I’m glad the post has been able to contribute to your ‘dream’ reflection

The Red Queen is a fascinating concept. In fact, the more I think about it the less certain I am in my understanding. On the surface it all appears self-evident and obvious; underneath it all appears ambiguous and unknowable.

If you would like to share what the Red Queen means to you, I’d love to hear it

Mind is activity, and being is absolute inactivity. Mind is running, being is sitting. The periphery is moving, the centre is not moving.

Taken from Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other; from the Insight Series.

The conflict between being and doing has been discussed in philosophy for a long, long time; there is no real answer – philosophically at least.

Personally, I have often wondered if there is a reconciling factor between ambition (usually associated with ‘doing’; the desire to have something happen) and being (much harder to define; in fact Heidegger starts off asking this very question). Regardless, one of the weird quirks of nature seems to be this: the more we try and define being, the more we are ‘doing’.

As you pointed out, how do we reconcile these two factors? The honest answer is, I have no idea. I have never reached such a state. I think it is possible through meditation; perhaps some sort of Tantra technique. I’ve read that Tantra isn’t a philosophy, it doesn’t attempt to answer any questions about life. Rather, it provides a series of techniques that allows the person to experience a type of ‘meaningfulness’. To try and clarify, Tantra does not offer any answers on ‘truth’, rather it offers techniques that allow the person to experience a meaningfulness of being.

I’m unsure if this helps or not but your comment was so awesome it was hard for me to add anything of value to it. Your comment sums up, to me, the predicament of the human condition; that we are thrown into a world that appears to have no rational reason for ‘being’.

The Wheel in this instance represents the desires and ambitions (and greed) that we seek when running with the Red Queen. Of course talking in this way makes it sound as if the Red Queen is culpable for our actions, when she in fact has wisdom and perhaps knowledge of what Crowley refers to as the hub; after all, she knows how to get elsewhere, but she doesn’t do it for herself.

It would be an interesting analogy to say the chess board itself could be the hub, or at least the closest perimeter. Playing chess requires skill and certain strategies to win; if we likened this to negating the Wheel, then the Queen is in fact the right person to run with, only we should be letting her lead the way to the centre instead of following our own ambitions which as you point out, we rarely achieve.

I thought more about this point than any of the others as I am by nature optimistic and believe I can achieve anything I put my mind to. The finer point though is that rarely is there much planning involved! This I believe is the running around, seemingly aimlessly: directionless – we know where we want to go; we just don’t know how to get there. I have often thought of this aspect of my own life as being like a pinball, just bouncing off life, the people I encounter and the situations I find myself in; lacking any real direction. It would seem I too run with the Red Queen.

This also raises a further two questions I feel: how to run with the Red Queen so that I have direction; and how to actually find the hub. These two questions seem to be in conflict with each other, polar opposites if you will; reflecting both the inner and the outer experience; being and doing. It would seem irreconcilable, and I don’t even think the harmony brought from the 2 of Disks can balance this.

What’s also interesting is this little debate I’m having with myself now: there are two separate sides at play, being and doing; and it would seem that one has to be chosen over the other for they can’t possibly co-exist in the same place. Right now my mind is the chess board, and the game itself is how I will attempt to work this out. What’s making me smile is that the Red Queen knows the answer, and she did all along

What a wonderfully thought provoking post – thank you!