hi everyone and happy 2013!

I wish you all a great, fun and creative new year! December was a great albeit hectic month for me and brought a couple of nice aha moments regarding some Yi readings, which I 've repeatedly wanted to post here - alas, lack of time always meant I had to put the posts in the to-do back drawer. So, today I thought of posting them, as a way to begin the new year fresh, all together (although they're not related in any obvious way) . . Some of them are more personal conjectures, others, ways I've seen readings meanings in new (to me) ways I'd love to hear any thoughts and/or your ideas on any of them!

'bixi' and hexagram 27

One of the things that I came across that set my thinking wheels in motion, was a wikipedia article I randomly came across, about the ancient chinese figures known as 'bixi' (or 'baxia', for more, click here). In a couple of words, these are stone tortoise (or tortoise-dragon creatured) pedestals, supporting important honorary stelae, or tablets, initially funerary ones, later on of broader significance.

In the past, I remember reading here about the importance of tortoises in chinese mythology, and of the legend that had a giant sea-turtle holding the universe on its back - and of course how this could illuminate its appearance on hexagram 27's first line . . Obviously the legend must have played a great part in using tortoise-formed pedestals but the specifics of bixi made them even more interesting to consider in terms of 27.1 . .

For one, the fact that they were used in funerary monuments. this, to me, makes a lot of sense thinking of 27.1's relating hexagram, 23. Yet, how weird, that in the beginning steps of Nourishment, there comes a reference linked to a funerary honor! That's something I still can't quite get my head around . . Bixi's were featured as magical creatures, with the body of a tortoise and the head of a dragon, so is this about the beginning and end of all that 'stands' in life? To be honest, hx 27 has always been a difficult one for me to grasp and now, in this context it has started getting a more complex nature that I'm still trying to figure out . .

Earth material and new ways of looking at 'mud' lines

For the past 1 1/2 years I've been taking pottery classes, easing my way into working and expressing myself through clay. The techniques and possibilities of clay as a material have given me new insights into the principle of Earth, but also, since pottery is thought of as an Earth-Water-Fire practice, into the functions and 'alchemy' of the interactions between those other elements as well. Frankly, this deserves its own post (one I hope to write sometime in the near future) so I won't be saying much here. However, one recent aha! I had where pottery played a part was the way(s) 51.4 took on new meanings for me.

51.4 was the line I received when I enquired about a particular experience I had while painting one of my ceramics. It was a day I had met my teacher to help her with some heavy lifting of a big cauldron she was making for friends, and on the side, applied some color to some of my own works. For one big plate, I wanted to try out using a splashing technique, a bit similar to how Pollock used to paint . . (Some background info on this is that this is not how we usually colour our ceramics in class, since we use water-based colors which work better when applied like aquarelles).

I thought my experiment was quite successful, although my 35-years-of classic pottery practice teacher (with whom, btw, I have a close but tense relation) seemed to mumble something about ti when I -very proudly- showed her the results. Her reaction got me a bit perplexed and tickled so I asked yi what I needed to know about using color like that.

And what a brilliant answer 51.4 was! Here I had an intense, 'shocking' gesture, soaking into the once-fired clay of the ceramic, a very hands-on, literal answer. Yet, looking into it a bit deeper, I found its second-layer of meaning in the possibilities of the term 'ni', which, aside from 'mud', can also be translated as 'mired in old ways', pretty much, I think, what my teacher's reaction represented in that case*
- I love it when such double edged answers come up, brilliant, just brilliant Yi!


*btw, don't get me wrong, I love and respect my teacher a lot, but sometimes we get all 38-eyed between us when my need to experiment with new or unconventional techniques clashes with her years of more established practices - just one of these teacher-student things I guess


p.s.: here's a photo of said painted and glazed ceramic for a visual 51.4 :

Meeting the 'great leaders' of 13.5 . .

My last aha! moment was rather recent and is strongly linked to the holidays' season . . Since the celebrations abound these days, I had the chance to communicate with many friends that live scattered in many different places, and renew our friendly bonds with many of them, hence it wasn't much of a surprise that 13.5 often came up in my readings. I did have a chance though to realize an aspect of it that I didn't see before, all carried away as I was from Wilhelm's rapturous comments on the line.


This time around though, reading the text in the context of several of these renewed friendships, made me think of it under a different light, where 'great leaders' became 'great causes' or 'great occasions', like Christmas day. It was a reassuring thought that the nature of relationships, of forming bonds has one too many of ups and downs and that true allies could become clear and once again re-unite in great circumstances of joy or sorrow.


p.s.: Another example of it I found looking through the posts here, when I came across this link by Meng. In the work of these two priests, who, one might say, belong in different 'clans' with lots of tears and not-that-much laughter shed between them, but who, under a great leading cause, stand united . .

27 as a plastron

Code:

▄▄▄▄▄▄ 
▄▄  ▄▄
▄▄  ▄▄   cracks
▄▄  ▄▄
▄▄  ▄▄
▄▄▄▄▄▄

The broken lines represent the two columns of cracks that were used in divination. There is a clear picture of this in Cecilia Lindquist's beautiful China: Empire of Living Symbols, p.362. Each crack makes a vertical and a horizontal line, like a T rotated 90 degrees. The long stem of the T points to the center of the plastron. Thus the 卜 character.

hi Tom, happy New Year!

thank you for replying, I seem to remember this idea too, that the tortoise's shell stands for the act of divination . . and on top of that, I think I've seen it with this meaning in my readings too - yet, for some reason, the 'bixi' figures struck me as important to further understanding the symbols and their meanings in hexagram 27 . . Even if the custom of using them came later, the meanings implied could be expanded and related . . It just seems a bit too limited, bearing in mind the wealth of meanings in each Yi line, that this one would refer solely to the act of divination . .

Would you say that these tortoise-stones are circumstantial, not really indicative or useful for 27?

:bows:

rodaki said:

Would you say that these tortoise-stones are circumstantial, not really indicative or useful for 27?

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No, it's a good observation. I think there is a continuity of symbolism. Bradford translates it as "spirit tortoise", and I suppose that is the reason for the tortoise foundation stones. Also, the tortoise allusion is at the bottom of the hexagram as it is at the bottom of the stele. Do you have any idea who the "me" is that is being looked at? I suppose it's the one who is to provide food but who has not acted.

the 'me' mentioned is intriguing, yes, that's a good question . . although I think it can also be translated as 'we'. My thoughts here veer towards thinking about 'the ancestors' - Brad gives a hint in his commentary about it . . It seems to me like 27 is not simply about nourishment but of lack of it - it never speaks of how to do with having plenty of it, for example, only about how to handle the need for it, the hunger . . at first this line seemed to me to be speaking about hunger making one vulnerable to 'ghosts' (so to speak) . . .
In broader terms, often when I get 27 there is an issue of dealing with the consequences of past actions - even actions of people before me, which, however, influence things in the now, so I'm thinking whether one aspect of it is about learning how to deal with precedents that have created a gap, an imbalance in the natural order of things

Just a couple of thoughts; as I said 27 has always been a difficult one for me to fully understand and I have based decisions in current interpretations that turned out to be missing important aspects, so I'm still wondering what it's really all about . .


p.s.: further thoughts, what makes a magical spirit tortoise go? Lack of offerings? too much of a mountain on top of it? Trigrams are hardly ever discussed in 27

That hummingbirds talk.

Regarding that talking, which is really more a conveying of emotions through complex chatter, "spoken" very softly, almost under their breath. The jaws of a hummingbird serve only to sheath their ant eater like tongue. Also, their extremely high metabolism, fueled by an extraordinarily high sucrose diet, is what keeps their tiny bodies from freezing during these 20 degree F nights. Under that, and they can just freeze. Sounds weird I know, but I ask for protection of those little critters every night, and keep their source(s) of nourishment always fresh, during winter especially, when the flowers are no longer blooming.

rodaki said:

what makes a magical spirit tortoise go? Lack of offerings? too much of a mountain on top of it? Trigrams are hardly ever discussed in 27

Click to expand...

The connection between the tortoise and food may be this: the tortoise was used to determine what the spirits found satisfactory. When the spirits were happy, rains came, and the family had food. As for the trigrams with respect to line 1, I see ☳ as the shock of spiritual presence as in hexagram 51 and ☶ as the home. The meaning of line 1 is similar to the ritual of saying grace before meals in which the spiritual basis of food is acknowledged.

pocossin said:

The connection between the tortoise and food may be this: the tortoise was used to determine what the spirits found satisfactory. When the spirits were happy, rains came, and the family had food. As for the trigrams with respect to line 1, I see ☳ as the shock of spiritual presence as in hexagram 51 and ☶ as the home. The meaning of line 1 is similar to the ritual of saying grace before meals in which the spiritual basis of food is acknowledged.

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so, forsaking of the spiritual side of nourishment leaves only a gaping mouth . . that makes a lot of sense. I like how that bixi were used for the basis of tablets too, bringing in the nourishment of words,thoughts, ideas

That's interesting about line 1 of thunder, signifying the jolt of the life force,or maybe in this case, the jolt of the tortoise spirit making its way out - jolt and turtles make such an odd combination! . . although, in the bixi forms, its a turtle with the head of a dragon, so lots of thunder there

(Tom thanks for discussing it with me, it helps a lot in putting my thoughts in order )

meng said:

That hummingbirds talk.

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ah! the hummingbirds and the turtle . . this fits right in with thinking of thunder and tortoises - sounds like a story


So, for the hummingbirds in winter, the tortoise is a careful balance between metabolism and temperature . . and - of course - sugar. Tom mentioned trigram mountain as the home before, but it also has a very 'wintery' feeling to it, like a the weight of snow amassing, or a cape to give protection from it: in times of heaviness, keep life force alive
. . add my prayer for the well-being of stubborn winter hummingbirds, may they keep whispering their tortoise song!


(I couldn't help my curiosity from googling 'turtle hummingbird', came up with this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyR1pZ9mH74)

rodaki said:

That's interesting about line 1 of thunder, signifying the jolt of the life force,or maybe in this case, the jolt of the tortoise spirit making its way out - jolt and turtles make such an odd combination! . . although, in the bixi forms, its a turtle with the head of a dragon, so lots of thunder there

Click to expand...

In Southern folklore, the turtle is associated with thunder. The turtle appears to be still, but its bite is a sudden aggressive lunge, a release of energy much like thunder. Perhaps the ancient Chinese saw the turtle in the same way.

"When I was growing up in rural Alabama, some people called snapping turtles “thunder turtles.” As the folk tale went, if a snapping turtle bit you, it wouldn’t let go until it heard thunder."
http://www.grit.com/Animals/The-Secret-Life-of-Snapping-Turtles.aspx

pocossin said:

The connection between the tortoise and food may be this: the tortoise was used to determine what the spirits found satisfactory. When the spirits were happy, rains came, and the family had food. As for the trigrams with respect to line 1, I see ☳ as the shock of spiritual presence as in hexagram 51 and ☶ as the home. The meaning of line 1 is similar to the ritual of saying grace before meals in which the spiritual basis of food is acknowledged.

Click to expand...

What about the tortoise as food.

''... During the whaling era, the tortoises were highly prized by sailors for provisions because they could live for long periods of time without food or water, with little deterioration. In the days before preserved food, this was of great value to sailors who visited the Galapagos and carried off many thousands of tortoises. Because interiors of the islands were so inaccessible, the sailors concentrated on the coasts and took away, therefore, massive numbers of breeding females...Well into this century, people have continued to exploit the tortoises for oil..''

http://people.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/Tortoise2.html

Apparently the sailors also found the tortoise exceptionally tasty ( QI BBC )

http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=319075
''The world’s longest-lived vertebrate is also, according to scores of accounts over several centuries, by far the most edible creature man has ever encountered. Not surprisingly, there aren't many giant tortoises left.

They were first discovered by explorers and sailors in the 16th century. Immediately, people began raving about their unbelievable deliciousness, comparing them variously to chicken, beef, mutton and butter - but only to say how much better tortoise meat was than the very best of the aforementioned. One giant tortoise would feed several men, and both its meat and its fat were perfectly digestible, no matter how much of it you ate.

Oil made from tortoise fat was efficacious against colds, cramps, indigestion and all manner of “distempers.” (It tasted good, too.) The liver was a peerless feast on its own, and the bones were rich with gorgeous marrow. Then there were the eggs - inevitably, they too were the best eggs anyone had ever eaten. Some sailors were reluctant to try tortoise meat because the animal was so amazingly ugly - but one taste, and they were soon converted.

Giant tortoises can drink enough at one session to last them for several months. They store the water in special bladders. Needless to say, the sailors soon discovered this too; a carefully butchered tortoise could provide a thirsty mariner with several gallons of cool, perfectly drinkable water.''

pocossin said:

In Southern folklore, the turtle is associated with thunder. The turtle appears to be still, but its bite is a sudden aggressive lunge, a release of energy much like thunder. Perhaps the ancient Chinese saw the turtle in the same way.
...

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Of course, Tom:

Turtles were phallic symbols in ancient China. See the pictures in documents post by
Dora.

all the best,


Charly

hi Charly, good to see you around here again Have a great 2013!

I had to take a short pause from this thread to travel back to my island apartment, since the holidays season is almost gone . .

Lot's of food for thought here - thanks you all!

Tom, that snapping turtle: wow, that's one I'd never had thought of . . I wonder if that was a turtle attribute known to Chinese, for it would make so much sense! What I've read about the turtle symbolism in them is about their perseverance and tenacity, so the part about letting go only struck by thunder probably applies here too - which makes me think of 51's ladle: turtles look a bit like a ladle turned upside down

Fascinating stuff Peterg . . I read somewhere that Chinese relished turtles' meat although it's my understanding they weren't much of mariners - maybe they used turtles in war expeditions? In Wikipedia I read that the Imperial Army used to hold flags with images of dragons and turtles (magic turtle?) as symbols of unparalleled power and inaccessibility - probably tortoises were a symbol for shielding, maybe even used as shields in combat . .


Have more to add here but need to step out to finish my Saturday chores - till later

The tortoise as black warrior of the north from wikipedia and Stephen Karcher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tortoise

http://www.ichinglivingchange.org/room-four-pillars/

Flying Turle from China Illustrata:

Source: http://www.stanford.edu/group/kircher/cgi-bin/site/?attachment_id=727

Ch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing
The source link at wikipedia, which includes links to green dragon, red bird, white tiger.
Scroll down to cosmology and the line heavenly creatures.

uuugh, just lost my long-ish response to this
too tired to put it together right now - full moon weather it is
will try again tomorrow . . thanks for resurrecting the thread people (Peterg quite fascinating stuff on that first link!)

I been trying to put back together the post I lost the previous time but unfortunately I cannot recover some of the sources I'd quoted there (bummer). One thing I did want to mention, was a legend that involves goddess Nuwa and the collapse of the heavens when GongGong smashed his head on its supporting pillar - this is very interesting to me because it could also be seen as explaining away line 23.1 along with 27.1 . .

Repairer
The earliest literary role seems to be the upkeep and maintenance of the Wall of Heaven, whose collapse would obliterate everything.
There was a quarrel between two of the more powerful gods, and they decided to settle it with a fight. When the water god, Gong Gong, saw that he was losing, he smashed his head against Mount Buzhou (不周山), a pillar holding up the sky. The pillar collapsed and caused the sky to tilt towards the northwest and the earth to shift to the southeast. This caused great calamities, such as unending fires, vast floods, and the appearance of fierce man-eating beasts. Nüwa cut off the legs of a giant tortoise and used them to supplant the fallen pillar, alleviating the situation and sealing the broken sky using stones of seven different colors, but she was unable to fully correct the tilted sky. This explains the phenomenon that sun, moon, and stars move towards the northwest, and that rivers in China flow southeast into the Pacific Ocean.
Other versions of the story describe Nüwa going up to heaven and filling the gap with her body (half human half serpent) and thus stopping the flood.[citation needed] According to this legend some of the minorities in South-Western China hail Nüwa as their goddess and some festivals such as the 'Water-Splashing Festival' are in part a tribute to her sacrifices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nüwa#Repairer

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.

Another interesting piece of information I came up with, was about old stories that bequeathed bad luck to those who ate turtles and how buddhist monks would consider that etting free captive turtles who were meant to be sold for food, would bring increase to the person's good karma . . This last thing makes me wonder whether 27 also means to speak about preserving sources of food, in addition to the effects of what we consume - maybe as a continuation of 26's 'eating out brings good fortune'


The snake-turtle was thought of as carrying important symbolism for Taoism - that's where I'm mostly missing he source articles I had garnered. What I did come up with in my latest searches was only an announcement about a lecture on the topic given by someone apparently very learned on the subject of Taoism, but nothing more . . It would be great if someone had access to more information and could share . .