Your Experiences with Unchanging Castings - Hexagram 22

Trojina · May 23, 2013

There was a long thread on 22 here http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?14838-Question-on-22 in CC where I got some good feedback discussing my bizarre 22 answers, and 22uc in particular.

I had noticed 22 uc coming up for pretty odd, almost 'tableaux' type scenarios where I'd wonder "what happened there ?". What these experiences seemed to have in common was that they felt almost surreal, and I'd wanted to know 'what actually happened' afterwards.

Scenario 1. I just went for a drink with someone I know well. No wild night out, just a drink and a chat. As I try to get to my feet to leave I realise I am very very drunk. Hmmm focusing on exiting with dignity I manage to stumble home to reel about in a madly spinning bedroom...and finally a madly spinning bed. In the morning I am still drunk. In the afternoon and evening I am still drunk.

I just don't know how this happened. This happens to kids when they don't know how much alcohol they can handle...or people who want to get this sloshed. But I know my limits well. I had only 2 glasses of wine *. I had no idea I was getting so drunk....it wasn't fun. I don't drink often and when I do I know what I can handle so what happened ? I asked Yi what did I need to know about that episode of wanton but unwitting self abuse

I expected something like 60.3....I got 22 unchanging.

Scenario 2. I tried to buy earring for £5 from a jeweller. I noticed on receipt he had taken £50 off my card instead. When he tried he just took a further £45 ........and it got to the point where I did not want him to attempt anymore refunds, I wanted the cash back. The guy acted very oddly, distracted and refused to repay in cash what he had already taken from my account. I insisted, I wouldn't leave till he did as I felt I wouldn't see the money again somehow. Finally he repaid me, I left, but he ran down the street after me saying he had repaid me too much now and then he opened his mouth wide to show me his dental situation which he said had made him use strong pain killers so he couldn't think straight...so I gave him a small amount back. Just an odd drama I couldn't make head nor tail of....it had been weird and stressful and I hadn't known how to handle it except not to budge till he repaid me. I asked Yi what happened there what was that all about really ? Got 22 uc.

I think these examples are so individual it's hard to extrapolate from them because it's to do with my subjective experience of these scenarios as somewhat unreal, projections on a screen, pictures.

Whilst I know 22 is meant to be about adornings and embellishing and all those things I relate far more to the idea of the fire flickering on the mountain. The world of appearance, a theatre, a screen. A time when "what's on the screen" looks real , might be taken for real but what is on the screen only shows things to some extent, cannot always give the whole picture or be the basis for serious decisions . For example...

Another 22, though not uc was where I requested a repeat prescription for medicine I had had many times. The receptionist said I couldn't have it as I hadn't had it for years. I said I had. She said "you haven't because it's not on the screen". I knew I had so whose reality holds the reality on the screen ? Is the reality what is on the screen at any one time.....just a slideshow...not always to be believed . Later I spoke to the dr himself, and he agreed yes I had had that medicine but what was weird is the screen wasn't displaying properly so it wasn't on the screen.

Making serious choices by only looking at what is 'on the screen' can lead to error ...as in this sketch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0n_Ty_72Qds

Hilary said in that thread

Trigrams - light on the mountain, a bit like the light shining through the film projector.

I think of 22uc as 'what is on the screen' however that may play out. I think the drunken example was living in the screen maybe. Losing myself in the screen/scene, chatting I drank a lot I think. Though I feel 22 uc also answers that scenario more subtly too. It's an answer I'm still thinking about.

Oh ETA re

But I know my limits well. I had only 2 glasses of wine *.

er yes but they were huge glasses which I hadn't noticed. I was seeing each glass as a normal sized wine glass but I think they were huge ones.

I've personally never yet known 22 to be about beautifying or embellishing, that's never been as evident to me as the fire on the mountain, the show, the screen.

In that thread linked to chingching suggested 22 as a solution to a practical problem may be simply "look at the picture' for guidance.....you know, when you want to know how to change your hoover bag look at the pictures on the packet. Diagrams things like that.

22 is an elusive hexagram, I think there are many ways to experience it.

Wing says of 22 unchanging

"Stillness, Ken, in the upper trigram of cosmic ideals, brings illumination and clarity, Li, to the lower trigram of human affairs. GRACE in an unmoving form suggests the moment is isolated in time. While you can see the true perfection that might be in the situation of your inquiry, it is not necessarily consonant with reality.. You are dealing with idealisms. There is no redemptions in your illusions, however fervently you feel them. The perfection in the heavens has put stars in your eyes."

Actually that could suit the drunken episode...

I imagine there must be very different ways to experience 22 uc than being blind drunk ?

Trojina · May 24, 2013

I remember this as being an especially good thread on 22 http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/frie...ake-on-Hexagram-22-as-an-expression-of-grace…

and I like this quote from Bradford on that thread

Problem is, Grace is a bad word to use to summarize the hexagram's meaning.
It's more about things that catch the eye in such a way as to prevent the deeper
and longer view. The mountain is lit up by the flame below, and it looks pretty.
But you can see no farther. Closer to the core meaning is nearsightedness,
but more literally, ornamentation or superficiality. The mountain goat needs
to be nearsighted to pick his way up the mountain - he wants each of his steps
to be real, so there is a place for nearsightedness in how graceful his ascent is.

It's a common rookie error to get a single English word stuck in your head to be
the primary representative of a hexagram's meaning. It's also a big mistake to
think of one hexagram as more fortunate than another.

fallada · May 24, 2013

hi trojan, it smelled like wine, it looked like wine, but it wasnt .... syntheticsl ingredients like glycol et al. produce the kind of hangover you describe.

It was C.Lofting who used the word 'fassading' in connection with 22. I usually visit the 'fassade' idea for interpretations. A fassade may reveal or hide. In both cases its about 'selling' s.t.

Example: how will this relationship develop? I was friendly, understanding, patient ..... while inside I broke into pieces.

Trojina · May 24, 2013

Yes I have been thinking about the title of hexagram 22, thinking about how to call it in the listing of the unchanging threads. Hilary calls it 'beauty' , Brad calls it 'adornment'....others call it 'grace'. I think the nearest for me is 'adornment' so I used that but I like 'facade' too except I guess 'facade' can have a negative connotation of something being fake and whilst fakery may be a part of 22 it's just one of its many facets...so to speak. But as you rightly said 'a façade may reveal or hide'...it can reveal the essence of something or it can hide it. (I think we are using different spellings, same word, fassade/facade)

Example: how will this relationship develop? I was friendly, understanding, patient ..... while inside I broke into pieces

This is interesting and I can relate to it thinking of past 22s and relationships. Often people just take 22 as an advice to embellish, refine, make beautiful but it can be just drawing one's awareness to the fact that what one sees and understands here is an image. That image may reveal truth in all it's glory and equally it may not.

I think of a hall of mirrors with 22....many faceted, many ways of experiencing it.

Oh just checked out what Lise calls 22 , she calls it 'flower power'. I see that theoretically, and I hope to hear experiences of where making something attractive brings it forth so to speak, but I don't think for me it is that alone. For me it is all facades, facades of all kinds, pictures on the screen doing what they do, flicker and give a clue about what's beneath ?

fallada · May 24, 2013

"Facading"

Chris Lofting called 22: Grace; Adorning, Facading

www.dict.org translates the german word 'Fassade' (the word I had in mind) as:
face, front, facade, frontage, storefront, veneer

Background on why I like 'facade':

Architectural theory has a tradition in debating the ambivalent relation between form and function, esp. past 1900 (Loos, Corbusier) and imo it is all about hex 22 'necessarily followed by hex23'. It includes arguments about the role of ornament. Is it hypocracy, a lie or is it politeness and an expression of men's pursuit of the good and the beautiful? Is it enough to have the beautifying elements stuck on perfectly, highlighting the intrinsic meaning and value (22.3) or should the structure of the building and its whole composition straightly fall into one with its function (22.6) at the costs of possibly appearing unrefined and rude?

another example I just found:
when I was sweet 20, my boyfriend "wanted to talk to me" . Ohhhgawwwd .... What does he want to talk about? 22 . I turned out he carefully asked me to dress less sporty and wear make up and put my "assets into the right light" ..... while I was fighting to survive on the money I didnt have.

meng · May 24, 2013

I always feel like the turd in the punch bowl when it comes to sharing our perceptions of a few hexagrams. Only a small few it seems, and 22 is one. Not a very adorning image, I guess. chuckle

Too many times I've asked about serious health matters, or as vast as, "why am I here?" ..and received 22 - for it to be limited to mere adornment. I'm with LiSe on this one. I believe she got it right. And her title, flower power, makes me laugh: an expression of life, as is hexagram 22.

rosada · May 24, 2013

The image of 22: fire beneath mountain. Illumination limited.

I think of campers in the hills, sitting around a fire singing KumByYa and vowing to be friends forevermore.
Then Monday morning comes and it's back to reality.
22. a fuzzy moment where rational thinking plays no part.
It was just one of those things...

rodaki · May 25, 2013

this has become rather funny for me at this point, how people react at the thought that there's more to find in the surface than their cultural misgivings . . Right next to 22 there looms a thorny thought taught to us from when young: 'Appearances Can Be Deceiving' . . So we get caught in the skin-deep reading of 22, we recoil from looking long at it and deem it lacking of depth which, is the only valid source because, that is where truth resides, right?

We seem to forget that everything that is, shows, in one way or another, it shows (eastern medicine is based in this approach, in reading carefully how fire below (chi) manifests on the surfaces of our bodies); we only have to look carefully enough. And that's what 22 asks, to look carefully enough so we can understand what surfaces really consist of and the truths they manifest.

The rest, imho, is simply, our own impressions.

fallada · May 25, 2013

rodaki said:
this has become rather funny for me at this point, how people react at the thought that there's more to find in the surface than their cultural misgivings . .
The rest, imho, is simply, our own impressions.

Of course! This is how the big game works for ordinary folk and fools like me. Otherwise hex23's knife cutting along between the immaterial and its symbolic representation would not find its path ... or maybe 22 would then be followed by 21 ... dunno.

Rodaki, don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be mean, I'm just painfully experiencing how useless it is to try to escape one's conditioning.

anemos · May 25, 2013

experience #1 : I use mindmaps to study and revise. In a moment of doubt because it was time consuming I asked. "mindmaps" : 22
to me the central theme seems like the heart and the branches as the veins expanding. The boring black marks in the white paper become alive....they flow ... Show , highlight , illuminate. Make it visible!

#2 A hot issue expands and condense . People show what they had in mind A fight and a healing at the same time. I asked " what is this?" : 22 The healing traits of 22

# 3. Was in office when I learned some devastating news. I couldn't leave, I couldn't react, trapped in my office with people around me. Inside I was crying but outside had that smile... That's was my role in that time, a pleasant person serving their client. Facade, mask, persona.... probably yes but in this specific occasion that was what I should do. I was in a "role" and I had to play it and that ,imo, had nothing to do with deception or such. I asked " what is this ? " : 22u.

I don't think is anyone here that haven't put a "mask" to support their role. I wish I could go to my office wearing my snickers and my loose T-shirts because there are close to what I'm but I have to wear my professional clothes and those high heels.

in my country when someones dies , their relatives wear black clothes for some months. Women dressesed in black, men wearing black ties and a black band in their arms. Its a kind of adornment one could say , but that custom says " I'm mourning".

I see the imaginary of h22 as if in a dark night were the fire makes the mountain visible. That's what masks and costumes do in a theater, that's what a song writer or musician does when they write or play, that's what a artist does when they put in their canvas their innermost thoughts and feeling.

I like a lot and have connected with h22 a quote of a Greek writer.

"I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed." Nikos Kazantzakis

As for facades/masks/ personas I love what J.Campbell says and I feel its relevant to h22

You’ve got to be able to separate your sense of yourself–your ego–from the self you show the rest of the world–your persona.
You find this first big tension within the psyche between the dark inner potential of the cell’s unconscious portions on the one hand and the persona system on the other. The ego learns about the outside and inside and tries to reconcile them.
Now, one of the great dangers, from Jung’s standpoint, is to identify yourself with your persona. In dramatic contrast to the aim of education in the Orient, Jung declares the ego must distinguish itself from its role.
This is a concept that does not exist in the East. As Freud put it, the ego is that function which puts you in touch with the empirical actualities of the world in which you live; it is the reality function. And it’s from developing ego that you develop your own value system. Your judgment, your critical faculties, and so forth are functions of your ego. In the Orient, the individual is asked not to develop his critical faculties, not to observe the world in a new way, but to accept without question the teaching of his girl and to assume the mask that the society puts on him. This is the fundamental law of karmic birth. You are born into exactly that role which is proper to you. The society will give you the mask to wear. You are to identify with it completely, canceling out every creative thought.
. . .
What Jung says is that you should play your role, knowing that it’s not you. It’s a quite different point of view. This requires individuation, separating your ego, your image of yourself, from the social role. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t play the social role; it simply means that no matter what you choose to do in life, whether it’s the cop out or to cop in, you are playing a role, and don’t take it too damned seriously. The persona is merely the mask you’re wearing for this game.
Joseph Campbell (Pathways to Bliss, 71-2)

Was thinking and comparing in my mind they ways h48 and 61 vs 22 are treated. H22 talks about another kind of well maybe a more personal one, imo. That fire is sacred and sometimes we have to hide/protect(36)it while some others we can show it (22). If there could be an hex talk about "enlightenment" h22 can be a good candicate, imo...

rodaki · May 25, 2013

fallada said:
Rodaki, don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be mean, I'm just painfully experiencing how useless it is to try to escape one's conditioning.

. . I think that's a bit sad (btw, I didn't think you were mean at all, I've heard much worse - maybe I'm getting thick skinned? hehe)

As soon as I finished my post I thought how Yi speaks a million tongues - different for each one of us. See, I'm rather at a different point; that of s l o w l y discovering that I can actually grow out and beyond of my negative conditionings, even though it is a very very slow process - so it's rather unavoidable that we'd read completely different things. Also, it was my use of Yi that prompted me to look deeper into the hexagram - that, and the belief that this thing's answers must work, at least at some level!

If you really believe what you wrote, then I guess you need to come to terms with that . . but that doesn't mean it's the only thing out there, because if so, what would be the reason of asking questions, of growing, of learning?

It's my belief that there is true, essential illumination in 22, but not of the obvious, in-your-face kind - you need to sit with it for some time to perceive it - then again, that is my point of view of it

meng · May 25, 2013

anemos said:
'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed."

Beautiful.

Was in office when I learned some devastating news. I couldn't leave, I couldn't react, trapped in my office with people around me. Inside I was crying but outside had that smile... That's was my role in that time, a pleasant person serving their client. Facade, mask, persona.... probably yes but in this specific occasion that was what I should do. I was in a "role" and I had to play it and that ,imo, had nothing to do with deception or such. I asked " what is this ? " : 22u.

I see your point here. But as I thought about it, while not denying the perfect fit of 22 to this predicament, I began walking through each hexagram, from 1 to 64, and could apply every single one as advice coming from the Yi, except for the fact that you specifically qualified and therefore narrowed it down to asking, What is this? But all the others could easily be corrective or supportive council to that situation. No major point to make with that, other than it again causes me to consider Lofting's theory, that all hexagrams can apply to every question in some constructive way, providing ones mind is limber and receptive enough to find useful applications. To me it demonstrates that no hexagram is an island, and that getting too hung up on "core meanings" is like memorizing an auto's manual but never driving the thing to learn from actual experience.

H22 is as huge as any other hexagram.

meng · May 25, 2013

fallada said:
I'm just painfully experiencing how useless it is to try to escape one's conditioning.

The idea isn't to escape ones conditioning but to update it. Sometimes run a virus scan, defrag it once in awhile to reorganize the army, re-prioritize, and in this case, to illuminate it and yourself.

anemos · May 26, 2013

meng said:
I see your point here. But as I thought about it, while not denying the perfect fit of 22 to this predicament, I began walking through each hexagram, from 1 to 64, and could apply every single one as advice coming from the Yi, except for the fact that you specifically qualified and therefore narrowed it down to asking, What is this? But all the others could easily be corrective or supportive council to that situation.

Yes, i agree with that and I'll never be 100% sure that this interpretation is the correct one and not something else. After typing this example I thought some other hex's too. like 51 or 32 or 12 and so forth. Each one , as you say, could offer a useful information. Hex 51 would make perfect sense too, as the numbness from the shock from those news. Yi' is not restricted from our questions, oftentimes. Answering to something else , that might be more important to focus to, would be possible. We create meaning after all.

meng said:
No major point to make with that, other than it again causes me to consider Lofting's theory, that all hexagrams can apply to every question in some constructive way, providing ones mind is limber and receptive enough to find useful applications. To me it demonstrates that no hexagram is an island, and that getting too hung up on "core meanings" is like memorizing an auto's manual but never driving the thing to learn from actual experience.

I believe Lofting's idea is a valid one. We can find aspects of our situations in other hexs too. When was new to I ching my main problem was that all hex "looked" alike like each contains all the other 63 by its presence ( apparent or latent) or by their absence. Even absent they can influence our thinking process and how we derive conclusions on what the answer is.

If we are trying to establish a core meaning , my feeling is that we jeopardize the flexibility of the symbolism , that transparent trait . The hex becomes rigid and our minds too. Scientist assure us that plasticity occurs even when we grow up and what enables it is those new things and experiences we are exposed to. We can create new pathways and all those discussion about what this or that hex is or is not about , if we take them lightly enough we witnessing experience that we never had or maybe never have in the future but to a degree its an experience itself. The hex expands while we try to make it more fixed.. the paradox, lol.

sometimes a specific hex or line , imo, appears as an answer because of some key words that trigger certain thoughts , like when we ask about lost items. I found those reading the most interesting one because when tr to figure out where the item could be , the sense of freedom and how I try to make connections and put thing together is extremely exiting , like thinking almost from an empty mind. Its a nice break from the default thinking and the search of specific meanings

.

precision grace · May 26, 2013

For me, 22 uc always seems to imply superficial pleasantness.

I've had it recently when asking about someone I know very superficially (ha!) and I think it reflected the nature of the relationship - it's superficial, although nice enough.

I've also had 22 for situations when social niceties are to be observed in order to preserve the social order. i.e. dealing with someone who is tricky but we are all making nice for the sake of appearances.

I think in Trojan examples, the wine 22 was simply saying " you were having a good time" - that's what that was about.

The one where money was mistakenly taken from the credit card twice and then dealing with the weird guy is a bit tricky, I cannot make that one work. I do wonder what Trojan had actually been focusing on when asking the question, maybe she was worried about the guy's intentions, in which case 22 uc I'd take as "what you saw is what there was"..i.e. it's all surface stuff.

The Fire on the Mountain is for signals isn't it? That's what you did before mobile phones to tell people far away what was happening with you. So, 22, I say is the the mask we wear for the world.

hilary · May 26, 2013

Been sitting in the car mulling over this, when I wasn't falling asleep. We've gone off topic for what was supposed to be a collection of experiences to learn from, but I think what's being discussed is very 22-ish. 21 bites through to the essence. 22 gives form to the essence, expresses it, so people can relate. Since the form is not the essence, there are lots of possible ways of expression, there's a certain lightness about the hexagram.

Well... for 'ways of expression' read 'experiences with the hexagram'. You see what I mean.

I don't buy the 'all hexagrams apply to everything' approach. Yes, yes, we can find ways to apply anything to anything, the human mind is ingenious that way. But divination does actually work; you can rely on it to give you the 'best fit' (to coin a phrase) - and all those experiences of Maria's are true images of 22's core meaning. Trojan's too, I dare say, though I have no clue how as yet

. (Yes, hexagrams have core meanings. Doesn't mean we can say what they are, even if we know.) Gathering such images, looking at them from all angles, trying to feel my way through to what they share... that’s how I get a feeling for a hexagram. Or about 50% of it, anyway.

Unfortunately my own journals don't have much by way of 22 unchanging. I can only find one: from when I was burning out over readings, but was still in the process of working out what this actually was and what I needed to do. The most radical idea I could manage was that I might stop doing readings for a whole month. I asked about that possibility, and got 22 unchanging. I seem to remember other readings at the time were advising 23, so I took this as not going far enough. I wonder now if it also indicated being a bit stuck on my identity as 'diviner' (and projecting it consistently) - maybe that was the unchanging part, having the image but missing the sense of direction. Not sure.

rodaki · May 26, 2013

I've shared this reading before in these forums, might as well share it once more.

A couple of years ago, during our summer holidays, my father got injured real bad by a fishing hook while fishing at night. The hook had gotten deep into his leg and the only way to get it out without damaging any major nerves/tendones was by pushing it through till its point made full circle and exited in a different point - gruesome, I know, and rather frightening for all of us at the time. Mind you, we were moored in a deserted island and the next best thing would be . . I don't know, wait for the morning and call for help, perhaps. In any case, he was determined to go ahead with it right away to prevent any infections. Luckily enough, he had a very strong light on board, cause, at the time, it was the one thing that could help him do what he had in mind. That, and someone holding the light very, very steady so that he could focus (later on it came to me, that that might have had more than its practical use for him, perhaps it also soothed him to feel that someone was 'holding steady' for him).

Anyways, the incident ended well, luckily. When I asked Yi about it, I got 21 for what he had to do, 22 for the person holding the light - and sure enough anyone can argue how the job of 22 was not as hard, but I doubt anyone can argue against the importance or gravity of it.

For me it looks rather simple: equating 'surface' with masks or superficiality (or 22 with 'sth inconsequential')) is misleading and leaves a big part of its meaning out. Sometimes 22 is the only thing that helps 21 from turning into a bloody 23

(btw, PG, I think fire on mountain and smoke signals would work better for 56 rather than 22 - just saying . .)

anemos · May 26, 2013

hilary said:
.

I don't buy the 'all hexagrams apply to everything' approach. Yes, yes, we can find ways to apply anything to anything, the human mind is ingenious that way. But divination does actually work; you can rely on it to give you the 'best fit' (to coin a phrase) -

I agree that divination works because of some reading that were very literal, not that I can prove it ..its just my belief. However , I'm not sure if there are rigid borders between hexs and the one doesn't has grains of others, even when they don't share similar hexs. When we get changing lines the two hexs blend together and that mix highlights , imo, the interrelation between them.

Each situation has many parameters some crucial, some less important,some has to do with the small details. My feeling is that while the spotlight is directed to a certain hex or combination of hexs' we kind of "look around" to other hexs' too. I have observe myself doing it and i believe it happens , most of the times, in a unconscious way. It refines the reading in some ways. So I could see that I can increase my understanding for a specific situation by looking at some relevant hexs.

I'm not so sure how you mean the lightness of h22, because giving a form to something otherwise invisible feels pretty big to me. Artistic expressions are very 22 and their essence is spread, their energies vibrate , their light travels in waves.

there is a song here saying " life that is not share is a Stolen life" meaning that you waste it by restricting it. I'm not saying that 22 has not its dark/negative side but it has light too and that light isn't that insignificant.

precision grace · May 26, 2013

rodaki said:
(btw, PG, I think fire on mountain and smoke signals would work better for 56 rather than 22 - just saying . .)

I don't think so. In 56 you have to be super careful about everything you do because your position is uncertain. You do not light fires and send signals unless you are absolutely sure there is no danger. In 56, it's danger all the way

..or rather, Employ Extreme Caution Whilst Traveling Through Strange Lands

rodaki · May 26, 2013

still, fire on mountain is in the realm of 56

anemos · May 26, 2013

precision grace said:
So, 22, I say is the the mask we wear for the world.

Sometimes could be, but not with a negative meaning. Rituals in primate tribe and current ones involve such "mask". Could be also the small details that make a difference and convey a message or create a certain atmosphere.

I came across this video. and found it relevant especially the last comment.

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/01/02/Richard-Feynmans-Ode-To-A-Flower/

meng · May 27, 2013

hilary said:
The most radical idea I could manage was that I might stop doing readings for a whole month. I asked about that possibility, and got 22 unchanging. I seem to remember other readings at the time were advising 23, so I took this as not going far enough. I wonder now if it also indicated being a bit stuck on my identity as 'diviner' (and projecting it consistently) - maybe that was the unchanging part, having the image but missing the sense of direction. Not sure.

Me not sure either, but 22 has had the similar effect of taking a break or lightening up. I personally know of no better way to do that than to express myself creatively, even if it's musical gibberish, or to be an audience, applauding the garden and her beauty. Light, yes, but I don't think it's any less important. Unless someone could explain to me, why they'd include an equal space to it, or why include it at all, if it's only superficial stuff? I think your first and last paragraphs nail it. Kinda lost me in-between.

I like to tease myself with the 'all hexagrams fit' thing, and I accept the concept as it stands on it's own, without interfering with my belief in the divining phenomenon. There's no one or the other, in my head. It feels gently liberating. Stop discussing the bills, and go dancing. Stop stripping, start flourishing. Oh, wait... yeah, let's go with that.

anemos · May 27, 2013

They say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but was thinking of the peacock's plumage and it's evolutionary advantage; maybe beauty is in our mind/genes too, we are hard-wired to seek beauty and not for the sake of beauty for for what it represents. Most of male's animal have those kind of adornments to impress the females that are seeking for a reliable partner to have kids. Its about survival- life in the most pragmatic way.

Beauty, aesthetics, arts are a universal part of human experience, why not a chapter in Yi ?

eta: Yijing is full of symbolism, We read about dragon's goats, mares horses pigs fishes, threes, wells tings, thunders lakes but we aren't actually talk about them

.. isn't Yi-the book , a very 22-ish expression ?

hilary · May 27, 2013

anemos said:
I agree that divination works because of some reading that were very literal, not that I can prove it ..its just my belief. However , I'm not sure if there are rigid borders between hexs and the one doesn't has grains of others, even when they don't share similar hexs. When we get changing lines the two hexs blend together and that mix highlights , imo, the interrelation between them.

Yes, exactly! And (not 'but') you can also say that the changing lines show the points of difference between the two hexagrams. 22.1 is exactly the difference between 22 and 52, as well as the connection. The more you can penetrate into the specific quality/essence/feeling of each hexagram, the more you can get a sense of those relationships.

(And distinctions, regardless of structural closeness. I love the exquisite specificity of it as a 'tool to think with' - this change and loss... is it a 23, a 59? a 49? This feeling lost... is that a 59, a 29, a 4? - and when that tool/image/22-shape is given to you by an oracle, then this is something beautiful.)

anemos said:
...I'm not so sure how you mean the lightness of h22, because giving a form to something otherwise invisible feels pretty big to me. Artistic expressions are very 22 and their essence is spread, their energies vibrate , their light travels in waves.

there is a song here saying " life that is not share is a Stolen life" meaning that you waste it by restricting it. I'm not saying that 22 has not its dark/negative side but it has light too and that light isn't that insignificant.

Lightness not as in trivial or unimportant, lightness as in the opposite of heaviness. If I say 'I am a diviner' and take that very seriously as Who I Am... I'm stuck, and if that's taken away from me I'll feel as though there's nothing left. (23 time!) But if I can put it on with delight like an especially beautiful piece of velvet I found in the dressing-up box… that would be 22, I think. Which does not mean that being a diviner is a small thing.

rodaki said:
I've shared this reading before in these forums, might as well share it once more.

A couple of years ago, during our summer holidays, my father got injured real bad by a fishing hook while fishing at night. The hook had gotten deep into his leg and the only way to get it out without damaging any major nerves/tendones was by pushing it through till its point made full circle and exited in a different point - gruesome, I know, and rather frightening for all of us at the time. Mind you, we were moored in a deserted island and the next best thing would be . . I don't know, wait for the morning and call for help, perhaps. In any case, he was determined to go ahead with it right away to prevent any infections. Luckily enough, he had a very strong light on board, cause, at the time, it was the one thing that could help him do what he had in mind. That, and someone holding the light very, very steady so that he could focus (later on it came to me, that that might have had more than its practical use for him, perhaps it also soothed him to feel that someone was 'holding steady' for him).

Anyways, the incident ended well, luckily. When I asked Yi about it, I got 21 for what he had to do, 22 for the person holding the light - and sure enough anyone can argue how the job of 22 was not as hard, but I doubt anyone can argue against the importance or gravity of it.

For me it looks rather simple: equating 'surface' with masks or superficiality (or 22 with 'sth inconsequential')) is misleading and leaves a big part of its meaning out. Sometimes 22 is the only thing that helps 21 from turning into a bloody 23

Masks - as Anemos was saying - are not just about deception.

One of my favourite basic phrases for 22 is 'being something for someone'. Not small, not superficial - I like what you say about 'holding steady' for him. Being steadiness, being light. I find that one quite a recognisable 22.

anemos said:
They say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but was thinking of the peacock's plumage and it's evolutionary advantage; maybe beauty is in our mind/genes too, we are hard-wired to seek beauty and not for the sake of beauty for for what it represents. Most of male's animal have those kind of adornments to impress the females that are seeking for a reliable partner to have kids. Its about survival- life in the most pragmatic way.

Beauty, aesthetics, arts are a universal part of human experience, why not a chapter in Yi ?

eta: Yijing is full of symbolism, We read about dragon's goats, mares horses pigs fishes, threes, wells tings, thunders lakes but we aren't actually talk about them

.. isn't Yi-the book , a very 22-ish expression ?

Yes, that's what I was trying to say a few paragraphs ago.

So where are we... 22 unchanging is the somewhat fixated 'I-am-a-diviner' who actually needs more than a month's break, and the light-holder holding steady, and putting on a brave face, and the healing fight, and the unexpected drunkenness, and the inexplicable jeweller. Um. All I can conclude from that lot so far is that unchanging hexagrams are weird. Maybe especially when Trojan receives them, as her examples are the ones that I'm finding particularly baffling.

Trojina · May 27, 2013

Um. All I can conclude from that lot so far is that unchanging hexagrams are weird. Maybe especially when Trojan receives them, as her examples are the ones that I'm finding particularly baffling.

Oh I thought I'd explained in the first post how I related them to 22 uc. For the credit card...a 'scene' in a play is what I saw. An image, I was interacting with that scene as it appeared to me and often that is all we can do. We see slices of life like passing images on a movie screen. We cannot penetrate beneath the surface of every image we encounter. If we ride a train we might see a little boy crying alone somewhere....we whizz past...we will not know why he cries, we will not know his story but we may carry the image with us all day. This is life, what we see is the life immediately playing out before us. I think that 22 uc answer for the debit card was merely telling me that....that that's what I saw. Looking back I thought it a perfect answer. I thought I needed to see into it for my own reason whereas actually I could take it lightly. Just like I cannot know the lives of each and every scene I pass by in a train so I cannot know what every passing incident that plays out in my life 'means'.

Re the drunken episode I think it's a similar thing. I also think that evening I was enjoying myself in a myopic kind of way...wasn't thinking about what I was drinking, and they were huge glasses, so much more than I thought...but I was too busy yattering on to notice....and when getting drunk I probably sounded more interesting to myself as one does :blush:

I stayed with appearances....which can be delightful...but actually that was a time it would have been good to think of consequences especially if I had had anything important to do the next day...!

Generally speaking.....that is how I see my experiences and fundamentally that is what I am interested in hearing from others in this thread, that is their experiences , their subjective experience of 22uc however that may be. One's experience need not fit into others ideals of what 22 is about. There's so many threads about what 22 'means' but none consisting mainly of experiences of 22uc

In these particular experiences of mine I see 22 as the movie screen. I don't think everything on the movie screen has to speak of some deep truth ...just as not everything on the TV screen does. For me in my shared experience I felt a reminder 'hey you are seeing the screen of life'. Others experience may say quite different things...that's good. I don't think anyone need justify their experience because it doesn't fit others idea of what 22 'really means' . I hope people will just throw their experiences in whatever....

I mean we can't say "no you can't have had 22 for that experience because that's not 22 means"....you cast 22 for a situation, you have your understanding and hopefully these can be shared

Trojina · May 27, 2013

Here's a recent overlooked thread about 22 http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?16917-when-it-s-all-about-22 I just thought a lot of ideas discussed here would be worth discussing there

anemos · May 27, 2013

hilary said:
Yes, exactly! And (not 'but') you can also say that the changing lines show the points of difference between the two hexagrams. 22.1 is exactly the difference between 22 and 52, as well as the connection. The more you can penetrate into the specific quality/essence/feeling of each hexagram, the more you can get a sense of those relationships.

(And distinctions, regardless of structural closeness. I love the exquisite specificity of it as a 'tool to think with' - this change and loss... is it a 23, a 59? a 49? This feeling lost... is that a 59, a 29, a 4? - and when that tool/image/22-shape is given to you by an oracle, then this is something beautiful.)

Yes, I ask same questions in that direction and the other way around also. Why 29 and not 32 .. etc.

hilary said:
Lightness not as in trivial or unimportant, lightness as in the opposite of heaviness.

Oh, now I got that :blush:

hilary said:
All I can conclude from that lot so far is that unchanging hexagrams are weird.

Yes it appears that way. Maybe because they represent a vast area of situations and we try to narrow them down to specific meanings. I like all those different interpretations I read in the "unchanging " threads. It adds...

rodaki · May 27, 2013

trojan said:
Here's a recent overlooked thread about 22 http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?16917-when-it-s-all-about-22 I just thought a lot of ideas discussed here would be worth discussing there

hi T,

thanks for bringing up that thread- it's yet another expression of my 22 experiences - I thought people would have seen it already and didn't wanna keep on pushing about it

rodaki · May 27, 2013

hilary said:
Masks - as Anemos was saying - are not just about deception.

One of my favourite basic phrases for 22 is 'being something for someone'. Not small, not superficial - I like what you say about 'holding steady' for him. Being steadiness, being light. I find that one quite a recognisable 22.

Sure enough masks are more than deception, they're also way more than superficiality and role-playing; they can also be invocations of the divine, totem-like objects, but that's an aspect of them I rarely find is hinted at when the term is used for 22 . . there's rarely any mention of sanctity, ritual or inspiration about it - hence my taking the term in its more mundane, shallow slant when used for 22

'Being something for someone' . . that's a turn of phrase I haven't thought about 22 - this sounds like 'standing in' for something . . I could see that as part of it. And 'light', yes, I find that's been a big part of my experiences of it -'light' as 'illumination' though and not so much (or, that often) as 'lightness' . .

Sometimes I wonder if the meanings each one of us finds to fit more to their experiences, if they are also signs of what we have still to learn in our path - with each Tao if the same things-symbols change signification and/or depth

meng · May 27, 2013

rodaki said:
Sometimes I wonder if the meanings each one of us finds to fit more to their experiences, if they are also signs of what we have still to learn in our path - with each Tao if the same things-symbols change signification and/or depth

I wondered the same thing, especially from this thread. I was going to say it before. I also wrote of core meaning being like the center of a kaleidoscope. Rather than 64 cores, 64 mirrors, filled with 384 shiny particles. Like the pedals of a flower with the single core in the center. But decided not to post it.

Note my new and profound signature. Now I finally understand what's special about unchanging hexagrams!

Your Experiences with Unchanging Castings - Hexagram 22

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