The Tao of 1974 Taoist I Ching translation Watergate Upheaval

The Tao of 1974 Working with Gia-Fu Feng on his Taoist Translation of the I Ching, watching the Watergate Hearings and experiencing the Youth revolution.

The next summer of 1974, I returned to Stillpoint, learned Yang style Tai Chi and worked with Gia-Fu on his Taoist Translation of the I Ching. He was the Yang king and I his loyal yin minister.

He reached back into his earliest childhood and his traditional Taoist training as a young boy. My expertise in the hexagrams and oracles helped to find phrasing in American idiom for his translation and the typing of the final manuscript. He was very proud of our work which recreated the staccato cadence and clipped slogans of the Chinese text.

His publisher was not interested in the accuracy of putting the original Chinese text in Taoist perspective into American idiom. Our work remained private and unpublished. Gia-Fu went on to try to rework his text all the rest of his life.My original copy of the manuscript remained in a Kinko’s bag for over 30 years until got around to entering the text into MS Excel where I have now prepared it for the public.

The Tao 1974--including Gia-Fu Feng and Frank R. Kegan’s Taoist translation of the I Ching.

By the summer 1974 I had applied to law school and been accepted into Boston College The Tao of 1974 would bring a most eclectic mix of the folks of the Youth Revolution back into graduate school, particularly law school that fall. Before starting that new life, I returned to Stillpoint during the summer.

The Tao of 1974 had scattered the traditional Stillpoint Foundation community. It was a different place that next summer with the old hands who had been there for years having moved on. A new crop of college students returned with Gia-Fu and Jane from his visiting professor gig at their college. They were there to paint and work on the physical plant, learning about Taoist things and enjoy being a group of college classmates on summer vacation.

Gone were the skull and crossbones toxic labels on the salt and sugar dispensers. Instead there were all the ingredients for tequila sunrises to accompany our chanting to the Stillpoint sunrise. Many were trying to quit smoking, but mostly they were just able to change to rolling their own tobacco.

Gia-Fu had published a book of Tai Chi and I Ching years earlier, most noted for its use of the slogan “groovy” in various hexagrams. As we worked with the Chinese texts that summer, he thanked me for getting him involved finally in his I Ching translation, confiding that he had never really read the I Ching texts before.

The Watergate Hearings and the new Summer Stillpoint experience— The Tao of 1974. We all studied Gia-Fu's Yang style, short form of Tai Chi. The students and I would turn down the lights in the evening, light scented candles and dance nude and free form with our Tai Chi movements.

Against the background of their youth and playfulness, Gia-Fu and I focused upon the Chinese texts, the book Chinese Characters by Weiger,S.J and creating a truly traditional, Taoist translation of the I Ching into American idiom. He wanted it to retain the original rhythm and flavor of the ancient text which is mostly images and fortune telling slogans.

The special perspective of the Taoist commentary, so different from the German Protestant and Confucian text of Wilhelm was also a major concern. The need was to express the morally neutral and universally open stance of Taoism rather than the bureaucratic CYA moralizing of the Confucians.

He sought the direct access to the American reader of idiomatic imagery, such as using Strutting for hexagram 10. By the end of this visit, Gia-Fu and I had completed his Taoist translation of the I Ching.

In this Tao of 1974 summer translantion Gia Fu went back into his childhood, when he was very young and being given the traditional training in Taoism back home in Shanghai. In an era connected to millennia of Chinese cultural tradition, that is now lost forever.

Along with his mystical Chinese Roots, he also was taken back to his individual childhood when he had prayed to his ancestral gods that he could be a good boy and not be beaten that day.

In one discussion that summer, when a group of students living at Stillpoint were discussing their immigrant parents and grandparents, Gia-Fu mentioned that his family in Shanghai was not originally from that coastal city. They came from the far inland, other side of China, where Genghis Khan had first invaded China.

I asked him when his family immigrated to Shanghai. He replied, “Oh, when Genghis Khan invaded.” He remembered that when he was growing up some of his uncles were still very upset by the family’s dishonor by the rape of their womenfolk. Current events are on a very different timeline to the traditional Chinese.

The Tao of 1974--He returned to his mystical Taoist roots of his childhood. Traditionally, Taoism was the philosophy appropriate to those without a high status Imperial government job. Those preparing to take up formal business, like his family’s work running the Bank of Shanghai needed proper Confucian training.

Gia-Fu managed to maintain his Taoist roots in his family bank job. He mentioned he had a special prostitute to be with him for his lunch hour and get him back to work on time. They sent him to the U.S. to study Western banking and business in 1947 where he stayed after Mao’s revolution ended his family involvement in the banking business.

Gia-Fu had been one of the founders of Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. He was the business and accounting person and also did Shiatsu massage. He and Fritz Perls did not get along. He had charged Fritz for a massage, taking his fee out of Perls’ check when he refused to pay him. Gia-Fu left Esalen as Fritz grew more important there.

Eventually Gia-Fu moved his own Stillpoint Foundation to Manitou Springs, CO. He was never able find the students he hoped for. From my experience with Stillpoint, the gap was too great between his Chinese expectations and Americans’ notions of gurus. Many showed up for awhile, but no one completely fit in. He and I worked on the Taoist translation of the I Ching and then went our separate ways.

The summer of 1974 was a unique time in the American Experience. When I asked folks in their 20’s back then what was happening in the early ‘70’s, most respond with disdain, saying, “very little.” Asked what they personally were doing before 1973 and after 1974, they would think awhile, trying to remember back that far. Then they would notice, often for the first time, that the course of their lives completely changed in that year.

At the time, most folks compared the gentler times of the early ‘70’s to the tumult of the late 60’s and believed there was absolutely nothing happening. I was fortunate enough to read a Bob Dylan album cover speaking the same way about the early ‘50’s, which we then considered a time of great activity.

Realizing that we would look back on this time in the future as a time of important happenings, far more interesting than those current decades, I shuddered at the dark valley we were falling toward. Then, I made a point of appreciating what was going on, no longer comparing it back to before. The Tao of 1974 made its impression upon me.

The result was more of a sense of appreciation in those days, of the Tao of 1974--though nothing compared to the amazement I have today at the incredible intensity and diversity of amazing adventures and relationships those two years involved. The Tao of 1974 was magical indeed.

I figured I was likely to find myself out the other side of everything I dove into by the time the fall rolled around and I could harvest the fruit of my involvements and pack them up with me to move back East. That decision gave me an independent, objective footing in myself to explore the Lotus alternative—to be totally in my local milieu but not rooted at all.

The new perspective worked out very well. My girlfriend much preferred our being friends. I was participating as a member of the Board of Trustees of the II-U Church. I was able to enjoy accompanying my mother to her favorite activities with the Federal Court Judges. I even went to a dinner honoring Justice William O. Douglas. It was fantastic to meet him personally. My mother struck up an immediate close friendship with his young wife, as she often did with people she just met. Her marriage counseling to couples who happened to share an airline seat row with her was legendary.

One of the projects of the II-U community at the time was to open its meeting space to the local Transactional Analysis therapists. They were an eclectic bunch using many modalities, and folks came to sessions for education and stayed for the therapeutic benefits of either watching others or working upon their own issues.

I was deeply involved in studying astrology, teaching a few classes and doing professional horoscope readings for friends in the II-U community. Meeting people and trying to establish myself as a professional astrologer. I cast horoscopes for my own insights into events as they occurred, though mostly I relied upon the Oracle of the I Ching for occult guidance.

During the Ides of March I received my acceptance to Boston College Law School. I celebrated by going to see the movie Paper Chase about the first year of Harvard Law School. I was quickly determined I would be leaving Chicago for Boston which turned out to have a good effect upon my situation these last months in town. I was now a “short-timer” which catalyses situations.

There were volleyball games, meditation classes, several communities I was involved with as well as many social connections to enjoy. I read Kristamurti for the first time, as well as American Indian mythology. I joined the Sabian Assembly and started attending a Sabian study group in Chicago and was becoming deeply involved in reading the work of Marc E. Jones.

I also wrote to my friends in the Boston area from my former residence there that I would be back in town soon. I left Chicago in the middle of May, 1974 flying first to MA to visit my brother and then to Boston to find an apartment for the fall in Boston. I re-established my connections with my old friends and their communities in that part of the world. I went back to Providence for the 5th reunion of my Brown Univ. graduation.

Then I flew through Chicago, set up a trip with my mother to the Spokane World’s fair after my summer at Stillpoint and then back through Chicago again before moving on to Boston College Law School. I arrived back at Stillpoint on the 4th of June 1974. Gia-Fu was still in the mid-West teaching, only 5 people living at Stillpoint and the sauna was broken. I got back into walking up Barr Trail to the Creek, though I fell down once coming back down to Stillpoint.

There was no early rising or chanting to the sunrise in this relaxed atmosphere, but my bedroom faced east and I could watch the dawn from bed through my window. It was a friendly setting, with lots of time to be alone and turn inward over the fortnight or so before Gia-Fu, Jane and the kids from college returned.

There were several people I knew and enjoyed from the summer before remaining at Stillpoint. They all would be leaving before Gia-Fu returned, the old Stillpoint community had fractured and was dissolving. Gia-Fu had failed to create a personal base and deep connections to maintain his Stillpoint Foundation. This was a truly pure Taoist achievement, but it made for more of a commitment to the physical house than to Gia-Fu or Stillpoint as home.

Stillpoint, the house by Barr Trail, had its own rhythm and its own intrinsic milieu which continued in these quiet days as the old community was ending and a whole new group would soon appear with Gia-Fu and his established celebrity as a best-seller author published by Random House. The folks in the house in this period had no wish to continue with Gia-Fu, but they loved and revered Stillpoint and maintained the spirit of the place.

The weather in Colorado in June is a mix of warm, brilliant sunshine, clouds and rain, brief thunderstorms and heavy frost some mornings. Pike’s Peak was our neighbor and covered in a snowy cap this June. Up a bit along the trail there was an experimental forest where I lay out comfortably on a concrete slab, sunbathing and letting the time slip away. I still managed to get back down before noon and that day the sauna was fixed and we could all settle in the evening together in it.

In the heat of the sauna, and the atmosphere sitting nude together we were able to find rapport, or rap in the parlance of the Tao of 1974. Most of the conversation turned to how much they did not like me and resented my presence and intellect last summer when I first came out to Stillpoint. In true Taoist spirit this outpouring made us all feel closer and better able to get along.

Cast an I Ching oracle for my time this summer at Stillpoint. It was hexagram One (Sunshine) with all the odd lines moving to hexagram 64 (Eve) which I found totally impressive. I took it to mean I was “in the hands of the Tao” and to focus inward upon my own development and let the rest take care of itself.

A few days later a grey morning developed into a howling snowstorm and then a nasty, cold, stormy day. Two couples happened to come by to visit showing that Stillpoint attracted visitors who appeared whatever the current weather might be. I went out on a shopping trip for new supplies for our group through the rain.

By the next day the weather was back to being warm and sunny though the trail up past the Creek was snow covered with lovely white snow glistening in the sunshine. The bright green trees dripping melting snow and dislodged ice in the warm sunshine, I was thoroughly delighted with the Colorado climate.

While hiking “I realized the connection between the I Ching and astrology—both study time and use solar position—thus when the I Ching speaks of the Southwest it refers to the 7-9th houses” [from my personal journal of 9 June 1974]. I noted at the time “The insight was delightful but like most insights a flash that will be a long time coming to stable light.”

The insight referred the lines in the Wilhelm Judgment for Hexagram 39 “The Southwest furthers, the Northeast does not further.” The 7th-9th houses involve other people and distant places. The 1st-3rd (N.E. in horoscope direction) involve oneself and things close at hand. The flash was that the Yi and the horoscope had the same symbolic directions. Later would come the understanding both were timing analogs of the interplay of solar flux celestial dynamics and the topography of Planet Earth.

The next day there was an article in the local paper noting “that the Plains Indians Medicine Wheel marked with its stones the position of the summer solstice thus tying that mythology to astrology” [FRK personal journal 10 June 1974].” The horoscope wheel tied to the observation of the cardinal points (solstices and equinoxes was universal knowledge around the Northern hemisphere.

I had no car, but I ventured walking down Ruxton Ave. Stillpoint Foundation was on a Manitou Springs, CO city street out the front and the trail to Barr Trail out the back. Compared to hiking to the creek or up to the Experimental Forest, it was an easy walk to town with its stores and food shops.

Then in what I realized was the usual way for Stillpoint, people started to arrive to fill out the empty spaces. Four girls from the college in Michigan arrived a few days before Gia-Fu and settled into a cabin on the grounds. Jane arrived with several fellows and another showed up on his own from Nashville.

I awoke the next morning at 5 am the routine of early rising was returning. The spirit of the place was quite different with these eager, fun loving college students bringing a new energy as well as beer, tequila, and cigarettes into the mix. It was a totally different vibe and the ancient law of real estate took over, the majority of the people living in a place control the rule of the place.

This new Tao for Stillpoint motivated Gia-Fu to ask me to work on a translation of the I Ching with him. On the 16th of June he offered me the opportunity to work on the translation in exchange for his not charging me for room and board. I considered it a great opportunity and looked forward to the work with great excitement. What had been for me just a summer at Stillpoint before law school had turned into a joint project for the Taoist translation of the I Ching.

At this time I received a note from Marc E. Jones along with the return of a paper on Sabian philosophical terms I had prepared for the upcoming Sabian Assembly conference. At the time I found his note rather distant. He referred to how when he tried out for the debate team they could not understand what he was talking about but accepted him on the team saying they could use a comedian.

Years later in a private conference with Marc and another of the old hands of the Sabian group, he introduced me by referring to this paper. He said that I had written exactly right about the technical terms of Sabian in my paper, but he assumed the paper was going to a general audience who would not understand such technical details at all.

I had hoped the paper would be an introduction for me into the inner circle of the Sabian group by my demonstration of my understanding of their esoteric terms and their deep meaning. Looking back I can see that such connection was not open to anyone of my age. Although the paper I wrote had been prepared and identified as being intended for an internal conference of the Sabian Assembly, Marc only could see it as being work of a different generation for some other context.

I had made the introduction I wished, but the response was not what I hoped for. Looking back today, I am reminded of the comments of a dear friend of mine in the Sabian Assembly about his own situation back home in Maine. Though he had lived in Maine since the age of 4, the Mainers all considered him a visitor. His parents and ancestors weren’t Mainers, so he was just a summer visitor who they didn’t notice staying through the winters too.

My astrological interests were thus put on hold until the major conference of both the Sabian Assembly with Marc E. Jones in attendance and the Am. Fed. of Astrologers in San Francisco in August. I was able to devote my full attention to this newly developed work on the Taoist Translation of the I Ching. I had been wondering just that day what I would be doing at Stillpoint for the long summer with the old Stillpoint gone and the new routine dominated by rowdy college students.

Continue the Narrative to the actual Taoist Translation of I Ching

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