Questions about women and the Yi?

hilary · Jun 2, 2005

For our next webinar, on June 25th, I've succeeded in booking Dr Margaret Pearson. (Yes, I am very pleased with myself about this.) She's a scholar of ancient China and working on a new translation of the Yi - she's the one who first recognised the 'strong woman' of Hexagram 44 as the royal bride arriving. We have a rare chance here to pick her brains about women and/in the Yi.

I would really appreciate some help brainstorming good questions to ask her. I want to get her talking about yin and yang, definitely: they weren't originally what you might think (certainly not what I thought, anyway). And about the hexagrams and lines that talk specifically about women. And about the role of women in Shang and Zhou society in general, and divination in particular, and how/whether any of this experience finds its way into the Yi. And, and...

ideas? questions? suggestions?

hester · Jun 3, 2005

her ideas about the lines regarding women in hexagram 37 would be interesting.

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

(A) The 'mapping' between the lines in Hexagram 2 and the Periodic Cycle of a woman.

(Each and every line in Hexagram 2 corresponds to a particular phase of the Moon in the sky, in a cycle of about 28 days.)

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

(A1) Moon,Month,Meat, you guess why?

hilary · Jun 3, 2005

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

The 'mapping' between the lines in Hexagram 2 and the Periodic Cycle of a woman.
(Each and every line in Hexagram 2 corresponds to a particular phase of the Moon in the sky, in a cycle of about 28 days.)<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
Now there's something I'd never heard before. Is this your idea, or where did you find it, and can you say more?

Hester - agreed. Actually, her thoughts on how many lines in Hexagram 37 are about women would be interesting. Three in Wilhelm, but just one explicit mention in the Chinese. What to make of that...?

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

(B) Relationship between women (generally).

E.g.
Hex49 (The Youngest daughter Trigram is on top of the Middle daughter Trigram) - revolution

Hex38 (The Middle daughter is on top of the Youngest daughter) - diverging.

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

(A) My idea? Not at all.
I read this in one of the Chinese commentaries.

The hint is in the image of Hexagram 2:
In the South west you acquire friends
In the North east you lose friends

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

[1] friend
[2]brightness

This is one of the hint i can remember now.
Please note that the character is quite similar to each other.

Instead of losing fiends or partners, the commentaries suggest would it be more appropriate to imply the direction in the sky where the Moon acquires or loses her brightness?

yly2pg1 · Jun 3, 2005

The hint can be found in can_tian_qu.

If you can understand Chinese, it is found in the paragraph stated as_"[17]".

hester · Jun 3, 2005

yes Hilary I am so interested in that.

just a thought: Nomadic families have a different lingual/conceptual nexus than settled, working laboring, ones: the family does not occupy 'outsider' status in Nomadic families- (outsider to psychospiritual performances), as it does become so in labor socieities.

I am curious as to how the layers about women and family became codified into the wilhelm text, what those changes reflected.

kevin · Jun 3, 2005

I am not aware of any Witches (medicine women; healers; wise old hags) in the Yijing.

These characters are fairly major in our Western History and Culture. They are key western (and African and S.American) symbolic ideas.

I know the language of the Yi is generally non gender specific. Also I read elsewhere that women were key shamans in the pre Zhou culture.

I am also aware of the Neo Confusion overlay to the Yijing which can only be regarded as misogynist.

It would be really quite good if Margaret could untangle some of this.

Thanks

--K

kevin · Jun 3, 2005

lol or even Neo Confucian

Some slip

--K

ewald · Jun 4, 2005

Kevin, actually in 57.2 witches are mentioned, though usually translated with another word.
Wu1 means:

"Sorceress, shamaness. A female medium"
according to Muller's (username: "guest", no password).

"wizard or witch"
according to Chinese Etymology

Ewald

kevin · Jun 4, 2005

Thanks Ewald

I see there is only that one instance of Wu1 in the Yijing.

The Midaughter website (seems to be down at the moment) used to have some fairly enticing ideas about an early matriarchal shamanist clan (pre Zhou). I don?t know what evidence there was for it though.

I hope Margaret will be able to talk to this one a little.

Cheers

--Kevin

cal val · Jun 4, 2005

Hi Hilary...

I'm not able to attend your soire, however, I would love to know what this woman has to say.

From what I've learned so far it doesn't seem like there's really much to discover... but then I still have so much to learn. It looks pretty spelled out to me. 44 hexagram statement says not to marry the woman. Then all the lines seem to point to why... the behavior of the animals during the sacrifice and the omens therefor. Since divination was for and by the kings, it would only stand to reason that this woman, a prospective bride for a king, had royal ranking.

So I'd love to learn more.

Thanks.

Val

kevin · Jun 4, 2005

Another reference to women Shamans?

Hexagram 9 which Stephen Karcher (2003) thinks is in part centred around the preparation for the River Mountain Festival and the rituals around the autumn rains.

Line 6

??.. ?The wife, trial, adversity? (Trial is also Divination)

Wu Jing Nuan (1991)?. ?The wife?s divination danger?

Wu Jing Nuan goes on to say that this is a reference to ?the legendary Wu shamans who were most probably women?

--K

hilary · Jun 5, 2005

Hi Val,

Barring technical disasters, there will be a recording on sale after the event. You know there is always more to discover

cal val · Jun 6, 2005

Hi Hilary...

Thank you so much. I wrote that post from one of the 'borrow-for-an-hour' computers at the library this Saturday just after the computer reminded me I had only 10 minutes left... so I was rushed and didn't say near what I wanted to. I know there has to be a lot more to it than the small picture I get from reading the hex and line statements. I'm just now learning about the people that are referenced in some of the line statements... such as Wang Hai and the dark man (Wang Hai's bad boy baby brother?) and trying to learn their stories.

And I'd love to know if there are clues as to an actual person in 44... and then learn her story as well. So I can't wait until the recording comes out!

Love,

Val

ewald · Jun 20, 2005

These are some lines and hexagrams (parts thereof) about women that I managed to find.

4.2
<blockquote>Accepting the undeveloped brings good fortune.
Letting a woman in brings good fortune.
A child is able to keep a household.</blockquote>

18.2
<blockquote>Managing a mother's curse.
Persistence is not suitable.</blockquote>

22.4
<blockquote>Adorned in white.
A white horse with wings.
He is not a robber, he wants a marriage.</blockquote>

28.2
<blockquote>A dry poplar producing new shoots.
An old man getting a young woman to marry.</blockquote>

28.5
<blockquote>A dry poplar producing flowers.
An older woman getting a gentleman to be her husband.</blockquote>

35.2
<blockquote>Accept this boundary
as a blessing from the Royal Mother.</blockquote>

53.0
<blockquote>Gradual development.
The woman marries.</blockquote>

54.0
<blockquote>Marrying younger sister.</blockquote>

63.2
<blockquote>A woman loses her carriage-screen.</blockquote>

Ewald

hilary · Jun 20, 2005

Nice little collection, Ewald. I'd missed the ones about the 'mother' in the suggestions/requests I sent to Margaret at the weekend. I'm waiting (with baited breath

) to hear from her which she'd especially like to talk about. Hexagram 2 is definitely on the agenda, as it's one with many, many 'layers' of added ideas.

I will let you know here as soon as I get some more details from her. (And I will drop her an email mentioning 35,2 for good measure, as that really is a fascinating one...)

hester · Jun 20, 2005

I am curious about 62 line 2 as well.

hilary · Jun 23, 2005

44, definitely. Probably with 4,3 also. 37, yes. Hexagram 2, very much so - considering that the idea that a broken line is yin, or that yin has anything to do with the female, are post-Zhouyi. I'm particularly looking forward to hexagram 2...

Leading questions:
'What was the role of women in ancient China?'
'Isn't the book written by men, for men, whatever we'd like to think?'

As many more references to marriage and relationship and women as we can get in, and whichever you ask about if you come. You can still get a ticket here. Hint. It'll be worth it.

I think I might start another thread about why this stuff matters.

hmesker · Jun 23, 2005

quote: "As many more references to marriage and relationship and women as we can get in, and whichever you ask about _if you come_."

I am not able to attend the webinar and would therefore like to buy the recording of it later. Does that mean I am not allowed to suggest questions and topics? Too bad.

Harmen.

hilary · Jun 23, 2005

No, not really. Just trying to goad people into buying tickets...

Seriously, though, it will be a better event if more people show up to ask searching questions, contribute experience and ideas, and so on.

hilary · Jun 25, 2005

OK, positively my last post about this (until I get the recording and transcript done, at least). It's not as if I were obsessive or anything, is it?

If anyone is dithering about coming, please sign up within the next hour if you can:
http://www.onlineClarity.co.uk/tickets/
After that I'll hire a room for the number of people signed up, rounded up to the nearest 5. So there will be 2 to 5 seats for latecomers, and I'll put the number on the order form.

Off to make slides...

Questions about women and the Yi?

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