How you approach divination

[louise]

I would be interested to know if people make preparations of any kind before consultation. Do you for example try to calm your mind through meditation etc before consulting ? Would you consult if you were in a very agitated or distressed state of mind ? Do you think it is necessary to at least have some level of detachment before you ask a question that is personally very important to you ? Do you think it is possible that ones mood can affect the reply you receive. Sometimes i find I can ask the same question (with some time interval) and I tend to get a response that mirrors my intention behind the question. For example I recently asked about the prospects for a relationship and received 58,3. A week later I asked the same question and got 53, 2 and 5. I felt that when I got the first response I was possibly asking from much less pure intentions than when I asked a week later, when my intent was more sincere.
Or maybe because 58,3 showed me I was being a little shallow/in it for the kicks..that i changed my attitude.
Does anyone visualise or perceive the I Ching as a being whom they address before they consult ?
Dianna ffarington Hook writes that she makes a ritual out of her consultation, ie lights incense, always keeping the book in a special place, sitting quietly for 10 minutes beforehand.
She says 'The I Ching should be approached as though it were an actual person'
I make no preparations beforehand other than trying to be clear about the question, although I do tend to mentally address the I Ching as if it were a being. This seems the most natural way for me. I would be interested to know how others approach divination.

[candid]

Hi Louise,

A little spiritual foreplay never hurt anyone. It sets the mood and focuses the mind. That being said, I believe that the Ching meets you where you are. If my attitude is rotten and I ask it about a lady I'm courting, it will probably address my poor attitude because that would also affect the relationship. If, on the other hand, I settled my soul, it could still tell me that she's run off with another guy, but at least I'd have a good attitude about it. *chuckle*

But seriously, think about what your objective is in consulting Yi in the first place. Is it to know the future? Or is it to know how to meet the future? I view it as the latter. We can't change our future, except by going out to meet it well prepared. This is primarily a function of our attitude and applied wisdom.

One more thing about preparation. Often times the mere preparation alone, is enough to give us the attitude we need to meet our fate. We know that we are about to possibly be admonished, corrected and sometimes spanked. We know we are about to stand before something awesome. That alone causes us to be more humble and willing to change.

But, if we are agitated in mind, defiant in our throws and rebellious in our spirit, then that too, is how it was supposed to be. We shouldn't be surprised at all to receive an abundantly positive reading. Yi might know that its the reading you needed, to continue the journey with a more positive outlook.

The less time you spend thinking about "how" the I Ching works, the better you will sleep at night. ~Carl Jung

Great questions, by the way.

[supanatural]

Greetings To All...

I'd like to say that most of the time I light the candles, and recite a short prayer before I divine, but life doesn't always accomodate me in that manner. I use the I Ching in conjunction with another oracle system called The Metu Neter. I have a special bath of herbs that I rub on my hands when reciting a short prayer. The bath is made of herbs like Lotus leaf, thuja and several other herbs that I will not mention. The Bath was made by priest and priestess that bring out the sacred drums, and go into trance and mix these herbs together to form what we call a bath. Most of the time, I rub the bath on my hands and psychic centers to alter my aura to the vibration that awakens the oracle faculty. I recite a short prayer to center my person, and Consult both systems. The Metu Neter is an oracle system based on the Tree Of Life. It deals directly with dieties and psychic forces. I use this oracle so that when I go to the I Ching, it's just not to be informed, it's to also know what faculty has to be awakened in my person to carry out the counsel of the reading. So I do have a small ritual before I consult most of the time.