The other day, I posted the topic Tarot Question. In the course of working with that question, and the wonderful responses I got here, I found my self in a bit of a depressed funk. Bringing my question here revealed to me sides of my approach that I was definitely not seeing.

But they were familiar to me, because I've "not seen" them before. There is the saying, "Wherever you go, there you are," and I was feeling the negative side of that.

So I decided to consult the I Ching, with the question: "What is it that I most consistently refuse to see?"

And the answer was 33 to 13, changing at first place (Retreat...Fellowship).

It's funny, but my reaction to this answer so far has come in the form of a song -- the song "Comes a time" by the Grateful Dead. The relevant lyrics that are here with me are,

Comes a time/
when the blind man says/
Don't you see?/
Come fill it up/
you've got an empty cup/
only love can fill/
only love can fill...

So I'm musing that the answer has something to do with right approach to relationship, but then again, maybe it's something else, and I'm just not seeing it...

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,

Willow

Willow, yes, "wherever you go, there you are" is the reality that forces us to realize how important living in the NOW moment really is.

Q: "What is it that I most consistently refuse to see?" A: 33/13

Your first reaction to the outcome for your question is that there comes a time for change and that perhaps now is that time --yes, however not in the way that you think.

I agree that it seems to be about how you relate, whether with person or situation, but not necessarily that you need to change it but rather to see it as your natural approach to Life experiences and accept it -love it.

Perhaps you relate better by first retreating into yourself and emerging when you feel you have a better grasp and understanding of the person or the situation you are developing a relationship to. It is not the way everyone does it but it is not necessarily "wrong" just different.

Understanding your relating mode and accepting it --being okay with it-- allows you to maintain a 24/7 vigilance over your habitual thought processes because it is one less thing to worry being depressed about when you see it. Do you know what I mean?

In this sense, you can then understand why the 2 of Cups reversed came up in your tarot card selection. It's the same message.

I hope this helps. If something is unclear, don't hesitate to ask.

Dharma

Thank you Dharma,

Q: What do I most consistently refuse to see?
A: *Me* - and the way I naturally relate to the world!

Yes, there is much to that.

Apologies if I clutter up one topic with too much stuff, but I did indeed consult my tarot cards last night. I found the process easy and familiar, drawing out my experience with other divination tools in a new way, much like meeting a new person, and being able to relate with them because you're quite comfortable with yourself, quite able to be present. The context of Retreat...Fellowship was very much with me, and, yes, that 2 of cups showed up again.

What I asked was, "Tell me the story of my desire," and, using a Celtic Cross spread, I got:

significator - 6 of wands
what covers you - 2 of pentacles
what crosses you - king of wands
what is beneath you - 2 of cups (called hearts)
what is behind you - king of swords
what crowns you - 8 of hearts/cups
what is before you - 3 of wands
my personality - 9 of wands
how others see me - 8 of pentacles
hopes and fears - the empress
outcome - the tower

clarifier of outcome - the devil

Hello Willow,

Thank you for sharing your reading/s. That?s a very interesting idea you had, of consulting I Ching and tarot in tandem. I wonder whether this might not, in the unimaginably long term, be the best way to build up a set of authentic I Ching-tarot associations? I don't imagine the two oracles would always say the same thing (that would be a waste), but still? Maybe over a lifetime (or three) a meaningful web of associations would emerge. (I?m not volunteering for the task, though!)

Ah, Dharma - it?s very good to see you bringing your I-Ching-interpreting-light out from under the bushel at last

Hexagram 13 as the background suggests that it is indeed basically about relating to people - though also, more generally, this can cover relating to new ideas and doubtless also new oracles.

Things cannot be blocked off and hindered indefinitely, and so People in Harmony follows. It?s a vision of exactly that - but also has a distinctly practical edge (brought out in the Daxiang/ Image/ Symbol): such harmony needs to be created. I think the country is a place where people meet co-operatively, because it?s very obvious all are in the same boat and rely on the same crops. The law of the cities (and its power and politics) are somewhat remote, so relationships have to be shaped on the basis of what works.

#13 expands the whole idea of what/ whom you can relate to: people from the city would go out to altars in the country, because even with their increasingly different lives, they were united in connection with (and dependence on) the same spirits.

So the judgement goes on to speak of crossing the river - venturing into new ground, carrying on the journey purposefully and taking some risks in the process. The junzi (noble one, wise disciple, etc) whose constancy brings harvest seems, in the older texts, to be the one who can think outside the box.

This might be a good moment to mention the nuclear hexagram of both hexagrams: 44, Coupling. Something/someone new arrives: feminine, regal, unexpected, sexy, disquieting? She can?t be grasped, she won?t fit into the old order, she might well undermine the whole thing. What to do? (Most interpreters answer: escape at all costs. This says more about them than the hexagram, I think.)

What happens when you bring Retreat into the context of People in Harmony? Certainly, as Dharma says, it can be a valid part of the process. It?s basically a positive hexagram, with the idea that you withdraw to your own cave under heaven, staying self-contained and simply disengaging from negativity. The Daxiang encapsulates that idea: it?s not that you hate the negative, either in yourself or others (a sure way of feeding it, anyway), but that you have nothing to do with it.

The Judgement says that there is some small harvest in constancy (to yourself) even in withdrawing. To combine the wisdom of LiSe?s interpretation with what arrived in my inbox this morning (synchronous!): if you live someone else?s life, either with or without their invitation, who will live yours in the meantime?

But there is also a big contrast with #13. In terms of starting out with tarot (just as an example) -
Hexagram 13 would mean: jump in and start divining, work out a relationship with the oracle as you go along; as the problems of reading for yourself come up, work them out and create boundaries.
Hexagram 33 would mean: back off, your first priority is to preserve your own integrity; don?t get yourself mixed up in those negative possibilities before you?ve worked out how this is going to fit in with your own vision. Both are valid.

But there are some question marks over #33, I think. Is this a self-possessed retreat in order to gather resources for the journey, or is it reactive flight? Are you fleeing to avoid the offering and the exposure of connection with the spirits, or in order to preserve that sense of connection in unfavourable circumstances? (Naturally, the answer is not in the book.)

With the serious differences between 33 and 13, the unfavourable changing line isn?t altogether surprising. (And yes, there is a problem here - the reading isn?t all affirmation.)

?Retreating tail, danger. No use in having a direction to go.?

This is the ?tail end? of the retreating animal, nearest to involvement. In the context of the question, I think it?s where you place yourself by wanting both retreat and involvement. You?re caught up in the business of #13, maybe in a more negative sense of unfinished business that you?re not quite seeing, so you can?t genuinely retreat.

?Danger? is like a scorpion under a rock, or an old ghost: much safer if you know it?s there. (Amusing to find how much I?m duplicating what you wrote, Dharma! Was it interpretation or intuition on your part?)

?No use in having a direction to go? lends itself to two interpretations. If you?re in this situation, purposeful action is no use. Or - this is no position to be in if you want to take purposeful action. In that case, you might well have a sense of purpose, but you can?t act on it, because you?re still tangled up in these old involvements. The commentary on the line says the safest reaction is to freeze: ?If you don?t do anything, how can you be injured from outside?? It may be a way of avoiding disaster, but it doesn?t sound ideal to me.

I think the I Ching?s done exactly what you asked, no more and no less, in isolating the not-quite-seen thing here. It doesn?t quite say how to create the balance between the two impulses. But come to that, it doesn?t say how to deal with the woman of #44, either, except that grasping her is no use. Perhaps the best course is simply greater awareness, letting the unexpected encounter bring you quietly back to your own path (looking at the patterns of change here)?

Hope this helps! Off now to read up on the Two of Cups?

Hello Willow,

Great quote, archetypal of the divinatory situation. Responding spirits (Grateful Dead), a time, the blind diviner, casting cup, insight.

Comes a time/ -- synchronous, a time of need
when the blind man says/ -- "...the blind men who made a living using three coins and the turtle shell" (from Joseph Yu's website); Tiresias-like

Don't you see?/ -- insight, ironic sight
Come fill it up/ -- coins = coins for casting: omens received
you've got an empty cup/ -- casting cup = turtle shell = self

only love can fill/ -- empathetic perception
only love can fill... -- Kindness is better than pleasure.

No need to compare yourself to others, since everybody has the right stuff somewhere. Try this quote: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Some darkness is bound to linger in all of us.

About you query to the Yi:

Question: "What is it that I most consistently refuse to see?"
Or, "What am I hidding from myself?"
Or, "What is in my blindspot?" (Very global.)

33: 1 = 13.

What is hidden inside? What should I be bringing forth? A very pregnant 33.
Line 1: Fixity = a failure to progress. Stuck. Maybe too much time spent in preparation?

33.1
[] Six at the beginning means:
At the tail in retreat. This is dangerous.
One must not wish to undertake anything.

About this line somebody recently said that those last to retreat (say, a holding guard) are most likely to take the enemy's fire. But it is dangerous to stay out of action too long and lose conditioning and forget needed habits.

13. The Judgement

Fellowship with Men in the open.
Success.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
The perseverance of the superior man furthers.

An outdoor group activity (or anything analogous) might be enlightening. This isn't advice to "cross the great water" during a storm, but some extension is called for. "Perseverance" suggests that the current course is basically correct.

I think of hexagram 13 as Posse or Militia, collective action for common security. Modern analogues would be National Guard, Community Watch programs, school traffic guards, refuges for latch-key children, etc.

We're in a security conscious time.

-Tom

Hello Willow,

Great quote, archetypal of the divinatory situation. Responding spirits (Grateful Dead), a time, the blind diviner, casting cup, insight.

Comes a time/ -- synchronous, a time of need
when the blind man says/ -- "...the blind men who made a living using three coins and the turtle shell" (from Joseph Yu's website); Tiresias-like

Don't you see?/ -- insight, ironic sight
Come fill it up/ -- coins = coins for casting: omens received
you've got an empty cup/ -- casting cup = turtle shell = self

only love can fill/ -- empathetic perception
only love can fill... -- Kindness is better than pleasure.

No need to compare yourself to others, since everybody has the right stuff somewhere. Try this quote: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Some darkness is bound to linger in all of us.

About you query to the Yi:

Question: "What is it that I most consistently refuse to see?"
Or, "What am I hidding from myself?"
Or, "What is in my blindspot?" (Very global.)

33: 1 = 13.

What is hidden inside? What should I be bringing forth? A very pregnant 33.
Line 1: Fixity = a failure to progress. Stuck. Maybe too much time spent in preparation?

33.1
[] Six at the beginning means:
At the tail in retreat. This is dangerous.
One must not wish to undertake anything.

About this line somebody recently said that those last to retreat (say, a holding guard) are most likely to take the enemy's fire. But it is dangerous to stay out of action too long and lose conditioning and forget needed habits.

13. The Judgement

Fellowship with Men in the open.
Success.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
The perseverance of the superior man furthers.

An outdoor group activity (or anything analogous) might be enlightening. This isn't advice to "cross the great water" during a storm, but some extension is called for. "Perseverance" suggests that the current course is basically correct.

I think of hexagram 13 as Posse or Militia, collective action for common security. Modern analogues would be National Guard, Community Watch programs, school traffic guards, refuges for latch-key children, etc.

We're in a security conscious time.

-Tom

Willow,

The two of pentacles is the process of throwing different things that concern us up in the air and preparing to juggle them while walking along a tightrope. Not easy when you are being pulled in two different directions and that's the quality of the present situation for you. By the time you get to the end of this reading you will return here and see how this card truly fits in.

The King of Wands has the new qualities you are challenged to bring forth while the old qualities of the King of Swords linger in the background. You have to learn how the differences between these play out in you and affect situations before you can control which one has the say. One is inspired and the other is rational.

That 2 of Cups has always been the issue and sits nicely at the base reminding you that you have to bring in love fully and completely before you can successfully resolve and develop a relationship between the two conflicting ideas you are attempting to pair together.

The 8 of Cups shows you that the ideal way to that is by "letting go" and letting it happen. (Hmmm, I do believe that was something I once suggested to you. ) You have to really see that the way you've been doing things is ineffective before you can believe enough in the ideal to follow it's proposition to let go. Turning inward then is a requirement --as I pointed out before, you have to accept that this is a natural part and parcel of being Willow.

The 3 of Wands shows how your own willing cooperation brings you helpful advice, support and assistance from the outside. You can see your ships in the distance coming in. And this is due to only a very little effort because your inner emotional currents directed by the 9 of Wands is quite clear that you continue to be wary and resistant. You will stand your ground until it feels truly safe for you to venture any further. Your inner self knows how fast is safe enough for you to move and it is in your best interests to open up to the higher spiritual vibrations only when you are perfectly ready because you may not be able to handle it any sooner. However, by inadvertantly take this too far you could end up somewhat stuck from taking the cautious approach too far.

You are cautious but I suspect that your purpose is to master the new energy level that you are opening up to and avoid dangerous pitfalls. If you're going to do it, you're going to do it right is your motto. This is a very healthy way to evolve --recognizing that one shouldn't and mustn't cut corners when involved in a labor of love. However, your illusions are represented by the fruitful and ever maternal Empress. Here we get a little glimpse that perhaps you tend to get stuck and fail to thrive because you have not quite grasped that growth and creativity are an on-going process. This means knowing when to come out of your cave and putting to practical use everything you've incubated. As a result, the only way for things to change and manifest into your line of view is through shocking revelations and jolting insight. The Devil, of course, qualifies the Tower by pointing out that your self-imposed limitations are oftentimes too extreme and are responsible for feeling stuck and confined. You must find the balance between the Empress and the Devil. How? Return to "Go" and reread.

Hope this helps.

Dharma

Hilary, my reading was primarily intuitive first and the interpretation seemed to evolve out of it. I told you, I have a tendency to back into I Ching. Strange, but it works.

Everyone,

This is all so wonderful! I began to say "fascinating," but then chose "wonderful" -- the difference between a king of swords and a king of wands response?

I must rush off now to a hurly-burly day filled with transition events. The image of me as the last one back at the end of the retreat, skirmishing, skirmishing, is apt.

All this suddenly allows me to see far more clearly what I'm engaging, what I'm protecting, fearing, seeking. I don't generally think of myself as a disciplined person, but the combined suggestions that successful Retreat is an orderly process, and that I tend to be too extreme in my application of discipline (discussion of 9 of wands) leads to what feels like a breakthrough image for me that I will take into my day:

It is this -- as I was reading, I recalled that a while back, at a critical point in one of the situations I'll be encountering today, I sustained myself through a crisis with another song-lyric mantra. I don't know the whole song, or who does it, but the snippet is:

and I won't back down/
no I won't back down/
you can stand me up at the gates of hell/
and I won't back down

That was right for the time, but the image I take with me today is of that king of swords, up against the wall, protecting the retreat, intuitively getting the word -- "it's time - let go" -- and as that sword transforms into a wand, he evanesces, finds the third way, the hidden path at the crossroads, between the apparent choices...to...to?

"you can stand me up at the gates of hell/
and I won't back down"

Tom Petty I believe...

Tom Petty, that sounds right...

You know what the answer turned out to be? To what it is that I most consistently refuse to see?

It's that I've been working so hard to pretend that magic is real, when all the while, guess what, it *is* real. That's it. That's what I was missing.

Willow,

you said: "I've been working so hard to pretend that magic is real, when all the while, guess what, it *is* real."

Here's an Egyptian story about magic as the healer, and that old adage of "Time heals all wounds" --but not our contemporary understanding of how "time heals". I thought you might appreciate it.

.....

Long, long ago, humans were calling out to the gods to help them, so they might be healed of their woes. They sought to learn the secrets of the universe, the secrets of magic, so they might have their desires fulfilled. And it was Thoth, the God of Science and Magic, husband to Maat, Goddess of Truth and Justice, who came to answer their call. Who better than Thoth, the ibis-headed moon god, the lord who sheds light in the darkness and knows the mysteries of the cycles and seasons of growth on our planet, to reach out to his younger brethren.

It was Thoth who taught humans how every course of study had its outer, physical form, and its inner, nonphysical expression--how science and magic were two sides of the same coin. The Egyptians learned how disciplines like astronomy and astrology were one science, or the study of geometry and geomancy were both reflections of the science of architecture, and so the Great Pyramid was constructed as a testament to the ancient ways. Humans then sought to learn how to perform the mystery and magic of healing the woes of humanity.

And the God of Science and Magic called out, in a voice that pierced the darkness of night. "Humans, I will teach you the secrets of magic," he announced. "Magic requires three ingredients. Only three things:

Right time, right place, and right gesture.

With these three anything is possible." Thoth continued, "Right gesture is invoked when your intention is expressed in word and deed, saying and doing that which supports the magic you desire. Right place requires the creation of an environment that supports and expresses your intention. Right gesture and right place are for you humans to create. And as for timing," the Moon God paused for a moment, "timing is in the hands of the Gods."

So the ancient priests and priestesses were instructed in the ways of magic --the same instructions hold as true today for us.

It is up to us to create the environment--to create the space or place for change, for healing. Likewise, it is our responsibility to do the appropriate gestures--the thoughts, words, ceremonies, and activities that bring about our healing. And then, when the time is right, like magic, the healing happens.

We must do our part for the miracles to occur. But we cannot control timing.

There are greater forces that guide the growth of the soul--the same forces that guide the growth and evolution of stars and planets and all of life. We are not always privileged to know why the timing is on or off. "Timing is in the hands of the Gods." This is the final test of trust, and it teaches us patience.

Dharma

Ah yes, thank you Dharma, that is a helpful story.

Indeed, "right time, right place, right gesture" captures the essence of the moment magnificently.

And I see that working toward the preparation/understanding by focusing on I Ching and Tarot gently took my mind off of creating the timing, and turned it toward responding to the timing. Thus, there I was, throughout my day, bringing my whole self to participation in place and gesture, and just dancing with the timing, not fighting or pushing it.

One of the areas where I often struggle is in organization at work, and I find it interesting to realize how much of the advice out there is in terms of "time management." What more effective way to blight magic could we come up with!?

Also, that paring of Science and Magic is interesting to me. When I was in school, I always did equally well in math, English, science and social sciences, scored just the same on all parts of standardized tests. It took me years to discover that, once upon a time, they were all the same thing! Astrologers and astronomers and sages and edifice builders and community builders and healers and fools -- all the same.

Now, I guess the question is to go back through these readings above thinking about time/timing, and see what else I can see.