 Clarity's I Ching Newsletter: Issue 57 "No loss, no gain. Going, coming: welling, welling." Yi |
™Letter from the Editor— Dear Subscriber,
Click 'play' to listen to the introduction:
Click here for up-to-date information on reading services. If the above 'play' button isn't working, here is a direct link to the file it plays. You can left-click this to start playing, or right-click and choose 'save target as' to save it to your hard drive - probably better if you are on a slow dial-up connection. If you still can't hear the audio, please email me for a transcript. "Dear Hilary,
I think we should all exchange incidents of the uncanny aptness of I Ching answers. Some say it is 80% correct - in my view it has always been 100% correct. I have never known it to be wrong. On many occasions it appears to be wrong but is actually correct eg when I asked if Gore would win the US election it said it would be incredibly close but Gore would win. It appeared to be wrong but actually Bush became president through technicalities rather than through receiving more votes.
My father in law, it seemed would certainly die recently. But the Ching said he would live. He worsened but actually he lived against all the odds - at first the oracle seemed wrong - unduly optimistic. We got the line a lame man continuing on and managing on one leg. On a metaphorical level it was true coz although sick he struggled on and survived. Then lo and behold last week he fell and broke his leg. So it turned out to be literally true.
A friend came from Ireland to Australia. We threw the coins - he did not know the I Ching. I didn't know the question. But when I read the answer, Hexagram 35 with no moving lines, he nearly fell on the floor with amazement. As you know it mentions a prince receiving numerous horses. As it turned out, his question related to opening a horse stud farm in Queensland.
Recently a friend, an Anglican priest, asked a question without telling me the question. It came up 20 ie "The ablution has been performed but not yet the offering. Full of trust they look up to him"
I was amazed but not surprised when I found out the question related to whether he would become a bishop soon. Note that the symbolism, all the way from ancient China, uses very priestly Christian symbolism. Ablution and offering are the actual terms for rituals in the Anglo-Catholic mass. I have many translations but the Ching seems to know which one I will open to read the answer. The lines are thus incredibly variegated and apt.
These are two of thousands of staggeringly apt answers the I Ching gives me.
By the way I see nothing wrong with over-using the Oracle, as long as you accept the answers and don't keep repeating the questions. Some people are very precious about this- as if the I Ching cares how much one uses it. If anything it seems flattered by one's faith in it. By using it many times one becomes very familiar with it. I can throw it anywhere anytime coz I virtually know it off by heart. I have used it since 1973 - one thing I have noticed is that as I get older, it's harder to remember which lines came up as the hex builds in my mind - obviously one's memory in this regard deteriorates as one gets older- but only marginally.
Thanks and God bless - I mean hex 14 at the top line to you
from dude skoodle"
And to you, dude :)
{FIRSTNAME You know}, I really like this idea of sharing I Ching experiences. Do you have a good one you would like to share? Please send it to letters@onlineClarity.co.uk
"Hi Hilary,
... On your recommendation I acquired 2 new books to my collection,
Stephen Karcher's How to Use the I Ching>, and Total I Ching, Myths for Change. I love them both! One brief for quick analysis, the other for understanding answers that are too "loaded" for me to easily grasp. The myth book gets me out of my head, so that I can hear the answer better.
I also wanted to sing the praises of one of my other favorites by Sam Reifler, I think it is called the contemporary I Ching. The cover is gone, I have used it so much, so cannot be certain to the title. [Ed note: it's 'I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times'] But he uses 3 ways to answer. Artha, Kama, Moksha. Kama part being very helpful in relationship scenarios. I also like Brian Browne Walker's A Guide to Life's Turning Points. It is very clear in its explanation. Accuracy? I don't know. I am not a scholar here. Just a seeker. I read all, with every question. Even the Wilhelm/Baynes, even though it sends me reeling a lot of the time. Sometimes though, it is the most clear.
...[continued in 'DIY Corner']
™DIY Corner: Understanding the Relating Hexagram— "I am still very confused about how to use the relating hexagram. I mean, it is a huge difference between outcome and place of inquirer. How do you know which it is describing?
For instance I had this very positive reading to go forward with something, then the relating was Obstruction, NO. So what to do when that happens. How do you deal effectively in that scenario. I'll give you the whole deal.
My question was, What is the result of going to the big city to see the performance in June? (Background: also could give reason to connect with a friend, but the performance is the main reason for going so soon)
Got hexagram 61 w/ 1,2,4 moving lines ending with 12. I am truly confused with this answer. ( I like S. Karcher's moving line 1 in Myths much more than the others, seems appropriate).
best wishes,
G"
Hello G,
I couldn't agree more: working out how to use the relating hexagram is often the trickiest part of an interpretation. And there isn't really a fixed rule for this: Yi (Change) and fixed rules somehow don't go together well... Each hexagram has its own unique way of interacting with other hexagrams, and so the role of any relating hexagram is going to depend on the dynamics of its relationship with the first hexagram. And of course, all this will only start to make sense within the context of your particular question.
This sounds prohibitively complicated, but the best approach is often the simplest one. For instance, here's how I'd work through your example. This isn't a complete reading: I'm just 'showing my workings', as my Maths teacher used to say - showing the questions I would ask myself to work out how the reading fits together.
61, 12: inner truth, obstruction. How does that expand into a single idea? Inner truth and presence to obstruction... fully realising and experiencing at your heart's core the obstruction to communication.
How does this connect with the question? In the foreground, it is all about going to the performance. But the background issue, the longer-term one, is your connection or lack of it with your friend. The relating hexagram can describe the backdrop, something ongoing rather than acute; it can also describe where you're coming from, your subjective experience behind the question. And it describes something underneath, that your question doesn't explicitly address.
All this together suggests that hexagram 12, and maybe the whole reading, is mostly about this friendship. Would the trip be a way to reconnect and overcome the obstruction? In other words, what, if anything, can Inner Truth do to shift it?
This is where personal experience is an essential. Mine with Hexagram 61 as a primary hexagram suggests that it doesn't overtly change the second hexagram so much as it intensifies and focuses its experience, pulling it through into reality. (Sometimes more real than you would like.)
But as always, the most direct answer will come from the changing lines. (Interested readers without an I Ching book to hand can look them up here) Just a very quick take on those (since this is not meant to be a full reading!):
Line 1: the connection has to be quiet and simple; having something 'other' or hidden about it is not good. Maybe this means that you can't usefully combine these two purposes in one trip?
Line 2: there is the potential for a real, heartfelt connection. (Not guaranteed to be realised in practice, though.) But note it can work well from a distance, 'calling from the shadows' - being physically together might not be as important as you think.
Line 4: A partnership pulls apart, but this is not a mistake. Maybe you can only experience the performance and/or other aspects of the trip to the full if you are not 'yoked' together with your friend?
So what would happen about the Obstruction? I think you would get to its Inner Truth - vividly experience the real reasons for the original disconnection. From this reading I would think that there are ways to transform the Obstruction - but this trip as you've conceived of it now isn't one of them.
™Hexagram of the Month: 48, the Well ˜ Click the 'Play' button for accounts of three readings with Hexagram 48 unchanging: Alternatively, use this direct link to access the file. The name of this hexagram is very straightforward: the Well. The old character, which looks like a noughts-and-crosses grid, is usually said to be a picture of a grid of fields, with the well at the centre. But it is also the exact same shape as the frame used in ancient China to support the sides of the well: examples have been found dating from 1300BC.
This very simple image has a wealth of meanings in divination, just as the well has a wealth of practical and symbolic meanings in real life. As the population grew, the well would have been absolutely essential for life. And beyond that, it was a social centre, and building and maintaining it was a shared, social task. So the condition of the well would be a good index of the health of relationships within the group.
But as so often, it's the most elementary literal understanding that gives rise to the most far-reaching symbolic interpretations. A well is a way of reaching the water. Ordinary life carries on across the fields; the well-shaft connects this daily activity to another, life-giving dimension.
The connection, the way of reaching, seems to me to be the essential. It can represent friendship, social connection and shared roots, or a personal ability to 'tap into' your reserves of strength. It can also represent a connection to underlying truth - hence Yi's not infrequent use of this hexagram to represent itself.
'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.'
When ancient Chinese rulers had to move their capital cities, they could take with them all the paraphernalia of everyday life - except for the well. This connection is not something you can own: it must be recreated afresh in each new place. And it will neither lose nor gain: our politics cannot change its essential nature. (Though connection to the source can and does cause political change - see Hexagram 49!)
The contrasting pair of 'going, coming' represents not only the movements of people, but also the passage of time (like 'buying-selling' meaning 'trade'). In sharp contrast, 'welling, welling' highlights the unchanging nature of the Well - as if its shaft were dug at right-angles to time, to bring up meaning from the invisible world into everyday life, bridging the unbridgeable. (The hidden core of the Well is Hexagram 38, Opposition.)
But this will not happen by itself. There is always water in the well, but not everyone will reach it - and if you can't reach the source, or lack the means to contain it, it will never help you.
So receiving Hexagram 48 is often a sign that there is real work to be done. Its roots lie in the desperate isolation of hexagram 47, Oppression. One who experiences Oppression is like a tree hemmed in on all sides by walls, unable to trust the words that connect them to others or make sense of the world. And so she (or he) is cast back on her own inner resources - where Yi hints that she will find some transformative 'mutual encounter' at the heart of the experience.
Together, Oppression and the Well describe a single experience of outer oppression, turning inward, and connecting to the source - but from opposite perspectives. The square of walls around the tree becomes the square well-frame, and the 'pit' is transformed: what you find at the core is independent of change on the human scale; it doesn't require anyone to 'make sense' of it.
This reminds me of those myths where the hero must visit dark depths to bring back the gift of life. The trigrams tell the same story: in Oppression, the essence drains inward, from outer lake to inner stream. And with the Well, it is brought back into circulation, inner wood opening the way to the water. But in the Yijing, the 'hero' who brings back the water is a whole society, working steadily and prosaically together to keep their well in good order. The best any individual can do is to get involved in this effort:
'Above wood is the stream. The Well.
The noble one labours with the ordinary people to encourage them to help one another.'
The stream suggests shared toil in the face of a challenge; the inner wood suggests an adaptive, intelligent response to it. But this is also a plain and literal image of exactly how immersed the noble one is in his work: looking down through the water, you can still see that wooden well-frame.
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