brambletoad said:

Dear Fellow Yi Watchers:

I've gone and done it -- here I am new to you guys, and hoping to make a good impression, and here I go and ask a relationship analysis question

Briefly, it's about whether 23.3>52 can mean that someone who has shown a strong fascination with women of another race, but always married his own race, is making a decision to cross the Rubicon o' Love.

THE SITUATION

The Querent (me) is female. The Subject's a male. Male, whom we'll call Y, is highly conservative socially and ecomonically, but claims he is progressive and not a racist. He writes plays for Broadway. He has written many plays where people of a specific race are often shown in what members of that race feel is a consistently ugly and negative light. Y is divorced again after three unsuccessful marriages to women who share his race. Their shared race was not a factor; instead, sometimes different people just want different things -- and relationships are tough for anybody.

Female, whom we shall call me -- er, I mean X -- is a woman from another country who is a rising playwright and a member of the race Y has depicted negatively in his plays. X is considered stunningly beautiful (though she would definitely disagree!) and consistently attracts guys of Y's ethnic persuasion. Despite herself and the way he shows her people onstage, X thinks Y is cute and wants to learn more about him.

X has brazenly contacted Y's publicist and invited Y out for a newspaper interview over coffee to lure him closer and see how his mind ticks: whether he is actually racist or simply not interested. X's friends admire the craftsmanship of Y's plays but feel he is a bigot and will not reciprocate X's attraction. Yet X has an unshakable feeling Y would make a good match and that checking this is the correct thing to do.

X has learned Y Googled her and read a recent article about X in the New York Times that includes a very flattering color photograph. Not to generalize, but it seems that for men, physical attraction is all that is required to start a gentleman's engines, so if anything will lure him, that photo will. But did it? Will it?

THE CASTING

I asked, "Did Y find X physically attractive?"

Resulting Hexagram: 23
Moving line: 3

Hexagram 23 is usually translated as "Splitting Apart", and the title strikes dread in the beginning Yi student who hopes to pull a loved one closer. I'm in my forties, and I have a different take. I've come to The Pool of Online Clarity Wisdom to see if any wiser minds agree with my analysis or think I'm wrong as wrong ever was. I think this Hexagram does not say, "He finds you repulsive because you are the wrong race" but rather:

"Something about you has awakened the desire in this man to stop living his life as a lie and come out in the open about an attraction that has long secretly tormented him. Seeing your photo has made him think It's time for him to go after what he wants and has always wanted, and he thinks you may be the woman to help him do it. He's long been attracted to women of your background, and he realizes he is not getting any younger and needs to live his life the way he really wants to, now, despite what others think, before it ends. He's making a decision to maybe emerge from 'the closet' and date your kind in the open and tell the world what it can do with its disapproval."

AND WHERE I GOT THIS CONCLUSION

Here's LiSe's translation of 23.3:

"6 at 3: Stripping it. Without fault.

To be yourself, living your own life, making your own decisions, you have to break away from all those people (inside or outside) who tell you how to live. Or even without saying anything, expect you to live according to their views. Even if you choose an absurd life - so what? It is your life."

Leading to 53: Resistance

"Find back the roots of your essential being."

Dreamhawk down in Australia interprets 23.3 as Shedding:

"If there is to be activity, let it be that of shedding what is no longer necessary, of dropping activities only habit keeps alive. Rely only on what can sustain itself through the period of stripping away [...] Even those close may depart and be lost. Who or what is to be trusted? Only that which remains when all else falls away [...] To stand outside all one relied upon for support and expression is to feel naked and alone. Nevertheless it breeds great strength. Look beyond fears and doubts to wisdom of spirit."

Y's plays are often, according to interviews with him and the critiques of those plays, thinly veiled autobiographies. He put an interracial scene with a woman of my national heritage in all of them. In the most famous one, he depicted himself asking one out, then panicking wondering what his friends would say, and standing her up. Shortly after, his character undergoes a violent attack and he reflects in guilt, making it appear the attack was divine punishment.

At the same time, other stage characters of his use offensive names for people of my heritage, and our men are all shown as criminals, and often hanged or shot, which is troubling. As a playwright too I understand what we depict our characters doing does not always reflect what we ourselves believe as writers or people, so I am giving him a little latitude. However, all his wives have been white, so that worries me. He could just be a highly conflicted bigot and I could be opening myself up for some real hurt.

His two closest male buddies are both married to women of my ethnicity! One, and his wife of another race, became a new father two days ago. He was present at the birth and saw in front of him clear proof an interracial relationship can work and that the off-spring are human.

THE HOT BURNING QUESTION O' LOVE:

Is 23.3 an indication Y is having a John Lennon/Yoko Ono moment now that he knows what I look like, and he's beginning to think I'm his "girl with kaleidoscope eyes"?

Or is 23.3 saying, "Racist. Get over him"?

Love,
Your Brambledeetoady

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brambletoad said:

Hi Arabella. I appreciate your taking time to respond. I just want to briefly reply, though, a couple of important things.

I live in America. America is not a post-racial nation and we are not in a post-racial time. Racism is at its highest level here since the early 1960s. I am affected by it in ways you, being white, cannot even imagine much less safely comment on. It's not something that consumes my "entire life", nor am I "fixated" on it. It's a component of two questions I asked the Yi in a two week period where white Americans in my immediate environment are the ones "fixated" on it, and where my attention has been forced to it by their bigoted statements and behavior. Not all prejudice is conscious or intentional. A lot of it is unconscious and accidental.

Telling someone to "not use the race card", by the way, is racist. It's using a race card also: the white race card. It says, "Your suffering makes me uncomfortable; therefore, I censor your ability to mention it. Go suffer elsewhere and do not make me uncomfortable." Intentional or not, not cool. If you disagree, substitute for a moment my being gay or lesbian and commenting on homophobia and how it has affected my life, and your being straight and telling me basically to "shut up and get over it"; or being a rape survivor (which I am, btw), and you being a male and saying to stop talking about my experience on a public forum I have every right to share it in. Is it right to tell a gay person not to fixate on homophobia? Or to pretend it isn't happening and be quiet about it? Or a rape survivor?

So then why is it for people of color?

Friendly conclusion: just because you might wish it were a post-racial society, if you are white, and other people who are not white say that it is not one yet, then it is not one yet. And as someone who has been victimized by people who are indeed very much fixated on what race I am, I have the right to ask the Yi how that fixation might again or might not -- yet again - affect my aspirations, my hopes, and my dreams.

Is it that I am just being kind of told "not on this forum, however"? And should it not be, then, Hilary to tell me that for sure?

Not "starting something" by any means -- but just a bit put off by the statements implying I'm fixated on race when I'm merely asking how race will affect me, because for the past two weeks racism has been on the rise where I LIVE.

Racism can sometimes kill here in America. Do I not have the right to ask how something potentially lethal -- and certainly soul killing -- will or might affect me, yet again?

All other points in your response were lovely, and I'll meditate on them and am grateful for them. Thank you once again, dear Arabella.

Click to expand...

THE CASTING

I asked, "Did Y find X physically attractive?"

Resulting Hexagram: 23
Moving line: 3

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An individual finds himself in an evil environment to which he is
committed by external ties. But he has an inner relationship with a superior
man, and through this he attains the stability to free himself from the way of
the inferior people around him. This brings him into opposition to them of
course, but that is not wrong.

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sooo said:

Dear Brambletoad,

Well, there's been too much stripping by way of editing out written content to comment on the discussion of racism and such, however returning to the original question and IC's answer, I'd break it down to two possibilities, and possibly both may apply. Maybe neither. Anyway, these are my impressions.



My first impression: If the IC answered your question directly and literally, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that Y may be tempted to 'strip' his circle of friends' and admirers' impressions, and yield to something within his core, which includes sexual or physical attraction to X. It might even refer to stripping the color of skin as a consideration, which is, I think, an interesting consideration. This first impression would be taking Wilhelm's commentary on line 3 literally:



52 within this context could imply a refusal to be moved by public opinion and to remain true to his inner core, which 23 has unveiled through stripping the outer layers to his true feelings.

My second impression speaks directly to you about your question, rather than replying to your question. In which case, it would be saying to strip away the layers of your own desire to attract Y, to reach your core or the root of your question. (Yi is quite infamous for casting ones question upon the questioner). Furthermore, advising to be still about the matter, and letting things take their course without further involvement or thought from X on this matter. Letting it go.

Finally, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that both applications may apply simultaneously. God works in mysterious ways, so it is said.

It sounds as if it may itself make for an interesting story.

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sooo said:

Dear Brambletoad,

Well, there's been too much stripping by way of editing out written content to comment on the discussion of racism and such, however returning to the original question and IC's answer, I'd break it down to two possibilities, and possibly both may apply. Maybe neither. Anyway, these are my impressions.



My first impression: If the IC answered your question directly and literally, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that Y may be tempted to 'strip' his circle of friends' and admirers' impressions, and yield to something within his core, which includes sexual or physical attraction to X. It might even refer to stripping the color of skin as a consideration, which is, I think, an interesting consideration. This first impression would be taking Wilhelm's commentary on line 3 literally:



52 within this context could imply a refusal to be moved by public opinion and to remain true to his inner core, which 23 has unveiled through stripping the outer layers to his true feelings.

My second impression speaks directly to you about your question, rather than replying to your question. In which case, it would be saying to strip away the layers of your own desire to attract Y, to reach your core or the root of your question. (Yi is quite infamous for casting ones question upon the questioner). Furthermore, advising to be still about the matter, and letting things take their course without further involvement or thought from X on this matter. Letting it go.

Finally, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that both applications may apply simultaneously. God works in mysterious ways, so it is said.

It sounds as if it may itself make for an interesting story.

Click to expand...

brambletoad said:

***

Exactly as Arabella said. Please see my latest reply below. I think she was so close to the truth of the matter it startled me!

Click to expand...

sooo said:

Dear Brambletoad,

Well, there's been too much stripping by way of editing out written content to comment on the discussion of racism and such, however returning to the original question and IC's answer, I'd break it down to two possibilities, and possibly both may apply. Maybe neither. Anyway, these are my impressions.



My first impression: If the IC answered your question directly and literally, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that Y may be tempted to 'strip' his circle of friends' and admirers' impressions, and yield to something within his core, which includes sexual or physical attraction to X. It might even refer to stripping the color of skin as a consideration, which is, I think, an interesting consideration. This first impression would be taking Wilhelm's commentary on line 3 literally:



52 within this context could imply a refusal to be moved by public opinion and to remain true to his inner core, which 23 has unveiled through stripping the outer layers to his true feelings.

My second impression speaks directly to you about your question, rather than replying to your question. In which case, it would be saying to strip away the layers of your own desire to attract Y, to reach your core or the root of your question. (Yi is quite infamous for casting ones question upon the questioner). Furthermore, advising to be still about the matter, and letting things take their course without further involvement or thought from X on this matter. Letting it go.

Finally, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that both applications may apply simultaneously. God works in mysterious ways, so it is said.

It sounds as if it may itself make for an interesting story.

Click to expand...

brambletoad said:

Thank you, Arabella. I believe in reincarnation and Earth being a school environment, too. I'm sad you had to see and experience prejudice. But you removed your buttons, and that's my task now. I gave bigotry far too much importance, and that empowers it. You were plugged straight into the Yi and the truth was as clear and bracing as a cool, refreshing drink of water. I now feel prepared to begin the next level and get this knot untangled and out of my psyche.

The proof will be in the pudding, however! I do not expect this to be easy... but maybe it will be!

Ditto on the guy. He's lost several wonderful, amazingly powerful women in his past, so the prognosis for him understanding or being attracted to be is not good. I am already preparing to ask the Yi what I need to do, to develop myself and attract a suitable partner instead of someone I need to "convince". And that's exactly what you were advising the entire time. Thank you :smile:

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brambletoad said:

Dear Fellow Yi Watchers:


The Querent (me) is female. The Subject's a male. Male, whom we'll call Y, is highly conservative socially and ecomonically, but claims he is progressive and not a racist. He writes plays for Broadway. He has written many plays where people of a specific race are often shown in what members of that race feel is a consistently ugly and negative light. Y is divorced again after three unsuccessful marriages to women who share his race. Their shared race was not a factor; instead, sometimes different people just want different things -- and relationships are tough for anybody.

Female, whom we shall call me -- er, I mean X -- is a woman from another country who is a rising playwright and a member of the race Y has depicted negatively in his plays. X is considered stunningly beautiful (though she would definitely disagree!) and consistently attracts guys of Y's ethnic persuasion. Despite herself and the way he shows her people onstage, X thinks Y is cute and wants to learn more about him.

X has brazenly contacted Y's publicist and invited Y out for a newspaper interview over coffee to lure him closer and see how his mind ticks: whether he is actually racist or simply not interested. X's friends admire the craftsmanship of Y's plays but feel he is a bigot and will not reciprocate X's attraction. Yet X has an unshakable feeling Y would make a good match and that checking this is the correct thing to do.

X has learned Y Googled her and read a recent article about X in the New York Times that includes a very flattering color photograph. Not to generalize, but it seems that for men, physical attraction is all that is required to start a gentleman's engines, so if anything will lure him, that photo will. But did it? Will it?




Y's plays are often, according to interviews with him and the critiques of those plays, thinly veiled autobiographies. He put an interracial scene with a woman of my national heritage in all of them. In the most famous one, he depicted himself asking one out, then panicking wondering what his friends would say, and standing her up. Shortly after, his character undergoes a violent attack and he reflects in guilt, making it appear the attack was divine punishment.

At the same time, other stage characters of his use offensive names for people of my heritage, and our men are all shown as criminals, and often hanged or shot, which is troubling. As a playwright too I understand what we depict our characters doing does not always reflect what we ourselves believe as writers or people, so I am giving him a little latitude. However, all his wives have been white, so that worries me. He could just be a highly conflicted bigot and I could be opening myself up for some real hurt.

His two closest male buddies are both married to women of my ethnicity! One, and his wife of another race, became a new father two days ago. He was present at the birth and saw in front of him clear proof an interracial relationship can work and that the off-spring are human.
Brambledeetoady

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brambletoad said:

Trojan... what makes you think I did not change specific details? For one thing, he is not a Broadway playwright. If you must know, neither of us writes plays. I disguised what both of us do for a living for exactly the reason you postulated.

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trojan said:

IOW it troubled me this was obvious fiction you were presenting and appealing for help with but i didn't want to be rude and say that so I'm glad its cleared up that it was fiction for a reason

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