 Clarity's I Ching Newsletter: Issue 46 "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't" Erica Jong |
™Letter from the Editor— Dear Subscriber, First - good news! I'm cutting the price for the I Ching Correspondence Course materials, when you get them without the personal tuition.
I wish I could think of a clever way to explain this, but basically I just read through the two ebooks again, and decided that the original price, £40, is too much to pay for something this concise, no matter how good it is ;) . So I've halved the price to £20 (about US $34). At £20, I hope now it offers more than value for money, which is what I aim for. I keep thinking of ways to improve the whole course, too, and things I'd like to add to it, so I'll be doing this, step by step, in the New Year. (I'll always send out the latest version to people who've already bought the course.)
(If you've already bought the materials on their own for £40, I'll be contacting you separately to offer tuition on one of the assignments, to make up the difference.)
And no news...
In the last issue, I wrote about how ImagesofOne had plagiarised Bradford Hatcher's work to sell in their 'Prova LifeDivination I Ching Plus' software, and promised to update you on their response to his request that they withdraw it. Well, here's the update: nothing happened. But to judge from the site's forum, there seems to be a major problem with the company as a whole, with products not being delivered and customers' emails going unanswered. I hope nothing is seriously wrong.
Finally - I know this is a strange request, but...
Are you knowledgeable about international phone calls? I'm planning on offering readings by phone in the near future, and would like to find ways to reduce costs for customers calling from outside the UK - or for me to call them. I'd welcome any suggestions.
Enjoy the newsletter!
Warm wishes,
Hilary LiSe's article on Hexagrams 31 and 32 in the last issue brought this response from Stephen Karcher (author of Total I Ching):
"I thoroughly enjoyed and admired LiSe’s work on 31:32. To my mind, this is excellent work that encourages us to think in Pairs rather than individual hexagrams and brings the old language and myth material into our “psychology,” so to speak, in a direct, vivid and informed manner. It sparked off a series of thoughts and comments that we might add to the reflections on this crucial and pivotal Pair and to reflections on the “history” embedded in the texts of Zhouyi – its “historical project,” to use the language of comparative literature."
You can read the complete letter online here: Reflections on the Way and its Power.
More on the I Ching and Christianity:
"Another instance of synchronicity - at the same time as I received the current 'Answers' newsletter, I got an e-mail from a visitor to the Clarity website, asking about "Embracing Change" by Jung Young Lee, which I had forgotten I had posted a message about months ago, and am currently re-reading. What should I see in the current 'Answers', but a letter from someone else recommending the same book. Not only did this prompt me to renew the book, hideously overdue, but to read it more thoroughly.
One thing the author mentions several times is that the I Ching is a book of profound human wisdom, and does not depend upon a supernatural power. However, in a passage on prayer he says:
"I believe that the most effective form of prayer involves the reception of a vision, similar to the generation of a hexagram. .......Many times God answers us through visions.....When we are deeply involved in prayer, God often gives us a vision...."
If the parallels made in the book between divination by the I Ching and Christian prayer are valid, I can't really see where the dividing line between 'human' wisdom and 'supernatural' wisdom can be drawn.
Keith"
"Good evening,
I wonder, in case of multiple changing lines in a hexagram, if I have a) to read the first hexagram with the first changing line, and then b) to go immediately to the hexagram that is formed because of the first changing line.
Example, given purely without throwing my antique Chinese coins, just for an example: I obtain hexagram 1 - Ch'ien with changing lines 1 and 4.
As a matter of fact, when the first line of Hexagram 1 -Ch'ien indicates a change, I obtain 44-Kou. The change has taken place, the situation is not anymore the one of "creative Force". Most people would then go on and read line 4 of hexagram 1, and not read hexagram 44 nor its changing line 4.
If in my initial hexagram, the 4th line is also changing, so I would read, in my "skipping"- technique, hexagram 44 and its line 4, with different contents and messages than line 4 of Hexagram 1.
At the end, I would finally obtain the same final result as with the classical reading without "skipping": 57- Sun.
Though the final result is the same; the Way, the Tao to the answer teaches other lessons and other understandings.
Has there ever been a question and a study about this "skipping-reading" ?
Thanks for your reflections,
Kind regards,
from Jean-Pierre Eli DHOOGE,
BELGIUM - MECHELEN"
I first heard about this method from another reader - Gary Bastoky, but I believe it may have first appeared in Mondo Secter's I Ching Handbook, where it is called 'transitional hexagrams'. I described it as a 'whole new perspective' in my article on multiple moving lines. But this still leaves me with questions: what is different about the perspective given by this kind of reading? What value does it have?
The original method, of reading multiple moving lines within the primary hexagram, shows possibilities, relationships and dynamics within the basic situation. By 'skipping' to the next hexagram, you assume, as Jean-Pierre says, that the change in the first line has taken place and shifted the basic situation. It's a more linear approach, one that assumes the situation proceeds step by (unrelated?) step. So perhaps it would make more sense in a reading describing a process, less in one describing a relationship or state of mind, for instance?
But this is pure speculation on my part, which is not worth so much. Do you have experience with this 'transition' method? I've posted Jean-Pierre's complete letter at the I Ching Community, so you can comment straight away.
™DIY Corner: Who is the 'great man'?— "Who is the 'great man'?
best wishes,
Tracy"
The great person (who can also be female! ;) ) is someone who has the vision and strength of character to attain whatever goal or ideal the reading is about, and to help and guide you to do the same. So, who is this, and how do you go about 'seeing' them?
It might be a professional - in hexagram 6, for instance, it might be a counsellor, someone whose perspective rises higher than 'I'm right, so you must be wrong'. In hexagram 45, I think it is a visionary who can see beyond present circumstances, and understands the need for great sacrifices to invest in the future. (Wu Jing Nuan actually suggests the 'great people' are diviners.) It might be a friend or mentor, or the author of a helpful book, or just someone whose patterns of life you can model yourself on. (Sometimes you may need to cultivate your vision of the 'greatness' hidden in another person!)
But if you think about it, you still have to recognise and decide who represents that particular 'greatness' you are aspiring to. In fact, you can only recognise them because their image is already inside you. The great person is your highest self. So while at times you may be so caught up in circumstances that you really need external help, sometimes it is possible to take a shortcut: to go direct to your own inner knowledge, rather than looking for its image in the outside world.
™ Subscriber's Reading: Separations ˜ "Dear Hilary;
Submitting my request for the free reading; thank you, by the way, for the very generous offer. I'm sure you will be besieged!
Twice now, I have received hexagram 48 with changing lines 4 and 6 , to two separate questions. However there is, I suppose, a link, to the two questions...as follows.
"What is my relationship to (a certain person)?" I was trying to clarify my relationship with someone I hold in esteem, but am separated from.
"How do I deal with the fact that my relationship with (a different person) is so difficult." Again, another inspirational person I am separated from.
Both persons are inspirational to me. I have a separation to both.
The resulting hexagram is 44. What does this mean?
Yours,
Jane"
Dear Jane,
Thank you for sharing this, it's very interesting... a repeated reading first describing a separation from someone inspirational, and then advising about it. I think that overall, it's talking about the structure of relationships (Hexagram 48, the Well) and how this is influenced by the personal changes described in Hexagram 44, Coupling.
(By the way, just as if it were a private reading, please send me any questions or comments you have.) The Well is a structure people build together in order to reach life-giving resources: the perfect image for relationships of all kinds. You might think of the patterns of the relationship itself as the well, and the water that fills it as the inspiration people draw from (or through) one another.
'The Well. Moving the capital city, not moving the well.
No loss, no gain,
Going, coming: welling, welling.
Almost there, yet the well rope does not quite reach,
Breaking your pitcher,
Pitfall.'
Most things in life you can call 'yours', and carry them with you when you change. But you can't move the well. So whenever you yourself move or change, you need to dig a new well, rebuild your friendship. But the source of the friendship, the inspiration behind it, is everywhere and irreducible. From our perspective on the surface of things, there is 'going, coming': time passes. But beneath the surface, water still flows.
If the inspiration these people offer you is real, then the full potential for the relationship is still there, quite unchanged. (But even if it turned out that you have moved beyond them, the potential for new relationships would be undiminished.)
The challenge with wells, though, isn't just finding water; it's bringing it up to the surface where it can be useful. All the potential inspiration in the world is little comfort when the means of reaching the other person have broken down. It sounds as though what you need is some well-maintenance...
The Image describes this in pragmatic terms:
'Above wood is the stream. The Well.
The noble one labours with the ordinary people to encourage them to help one another.'
Wells are built when people work together and share their strengths. The noble one immerses herself in such work - literally, in fact, for the wood under the water is an image of the wooden brace used to support the walls at the base of the well, whose shape makes the ancient ideogram for 'well'. It suggests involvement, from the bottom up.
Or in other words - a well comes into being at the bottom of a dark, deep, muddy pit. This is not some sweet April shower or sparkling lake! It has its roots in the Oppression of Hexagram 47, in which the walls of isolation close in like a trap and there is sometimes devastating mistrust between people. Relationships are renewed and repaired by returning to a simpler level - and by hard work.
You relate to the Well of these friendships through Coupling - the relating hexagram, which can describe the influence and 'pull' you bring to bear on the basic situation, as well as the experience that emerges from it.
'Coupling, the woman is powerful.
No use to take the woman.'
The roots of this lie in the preceding hexagram, Deciding (#43). It suggests that you've found your resolution and made your presence felt, pushing out indecision and old patterns.
What comes next is not so predictable or controllable: some unnervingly dynamic female power enters life at its foundations. This is not easy for other people to cope with: the usual old ways of relating (and dominating) don't work with this woman. She may not be particularly easy for you to 'manage', either.
So Coupling has a disconcerting habit of undermining relationships, demanding that they be rebuilt. It suggests that these relationships may have come apart because their current structure couldn't sustain your new energies. In the first reading, where this is a picture of the relationship, you might point the finger at Hexagram 44 as the source of the problems - the iceberg below the surface. But since it still appears when you ask about how to deal with relationship difficulties, it might also be part of the solution...
'Below heaven is the wind. Coupling.
The crown prince gives out orders to command the four corners of the earth.'
The 'crown prince' is the successor to the throne: he receives orders and a destiny (two meanings of the same Chinese word) that he doesn't choose. This is like your 'inner ruler' - the part of you that makes the decisions - confronted with the arrival of this powerful woman who won't just 'fit in' quietly. But the crown prince is seen here confidently sending orders out into the world as his own. Even if you are not comfortable with the new force entering your life, you can still make it part of the self you project.
Notwithstanding the difficulty you're experiencing in both relationships, the moving lines describe a positive process. You are not neglecting or misusing the Well - in fact, you are inspired by a strong desire to create the greatest possible good out of these connections.
Line 4:
'The well is lined. No mistake.'
This well is temporarily closed for repairs: it needs tiling to prevent the waters from becoming muddied and eroding the sides of the shaft. In other words, you have inner work to do before you can open yourself up to contact with these people. This may have its roots in a very nasty experience - feeling walled off, confused, reaching for help in all the wrong places. It is not wrong to respond with extreme measures to develop your independence - building a strong, distinct identity that won't collapse in on itself. If you need to shut people out for a while, so be it.
Line 6:
'The well gathers, not covered.
With sincerity and confidence, good fortune from the source.'
After the well has been lined, it can be opened up without reserve. It is being refilled constantly by an underground source, so there will be no need to restrict what is drawn from it. When you are sincere and open, it turns out that there is 'no loss, no gain': the more you draw on your reserves, the more flows in from hidden sources.
You'll notice the perspective is expanding here, as you tap directly into the source and become the one who gives. Perhaps, from this new point of view, your separation from these people will turn out to be illusory. If you expect contact to be painful, then it is, and you retreat from this punishment into the outer darkness. If you expect limitless inner resources no matter what anyone takes from you... there is 'good fortune from the source'.
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