality – not disclosing private conversations… even within the Council… unless one had consent… d) abstaining from feedback or advice without permission… e) making I-statements and avoiding feeling sentences that began with “You…” … and f) staying current and clearing the “charge” of any negative emotions or judgments before they’d hardened into a story.

Each of these was discussed and approved, and the twenty or so men also agreed to hold themselves and each other accountable to those agreements. The whole process took less than 45 minutes.

Carrying those agreements into the week, we were able to share secrets we’d told no one else… facilitate the release of long-held emotions… create ritual and ceremony… put down burdens we’d carried for decades… convene councils on sex, love, and the sacred… become accountable for times we’d lacked integrity… explore hidden parts of our psyches through breathwork… and navigate our way through dangers and difficulties as we followed the heroic story of the Grail legend through the week. It was a remarkable occurrence.

Back home, I currently attend a monthly men’s group that takes the opposite tack. Not wanting to be restrained and hemmed-in by “rules,” the group has virtually no agreements. As a result, the get-togethers tend to be free-form, but unproductive. Meetings usually start late, and half the evening can be taken up deciding what to talk about. Listening is poor, with people interrupting and sending the discussion off on their own tangents. There appears to be little skill (or interest) in making I-statements. Members often fill-in and project their own judgments as if they were facts, then talk about these “facts” to others who haven’t attended. Ill-informed opinions proliferate and run wild. (And over half the group sees a counselor who ignores and regularly violates confidentiality.)

This is a far cry from what I’m used to. The gatherings can be emotional – partly due to the frequent boundary violations – and expressing and releasing these emotions can bring a sense of relief. But then again, a puppy feels relief when it poops on your rug.

Order and Chaos… Yin and Yang. 

By establishing order – rules, social norm, belief systems – people can become predictable, cooperate, even compete. To play football or chess, you need to agree on the rules – they make the unpredictability and chaos that happens within the game possible. To buy a house or bag of apples, you need to agree on money – its place, rules, and purpose. Order provides a structure that makes things work, but too much of it is oppressive. Order is the realm of the beneficent sovereign… or tyrannical rule. Mussolini eliminated chaos and got the trains to run on time, but he killed tens of thousands that were “in the way.”

In Chaos, what’s new and unpredictable comes into play. It’s the realm of exploration, creativity, and transformation… the realm of Nature, which is big and wild. It pre-exists and is outside of the categories and agreements that make up cultural consensus, and it can bring renewal by breaking through the boxes and oppressive limitations of our rules and belief systems. But chaos can swamp us. Transformation is a positive value, but individual or social dissolution is not a happy state. Creation and destruction walk hand and hand.

To the Taoists, meaning was found at the border, at the dynamically shifting line separating yin and yang. This is the heroic path, embracing the necessity and creative possibility of each impulse while taking responsibility for their shadows and dangers… embracing life and the inevitable imbalances and suffering it includes. For 30 years I’ve guided and undertaken vision quests, a creative cauldron of Chaos and Order. There one’s inner longings of intention and purpose (order) are explored and honed, then brought into a multi-layered and meaningful engagement with Nature, the great and wild Unknown that speaks in languages outside the established categories in which we think and live. This engagement evokes insights and commitments while developing the strength of character and purpose necessary to bring them… and a Dream Worth Living… into the world.

More on that to come….