""It has steadily been my experience with the I Ching that there's usually a whole fractal of meanings to a particular answer she gives, applicable to a whole fractal of situations. If you use the oracle for divination (i.e. the way it was used traditionally for thousands of years), you may get answers up and down the octave from your question, pertaining to bigger and smaller issues than the one you asked about but resonating harmoniously with the overall theme.

Example:
"I divine traveling to New York in October" may give me something like "southwest is lucky, northeast is blocked" -- which will cause me to try to figure out if northeast is blocked in October specifically, and the answer may be "I told you once, I won't tell you twice, stop bothering me." And that same day I will get stuck in bad traffic going to Encinitas, which is a ten-minute drive northeast away from me, and later that day get an invitation to a sushi outing from a friend in La Jolla, southwest. So this will show me that the fractal of "northeast is blocked" extends to its smaller here-now resonances as well, not just New York in October, and I will wait to ask the question again later, when the stars have moved and the qi of the time has changed.

So, Panda didn't ask the question but she got the answer without asking, and it's now about figuring out which question or questions this was the answer to (if the immortal was a traditionalist rather than a new ager, he will honor the traditional way to use the I Ching I am sure). In my experience, it may be, like I said, not an answer to one particular question but a whole octave or even a whole symphony of meanings pertaining to all the resonating situations of similar nature and quality of qi. So, it could be very useful to grasp the climate and flavor, feeling and meaning, nature and quality of this message, and then keep checking situations that arise in real life and/or in the mind against its tuning fork, noticing the resonances. ""

who are you quoting ?

She is quoting Taomeow.

http://thetaobums.com/topic/31581-i-ching-hexigram-16-daughter-under-mountain/
message #15

Trojina said:

who are you quoting ?

Click to expand...

Yes, as Pocossin says, Taomeow. The thread is here:http://thetaobums.com/topic/31581-i-ching-hexigram-16-daughter-under-mountain/

Love the musical terminology: octaves, harmoniously, and especially "checking situations that arise in real life and/or in the mind against its tuning fork, noticing the resonances."

Last evening I wanted a clear answer as to the wisdom of moving forward with a certain gear trade decision (happened to be musical gear), and received line 3 of 62, about being extra careful from an attack from behind. I sort of dislike that line, grmph!

As I was contemplating it, I was asked to join a group on a horseback ride, to which I agreed. I'd be riding Candy, who can be a really temperamental and fussy mare, that will resort to kicking and biting when rubbed the wrong way. It's monsoon season and thunder storms were following along the foothills surrounding us which make the horses more spooky. Chacta especially was acting up, as for some reason he can't stand the feeling of even a few raindrops falling on him. He was throwing his head around and being most unruly, which naturally puts the other horses on edge. Fortunately his rider was a lifelong experienced cowgirl who had to use some force and discipline to get him to "quit it!," a phrase used as a common command. Chacta is a big quarter horse with an attitude. As we sat outside a neighbor's place, waiting for her to saddle up, the wind and rain whipping up, Chacta acting badly, line 3 came to mind, and my tuning fork began vibrating, and I thought, this may be what that line was warning me of, and so I adjusted my mind and body to tune more into Candy, and offered a prayer to the gods that I would not wind up getting kicked or thrown, and wondering if this ride was such a good idea. But I tuned into Candy's tuning fork, which resonates to specific ways of being handled, and took the lead to move her away from the rest, especially away from the still nervous Chacta. We enjoyed a great ride together, she and I. At one point we went into a spirited lope for a good distance. Her owner asked me if that was her idea or mine, and I answered, it was both, we both had the urge to let loose a bit. She'd turn around on the dime and resume her gait, and when we reached the long line of tall fence posts, I took her through a pole bending exercise, weaving through them effortlessly. She seemed to enjoy the workout. We were really in synch, and her owner mentioned several times that I had the best ride of the evening, which was because I was cautious but relaxed, not forgetting 62.3's advice. We moved as one and she seemed to read my mind, though it was in part due to my subtle body language, which was mostly intuitive after having enough experience now riding her and being relaxed on her back.

Did this mean that 62.3 no longer applied to my earlier question. Absolutely not, it just made its meaning all the more clear. It was simply another octave of awareness and application. I think Taomeow got it exactly right. It's not altogether apart from some points Chris Lofting would speak of either.

This makes a lot of sense to me since Yi Jing picks up on energy, and one's energy affects all events in one's life at a given time that result in a reading. So the fractal or octave understanding seems right. I read a book by Ouspensky & Gurdjieff a while ago which explained this description of reality in terms of octaves. I gave up on reading it because it was too heavy for me, but it is in line with this and seems to me to help explain when readings don't always seem to accord with outcomes...Or at least the outcomes are not so obviously in accord..?

I believe so too. It's probably what fills up 90% of Shared Reading's line of questions, people wanting and expecting straight, linear answers rather than harmonics that resonate with other factors working simultaneously in that person's life.

I've tried meditating and other means of "superfocusing", so that there could be no distractions from the very specific nature of my question. Sometimes Yi spoke singularly and clearly specifically to the question, but as often as not, there were sympathetic harmonics in the mix.

I have a technique I sometimes use, I fondly refer to as "clearing the barrel", which means to say to the Yi, ok, to get things I need to hear besides an answer to my question, just tell me, fire away and let me hear what you have to say to me. And then after that shot is fired, asking my original question. Sometimes it works, but as often my question had other sympathetic harmonic factors, which would resonate with the answer Yi would offer.

To make it even more complex, while some sympathetic harmonics can be made predictably, some can not. I may play a middle 440 A on my guitar, and a glass in the kitchen cupboard will oscillate a harmonic note, sometimes 440 A, but sometimes a sympathetic frequency. This effect is used often by rock guitarists, usually referred to as controlled feedback, and that feedback frequency can shift as the harmonic creates another sympathetic harmonic. These imperfections are analog, and it makes an otherwise sterile note seem to come alive with warmth and an organic quality vibrations. I see Yi's answers in much this same way. We may desire a sterile, digital answer, but life is neither sterile nor digital.

I'm not a mathematician and this stuff loses me after a certain depth, just as music theory loses me, but it demonstrates that these are not mere abstract ideas we're talking about here.

What Is Harmonic Resonance?

Yes it's important and interesting to understand answers aren't always these straight up and down answers to our questions. This may explain why we go can go through periods of getting the same cast regardless of what we ask about....it's all to so with harmonics and wotnot

The idea may also apply to the principles of synchronicity, whether they are actual physical occurrences or whether our mind discovers like or sympathetic harmonic resonance elsewhere. Like the VW bug buying experience, and then they suddenly seem to appear everywhere.