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Hex 1.5.6>34

rhodia

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Question: Am I ready to date? Please give me insight into romance..
(Am I ready, what should I look for, how should I be acting?)

These lines are new to me, and I am having trouble understanding what lines 5 and 6 are telling me, as these to be somewhat contradictory.

Any help?
 

icastes

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The issue is not so much whether you are ready to date, but how you ought to approach dating. You should be ready; however, you cannot be over-complacent, arrogant, overbearing, willful, etc. You cannot be intolerant or too excited. You must be open-minded. Otherwise, you will fail.
 

tiziano

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courtship is like a dance

I also think so.

The Wenyan (1st source) says about 5th yang:
"Notes of the same key respond to one another; creatures of the same nature seek one another" (Legge's translation) so it seems you have the right attitude to date succesfully, i.e. you are in true empathy/attraction to X.
"clouds follow the dragon, and winds follow the tiger: (so) the sage makes his appearance, and all men look to him." Same thing. Rain is synonimous of yin-yang union, i.e. partnership or mating. Marshall thinks hex 1 is about rain magic, the rituals to provoke rain, in which a crucial aspect is that nature isn't forced to do something, but people should wait for clouds to descend low in the mountains (i.e. "the dragon flying in the sky") to perform the ritual: this is "the essence of sympathetic magic, in that the participant is simply helping along the forces of nature, not commanding them." (Marshall, The Mandate of Heaven, p.138-139) This is what is meant also by the Wenyan (4th source): "He may precede Heaven, and Heaven will not act in opposition to him; he may follow Heaven, but will act (only) as Heaven at the time would do."

Being sympathetic with the moment in a ritual way is the clue, because it prevents the dragon from becoming "arrogant" and so spring from turning into autumn. Again Wenyan about the risks implied in not respecting this: "[he] dwells on high, but he has no people (to rule); and the men of talent and virtue in the positions below will give him no aid" (1st source). This is due to "knowing to advance but not to retire; to maintain but not to let perish, to get but not to lose." (4th source).

You are strong enough to date, but you have to care about how you manifest your strength.
The key to this is rituality. This is what hex 34 says in the Great Image: "A noble one TREADS no path that is without ritual" (Hilary's translation), where "treading" is the name itself of hex 10, same ideogram (well done, Hilary! ;)), a hexagram where ritual is crucial to deal with a great power we are facing, without being harmed. Being in control of one's own Great Vigour means canalising it through ritual. Courtship is a ritual, it has well-defined rules, each one has to perform their own role in it, not the other one's, there must be respect, attention and true understanding of your partner and great care of timing. All this in remaining true to your nature and feelings, as the beauty of exterior form in the ritual must match the inner disposition. These are the means to be able to retire and not only to advance, and so on. The steps in courtship are like the steps in a dance.

The same thing you can trace in a couple of places in the Yi which are related to 1.5.

First, in its fan yao specific to your reading, 34.5: "Loosing sheep at Yi. No regrets". Sheeps are rams throughout hex 34 (it is "yang" in chinese, with the same pronounciation of the Yang polarity), so it can also mean to let go a bit of your hardness, to be more flexible to change (Yi, which was originally the name of a town, is the name of the Changes itself). "No regrets" perfectly matches 1.6's "regrets" by contrast, confirming this is the right strategy for the 5th yang (the "well-centered ram"!).

Then, in a place where a 5th yang is the focus of a situation, i.e. in hex 8. In 8.5 the king "lets the game in front go" and "the city people are not coerced", because the Union must be authentic, you can't get it by force, it has to happen spontaneously. Great emphasis is given in this hex to correct timing and prudence, too.

Finally, the result of a king who can retreat and let go is well shown in hex 14, where he obtains Great Possessions (or Realizes Grandly), i.e. you can put a plan into practice, or having a relation change from virtual into real: "Your truth interacts, strikes awe - Good fortune." (14.5)

I hope this was helpful.
 
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