Last night, I had an encounter with my ex at school concert. Although we inadvertently ended up seated almost next to one another, other than sharing 'hellos' we really didn't interact at all. During the concert, I asked for a hexagram on the situation on an iPhone program and got hexagram 50, unchanging.

The encounter felt awkward and left me a bit unsettled, so this morning I asked how Yi views my situation/relationship with her at this time and got hexagram 50.2>56.

I was surprised to get 50 twice and would appreciate any insights you have. I associate hexagram 50 with transformation and a generally positive indicator showing things 'in tune', but not sure how it applies here. Though still feeling some impact of the end of us as a couple, I don't have any designs to try and change that that I'm aware of.

Thank you.

I associate 50 with learning experiences in some way... Usually when I get it, there's some kind of lesson at hand or a situation that I really need to bring some wisdom to (for myself personally or someone else). 50.2 is a difficult line because it describes a situation in which you are maligned (envied) in some way because of something inherently good-- you're doing all the right things, but it provokes negative reactions. Bummer kind of feeling!

That said, I have trouble interpreting your situation further because the structure of the question you asked is odd to me-- I've never asked Yi how it specifically views something. I have used "Give me a picture of..." as a construct, which seems to work. Or "What do I need to understand this situation?"

I don't know how long you've been engaged with the I Ching, so don't want to come across as preachy, but in my own experience it is vital to really formulate your question well-- it is much easier to interpret ambiguous replies that way. It's unclear what your goals are with relation to your ex, and your question is unclear too, so it's hard to interpret the casting further.

My own gut feeling about this casting and your question/situation would be that envy or jealousy are involved somehow. The Wanderer (56) is one of my least favorite hexagrams and immediately conjures up images and feelings of loneliness or isolation for me... My own reading of this casting and your situation would be of something where your own "virtue" (or what have you) was an impediment for your ex, you had to go your own way or stay true to yourself (50.2), which unfortunately leads to isolation from her. There's no real answer provided within this reading, just a description of the situation. Though 50.2 encourages you to remain true to yourself and not forsake your own morals or goodness for someone else.

I definitely don't see this as a reading that encourages you to reconcile with her; more just to accept the negative realities that led to your parting, and move on.

Mulberry is right, maybe she has her own problems and she doesn't feel good enough for you and isn't the sort of person who can work it out for herself so now you relate like strangers exchanging accepted cultural niceties but no bond.

Thank you, mulberry. I appreciate your thoughts on this post and also your comments on the form of my question. Interesting for you to call that out as it's the first time I've asked 'how Yi views a situation.' My intent was just different wording for 'what is going on in the situation' and I'll have to see if asking that way is more valuable.

I do find that I don't always have a specific question and yet I can get meaningful feedback. Additionally, I've noticed that responses can often go beyond what I think is my specific question and will resonate with an aspect of the situation that I didn't necessarily include. That seems fitting with the limitations in my own awareness and ability to express what I'm looking for. So, I do ask rather open questions from time to time and then see what resonates in the response I get. I'm not sure if others do that or if it is going to make my readings less effective, but it does seem to have value.

Thank you again, I'll have to sit with this and see if there is a more specific question to ask at this time.

Thanks, leepdx. What was so striking to me was to be so physically close to someone who had been my partner for 7 years and NOT feel something connected. It was rather jarring for what wasn't there!

I bet it was an odd feeling! Sometimes love runs it's course and we never do understand why. The reading suggests you are a good person and that was possibly a factor.

I agree with leepdx. The answer implies to me that you outgrew her in some way, or that your desire to live a "correct" (so to speak) life was a problem that could not be reconciled. It's a positive reading in that you are presented as the person on the better path.

Well, thank you to both of you again. It's a rather odd aspect to consider that being 'correct' would become a disqualifying element in a relationship! But, I guess everyone is at there own place on the path.

I'm glad to be helpful. But I don't think the idea of being "correct" as being a source of the demise of a relationship is actually that odd... Think about it this way; what if one person in a relationship wants to marry, have children, pursue a career or a stable place in the wider community (all of which is generally considered proper and right and correct in I Ching terms), but the other wants to continue partying, drinking, staying out late, and generally being youthfully irresponsible (all of that being quite clearly frowned upon in the I Ching). The I Ching is its own moral universe that doesn't align perfectly with the one generally accepted by Western cultures now, which perhaps would not so harshly judge the person who wants to be "free". Anyway, I'm not saying any of this applies to your relationship or the reason it ended-- just pointing out how one could look at a situation like that and find one person's draw towards be "good" (stable, upright, a bit patriarchal) to mean the ending of a relationship. 50.2 is very much about resisting "peer pressure"-type situations and maintaining correctness even under pressure from less virtuous elements (and also enduring their envy and wrath).

Think about it this way; what if one person in a relationship wants to marry, have children, pursue a career or a stable place in the wider community (all of which is generally considered proper and right and correct in I Ching terms), but the other wants to continue partying, drinking, staying out late, and generally being youthfully irresponsible (all of that being quite clearly frowned upon in the I Ching). The I Ching is its own moral universe that doesn't align perfectly with the one generally accepted by Western cultures now

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Eh ? This isn't true. There is nothing 'right and correct in I Ching terms'....really. If you ask questions long enough you'll find that often Yi 'approves' of what is considered by wider society to be not the way to do things..and vice versa

Also where on earth do you get this idea about Yi frowning upon being youthful and irresponsible. There is no fixed moral stance in Yi at all ! You must br taking it at face value rather than metaphorically. If it were the kind of dead book you describe above I wouldn't bother with it.

I've not read the thread so don't know what context these remarks are in...but they are way off IMO

The I Ching is not it's own moral universe bound by culture. If it was what would we consult for. Many times one might be told not to take responsibility, hex 25 for example. The I Ching is absolutely fluid in judgement and there is no way of predicting it will give approval or not..

...I'm talking of real life readings. One can find what society might say is the way forward Yi does not,,,,I've seen that many times. One is answered as an individual within one's individual circumstances not through some fixed moral system. That should be clear after one has consulted for some time

Although I agreed with what you said here

My own reading of this casting and your situation would be of something where your own "virtue" (or what have you) was an impediment for your ex, you had to go your own way or stay true to yourself (50.2), which unfortunately leads to isolation from her. There's no real answer provided within this reading, just a description of the situation. Though 50.2 encourages you to remain true to yourself and not forsake your own morals or goodness for someone else.

I definitely don't see this as a reading that encourages you to reconcile with her; more just to accept the negative realities that led to your parting, and move on

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so maybe I read your last comments out of context. It's just I find one cannot say the 'I Ching will approve of this or that behaviour'. One really does not know until one asks.

Trojina said:

The I Ching is not it's own moral universe bound by culture. If it was what would we consult for.

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Trojina, I really admire the depth of your understanding of the I Ching, which you have brought to many many interpretations of castings here, including ones of my own I've posted here. But I'm truly surprised by this sentence. Of course the I Ching has an influence from the culture it came from (Zhou dynasty China). Maybe "bound" was too strong a word on my part. But while I am again and again blown away by the prescience and wisdom, not to mention uncanny insight, Yi has brought to bear on my own life and my questions, I am also reminded somewhat regularly that the orientation it has towards some ethical matters (particularly regarding gender, women, and marriage) is subtly--occasionally strikingly--different from my own. It goes beyond metaphor, as well, into orientations towards situations that I did not necessarily agree with but understood the logic of (from a certain perspective).

Nowhere did I say that this "moral universe" so to speak makes it not worth consulting. And I struggle to understand how you could leap to that conclusion.

I'm not a novice either. I'm a second generation user of the I Ching who was raised with it and has been using it in some form or another for close to 20 years. Ten of those years I've been a serious student of it. I'm familiar with multiple translations and auxiliary texts as well as the historical and cultural context the book (and its versions) developed from.

I'm also surprised by your reaction to my conclusion about Yi frowning on being youthful and irresponsible. Perhaps frowning isn't quite right. But this is a book that again and again warns against excess in all forms, and hexagram after hexagram deals with (literal) gradual development from youth to maturity (and responsibility).

I also disagree with the blanket assessment of 25 as advice to "not take responsibility". To be perhaps unnecessarily blunt and simple, I tend to interpret 25 as, broadly speaking, misfortune imposed from the outside; misfortune you are not responsible for (Innocence). Or, in a more positive light, as a suggestion that a state of pure innocence or naturalness is one that is ultimately fortunate, despite whatever happens externally. We could both go on and on about 25 and of course it has many more interpretations besides the one I just presented; but I don't think yours (as a blanket statement) has any more validity than the ones I just presented.

To be honest, I'm still taken aback by your reaction. I'm interested in hearing your response.

But while I am again and again blown away by the prescience and wisdom, not to mention uncanny insight, Yi has brought to bear on my own life and my questions, I am also reminded somewhat regularly that the orientation it has towards some ethical matters (particularly regarding gender, women, and marriage) is subtly--occasionally strikingly--different from my own. It goes beyond metaphor, as well, into orientations towards situations that I did not necessarily agree with but understood the logic of (from a certain perspective).

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There is no way of knowing, prior to consultation, what kind of judgement Yi is going to give. Marriage and the place of women and so on, may all be taken as metaphor in our readings. I don't need to explain that to you... You know a man may cast and get 54 and find himself in the role of the marrying maiden.

I've been consulting for many years and Yi never fails to surprise me in it's comments about all kinds of things so it is not possible to say this...and I quote again the piece I did before

Think about it this way; what if one person in a relationship wants to marry, have children, pursue a career or a stable place in the wider community (all of which is generally considered proper and right and correct in I Ching terms), but the other wants to continue partying, drinking, staying out late, and generally being youthfully irresponsible (all of that being quite clearly frowned upon in the I Ching).

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For an individual consulting none of these things, marriage, kids, career, may be shown as desirable in their answers. That's obvious isn't it. Someone may ask about having kids and get 33.....or whatever...my point is you made it sound like the I Ching was always pushing this position, as if it were inherent part of it's values, as an Oracle, whereas it really isn't. In fact it is surprising how often it goes against what is expected in society.

Anyway I don't agree with what you wrote. I'm not into long discussions so we will have to agree to differ. It may be we already agree I just didn't get the angle you were coming from.

Hang on

I'm also surprised by your reaction to my conclusion about Yi frowning on being youthful and irresponsible. Perhaps frowning isn't quite right. But this is a book that again and again warns against excess in all forms, and hexagram after hexagram deals with (literal) gradual development from youth to maturity (and responsibility).

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It warns of excess no more than it does insufficiency. Some writers such as Carol Anthony lay their own philosophical dogma on to Yi which isn't there. All the anti ego stuff isn't there. Often in Yi one is advised not to take responsibility, to be child like....So no I don't think you can say 'this is a book that has this particular philosophy' , it is full of surprises. Nor is it a book that preaches one way of being....

...and no as an Oracle it is not bound by any particular culture. We use the framework of ancient Chinese culture and it is useful...but it is now a metaphor, by and large. A powerful business man may get 54.3 as an answer, so obviously gender roles are not to be taken literally and neither do they limit our understanding since we can all be 'second wives' or 'wives'.

To me Yi is more than just a book written in ancient china, it is an Oracle and so absolutely limitless in it's applications. You seemed to be saying Yi had a fixed or limited moral outlook so to speak. Perhaps you weren't quite saying that. Or perhaps I just see it differently to you.

Thanks, Trojina. I've always had a sense the Yi is responding to present circumstances and not from a cultural bias. Do you have a perspective on the original thread here. I'd be interested.

I pretty much agreed with Mulberry's take on it

My own reading of this casting and your situation would be of something where your own "virtue" (or what have you) was an impediment for your ex, you had to go your own way or stay true to yourself (50.2), which unfortunately leads to isolation from her. There's no real answer provided within this reading, just a description of the situation. Though 50.2 encourages you to remain true to yourself and not forsake your own morals or goodness for someone else

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It is the case that sometimes people, even those in close relationships, aren't best pleased when we progress or move on in some way. After all we then can seem a different person to them, not who they thought we were. That can't stop us moving on to where we need to go.

The answer implies that the other person was feeling negatively, perhaps thinking resentful or uncomfortable thoughts about you, perhaps not with ill will but still Yi describes the companion as being 'afflicted' but that affliction cannot touch you. They cannot hurt you, you must go your way.