could 56 be Transcedence?

[lucia]

Tran-scend

–verb (used with object) 1. to rise above or go beyond; overpass; exceed: to transcend the limits of thought; kindness transcends courtesy.
2. to outdo or exceed in excellence, elevation, extent, degree, etc.; surpass; excel.
3. Theology. (of the Deity) to be above and independent of (the universe, time, etc.).
–verb (used without object) 4. to be transcendent or superior; excel: His competitiveness made him want to transcend.

Origin:
1300–50; ME < L trānscendere to surmount, equiv to trāns- trans- + -scendere, comb. form of scandere to climb

I think this is why I am struggling to get my head around "transcend" - it's direction is all up and over something rather than through something.......

"......He calls it the Search for a New Reality. what richmond seems to be saying is that trying to fix/make static reality in conventional ways is what makes the wanderer exhausted. the fixed reality no longer serves the wanderer (line 3) and reliance on fixed reality loses the life force of change (line 6)...."

Yeah, Bamboo, I agree with the idea that trying to fix/make static reality is part of the problem (and that's what I think Bradford's 'mobile or resilient sense of place is about) I just don't think it is a search for a new reality. "Search" implies too much of an active knowing agency for me whereas I think that to be the Wanderer is more like a state that is constantly shifting. Search implies a mission of some kind and I think the wanderers state is more nebulous, less defined.

However, perhaps it is that nebulousness (erk???) that while making the Wanderer more vulnerable, opens up new/different ways of "seeing" (if they can handle it and if they allow it to happen).

I'll keep thinking (like Rodaki I need my coffee....)

Lucia

 

[rodaki]

hi again

Miakoda, I think I have used the wrong term for this way of reading lines and I don't know if there is a name for it, but I found a description of it in http://www.onlineClarity.co.uk/learn/consult/mml.php, under "A whole new perspective".

I would have to disagree with that. Gua 40 and 59 are certainly about transcendence.
But every time the Wanderer starts to regard himself as transcendent he finds himself deeper in da doodoo.
56 suggests a deeper and more intricate sense of interdependence, a moving or resilient wisdom of place. And his supply of fuel is limited, easily exhausted. He cannot transcend his reliance on his sources of safety and nourishment.

Bradford, I'm really glad you joined, it's always a pleasure to meet a teacher -rich meanings in few words.
In time I managed to understand what you are saying here, and admittedly I still can't quite grasp the state of the Wanderer . . lot's of steps to be taken. I can see though what you mean by 40 . . 59 came as a surprise. I read your translation which further supports the idea but I would love to hear a bit more . . perhaps a few hints on how its meaning is formed?:bows:

Jilt, the way you opened up the term to show how it is found in all stages was really nice . . a whole new perspective came from there, even though I did not think as broadly when I posed the question

trying to fix/make static reality in conventional ways is what makes the wanderer exhausted. the fixed reality no longer serves the wanderer (line 3) and reliance on fixed reality loses the life force of change (line 6)...so in this sense, it would seem to be the wanderer's task to find his meaning/purpose in transcendence.

Bamboo, thanks for the Richmond tip, what you're saying very much brings back the train of thought that led me to the idea of 'transcendence' . . in some way the Wanderer does not fit in the world, but on the other hand there is a sense of mismanaged energy in the moves s/he makes that's disconcerting (I think this is also what Bradford hints at too), an aspect not very well catered for by the positive hues of 'transcendence" .. .hmmm . .

Lucia, your idea on 'liminality' made sense, but then again it also involves very much a conscious aim, a clear-cut search objective that stays in sight despite all the radical change that happens to one when we try to integrate to something really different from what we've known . .
Loved your idea to post the dictionary entry here, it brings us back to the basics: let's empty out our buzzing brains and start from scratch

However, perhaps it is that nebulousness (erk???) that while making the Wanderer more vulnerable, opens up new/different ways of "seeing" (if they can handle it and if they allow it to happen).

yeah, right on! that's how I feel about it . .


rodaki

 

[rodaki]

just a few things to ponder on (from Bradford's):

There is a challenging wisdom in keeping
security minimal. But a diplomat from a wider world has no diplomatic immunity.
( . . .)
Benefits of doubt and presumptions of
innocence are delicate states of balance. With some reserve and intelligence, free
agents traveling lightly explore the landscapes beyond the great watershed. Most
of their souvenirs are memories or stories ( . . .) A modest fulfillment is all that the wanderer needs.
He carries few tools, but each one has thousands of uses.

wow

rodaki

 

[lucia]

Hiya Rodaki

yep, I'm with you on the fieldwork bit being an aim or objective. Although the funny thing is you spend your whole first year in grad school preparing, studying, planning, defining, training only to get out in the field and having to chuck it all away and start again 'cos life's not like that. And you are working with people and that slippery thing they call culture. However, you do have a project, you are right and that gives you something to hold onto at least.

However..... if you land up in a foreign country, unchosen (except by circumstance), unprepared linguistically and without any points of contact like people or work, well that's an otra cosa - another thing altogether.....

But you still have some kind of a project even if that project is survival. Although of course wandering is not the same as travelling, I'm struggling to find (on a quick walk around my barrio for milk and ciggies....) any kind of wandering that is completely without volition or aim.

Even the sadhu has an aim in fact he/she has a very clear 'place' in Indian society an identity that is recognised and accomodated. Refugees and asylum seekers have survival as their aim.

Somewhere, I think, it's about insider/outsider to varying degrees. Homeless people and vagabonds rarely choose their situation but they threaten the social order - they often make their society feel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons even if that's because they unwittingly act as a mirror. They reflect our insecurities about 'place'.

Back to Bradford and his "mobile and resilient wisdom of place" without that you are done for because you have nothing to hold onto - it can ultimately be physically or mentally dangerous....

The "nebulousness" comes from the dissolution of structure/sense of place I think - whatever defines structure/place for each person (and I do think they are personal definitions).

Maybe (thinking about bert's growing-up stuff) that's what happens to some extent to some teenagers. As they hit adolesence, and as their hormones kick in and a more adult sense of knowing develops, their sense of 'place' has to be renegotiated not just with the outside world but internally too.

hmm.....

more pondering methinks

Lucia

 

[bradford]

With modest fulfillment
The wanderer persists
Promising

If I could add something here, in simpler terms, transcendence is just too grand and lofty a thing, while modesty and humility are crucial here. It's true that the Wanderer is a big step more transcendent than a homeless person, who is stuck where he is. The Wanderer has the power to change the weather - just by choosing to winter below the equator. And as line 5 makes clear, he can still set his sights way up high. But he does this by finding the key to the place, and that takes careful attention to his surroundings. He can "climb above," as the word transcend means, but the actions that elevate him eventually are done down below in the real world. I think of the word pilgrim here, but I here it in John Wayne's voice.

 

[lucia]

Brad I totally hear you except for one thing

"The Wanderer has the power to change the weather - just by choosing to winter below the equator"

To me that is the perspective of a tourist (usually but not always from the privileged "west"). And while I don't deny that even the tourist can be, at times in the Wanderers position, for me The Wanderer has less opportunity to physically escape the situation (for whatever reason). It is only by adapting and humility that they can then turn the situation around.

That in turn requires 'reworking' your personal sense of place. Hence 'liminality' because in that 'in-between state' (neither inside nor outside) and the process of reworking, you learn something which changes you so that you return in someway/somehow different - changed by your experience.

Yeah, the backpacker, the aircon tourist, whatever, has to learn that it's seen as disgusting to offer things or food with your right hand in various cultures, that they shouldn't hitch round Morocco in a miniskirt, etc but these are flashes and nothing more.

They can escape to their 5 star hotel, or their Lonely Planet travelling posse, usually, relatively unaltered by the experience. It just adds to the "exoticism" of their (often) false sense of "authenticity".

To me that's why Lonely Planet has made such big bucks..... you get it all in a book. It makes it "safe" while appearing to be an "authentic" experience!

Just a thought....

Lucia

 

[meng]

What I'm getting from Brad is that the Wanderer's eyes are where his feet will be. Fire is on the mountain. Fire moves on, the mountain does not. What is he there to transcend? It's enough to stay alive in such foreign places.

But, the Wanderer also has 63 other hexagrams to interact with, and that includes transcendence hexagrams. I think mostly of 59, and 53 is wind flying above the mountain - an apt transcendence image.

But all that said, I can see the association between transcendence and 56. Just depends on context.

 

[rodaki]

hi there again

my apologies for not being able to fully keep up with the discussion here . . I've done some research and there are ideas on the way but right now there's just not enough time
Bradford, thank you for getting back on this, it sounds to me as one more call back to the basics . .

With modest fulfillment
The wanderer persists
Promising

If I could add something here, in simpler terms, transcendence is just too grand and lofty a thing, while modesty and humility are crucial here. It's true that the Wanderer is a big step more transcendent than a homeless person, who is stuck where he is. The Wanderer has the power to change the weather - just by choosing to winter below the equator. And as line 5 makes clear, he can still set his sights way up high. But he does this by finding the key to the place, and that takes careful attention to his surroundings. He can "climb above," as the word transcend means, but the actions that elevate him eventually are done down below in the real world. I think of the word pilgrim here, but I here it in John Wayne's voice.

Meng, totally with you here, "the Wanderer's eyes are where his feet will be" feels spot on in more than one ways (more coming on that . .)

Lucia, you're a spring of ideas and associations here but me needs more processing and pondering time

wish you all a joyful turn of the year!!


rodaki

 

[bradford]

Lucia -

How can you disagree philosophically with a gag?
I used to be a wanderer - I know better than that.
But I also know that you really can change the weather.

I was staying on a boat once in a Suva harbor marina and found myself in a position where I had to do a little deception if I wanted to infiltrate a tourist industry convention at a big hotel there in order to watch the Fijian firewalkers. I made up a fake profession as a "tourist industry psychologist" and moved around the cocktail reception sharing my "shell theory of tourism economics." In brief, this held that in order to make money the industry had to keep the tourist sufficiently uneasy and afraid of the places he traveled, so that he had to move about while encased in a shell of the familiar. It was in the care and maintenance of this "protective" environmental shell that the industry made all its money. I presented it in a sequence so that at first it sounded like a good thing and then its dark side started to show. Of course there was more than a little truth in that, but I was getting around just fine with my bare feet and backpack, and dining with the natives instead of in restaurants.

 

[meng]

I was just thinking that maybe there's some crossover between transcend and transient. One may do the other but they're separate things.

shell theory of tourism economics - LOL

 

[bradford]

I was just thinking that maybe there's some crossover between transcend and transient. One may do the other but they're separate things.

Dictionary's great for such word mysteries, but the only connection is the root prefex trans, across or to cross. The suffix -scend makes the one really different, since it means to climb to another level. One's passing over, the other's passing through.

 

[lucia]

Brad, I love the story and I've got a similar one but it's way too naughty for a public forum!!

I guess it's about scale like I said we can encounter the Wanderer in any number of situations from the most mundane to the most intense and everything in between. I went to 8 schools and became the expert new girl for instance (but also developed the attention span of a gnat for a few years).

But what I had in mind when I was writing was a situation where I landed not by choice in a foreign country where I didn't know anyone, couldn't speak the language, had no work and had no project but survival. I was there for several years, I couldn't leave and did eventually become fluent in the language and the peculiar local way of speaking it.

It was the most extraordinary experience - I didn't really speak to anyone for the first year and then when I began to speak there was a million frustrations of understanding, linguistically and culturally, and subtle currents, in some quarters, of racism. And of ourse, it was very isolating for a time. I used to walk around the place and started to notice things and see sometimes quite heavy things and make visual connections - that I later discovered (when I could speak the language) none of the locals had noticed. Things that were right in their faces. I also, of course learned a lot about myself.

As I said, I passed the pain barrier so to speak and it became my 'home' for quite a few years and further along the line I started to work in an informal way with undocumented migrant Africans - illegal immigrants as some people call them. These guys took outrageous risks crossing the sea in flimsy boats to find work in Fortress Europe. They knew before they left Africa that up to 60% die on the journey but it didn't stop them. Some took up to 2 years and nightmare experiences to travel through Africa before they took the various boat routes.

I got to know a few and began to collect their stories and know their experiences in this 'foreign' country. I ended up on the floor with respect for their strength and ability to adapt. But although they did make the choice to travel it was a choice mostly forced on them by circumstance. As was often said to me... "better to die trying than the slow death of no possibilities in Africa" It all snowballed and I got to know very many of them and know their progress.

The point I'm trying to make was how through these different experiences, them and me, we had one particular thing in common - no escape route. No going back until we had put ourselves in a position economically and/or legally.

Throughout this time I just began to meditate on Hex 56 (because of course it kept occurring in my readings) and it seemed to me that at the more extreme end of the scale it operated in really profound ways and was as much about 'place' inside as outside.

That's why I love what you said about a "mobile and resilient sense of place'" thats what most of my African friends have. And the few that don't have that go crazy and have mental health problems to varying degrees brought on by their experiences.

And I began to see a connection between "mental health" (for want of a better way to put it) and the Wanderer - once again I refer to your mobile and resilient sense of place - because it isn't a sense of "self" - that's too singular and inflexible. It's an inward (as well as outward) mobility. And passing through that "liminal stage" (once again for want of a better way of putting it) opens up a different way of "seeing" which you don't maintain but which alters you - you come *back" but differently.

So yeah, if you are in Istanbul and you get involved in Kurdish politics because you've witnessed an atrocity - you'd better watch out for the secret police. If you want to blag your way into a fijian firewalker show creative adaptation is the way to go. But if in your Wanderings you have no escape then creative adaptation becomes survival both inwardly and outside too.

I'm groping here, it's the first time I've ever spoken about it in ching terms (actaully I've only ever spoken about it to my African friends) but somewhere, this mobile and resilient sense of place leads to 57 no? Maybe that's stage 3 of the ritual after the liminal?

That's why I got involved in this thread 'cos I get a wee sense or something of what maybe Rodaki was trying to say with Transcendence - for me transcending is not the way to go as I said in an earlier post, but there does seem to be something 'more' in 56 - maybe I'm just mysticising it?

So, Brad, guys, forgive this long post but It interests me and you guys have got me thinking.

Thankyou for that....

Happy New Year

Lucia

 

[bradford]

this mobile and resilient sense of place leads to 57 no?

Both 56 and 57 do concern forms of nichemanship, or fitting ourselves into the reality of things. 57 probably does this more generally or abstractly, with the Ba Gua of Xun being about entering properly. Xun appears in the Wanderer too, in the lower Hu Ti or nuclear trigram. But I see 57 as more specifically about fitting our thoughts and words to the reality of things, which usually means changing our minds or thinking twice. That's usually humbling too.

 

[Sparhawk]

Dictionary's great for such word mysteries, but the only connection is the root prefex trans, across or to cross. The suffix -scend makes the one really different, since it means to climb to another level. One's passing over, the other's passing through.

Early yesterday morning I actually printed the whole thread, to about post 38, to catch up with it. I ignored it at first because I thought it was a misplaced shared reading (Brad writing in it made me take a second look... ) After finishing all the 18 printed pages of it, I was left wondering why the word "transience" hadn't appeared before in the whole thread in connection with 56. I came back online this morning and saw that Bruce finally brought it up in post 40.

As Brad points out, dictionaries are great dissecting tools. Transient, with a prefix meaning "to cross, pass by" and a suffix (from the Latin 'ire') meaning "to go" (in Spanish we use the verb 'ir' for 'to go'). In a sense is like saying "crossing and going." IMO, "transience" is a good image for 56, much more so than "transcendence."

Bamboo mentioned Nigel Richmond and, although I can't find transcendence there but transience, here is a quote that brings to mind what Brad mentioned about the Wanderer changing his surroundings:

Pattern:

Stillness and maturity
searching for the new
leads to continued change.​

Nature:

When it is very dry
fire ranges across the forest
looking always for new fuel​

Human:

He goes from place to place
making changes in each:
searching his death
that will enable him to live,
searching a change in himself.​

Form:

The state
engulfs other states
when its own opposition is dead.​

Quoting something I read recently, "transient truths are constructs of their epoch." The Wanderer is certainly a construct of his circumstances.

 

[bamboo]

Nigel Richmond:

56, Line 1- "...Reality is there to choose from but not to hold."

Line 3 ." He is free only so long as he does not fix his state of reality. Continually acting out consumes a range of possibilities which then no longer shelter nor serve him. He needs other modes of being as well as this."

Line 6: " He tries believing his reality is limited to what it seems. This makes it static and it is soon consumed......He has lost the the flow of his nourishment which is the dynamic flow of changing reality."

Those are the quotes. They stayed with me because NIgel Richmond was the first person who ever seemed to suggest that the journey of the Wanderer was one of transcendance.....to me this is very plain in his explanation. There is a point in the life of every man, sooner or later, where one realizes that the fixed static reality of what one has known and relied on to be "real" no longer suffices. He can keep trying to define reality in the old way, but it simply doesnt work. He has got to see it as a whole, and individual ideas of "reality" as simply transient parts of the whole picture.

If this isnt about transcendance, I dont know what is!!

We are all strangers in the strange land...at some time we begin to wake up and realize this. We are all the wanderer in that sense. Once you realize that fixed reality is not your home, you can never really go "home" again....it is a call to realizing that Home is something other, and that while on earth, we are simply wanderers. Transcendance is not necessarilyabout rising above it, but is being in the world but not of it.


Please know I am not trying to be argumentative, but when i read those nigel richmond lines awhile ago, it was, for me, an a-ha moment. It was the first time i didnt think getting lines 3 or 6 were cause to shudder, but actually hopeful lines, in a context that I had never seen them before.

Beside, isnt "transcendance" somewhat about coming to terms with the fact that everything is "transient" ?

 

[maremaria]

Those are the quotes. They stayed with me because NIgel Richmond was the first person who ever seemed to suggest that the journey of the Wanderer was one of transcendance.....to me this is very plain in his explanation. There is a point in the life of every man, sooner or later, where one realizes that the fixed static reality of what one has known and relied on to be "real" no longer suffices. He can keep trying to define reality in the old way, but it simply doesnt work. He has got to see it as a whole, and individual ideas of "reality" as simply transient parts of the whole picture.

If this isnt about transcendance, I dont know what is!!

We are all strangers in the strange land...at some time we begin to wake up and realize this. We are all the wanderer in that sense. Once you realize that fixed reality is not your home, you can never really go "home" again....it is a call to realizing that Home is something other, and that while on earth, we are simply wanderers. Transcendance is not necessarilyabout rising above it, but is being in the world but not of it.

?

The image came in my mind after reading that was of the wanderer becoming transparent.

 

[bamboo]

The image came in my mind after reading that was of the wanderer becoming transparent.

lol. that makes sense. it's certainly one way of getting through without too much difficulty. and seriously, if the wanderer really lets go fixed reality, he isnt his body anymore, and he doesnt have any opinion

 

[meng]

the traveler

I believe every life should have a story. It is the talents that the son brings to the father, upon returning from his sojourn. I've been to heaven and hell and back in this lifetime, if only in my mind. I am rich with stories, and otherwise travel light.

 

[Sparhawk]

Please know I am not trying to be argumentative, but when i read those nigel richmond lines awhile ago, it was, for me, an a-ha moment. It was the first time i didnt think getting lines 3 or 6 were cause to shudder, but actually hopeful lines, in a context that I had never seen them before.

Beside, isnt "transcendance" somewhat about coming to terms with the fact that everything is "transient" ?

Amongst other similar associations, yes, I suppose. My idea is that the circumstances of the Wanderer are much in flux, within the context of the hexagram that confines and defines him/her, for the subject to be concerned about transcendencies other than those of the most basic and immediate import, hence the transient image of his/her time. When "transcendency" is uttered within the context of "reality," as in the above association, I think of "metaphysical transcendency" and then, at least for me, such association with the circumstances of the Wanderer is lost. That's why I think the "reality" that Nigel Richmond talks about is closer to the immediate present of the Wanderer than to his future, and thus of a more pragmatic nature. Only because, metaphysical transcendencies take time to accomplish and the Wanderer lives in a present where prompt decisions are necessary...

But, I might change my mind tomorrow, after my morning coffee...

 

[Sparhawk]

However..... if you land up in a foreign country, unchosen (except by circumstance), unprepared linguistically and without any points of contact like people or work, well that's an otra cosa - another thing altogether.....

Houston, TX, May/1986...

 

[meng]

I've no trouble bridging the idea of transience and transcendence. Every obstacle is something the transient must somehow transcend.

Ok, hypothetical case. You sit on a pillow and ingest a brown bag full of peyote buttons. Will you be:
A) traveling
B) transcending
C) both of the above
D) repeat the question

 

[Sparhawk]

I've no trouble bridging the idea of transience and transcendence. Every obstacle is something the transient must somehow transcend.

Ok, hypothetical case. You sit on a pillow and ingest a brown bag full of peyote buttons. Will you be:
A) traveling
B) transcending
C) both of the above
D) repeat the question

In the case of the Wanderer, E) Running for the bathroom?

 

[Sparhawk]

Every obstacle is something the transient must somehow transcend.

BTW, geeze, thank you. You synthesized my "My idea is that the circumstances of the Wanderer are much in flux, within the context of the hexagram that confines and defines him/her, for the subject to be concerned about transcendencies other than those of the most basic and immediate import, hence the transient image of his/her time." in one short sentence. What's the fun of it if you are not going to be uselessly wordy?? You are becoming a Zen Master...

 

[bamboo]

I've no trouble bridging the idea of transience and transcendence. Every obstacle is something the transient must somehow transcend.

Ok, hypothetical case. You sit on a pillow and ingest a brown bag full of peyote buttons. Will you be:
A) traveling
B) transcending
C) both of the above
D) repeat the question

F) Freaking out 56.6

 

[jilt]

Brad, I love the story and I've got a similar one but it's way too naughty for a public forum!!


So yeah, if you are in Istanbul and you get involved in Kurdish politics because you've witnessed an atrocity - you'd better watch out for the secret police. If you want to blag your way into a fijian firewalker show creative adaptation is the way to go. But if in your Wanderings you have no escape then creative adaptation becomes survival both inwardly and outside too.

Lucia

Some time after i got my degree in anthropology and I was esteblishing myself as an artist I asked the yi (I used to ask questions like this, they are such an expression of fine selfknowledge) : Where am I most afraid of. Came hex 56. That must have been in 1988.
I realized it had something to do with anthropology, someone who is wandering and adapting to all kinds of cultures, never at home, professionaly always in a transient position. Indeed I had refused an offer for a job in a time of unemployment for all kinds of reasons and legitimations.
Some 10 years later, when my artist's income was at it's lowest, I found a job in the dutch refugee-organization. Then I realized I had wanted to flee the double dutch all the time and felt at home with the refugees. I still have no place in dutch society, but I learned some creative adatiation. I also realized I studied anthropology because of that "refugee" feeling I had inside.
In between I met Rudolf Ritsema in his villa in Switzerland. He asked me to translate his yi. As a kind of test I had to translate 56. Then I did not have any empathy with his approach, and stopped the cooperation. Much later I realized I had been arrogant again and showed some real disability to adapt -like with the job in anthropology- with cicumstances. Somehow I was so afraid to loose somehting in me when I was doing something I did not agree with or was far beyond my current imagination.

Some time agoo I read "Songlines" from Bruce Chatwin (recommended to everyone). In there he postulates that we humans are the eternal nomads. Perhpaps he is right in some occasions. At this moment we humans are burning our home for food and shelter.

Anyway, I coined the term "loss" somewhere in the beginning of this thread. In psychology it it well known that overcoming loss leads to adulthood (hmm, must be 17-3)
Some initiation-rituals are a kind of organized loss. When that loss has been overcome by e.g. creative adaptation a threshold (liminal transition) to a new state in society has been made.
Perhaps most illustrating are Australian tribes again. In the transitional riutals to adaulthood a boy gets a long cut in his scrotum. It feels like a castration (in btw., a real loss for a man). After healing the scar looks like a vagina. In the proces of healing he learns about feminity and feelings, the bleedings of menstruation etc. So in the process of loss he gains the qualities of feminity, learns his anima so to say in Jungian terms, something lost, something gained. Later men can sit and when in serious gathering they make a circle and show their vaginal scars, showing that they transcended masculinity and can exchange on an adult level.

 

[Sparhawk]

Perhaps most illustrating are Australian tribes again. In the transitional riutals to adaulthood a boy gets a long cut in his scrotum. It feels like a castration (in btw., a real loss for a man). After healing the scar looks like a vagina. In the proces of healing he learns about feminity and feelings, the bleedings of menstruation etc. So in the process of loss he gains the qualities of feminity, learns his anima so to say in Jungian terms, something lost, something gained. Later men can sit and when in serious gathering they make a circle and show their vaginal scars, showing that they transcended masculinity and can exchange on an adult level.

That is fascinating. I suppose women in such environments (heck, everywhere I suppose...) have their own rite of passage in puberty, but, I wonder if within that cultural context they have similar rites to approach the male point of view as the male have to approach theirs.

 

[meng]

BTW, geeze, thank you. You synthesized my "My idea is that the circumstances of the Wanderer are much in flux, within the context of the hexagram that confines and defines him/her, for the subject to be concerned about transcendencies other than those of the most basic and immediate import, hence the transient image of his/her time." in one short sentence. What's the fun of it if you are not going to be uselessly wordy?? You are becoming a Zen Master...

The truth is, whatever I write these days is made clearer with every word I eliminate.

 

[jilt]

don't know Luis, this comes from Geza Roheim, a wandering pupil of freud. The spheres of men and woman in aboriginal society were quite segregated.
But as far as I know it is quite a common practice in ritual to bring the initiandus/a into contact with a contrasting category, so males with something female and females with something male, something that was more or less taboo before the initiation.
Perhaps my anthropology is a bit rusty and Lucy can enlighten us.

Mary Douglas, a british anthropologist, wrote a nice lttle book called "purity and danger" (recommended for yi readers).
In it she also gives a discription of the pangolin-cult somewhere in west and central-africa. A pangolin is a flying squirrel. People over there had to basic categories for animals, ground animals and flying animals. That also represented ("resonated") with the basic categories in society, men and women. When approaching adulthood youngsers were initiated into the existance of a creature that is both ground animal and airborne, the pangolin, that transcended the basic categories.
In many rituals you can find a play with those basic categories. In ritual they are transcended in Kantian (that german philosopher) sense, a nice play of yin and yang, clibing more and more differentiating with yin and yang (the basic categories in the yi) through the ladders in the hexagrams.

 

[rodaki]

Wondering On Wandering: W.O.W!!!

end of the intermission,
we are back on our regular programme ( )

Happy new 2009 everyone!
have to say, I am just so joyfully overwhelmed (I don't think it gets better than this for me) with all new things pouring in and I'm really trying hard to follow everything here, so i'll just start with what i've been thinking (it's been brewing enough time I think )

Meng, thanks for "Transient": hmm, ok, new wor(l)d for me (grmph, non-native english speaker)

Lucia, I'm really taking home with me the "no escape route", for me it is also connected to Bradford's "There is a challenging wisdom in keeping security minimal", they can only walk hand in hand in a way . .

Luis, oh my, these quotes from Richmond feel oh so true, but I'm still missing the bigger picture . . but, hold on a moment, what happens is that I get a clearer picture of what I am really looking for in the Wanderer: namely, what i can not seem to grasp is his ethics. Not the society-induced, moral values, but the inherent natural ethics of decisions made that keeps him standing when everything is burnt to pieces . . i'll explain more a bit later . .

Bamboo, I'm still with you here, but transcedence sounds lofty no? In Greek we say: "Is the shoreline crooked or are we taking a crooked route?" is transcendence the wrong way to go or are we misunderstanding its meaning? context questions I guess . . "transcen-dance" on the other hand I like very much even though I was never really the fan of 'trance' music

Maria, you've done it again!! . . lovely image, actually one of those I use before I press the enter key to get another reading . . thank you

Jilt, and everyone else, excuse me i'm still trying to follow with everything . . you guys are on a roll!!

having addressed these, let me go on with what I've been thinking . .

 

[rosada]

Random thoughts..

The original question was concerning a relationship. The answer gave 34.1.2.6 for the first hexagram. I see these lines as saying...

34.1
Power in the toes. (You may be rushing into something.)
Continuing brings misfortune.
This is certainly true.

34.2
Perseverance brings good fortune.
( Maintaining your independence is a good thing.)

34.6
A goat butts against a hedge.
It cannot go backward, it cannot go forward.
Nothing serves to further.
If one notes the difficulty, this brings good fortune.

(Being joined too closely is stifling)

56.
The wanderer is clear minded and cautious
In imposing penalties,
And protracts no lawsuits.

"It is a phenomenon of short duration."
-Wilhelm

Thus in the context of your question, I read these lines as saying you should not be too eager to create something akin to a single enity. I think of how the media nicknames movie star couples with one combined name - and how often these couples then shortly there after break up!

As to The Wanderer meaning Transcedence, I think it's worthwhile to look at the sequence. With 50 we have the sense of Heaven, all being One. With 51 there is the sense of the son recognizing he and the Father are not One, that somehow there is a separation between Heaven and Earth. 52 attempts to unite the two by "no longer feeling the body." This withdrawal from earthly connections and focus on the heavenly does indeed allow the lower earthly vibrations of the flesh to be able to withstand the higher vibrations of spirit and 53. Gradual Progress is made in the journey back to The Father. However, it is GRADUAL progress, and on the way the pleasures of earthly life become more and more pleasant as they become infused with spiritual awareness and thus to stay or move on becomes a real conumdrum. Man is lonely on earth and wishes to marry to have a partner, yet he must be ever mindful that his earthly stay is transitory, 54. Thus we come to 55, the balance point where we realize the joy in this moment, this earthly existence and at the same time are not saddened by the knowledge that it cannot last, that time moves on. Indeed, somewhere in the Bible it actually says that marriage is an earthly arrangement, that man is not married when he arrives back in Heaven. So ultimately we do 56. Move on, we do come to realize that we cannot evolve joined at the hip to another earthly body.
So I can see 56 being "trancedence" in this case as it seems to be saying we will eventually need to trancend our earthly commitments, and thus when you ask, "What are we meant to be?" I think 56 is reminding you that you are meant to eventually move on but hopefully as Ming says meanwhile you will be creating a great story to tell!

rosada.