Integration and Submission
The Pig or Boar is one of the most energetically ambiguous animals in the zodiac. It is the quintessential symbol of domesticity yet maintains an instinct for the wild. Preferring a languid life of comfort and withdrawal, it is nevertheless admired for perceptive and prestigious leadership. It is the embodiment of a yin exterior that holds yang power within, an elegant example of integration. While gentle and adaptable in appearance, the Pig teaches us about our inner strength and courage.
This new year is also ruled by Yin Earth, which is symbolized by fertile, soft soil. It demonstrates the qualities of receptivity, invisible labor, acceptance, humility, nurturance and patience. The earth possesses a power unique to itself: the ability to generate new life. The earth accepts all death, rot and decay that lies upon it and brings forth new existence. All beings rely on the earth for sustenance, being the foundation on which all life stands. Both good and evil find home and are supported by the earth. Because it does not judge or reject, it is significant to all. Through indiscriminate submission, it is all-powerful.
Conversely, last year βs Yang Earth Dog was a time of exercising judgement and separation, acting to reveal the areas of dogmatism and tribalism in society. The year forced us to define our values, pressured us to form packs, call out against injustice, guard against enemies and put up a fight. This year, the Yin Earth Pig brings our quest for truth and integrity home to the most personal level. Our newly defined values will need to resonate throughout all our relationships. Rather than incriminating in a βus vs themβ fashion, we must turn our attention to our relationship to home, family and self. This is the principle of integration.
Megalomania and authoritarianism is on the rise, from America to the U.K., Brazil, Philippines, Turkey, Russia and Venezuela. The Dog would focus on the egregious behavior of these despotic leaders, assigning blame and asserting a morally superior code. The submissive Pig sees beyond the concept of good vs. evil, asking instead how the rise of fascism elucidates the needs and problems of an age characterized by transition and uncertainty.
An authoritarian personality has a pathological need for control that rises to significance in a climate of political and economic instability. Its aggressive over-compensation for inferiority is born out of trauma and a cynical view of humanity. Fear and anxiety abound when a worldview devoid of empathy becomes populated by enemies. This type of personality resonates now because feelings of powerlessness are seduced by external demonstrations of brute force.
The Yin Earth Pig is the precise alternative to this show of strength. The Pig exemplifies holding your energy deeply within, even hiding your talents and power when a situation does not support you. In Daoist philosophy, power is harnessed through the path of flexibility - rigidity will lead one to break. When we practice submission, we seek power not through demonstration but from its source.
For instance, the use of weaponry is a symptom of weakness. Weapons are always the tool of the weak - that is why they are needed. Although there is a momentary exhibition of strength, it is dependent on an external means. Even a hunter depends on a weapon to kill an animal, revealing the hunterβs innate deficiency in comparison to the prey. If you are mugged at gunpoint, your attacker is in a status of scarcity. The year of the Pig is a ripe time to perceive and re-define true power so that we donβt fall into false projections of strength.
How to work with this yearβs animal and element:
It is vital that we refrain from cynicism if we are are to develop a healthy worldview and heal our relationship to power. At the core of integration - the act of making whole - is the practice of interconnectedness, which requires a worldview that is not deprived of empathy. Dogma and rigidity exist in both the political Left and Right. As an antidote, we must create a compassionate reality with acts of willingness and vulnerability. When we practice our values on the most personal level, we see the highest form of courage is the availability of our hearts.
Integration means letting go of our labels, status and identifiers that separate us from the truth of our interconnectedness. It is an opportunity to detach from our manufactured identity so that we can restore our friendship with all sentient beings, including the self. We acknowledge that when we do harm, we do harm to ourselves because we are not separate in ultimate reality.
Like being caught in a lightning storm, we are in an age where many things are seeking grounding right now. We can model ourselves after Yin Earth and become the ground in which frenetic energy can land and generate new life. It is only through the connection with the earth that new seeds can grow. We take from this example in nature that yang is born from the power of yin.
The earth welcomes all things to rest and grow, bearing and nurturing them with its power. If we make ourselves broad like the earth, we become the basis on which all things stand. The industrious Pig, with its snout pointed to the ground, also embodies this concept of humility. By making oneself lower, all things eventually come to you.