Interpreting Totally Contradictory Lines.

[NemeanMagik]

How do I interpret two contradictory lines in a reading that is related to one person actions and effects?

QUESTION: WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT OF S'S ATTEMPTS?

RESPONSE: HEX 45.4.6 > 20


Line 4 made my heart lift, line 6 made it sink.

Despite the obvious relevance of the answer here, nevertheless, in the sense of being useful,there seem to be so many ways of working with contradictory lines, what hope is there of getting a clear understanding of the significance of such a reading?

It's said contradictory lines can relate to different people, different times, different aspects of same situation. Or you can read top line of two changing lines, a yin if one of 2 lines is yin and one yang, focus on the first or second hexagram...or as I have discovered one or two other systems. Anyone have any other ways to deal with this?

 

[Trojina]

Yes there are plenty of places all over the forum discussing 'contradictory' lines................

Every part of natural life is contradictory. The sun is out but the wind is cold so my experience is mixed..................is that a 'contradiction' or is it how life is. You might have a friend you like but some things she does bug you.....that's a fairly normal experience rather than a terrible contradiction

................anyway try using the change pattern. I thought I'd referred to this before on one of your threads.

This is where you look at the hexagram pattern the change lines make.

Here if all change lines were yang it would be 35 so yang pattern is 35
If all change linbes were yin it would be yin pattern 5

These are like background themes ...quite subtle. So the energy you come to the question with is progress, seeming opportunity to proceed. You make your way through by the yin pattern 5, waiting.

So as background information the change patterns can illuminate the reading a little.

It's said contradictory lines can relate to different people, different times, different aspects of same situation.

Yes

Or you can read top line of two changing lines, a yin if one of 2 lines is yin and one yang, focus on the first or second hexagram...or as I have discovered one or two other systems. Anyone have any other ways to deal with this?

I think all these methods where you only pick one out of all moving lines to read and so on are arbitrary so you could forget all that IMO.


Hilary's blog has so much stuff on 'contradictory lines'....have you looked there

 

[Trojina]

Here's a selection

http://onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/index.php?s=contradictory+lines


this one seems most apt

http://onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2006/11/19/multiple-changing-lines-again/

also as you said change lines can indicate a sequence of events

 

[NemeanMagik]

Thanks Trojina. How the 'change pattern' works is very interesting - but yes its message is rather 'subtle'. I am just not sure how it throws very much 'light' in this case anyway on the line interpretation confusion. And yes I can see very well indeed - the different aspects and levels etc of life and therefore line meanings, but this line 4 and 6 leaves me totally flummoxed! Maybe I just need to reflect further and read more.

 

[Trojina]

Note in 45.6 it is not a mistake. From wiki/Hilary

'Paying tribute: lamenting, weeping, snivelling.
Not a mistake.

FWIW my own experience with similar casts....I had 45 several times with line 6 changing and other lines.

I had the chance of some work at a community project. I initiated it, proposed it....via a contact I'd made who was handling the funding on behalf of the bigger people who had the funds. You know the kind of thing...I'd asked several questions about this...was it going to happen, would I get the work, how much pay should I ask for...I kept getting 45 with lines and always line 6.

I was puzzled as I wondered how it could all look so rosy (line 4 and other lines) and end in tears (line 6)


Anyway eventually I got the go ahead and took the work. It was rewarding in many ways but it had to end when the funding ran out for the project. My contact, the one who had offered me the position was indeed pretty sad. So was I. She had invested a lot and she was exhausted and wanted to move on which meant I had to move on too.

So in a nutshell what happened for me and what were my casts about in hindsight ?

Well I'm glad I did it, I have no regrets about it, it was worth doing while it lasted.

In line 6 people have given and done all they can....but don't forget this line comes after earlier lines. For me it happened in a sequence. The 45.4 was the gathering of the project...the 45.6 the end of it...but Yi still says 'not a mistake'. So there's nothing actually wrong it is simply there is cause for sadness after one has poured energy into something. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

With this cast of 45.4.6>20 I'd expect a fulfilment of some kind, gathering, a project undertaken ....that will end at some point. It may be as well to use the situation as best one can and be prepared that after some time a whole new scenario will need to be envisioned.....

Given 20 is the relating it may be someone is wondering, trying to gauge the wisdom of proceeding. I'd see it as proceeding with an awareness that what can be gathered in 45.4 may be valuable, of lasting value, but there will be a time to move on. If someone thought they didn't want to go ahead on that basis of course, well then they'd choose not to.

I recall wondering if it was worth it since it didn't look long lasting but overall I thought it was....despite a few tears on the day it all had to end...

................but of course with every end comes a new beginning of some kind so perhaps that is why it is not a mistake. It's a natural end. If nothing ended we'd never get the chance to do something new. That does not stop one weeping at the end though....especially if one feels one invested a lot. I tend to think nothing ever really goes to waste though.

Looking at the line pathway for 45.6...we see it's 'inner story'

it goes
45.6
12.6
11.1
46.1


See how 45.6 is 46.1 upside down...it's pair. You can see in the line pathway the experience of beginnings and endings.

 

[NemeanMagik]

Patterns of change/contradictory lines.

Note in 45.6 it is not a mistake. From wiki/Hilary




FWIW my own experience with similar casts....I had 45 several times with line 6 changing and other lines.

I had the chance of some work at a community project. I initiated it, proposed it....via a contact I'd made who was handling the funding on behalf of the bigger people who had the funds. You know the kind of thing...I'd asked several questions about this...was it going to happen, would I get the work, how much pay should I ask for...I kept getting 45 with lines and always line 6.

I was puzzled as I wondered how it could all look so rosy (line 4 and other lines) and end in tears (line 6)


Anyway eventually I got the go ahead and took the work. It was rewarding in many ways but it had to end when the funding ran out for the project. My contact, the one who had offered me the position was indeed pretty sad. So was I. She had invested a lot and she was exhausted and wanted to move on which meant I had to move on too.

So in a nutshell what happened for me and what were my casts about in hindsight ?

Well I'm glad I did it, I have no regrets about it, it was worth doing while it lasted.

In line 6 people have given and done all they can....but don't forget this line comes after earlier lines. For me it happened in a sequence. The 45.4 was the gathering of the project...the 45.6 the end of it...but Yi still says 'not a mistake'. So there's nothing actually wrong it is simply there is cause for sadness after one has poured energy into something. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

With this cast of 45.4.6>20 I'd expect a fulfilment of some kind, gathering, a project undertaken ....that will end at some point. It may be as well to use the situation as best one can and be prepared that after some time a whole new scenario will need to be envisioned.....

Given 20 is the relating it may be someone is wondering, trying to gauge the wisdom of proceeding. I'd see it as proceeding with an awareness that what can be gathered in 45.4 may be valuable, of lasting value, but there will be a time to move on. If someone thought they didn't want to go ahead on that basis of course, well then they'd choose not to.

I recall wondering if it was worth it since it didn't look long lasting but overall I thought it was....despite a few tears on the day it all had to end...

................but of course with every end comes a new beginning of some kind so perhaps that is why it is not a mistake. It's a natural end. If nothing ended we'd never get the chance to do something new. That does not stop one weeping at the end though....especially if one feels one invested a lot. I tend to think nothing ever really goes to waste though.

Looking at the line pathway for 45.6...we see it's 'inner story'

it goes
45.6
12.6
11.1
46.1


See how 45.6 is 46.1 upside down...it's pair. You can see in the line pathway the experience of beginnings and endings.

Trojina, thank you so much for such a full response. You may have guessed (and consider me quite stupid or quite remarkable) that the struggle I was involved in 12 months ago, continued on different levels, and still remains in my feelings very unresolved and painful. I moved away somewhat from I ching as it was confusing me so much and had become so obsessive.

Anyway. I have just asked another related question about whether or not to send an email and received

Hex 17.1.4.5.6 >23

which seemed to be really quite favourable. I also looked at the pattern changes and found that the energy I came to the question, YANG was 25, INNOCENCE, and the way I made my way through, the yin pattern, was/is 2 RECEPTIVE. That sounds quite healthy to me?

thanks again. I am going to re-read your last post now..

 

[sooo]

Line auguries are not always inevitable. More often than not our choices, our way of dealing with circumstances determines the outcome. Though line 4 shows potential for a happy outcome, line 6 points to the result of getting together and discussing negative things, stories of victimization, or plain gossip. To follow along Hilary's example, even a single conversation can start out with a happy reunion and joyous sharing, and quickly go sour when negativity and pity parties take over the conversation. This is a warning to "keep it on the good foot", if you want to walk away happy from the gathering. In another sense, this can go back to the idea of first 'getting it together' first within ones self, before attempting to gather with another.

 

[NemeanMagik]

Thanks sooo. This is the hard bit, what you mention about focussing on the positive in such a meeting. I mean it is difficult to do that when the very reason I want the meeting is to express how painful the situation has been. If the person doesn't realize the impact on me (this is a therapist), then how can I ever get this resolved? I understand the need to 'grow up' in a sense, but at the same time I am in a process, and find myself unable to process the trauma of events. If I uphold a positive approach, then knowing me, when I leave all that will come flooding back and I will remain angry. If I suppress in other words how I really feel, what is the point of having this meeting? That is not to say that in another situation outside of such a set up I might find it within me to seek a higher level, but I don't see how I can truly develop if the negatives are not accepted. It seems to me that in the circumstance I have been in, it just doesn't make any sense to deny the negative feelings I have - whether this is a so-called 'story of victimization' or not. I appreciate your point, and I continually grapple with what feels to me like a 'catch-22' situation.... The therapist (psycho-analytical) seems to me to be actually UNABLE to deal with angry feelings. Even when I was working with her, she simply shut me up everytime I started to express them. Does that make sense to you? What it meant was, I felt compelled, locked in to a kind of passive response - and therefore anxieties came out outside of sessions as anger remain unexpressed. I remain very challenged by the unresolvedness of this, very confused, hurt.............exactly! Anyway, the recent reading of 17.1.4.5.6 > 23 seems at least to me to feel rather more reassuring. And Trojina's take on 45, and yours -- both very helpful for me to reflect on. Thank you.

 

[Trojina]

Yes I wouldn't say 45.6 advises one to deny sad feelings...not at all...it isn't what it says.

As quoted before

'Paying tribute: lamenting, weeping, snivelling.
Not a mistake.

It does say this lamenting is 'not a mistake' and in fact some commentaries encourage you to show your true feelings.

Hilary's commentary on this line from her book

'When all the sacrifices and demands feel like too much, it's natural to express your emotions. The messy extremes of feeling are not wrong, and you do not need anyone's permission to give voice to your sorrow. Break through the blocks to communicate; make yourself heard"

It is in 45.3 (not 45.6) where one can get sucked into 'negativity'...or where the more one tries the worse it gets. I think 45.6 has a natural feel to it

 

[sooo]

Yes, I understand perfectly what you mean, and I understand your quandary. It kind of annoys me that a professional therapist can't create an atmosphere that would allow you to express those darker things, and who apparently doesn't realize that those things WILL find a way to express themselves no matter how far down you try and stuff them or to put on a happy persona/mask. There should be room for both, and therein may be what your reading is saying; that which appears as contradiction may rightly be so. If we're talking about a get-together with a friend or associate, that's one thing, but a therapist would rather be present when those darker factors bubble up, one would think.

Your second reading may be showing another way of dealing with these darker elements, a way to prune them off your rosebush, by following your own inner guide, higher self; call it what you may, but please don't underestimate its healing power.

This all said, I can't really judge your therapist based on what little I know, so I can't offer suggestions there, other than perhaps to try to establish a better forum, where your troubling things may be allowed to be expressed, if you agree to then shift to a more receptive mode to follow his/her advice and direction. If you continue on down the troubled and tortured path, surely that will cause this therapist to put up roadblocks. These people have to set limits for sake of their own sanity too. That's why shrinks see shrinks. But if you can establish this balance, perhaps your gatherings will become more productive.

 

[NemeanMagik]

The problem is events happened as a result of professionals giving me mixed messages, and I was extremely confused and troubled.......and punitive actions from them upon me resulted. I was simply seeking to understand why inexplicable decisions were being made about my 'care'. Without going into detail, since I have no violence against people in my past, these reactions seemed totally unreasonable, unjust and cruel. But this happened after discharge from therapist but while I (remain) under 'care' of mental health trust. I have tried every which way to find a way forward without success, and therapist (discharged in Aug 2013) continues to ignore all communications wherein I ask for a meeting.....long story...and others involved, including senior management, have closed and continue to close ranks... Blocked. I have retreated, waited, then resumed attempts. Split between Self and self, not sure how to, which way to go. Readings of I ching only very recently resumed. So, Hex 17 response to question about sending e mail to said therapist. (main issue is sense of betrayal).

 

[sooo]

Yes, I recall the background. Get your time to vent, but (and I repeat) if you continue on down the troubled and tortured path afterward, surely that will cause this therapist to put up roadblocks.

 

[Trojina]

Trojina, thank you so much for such a full response. You may have guessed (and consider me quite stupid or quite remarkable) that the struggle I was involved in 12 months ago, continued on different levels, and still remains in my feelings very unresolved and painful. I moved away somewhat from I ching as it was confusing me so much and had become so obsessive.

Anyway. I have just asked another related question about whether or not to send an email and received

Hex 17.1.4.5.6 >23

which seemed to be really quite favourable. I also looked at the pattern changes and found that the energy I came to the question, YANG was 25, INNOCENCE, and the way I made my way through, the yin pattern, was/is 2 RECEPTIVE. That sounds quite healthy to me?

thanks again. I am going to re-read your last post now..

Readings aside for a moment....(no I don't think you are stupid but I don't think there's any point in more readings on this.............) this is an NHS therapist we are talking about still isn't it.

So, for those not familiar with what this implies ;

1. you don't pay her, she is provided by the National health Service

2. she is given a case load to deal with and presumably has certain 'targets' to meet

that would mean

3. as resources are stretched people aren't given therapy for years and years on end. They are given what is deemed 'enough' by the system

so

4. You have no control over whether she sees you or not

so then

5. if you felt it unfair you'd have to go through grievance/complaint procedure

..which would be pointless if it was her in particular you wanted to see since you'd make her life so stressful she'd probably have a breakdown herself ! ...or in any case she wouldn't want to see you if you'd made complaints about her


6...it all boils down to the fact that you cannot make her see you.


I mean if it was an arm and I went to the arm dr at the NHS and I said I wanted to keep seeing him it would make no difference. They allocate you what they think is necessary/what they can afford.

It is a bit different with a psychotherapist I agree, but still you can't decide how much treatment you will have.


Have you ever thought of using a private therapist ? I imagine the cost is totally prohibitive but sometimes you can find one who may offer concessions and so on ? If you pay them you can at least have some more say in when you stop...although even then most private therapist would stop when they thought it was necessary.


I bring the context up again because to me it's a crucial factor that this is an NHS therapist who you cannot really have specific demands of. They are already over stretched. Also the whole thing with budgets and cuts and wotnot all affect how she can work. So this is not really a personal issue about how she decides to work with you because she herself is a small cog in a very big wheel .


Often people here think you are talking about a private therapist that you chose...but you didn't choose her. She was allocated to you, then for some reason it was curtailed. But none of this is personal against you.


I assume you are still trying with the help of other mental health workers to get back to her. For all I know you might. But maybe she isn't the whole answer anyway.

in 45 one puts all one's hopes in one basket. I noticed you had a cast with 11.4 somewhere and I wondered if you needed to look elsewhere.

Better stop typing.....................

 

[NemeanMagik]

Thanks for your thoughts Trojina.....No, I know she definitely isn't the whole answer. I just want some kind of closure. It is not simply about having had enough but about what she said that she later, seemed to renege on - and all sorts of disturbing trajectories from January onward - not on discharge in August 2013 (amazing time lapse I know). It is complex. But I am told that she alone is making the decision (though elsewhere told someone senior to her has made the decision; but also told, 'never' cannot be said.....) I do see your point Trojina, but this has felt intensely personal and traumatic, and I seem unable to extricate so far. I am simply appealing on basis of seeking closure really.. I absolutely recognize whatever , if any, further contact with her in terms of therapy, it is highly unlikely to solve my personal problems. I have sort of recognized all my life that really it is in the end down to me. For many years I have worked in isolation. I have been making some efforts to get more qualifications in complementary fields in the last year & am in the middle of completing Numerology diploma and Reiki - towards Master....but am constantly dragged back still by this, and my 'energy' needs to be much lighter to be effective. Still a lot of darkness around this issue, and cpn input totally inappropriate and frustrating. I know this is hard for others to relate to. I guess that's a big part of the struggle...

 

[Liselle]

FWIW my own experience with similar casts....I had 45 several times with line 6 changing and other lines.

I had the chance of some work at a community project. I initiated it, proposed it....via a contact I'd made who was handling the funding on behalf of the bigger people who had the funds. You know the kind of thing...I'd asked several questions about this...was it going to happen, would I get the work, how much pay should I ask for...I kept getting 45 with lines and always line 6.

I was puzzled as I wondered how it could all look so rosy (line 4 and other lines) and end in tears (line 6)


Anyway eventually I got the go ahead and took the work. It was rewarding in many ways but it had to end when the funding ran out for the project. My contact, the one who had offered me the position was indeed pretty sad. So was I. She had invested a lot and she was exhausted and wanted to move on which meant I had to move on too.

Trojina, do you think if you'd understood 45.6 at the time you received it (that this job wouldn't last terribly long, that it would end rather sadly, but that it wasn't a mistake to do it) - do you think it would have helped make the ending less sad? I mean, just in general, sometimes it might help if you're prepared for a sad outcome and have already gotten a head start processing that...?

 

[Trojina]

Er to get things in perspective I wasn't that sad...I'd always known it was temporary but didn't know how temporary. Anyway it certainly wasn't anything to break my heart...it was just some work.

I do recall the day it ended I shed a few tears but I soon got over it. I don't think I needed any help to prepare for the sadness since the issue was not of great magnitude. You have to scale the size of the answer to the size of the question. Sadness cannot always be avoided at endings where one cannot yet see new beginnings.

I mean yes you're right 45.6 might on occasion help one to process sadness ahead of time.......but feelings generally come when they come and they're not attached to any logical process...because they are feelings. Feelings flow like water, you can't tell them what to do...I don't think there was any great cause to weep the day I left...but I noted I did and recalled the cast. I have to say I've found 45.6 quite literal. If I got 45.6 as a daily cast I think I might find myself weeping at some point in the day... and that isn't always a sign that something is terribly wrong. It is 'not a mistake'.

 

[sooo]

I've a comment to offer on 45.6, which lacks the positive spin that Hilary puts on it.

My son told me that he had met an old client of mine who became a friend, and that he had asked for me and gave his phone number and asked that it be passed along to me to call him. Things had changed a great deal since I last had contact with this person, and I could no longer be the person I was back then. I asked the Yi about calling him and received 45.6. At first I thought, yes, that sounds right, and I can't fake it, so I decided it would be better if I didn't call. I'm leaving about small but important details in all this to keep it simple.

Fast forward four years. I wanted to contact another old friend to clear up some old business. He too mentioned that this same mutual friend had been asking for me, and wanted to talk with me. I said it would be alright for him to pass my phone along to him. A few days later he called, and we talked. He wanted to know what had happened since we last met, and since we have always had a very candid relationship, I told him, and very little of it was good news. It spilled over into some matters that involved a new business he was in, and which I didn't know about. While offering to help with his marketing - one reason he wanted to talk with me - I had already said things that put a wet blanket on our conversation and the nature of his new business. In fact, without intention, the entire conversation was one wet blanket. He was closing up shop and had to go. I tried to sound enthused and offered to help if he called back when he had another chance. I seriously doubt I'll ever hear from him again, and I am certain he will not hear from me either.

It's important to understand that 45.6 changes to 12. Whether seen as an outcome or the context, they both indicate separation. "No blame" does not mean no regret.

My conclusion is that 45.6 is not a positive allegory for a fruitful get-together, which is exactly the premonition it gave to me four years earlier.

I had thought, perhaps with a therapist might be different because letting out some tears and pain can be therapeutic. I still think in some cases that could be possible, but definitely not if persevered in. Three best antidote words I can think of: Get Over It, and two others: Move On.

 

[NemeanMagik]

I realise carrying on whining about things is not healthy nor attractive, but the issue is not about some emotional trauma that is separate; it relates to an event that involved punitive reaction (that involved implicitly at least, her support) which felt in the circumstances totally unjust and unreasonable. The issue of betrayal is the main thing. I feel betrayed by my therapist. THAT is the issue, and all that has followed in terms of denial of promises previously made. If a person 'feels' betrayed, I suppose no matter what the other person says, it makes little difference in the end. I wish it could. If she cannot understand the impact of her actions etc, and I continue to feel unable to process the pain of it, then how can I ever work with her again? I have gone round and round trying to see how to process this, so far the indecision continues to block progress, and I see no way I can benefit from other mental health workers within this trust as they all seem complicit.

 

[Liselle]

Maybe another possibility is that what you're doing may benefit other NHS patients in the future, but that (unfortunately) it won't help you?

Hexagram 20 can mean an overview or a bigger picture. Hexagram 45 can mean a group of people. Trojina mentioned "proceeding with an awareness." Maybe what you're doing will cause the NHS to see how their procedures might be flawed, and then they will "contemplate" improvements? ("Contemplation" is another name for hexagram 20.)

Hilary says in her commentary about 45.4: "You serve a larger objective and are part of a larger gathering, and you understand that you don't have exclusive responsibility for the outcome."

Then 45.6 might mean that you will just have to mourn your particular outcome (mourn it, and, as Sooo said, try to move on from it), but that still, it's not a mistake to do what you're doing.

 

[NemeanMagik]

Thanks Lisa. I think the point is missed on here on the whole. It is NOT about hankering for more therapy, it is about the betrayal and the trauma of that that I have been left with, without any means to process it, and not even any acknowledgment of it.
Too deep for tears.

 

[Liselle]

I'm not even saying that the NHS as a whole, at the highest levels, would change anything. Maybe just that one particular office (or whatever - don't know how it works), or even just that one therapist, might do a couple things a little bit differently. Still, your actions might have some larger benefit, even if you get nothing from it personally.

('Course this is just one guess. This is the kind of reading that could have many very reasonable interpretations, and we may never know what ends up happening. But if you ever do find anything out, please do come back and post it!)

I hope things will look up for you soon, with or without more medical help.

 

[NemeanMagik]

Here's a selection

http://onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/index.php?s=contradictory+lines


this one seems most apt

http://onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2006/11/19/multiple-changing-lines-again/

also as you said change lines can indicate a sequence of events

Hi Trojan, thought you might find this of interest?

http://elementalpha.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[Trojina]

There are so many ways of using multiple lines without inventing arbitrary ways to whittle your answer down to one line....why would anyone bother ?

Another obvious way to dealing with multiple moving lines is to realise that the more lines are moving the more to the fore the relating hexagram becomes. With many change lines I'd always look first to make a broad sentence out of the 2 hexagrams.



She says this site and Hilary recommended her way to whittle things down to one line. That's not the case as I know Hilary doesn't do that. Maybe she just meant her ideas were welcomed.


I think if you are still getting to know Yi then what is important is not fancy technical 'methods', just focus on hearing the voice of the oracle, being aware it is talking to you. Your relationship with the oracle is more important than any technicalities

Personally I can't think of a more appalling thing to do Yi wise than follow someone's instructions for not using the lines. I want the whole answer.. I've been consulting for over 35 years so I'm not terribly impressed with people's ideas about how to whittle answers down to one line. I've never been into technicalities although gradually I take some that I find useful like the change patterns. But for understanding, intuition, connecting with Yi reaches above and beyond that.

So if you don't understand an answer, rather than hunt out technical methods, just sit with it, let it reveal itself to you. It isn't something you will find the answer for by digging through other people's notions about lines etc. IMO.


Don't answer me or ask me anything else as I have really bad wrists and shouldn't type or at least should only type what is IMO essential

This is the problem with being opinionated ....it wrecks your wrists because you keep typing responses. Now I can't opinionate too much LOL

 

[NemeanMagik]

I tend to agree with you. It does seem very arbitrary and complicated.
Just wanted to invite comments to get others' views.

Did you see the I ching's response to her blog? Hexgram 58......?

OOPS! SORRY. TOO LATE!!

 

[pocossin]

How do I interpret two contradictory lines

Use a better translation?

45.4.6

Hatcher:

4
A lot of promise
Avoid mistakes

6
Offering counsel while weeping and sniveling
But no harm is done

 

[NemeanMagik]

Well thanks Pocossin.
A week and a half later - Nothing!