Hex 58 .1

[rinda]

The discussion about vocation has had me thinking... I've been feeling a strong pull toward working on/in/with art and music. I'm in a band and enjoy singing and playing with them a lot, although there have been some rough seas recently with interpersonal stuff.

I'm feeling a strong pull to work more with some visual stuff - photography and painting. I have some skill at this, and quite a few things that could be "worked up" without too much trouble. I'm hungry for any media I can get my hands on or into...

I work as a therapist in my day job, and love the people part of it, and just tolerate the paperwork and internal politics... By the time I get all my paperwork done and see enough clients to make my productivity, I'm putting in 60 hour weeks. That means there's no time for much else, though I have been taking the time for the music.

I will soon be reaching my 55th birthday and will be able to start receiving some retirement income from "a previous life" as an employee of a mental hospital where over a 30 year span I wore many different hats. It won't be enough to take care of the cost of insurance, so I will need some supplemental income.

Anyway - tonight I asked Yi to tell me something about the art that I'm feeling I should be doing, and got 58, first line changing.

Any insight about this would be very much appreciated.

Rinda

[candid]

Good morning, Rinda,

If I read this correctly your relating is 47. To me this would say that this creative urge is stirred from a state of inner oppression. It would seem that line 1 in 58 is a picture of relieving this sense of oppression through your artistic pursuits. Since the art (in line 1) is that of a quiet, self contained joy, it appears to suggest a solitude type of creative outlet, done for sheer inner joy rather than for external brilliance or recognition.

I do think that this kind of joy can be also appreciated within a group activity though, so maybe its saying that this is an approach to the discord with the musical group you?re playing with?

In either case, whether in solitude or with a group, the joy comes from inner peace.

C

[rinda]

Interesting! I've arranged at our next full-band get-together to do some portrait work of the individual members of the band. You are right on target about the joy - and about the sense of inner oppression.

Rinda

[candid]

Well, not I http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/blush.gif but Yi.

That sounds like a great idea!

[lindsay]

Rinda, I would call this a very favorable reading for beginning to make a change in your life. As usual, I agree with Candid - he is consistently one of the best readers I?ve ever encountered ? but I can?t resist adding my two cents.

In my experience, hexagrams composed of doubled trigrams (like Hex 58) often have a strange ?within/without? dynamic. Here we have ?Joy within, Joy without? ? and both aspects of the situation influence and depend upon each other.

Changing Line 1, at the very beginning of the unfolding hexagram, seems to indicate we are talking mostly about the ?Joy within? aspect of the emerging situation in this reading. I say ?emerging? because the first place often denotes the beginning, the first stirrings or the conception of Joy. The line text links ?harmony? and ?joy?, and it?s up to you to figure out how they are related. Personally, given the position of the line, I would lean toward ?joy coming out of harmony? or ?harmony giving birth to joy? or ?joy based on harmony?. The text also indicates ?good fortune,? which always sounds to me a bit like winning the lottery, so in this case I like Karcher?s interpretation: ?the way is open.?

I think ?harmony? has to do with cultivating an inner state that makes joy possible. Maybe harmony involves resolving doubts or ?getting your act together? ? something that unifies your intentions and makes it possible to plan and act with focus.

A clue probably resides in the relating hexagram 47, which seems very important to this reading. Hex 47 is often simply considered ?oppression,? but I find it often indicates ?exhaustion? and ?depression?. Being stuck. Very likely you are exhausted by one aspect of your life, at the end of the road, and ready to move on. Ready, but not willing or able. Why? Maybe this is the source of the problem of creating inner harmony, which will be the foundation for finding joy inside and outside.

It looks to me like the Yi is suggesting you should go for it, or at least start setting the stage. An auspicious time to begin. The way is open.

Lindsay