 Clarity's I Ching Newsletter: Issue 50 "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul." G.K. Chesterton |
™Letter from the Editor— Dear Subscriber, Happy New Year! And Happy Year of the Monkey, too, for the 22nd. I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and are looking forward to the year ahead.
It seems an impossibly long time since I last wrote to you, with I Ching gifts and the link to download the 2003 ebook anthology from 'Answers'. Thank you so much if you're one of the people who ordered from Amazon via my site - especially at a time when all the world and its dog (and probably its goldfish, come to that) were trying to sell you things.
In case you missed the download link, the 'Best of Answers' ebook is still there for you to collect. Actually, so is the one from 2002! Here's a page with download links for both ebooks.
What to expect from the 'I Ching world' in the coming year? I've already mentioned what I have in the pipeline: I Ching Manual ebook, updates and improvements to the I Ching Correspondence Course, readings by phone, and the first stages of a membership site. (It's just that the pipeline is proving a great deal longer than I'd anticipated!)
And in the wider world...
- Amazon tell me that this Spring,the translations by Alfred Huang and R.J. Lynn are due out in paperback, and Roger Green (a feng shui teacher) is bringing out an I Ching workbook
- Bradford Hatcher is hoping to complete his line-by-line commentary this year. Like all the rest of his extraordinary work, it will be free, and infinitely more worth having than (at least) 90% of the I Ching books in the shops.
- the US edition of Stephen Karcher's Total I Ching is (finally!) due in the autumn; he's also incubating some I Ching software that should be stunning, but probably won't emerge in its finished version in 2004.
This issue has a guest article kindly contributed by Stephen Anschutz, describing a way of performing an I Ching reading for the year ahead that's quite new to me. (I always just sort the stalks in the traditional way.) This time of year is an open invitation to talk with the I Ching in a way that reaches beyond the more usual crisis-management. I can strongly recommend giving yourself an annual reading, and putting its figures and words where you can see them for the year.
I hope your year is unfolding like a rose...
warm wishes,
Hilary
Many thanks for your explanation of 'Marrying the Maiden' which I got in relation to a rapidly changing political situation that I am involved in. Having read your explanation I understand how the hexagam relates to my situation. Despite feeling I have no control, I feel able to let go of having any influence on what will happen, feeling that good may eventually come out of the situation. It feels like a "lap of the Gods" situation and that seems confirmed by your interpretation.
Thank you for that.
best wishes for the New Year
Rose Titchiner
™Guest article: Annual I Ching— The I Ching is a wonderful way to develop oneself and has a myriad of uses, but one of the most rewarding methods that I had the privilege of being taught many years ago, was learning how to use one Hexagram as a yearly gift to myself.
The gift is a deeply personal and profound connection to the wisdom of the I Ching. But it only arrives at the end of the year if one has sincerely and diligently followed the process of discovering and practising what the 11 derivatives of the yearly hexagram have asked.
The process of deriving these hexagrams is simple and easy. Firstly, a Hexagram must be thrown based on the question ‘what is my I Ching for the year?’. The intention behind this question is normally based on what would be of the greatest benefit to understand and achieve for the year.
Secondly, from the annual Hexagram the other eleven monthly hexagrams are derived. As you will see, the annual I Ching is the Hexagram that is encountered in the 12th month and the 11 other hexagrams are the steps towards developing understanding and achieving it.
The process is a matter of changing one line of the Hexagram each month. So beginning in January the first line of the Annual hexagram is changed to its opposite, in February the second line is changed from the preceding hexagram and so on until July. Once the first six months of hexagrams have been completed, the process begins again by changing the first line to its opposite. Thus the hexagrams are changed until eventually the hexagram thrown for the year evolves in December.
There are many significant factors that are encountered using this method which will be elaborated on shortly, but first an illustration of this method based on Hexagram 56 (Travel) is given below. (Note the box around the line that has changed each month)
As part of the overall analysis of the yearly I Ching the 12 Hexagrams must also be deconstructed and the totals of trigrams examined.
From the example above this reveals that Creative (heaven) appears once in February.
Receptive (earth) appears once in August.
Clarity (fire) appears a total of 5 times. Twice in January and once each in February, March and December.
Danger (water) appears a total of 5 times. Twice in July and once each in June, August and September.
Movement (thunder) appears once in November.
Stillness (mountain) appears a total of 5 times. Once in April, September, October, November and December.
Joy (lake) appears a total of 5 times. Once in March, April, May, June and October.
Gentle (wind) appears once in May.
The frequency of each trigram appearing throughout the year reveals that there are important issues that are to be examined. These are to do with Clarity, Danger, Stillness and Joy.
When these are examined in the light of the trigrams that make up the yearly hexagram of Travel, which consists of Clarity and Stillness, it indicates that throughout the year there are several key questions that the I Ching wishes one to keep in mind. As an example, these questions may be as follows: to be clear of the dangers that how they may occur; to be clear about how and why stillness should be practised; and to be clear about what constitutes joy and how joy is it attained. Additionally other questions raised may indicate that there is illumination to be attained by practising and understanding how stillness affects clarity, or the importance of stillness in danger, and, how joy is attained from stillness. As one can see there is a myriad of questions that can be reflected upon before the year has begun, and if each month is reviewed in the context of the year, many more questions will be revealed throughout the year.
Thus throughout the year it will become apparent that there are many dimensions and dynamics of the annual hexagram. Sometimes these will be revealed directly, as would be the case with double clarity 30 (fire) encountered in January, or sometimes this will occur subtly, as is the case where the importance of stillness is explored in July through double danger 29 (mastering pitfalls).
The significance of examining the trigrams has of course a myriad of implications, however, their frequency is importance because it sets the tone for what the year ahead entails and outlines what is needed in one’s development.
When analysing the 11 hexagrams that occur throughout the year it is therefore important to view them from the perspective of being derived from the annual hexagram. To understand the yearly more deeply, it is important to understand the sum of its parts. As most of the I Ching hexagrams emphasise some form of flexibility and firmness, by understanding how various trigrams affect different hexagrams one can become aware of the subtle influences that underlie mastering the yearly hexagram.
As a practitioner of the I Ching for many years the annual Hexagram has become a wonderful way to anticipate and herald in the New Year. But more importantly it has become an invaluable way to accomplish self-development and affirms the old proverb about correctly attaining knowledge, ‘the river that runs narrow, runs deep’.
May the year ahead be full of good fortune.
ã Copyright Stephen J Anschutz
™Subscriber's Reading: Career Prospects in 2004 ˜ I am from China in July, 1997, and I have worked in a biological research company in Victoria BC, Canada since Jan. 1999. I am a technician in the lab.
I was born in Nov. 14, 1956--a female.
What will happen in my career or job in 2004?
Thanks a lot, Jie Career Prospects in 2004
The I Ching answered with Hexagram 56, Travelling, changing to Hexagram 23, Stripping Away. It sounds as though you will, at the very least, have the opportunity to move on...
Primary hexagram: 56, Travelling
This describes you as a traveller: someone with a distant objective, who has stopped just for a while among strangers. It's a strong indication that you are not truly 'at home' in your present job, and shouldn't regard it as more than a 'staging post' on your journey. You're not going to bring about major changes in the way this company does things, and nor are they having a significant influence on you.
'Travelling, creating small success,
Travelling, constancy means good fortune.'
That is, your small degree of involvement with the firm you work for brings you small rewards - and this has been the only sensible strategy, as there is no place here for your larger self. But good fortune in the longer term comes from 'constancy' - which I think means not just persistence, but also continuing truth to yourself and your more remote ideals.
This may be quite a confusing feeling for you, because it is so different from how things felt when you first left China. At first, you were doing something great and important, fulfilling your destiny - now, the journey is still going on, but in small steps and without dramatic changes. It's as if you and your decisions have moved from the centre of things to the periphery. This stage actually demands every bit as much self-reliance and independence of mind as your initial move. As a traveller, you provide your own standard to judge by.
And you need to be able to use it:
'Above the mountain is fire. Travelling.
The noble one with clear-minded care
Uses punishments and does not drag out legal proceedings.'
The fire above the mountain sounds to me like the camp fire for a group of travellers. Before it burns out, they must settle any disputes, not carry their disagreements with them. The same principle applies when you are travelling alone: you need to take your decisions, act on them (even if it hurts) and move on - to limit how much time and energy you'll expend in the process of deciding.
Change
With the two central lines changing, you are travelling across the threshold from feeling to action - never easy! You might be spurred on by the feeling that there is more you can do - and afraid, at the same time, that such feelings may not fit well with the real world. But if you are absolutely present to all the guidance the real world offers, it may be surprising what comes to you.
Changing line 3
'Wanderer burns down the rest house.
Loses her young helper.
Constancy brings danger.'
I'm afraid this does indicate that you could lose your job - not through neglecting it, but actually through being too enthusiastic. This line describes someone who looks into things too hard, asks for too much from other people, and generally lives at a higher degree of intensity than her surroundings can sustain. Could you be trying to make more of your job than it can really offer you?
Obviously, continuing in this way is dangerous. But before you stifle your ambitions and make a last-ditch effort to fade into the background... 'danger' in the I Ching is not always something to be avoided. You might have valid reasons to test the capacity of your job and relationships to breaking point.
Changing line 4
'Traveller with a place to stay,
Gains property and an axe.
My heart is not glad.'
Here is the alternative picture, of the year you can expect if you manage not to 'burn down' your current position: greater job security, perhaps the offer of a rise in pay ('property') or status (the axe, symbol of authority). Yet this is not something you can rejoice in. Perhaps the problem is that it still doesn't feel altogether secure - or perhaps you just don't feel sufficiently connected to this firm and this job to feel happy about the assurance of staying there.
Relating hexagram: 23, Stripping Away
I think that this reading as a whole is asking you whether you have arrived in the position that really brings out your full potential. When someone asks, 'And what do you do?' you may be able to answer easily, but how much excitement and enthusiasm do you feel?
If you have the feeling that there is more you can do with your life, what will it take for that fresh potential to emerge and grow? The painful truth is that, as a rule, the familiar and safe scenario has to be stripped away from us to create the space for new growth.
Hexagrams 23 and 24, Stripping Away and Returning, form one of the I Ching's 'out with the old, in with the new' pairs. Stripping Away is the first part of the process: losing the old and familiar. On the surface, your job is secure; underneath, the life is going out of it. Presently, the surface may also fall away - and if you're unprepared, this leaves you feeling very lost indeed.
'Stripping away.
No harvest in having a direction to go.'
This isn't necessarily about having the courage to make the break from the old job, but rather having the courage not to hang on when the break makes itself, and to allow something truer and more alive to emerge. You're not being asking to start making detailed plans for the future and fix on your 'direction to go'. Part of the lesson of Stripping Away, in my own experience, is that if you don't clear out the old completely, then what you think are new ideas will turn into repetitions of old, familiar, 'safe' patterns. So the best thing you can do with feelings of insecurity is also the hardest - just to live with them.
Yet not making plans doesn't mean being unprepared:
'Mountain resting on the earth. Stripping away.
With generosity from above, creating quiet places below.'
The harder you hold on to the old ways, the worse Stripping Away will feel. But this kind of change doesn't absolutely have to happen through pain and crisis. The 'mountain' of your current status and job security can be 'eroded' gradually and gently, creating a fertile valley below where people can be at home. You can concentrate instead on your untapped potential: a wide-open, unexplored landscape beyond the mountain.
At the I Ching Community:
Needless to say, there's been a daunting volume of brilliant discussions since I last wrote. I'm a long way from catching up on it all myself - so all I can do is to give you a couple of links to pages I'm saving myself.
Dragon story (see the second post on this page)
Further afield:
The Galileo library - many classic books from East and West available online (though not as downloadable ebooks, except in a Mac-only format).
Joseph Murphy's book is one of the great disasters of I Ching literature. But Greg Whincup's is an interesting one, and absurdly cheap here! Brian Browne Walker is also very popular at Amazon: I haven't read it, but I don't think it's a true translation.
(Please note I just heard about this store from a tarot newsletter and thought I would pass on the link - I've never bought from them.)
And here are quite a few more.
I provide personal I Ching readings from £25.
All readings are
completely private and unconditionally guaranteed.
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