31 Perseverance

“Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go!”

Song of the 7 Dwarves from Disney’s Snow White

The often weathered face of endurance in Perseverance Mode.

Symbols & Color

• Horse – Knight: Warrior Set – Background Image and
• Automobile: Mode Group
• Penny: Ordinal Orientation – the personal
• Clubs: Action Axis
• Border Color: Red – Warrior Set

Implications in the Upright Position or Positive Pole

Progress is often measured sometimes in the smallest fractions. The image of the high jumper reminds us that to leap higher can take many attempts. Sometimes, in the course of many tries a new method is discovered, even leading to a new paradigm. One man, an Oregon high-jumper named Dick Fosbury, (not pictured) changed the sport when he literally flipped the way the jumped. In 1964, he did something simply radical, he “flopped” over the bar. From that day forward, every competitor in the sport of high jumping now does the technique which bears his name. The Fosbury Flop. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And on that note, another famous Persister, Thomas Edison tested almost 1000
materials for the filament for his light bulb before tungsten proved to be the one that lasted.

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Persistence

(consistent, steadfast, stalwart, regular, dependable, unrelenting)

1. Get a move on! Keep heading in one direction even if you shift gears: walk, run or crawl, maybe fly! But don’t stop!
2. Persistence is how nature endures and creates change. The processes of erosion, evolution, adaptation, all persist. Atoms are eternal but change organization, and thus form. Are you creating change or is it acting upon you? Either way, action is happening.
3. You are in a marathon. One step at time! Be steadfast and persist.
4. Day-in, day-out, that is how this energy can seem, but the goal is coming into view.
5. Jockeying for position is a appropriate in a horse race. You may not have the lead but make sure you cross the finish line first. You can do it.
6. Work at developing a new habit. Repeat it 7 times in a day and it becomes familiar. 7 times in a week and your body adapts. Repeat this process for 7 weeks and reach proficiency. Do that for 7 months and reach competency. Do it for seven years and reach total mastery.
7. You’ve been dependable in every way! Don’t let anyone dissuade you from that confidence.
8. You are as dependable as the sun rising every morning. Trust that you are doing the right action and moving toward achievement.
9. Realize that you are in it for the long-haul. You might lose a battle but the war continues. If you never stop fighting, you never lose.
10. Day-in, day-out, that is how this energy can seem, but the goal is coming into view.
11. Your Persistence is about to pay off. Keep on truckin’!
12. Stay the course. No need to change the process or method. You are getting there.
13. Unrelenting desire is useful to maintain interest in a project. Persistent action is necessary to make your vision into a reality. Taking pauses is necessary but stay on track.

Quotations Illustrating this Pole

• “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.”  ~Henry Ward Beecher
• “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”  ~Japanese Proverb
• “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.”  ~Walter Elliott, The Spiritual Life
• “It ain’t over, till its over.” ~Yogi Berra
• Congratulate yourselves if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
  

Implications in the Reversed Position or Negative Pole

This is a modern industrial assembly line. People stand planted, unable to leave their position as work is shuttled by them at an unforgiving pace. Imagine doing repetitive motion for 8 – 10 hours per day, 5 -6 days per week? What would your quality of life be like? Monotony is the best way to kill not just the human spirit, but based on studies of emotional and physical stress…the human body as well. The modern office worker knows of a similar malady of facing repetitive stress injuries more commonly known as “carpal-tunnel syndrome”. Some have even listed it under what has been termed an “industrial decease”. Anytime a person/body is subjected to unwavering or immutable circumstances their intelligence dulls, their zest for life drains, and their vitality ebbs. Think of all those old movies portraying slaves pushing a grinding wheel around in a circle. Like the grain underneath the millstones they were compelled to push, they too were being ground down. In the negative pole, a being has resigned to allowing himself to be used by the system. They have expectations, from previous experience, that nothing can change for them so might as well just simply suffer through it. This kind of expectation aligns with its Warrior Set counterparts sounding cynical (Card 10), expecting battle, if not defeat, having to move continuously expelling energy for some cause that may not be worthy, but they are in Submission (Card 10) to. Needless to say, with such a combination we can see how the CF of Martyrdom (Card 23) can emerge.

Card messages in the Shadow position.

– Monotony

( Dogged, Fixed, Immutability, Inflexible, Repetitive, Set In Stone, Stuck, Unchanging, weary)

1. Monotony is repetition without focus. It is the millstone grinding one down. Stealing any meaningful expression by usurping your time in a endless and mindless recursion. These patterns wear one out rather than build toward. Are you just spinning your wheels? Get off the treadmill and run somewhere.
2. Are you weary of the monotony in this situation? Try taking a break before you start up again. Or re-imagine the process you use to get the job done.
3. The job might be the same but does the method have to be? If what you knew was working, you’d be winning. Are you?
4. Carl Jung said, “what you resist, persists“. Don’t let yourself be locked into a way of doing things. Otherwise, you keep getting the same old results.
5. Sisyphus was cursed to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back down. If you experience this as ‘same-old, same-old’ then time to stop being a sissy and make a fuss! Rebel.
6. After years of loyalty, the “company man” or woman is often drained of vigor. Make sure you reach retirement before you are retired beneath the ground. It might be time to find a new job. 
7. Perseverance is a quality one needs to run a marathon. But the closer to the end of the ordeal, the sooner one will need to lean into that last effort, for then a one must sprint to get to the finish line. At that point, it is time to slide over into Aggression Mode and kick your way to the end.
8. The old adage about the pebble in your shoe applies here. You need to empty the rock out of your shoe to stop hurting. Sometimes people adapt to pain because they don’t believe they have a choice. You do. It will be a relief.
9. In ancient times, a horse would be made to pull a weight in a circle to power a mill. Eventually they created a rut so deep they couldn’t effectively move at all. You are pretty much moving without advancing at all.

Quotations Illustrating this Pole

• “It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint while the body still perseveres.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
• “No man is ever whipped, until he quits — in his own mind.”  ~Napoleon Hill
• “I feel monotony and death to be almost the same.”  ~Charlotte Bronte
• “There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!” ~Coco Chanel

Relevance in the Michael Teaching

Perseverance is the Mode undertaken when long term or large scale challenges are meant to be engaged.  When a life is to be filled with a task requiring many small steps and little deviation from the path.  It has been said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”  Perseverance is a long run strategy to accomplish a goal, and thus glamor elude it . It is not sexy. In the current era there is a lack of desire that doesn’t seem to happen overnight the meteoric rise, the burst onto the scene, are loved by a instant gratification society. The problem arises when in the negative pole of monotony or immutability that a person believes that the way they do something is the only way or the right way, to accomplish their task.  The problem with this reasoning has to do with the definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Perseverance often accompanies a life is besieged by suffering, trials, or set backs.  Such folks can feel a repartition in patterns of events. It is a choice to feel challenged and rise to the occasion, or to feel burdened and yoked, trapped by circumstances. No wonder Martyrdom and Submission are cousins on the same Ordinal-Action Axis, all three have qualities in their negative poles indicating a type of pointless resignation and renunciation of any personal responsibility to make life better for themselves. One of the best (humorous) movies about the negative effects of Monotony is Joe vs. The Volcano. While you are laughing, you might relate more than is comfortable.

This Mode is especially useful in tackling lives that involve a great deal of Self Karma or encounters with 6th level lives which require a great deal of stamina to complete.

Cultural Meaning

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.” This children’s nursery rhyme may be a simplistic way of saying, stay the course and don’t give up and don’t give in, but the point is that multiple trials and experiments and practice often improves a situation at least, but can do more and cause a person to achieve their goal on the way.

There is much expectation put upon people to Persevere, especially when relief is not coming. Many stories of endurance and absolute unwavering repetitive adherence to a vary of doing things. The Donner Party Survivors are one example and so is the fated Greely Arctic Expedition of the late 19th Century.

As modern environmental and economic changes occur, many still hold onto the same tried and true beliefs and behaviors that have worked for many generations. But Perseverance will not mean staying the same, it will mean staying the course on the horizon toward inevitable change.

Famous Examples

Thomas Edison, Jewish People, marathon runners, mountain climbers, President Abe Lincoln, Kirk Douglass, Rupert Murdock, Cal Ripkin, Lou Gehrig, Michael Phelps, Unsinkable Molly Brown, Joan Rivers, Energizer Bunny, The Little Train that Could, Wiley Coyote, Kevin Costner, Philo Farnsworth, Myth of Sisyphus, John Glenn, Billy Graham, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Redford, Michael Moore, Newt Gingrich, Adolphus Greely, Jesse Jackson, President Richard Nixon, Billy Graham, Walt Disney, John C. Riley, Mick Jagger

You might have this Overleaf if…

Coming soon.

by Stephen Cocconi © 2011, Updated 2024

For a Tarot Session or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com