Over the past few weeks, as I've been adjusting to one big change and many medium and little ones I've created quite an arc of castings. I've been calling it my I Ching 20-Questions. I kept the questions small and precise, and the answers have been pretty understandable, coherent, and useful to me. I've kept to a good balance between contemplating and acting. For the first time, I've kept a log of my questions and answers.

But yesterday, it all really got to me, and I finally just threw up my hands in overwhelmed helplessness. This wasn't in relation to my divining. It was more a sense of dropping my defenses and finally feeling a lot of pain, loss, sadness, confusion, promise and potential.

I found myself writing out a plain and sincere list of how it is for me now. "I just lost-- I'm likely to-- My health is-- I take care of-- I support-- My-- But-- I feel-- I don't know--"

At the end of it I wrote, "Where do I start?"

I asked this question, and I got the answer #7, no changes.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Willow

Dear Willow,

I am venturing to give you my interpretation of # 7 as after reading yr message I couldn't but feel sympathetic towards you as I have been "there" quite a few times myself.

# 7 The Army. A mass (people, thoughts, etc) that has an enourmous amount of force that if not carefully controlled it could become dangerous. Also the hex. advises that in order to acomplish this control one must not use force but gentleness. Finally it says that there is a potential power in such masses and if well directed it could lead to great "undertakings".

# 24 Return, The Turning Point: Nuclear Hex: "FU: go back, turn back to the starting point, restore, recover, retrace an earlier time or place. The ideogram: step and retrace a path."
"In hex 24 we are at a point of crossing, symbolically from the dark to the light. We are coming back to "the path". "Contextually we separate chaff from wheat leading to augmentation by a return to the "correct" path.
Hex 24 also tells you about the four seasons being this one Winter but "with the knowledge that Spring is around the corner".

Hex. 8: Holding Together (Context hex) This one just its name tells you a lot. Its name implies: "to order things and to clasify them; compare and select; find what you belong with; sort, examine, select and harmonize; and finally "unite". The ideogram tells you of a person who stops walking, looking around to examine and compare. "In hex 8 one is influencial by one's presence in that one attracts people from all around and establishes a sense of unity".

Hope this helps a bit but it goes mainly with my best wishes.

IMH

Hi Willow,

Back at the end of March some of the friends here at Clarity helped me with Hexagram 7 unchanging, and what emerged was very useful to me. Perhaps reading it, if you haven't already, might add some insight to your own situation now as well.

Follow the link to get to that page.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/i_ching_discussion/messages/92/290.html

Hope it helps,
Dharma

Willow, you were very kind to me when I was feeling nonplussed and I'm sorry that you have so many cares and woes.

I'm a very novice reader of the I Ching, but it occurs to me that 'The Army' can refer to the huge number of negative thoughts that we think when life gets hard. Much new age thinking (and 'old age' too!) is about the thoughts we think creating our reality. So I feel you are being counselled to muster your army of thoughts and keep it under control. Just as a real army works best when it marches cheerfully forward well fed and equipped, so we have to be like a general and keep our thoughts as 'up' as we can.

Sarah Dening's commentary says: "The first step is knowing exactly what it is you want to achieve. You need to feel enthusiastic about your goal, otherwise it will be hard to carry on ... Be absolutely determined to keep going until you have reached your objective."

I wish you a very speedy and happy resolution.

IMH,

Thanks for your thoughts and wishes. Just the presence of your response helps me to understand. Last week I was offering you what I could of my insight, and this week, it's you helping me. Visions of army slogging through mud. One falls down, another helps them back up. Later the helper falls down, and the first is right there with a hand.

Also, pointing out the presence of The Turning Point within is helpful. Being astrologically minded, I read that, and realize, "duh! Mercury goes retrograde today." (note, I don't view that as a bad thing.)

Dharma,

Yes, I do recall that topic, and I will look back at it more. The thing I remember there is that Hilary also was dealing with #7.

Also, one thing I think you'll appreciate about my receiving #7 is that I was out in the garden at the time, consulting while sitting next to a hose watering a fruit tree. Replenishing the underground reservoir.

Ann,

Yes, that is very helpful. I do have an "army" of little negative thoughts running around. I'm not a teacher, but I feel kind of like I'm dealing with a class of wild kids, and no clear sense of how to rein them in or redirect them.

Deep breath, pause. "Now, class..."

Hi Willow.

Your question was a compilation of a myriad of things which you are engaging on both a conscious and subconscious level. Most folks deal with something and move on, without giving much thought to any inner meaning, value or worth. When we engage ourselves with Yi, especially for every particular in our life, we receive such a barrage of answers, half of it in an almost spiritual language, that our mind encounters overload. If you recall, I went through just such an incident not very long ago, resulting in sleeplessness.

#7 seems a fitting response to your multifaceted question. In two words: Organize and Discipline. We can't solve our puzzle by simply adding more pieces, even if we make more spaces for them. We must sort them out, one by one. That was your question: Where do I start?

I think a problem arises when we stack one thing upon another, upon another. We try to sort things out but now they're all stacked upon one another. So, a good place to start is by un-stacking them. See each as a component which can be reduced to manageable bits. Our lives are not as complicated as we make it, sometimes. When we stir it all into the pot of the collective unconscious mind (or whatever one wishes to call it), it intensifies the value of each ingredient, sometimes to disproportioned levels.

"When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, he goes back to his plough."

You increase your flocks by your generosity to them. But when the task is complete, put it to rest in your mind. If you pick up the coins again to inquire of it, it will resurface in your subconscious and begin stirring again. We do this to ourselves unintentionally. So, its important to be conscious of it and to set limits on it, even if we must enforce it with discipline (7).

Sometimes, this will lead to 49, so don't be surprised if you're called to some major changes in the way you live and what's important to you.

Most importantly, hang in there!

Your fan,
Candid

Hi Willow

I am really just writing to express support and concern.

I have read many of your contributions and the care, concern, warmth and wisdom you express has taught me much.

I will try to offer a shaddow of that back to you now.

There are others here who will be able to addrss your Q. re Hx 7 better than I...

A couple of thoughts:

I followed Dharma's link above and this part of her question jumped out at me...

Dharma said, "I am quite aware that the Universe often has it's own agenda, and since I make it a point of following my instinct in the direction it guides me, I presently find myself wondering what's going on (??) what is the Universe, in this instance, up to?"

A wise space to start from in my book.

Following this line of thought... "Where do I start?" Might not be the best Q.

Sometimes the 'changes' arround us are fixed... not easilly open to influence. In these times I find it better to look to the Yin way... Understanding, acceptance and patience.

This does not mean passivity... but the gentle pennetration of the meaning of the time for us...

Sometimes, I believe, the situation is there to teach us.

Dealing with change, I think, sometimes means just waiting and gathering our streanghth until the right moment when even a small effort applied in the correct place brings about a 'revolution'

Perhaps at some time you might consider asking further questions with regard to what you must do or cultivate in yourself to gain from the situation and secondly to bring about a time where you can again influence matters for the better.

I say all of this as an aside as I am sure others here will continue to open up Hx. 7 fruitfully.

Fortitude to you

Cheiron

Hi Willow,

I think that Cheiron makes an interesting suggestion about waiting and gathering strength because as I read through your original posting ...your question "Where do I start?" and the resultant hexagram #7, I keep wondering "where *are* you exactly??

Like an annoying fly, I try brushing it aside hoping to make some sense of the image that has come up for you, yet this question nudges continually as most relevant.

So I think...pay attention Dharma!...the answers to our questions are more often than not very basic and simple --it's *we* that complicate things more than necessary. Go ahead, ask the question!...to not do so would be a form of complication.

So then... hmmm... to know where to start, one must know where one is... no?? Perhaps making sense of where it is that you *are* is the place to start.

Perhaps in gathering together your ALL (big and small...seemingly relevant and, likewise, the seemingly irrelevant), you will begin to see more clearly...then you can begin to move your army out. You'll certainly be in a better position to determine who are your righthand men and who are your soldiers...that sort of thing, you know?

"Where are you, Willow?" Something to consider.

Dharma

Thank you everyone!

Over at Hilary's other site, one of the #7 entries includes, "An army is present in the people. Its strength is invisible except in times of war." That's how your support feels.

"Where am I?" is a really significant question. Just as I'm trying it on here, I find it very fog-clearing and grounding. There is an exercise I once learned in a workshop where people pair up and one repeatedly asks the same question, and the other keeps coming up with answers. I'm going to go off and do that with "Where am I?"

I think the process of finding myself in this case is a combination of waiting and jumping in, and finding the right balance to both.

And as far as overloading mind, yes, very true. I wonder though, if in this case it's kind of worked to get mind out of the way so body and spirit can connect better.

Enough for today. Thanks all!

Hi Willow

Was looking at Ritsema and Karcher?s Yi Jing this morning.

Their opening summary of Hx. 7 The Army

?This hexagram describes your situation in terms of unorganised crowds or bunches of things. It emphasises that organising these things into functional units is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time you are told to lead!?

They clearly use the ruling line (Yang in the second place) to gain the key to the hexagram which is accepted practice (as per Wang Bi?s approach).

Candid commented on this above, ?#7 seems a fitting response to your multifaceted question. In two words: Organize and Discipline. We can't solve our puzzle by simply adding more pieces, even if we make more spaces for them. We must sort them out, one by one. That was your question: Where do I start??

I shall say no more for fear of giving you another ?myriad of things? to deal with.

Still with wishes of fortitude
Cheiron

...lead through gentleness...

I just went back through my "20 questions" log, and four times the reading somewhere involved #8, which has that "Inquire again if you possess sublimity, constancy, and perseverance" part. I take that to mean, "ask if, in this situation, you are called upon to be a leader or a follower." The thing is, each time, I demurred - I chose not to inquire again.

My possessions do tend to mirror my tendency not to organize too. Every time I read Candid's comments, I think of my garage! The funny thing is, a while back, in a fit of frustration with the mess in there, and how there was all this "matter" that had lost it's purpose and spirit, I slapped a sign on the door: "Center for the Study of the Relationship Between Spirit and Matter." That was how I "started" that time.

I go back to Dharma's reading of the Tarot cards I pulled last month (Comes a time... topic), and her point that I tend to be wary and resistant, preferring not to venture further until it feels truly safe...and the limitations of that viewpoint...

Taking to heart all the above, and the additional places it has lead me in the past few days...

Coming here today and reading/processing Candid's story of the Captain and the Navy...

Discovering the fabulous site Hilary posted a link to (http://www.anton-heyboer.org/i_ching/yi_index.html)...

Dharma's quote about leaping (which I know as, "Leap, and the net will appear." (see below))...

Well, hey, there's nobody but me, there's no time like the present...

The question:
"I'm leaping in *right now* with both feet. What is a guiding image for this act?"

The answer:
#34 (change at 3rd) to #54

The LiSe, Yi Jing, Book of the Moon commentary:

34: Man of Stone [aka Possession in Great Measure]
God made man from clay.
He blew life into him.
But man prefers to be a stone, so he bakes himself into a brick, strong and invulnerable.
Rigid and square, a foundation that supports the building of mankind.
God never had a building in His mind, just life.
If man stays the life he essentially is, his strength will be alive too, never rigid but able to cope with every challenge.
[and I call myself Willow why?]

54: The Marrying Maiden
Make the place where you live to be your place, even if it was not your own choice.
And make yourself an essential part of this place.
So you belong.
Your life is the entire life.
If the grass is greener somewhere else, then you let your life get lost.
And the people you live with, lose you.
Make thís grass green, fill in your place, give coordinates to your life.
A limited life makes a big presence.
An unlimited one does not make you exist.


9 at 3:
Small people use vigor.
The noble man uses nets.
Determination: danger.
To acquire or accomplish something, one has to make all the preparations and then take a strategic position.
No further action is necessary if one casts one?s net in the right way and the right place.
The sage wishes only what comes swimming by anyway.


Wow!

Good morning, Willow.

I wanted to make further contribution to this thread concerning your ambitious undertaking. The image that comes to mind is a garment. First, there are the 20 specific issues which are interwoven, as a swatch of fabric or a means of visualizing yourself as being made of textures and colors. As I reread your original question, it appears as though you have a desire to reinvent yourself from the inside-out. #7 provided the backdrop and tactical approach to the undertaking: Where do I start?

Now, after weighing, sorting and contemplating, you have arrived, full of energy and ready to ?take the plunge.? (Leaping or diving in with both feet.) This movement is in accord with the time, which is spring, and the direction is upward. You have asked for an image to guide you through this current transition and received #34. (Which according to my references is Power of the Great, not Possession in Great Measure.)

When a person comes into power, the natural inclination is to utilize that power through enforcing our will. Its like a young man who has just bought a very powerful automobile. His desire is to take it out on the open road to ?see what it will do.? His adrenaline is coursing through him as he lusts to feel the initial surge of power when he stomps onto the accelerator. If he uses extra caution to match his extra power, all should go well. But as often happens, caution gives way to the sensation of power. Therefore, he endangers not only himself, but anyone else who might happen to get in his way. He also endangers his new possession and source of power, his car. Exceeding caution combined with sensible reserve are the counter-measures which will assure him the appropriate use of power. He must not only use his available power, but must utilize an extra measure of common sense.

You are sitting behind the wheel revving up that big engine. When you take it out for that test drive, choose only appropriate times and places to let her rip, so to speak. If you peel down the road unsuited for such power, you will endanger yourself and many others. Great power must be under the control of an even greater sense of rightness and responsibility.

The above is inclusive of your change line in the third place. Remember that power which is shown is power which will be challenged. This places you in competition with other?s sources of power, and so a power struggle of some kind or other is inevitable. This is not how the developed soul acts. Instead, the greater a person?s power, the greater her restraint needs to be in exhibiting that power. A powerful car needs even more powerful breaks.

#54 to me, is one of the most obscure of all the hexagrams, yet it is rich in wisdom and meaning. Why would an image of a husband and wife bear with it such caution and reserve? Why would undertakings bring misfortune and why would nothing serve to further if one was to persevere in action? I?ll attempt to explain.

Picture the spirit as your husband and your appropriate emotions/feelings as your wife. Picture the balance and harmony of the two dwelling together in the same house (your body). The balance of power is proportionally distributed between these two parts of you. You are married to yourself in this way and your duality is getting along well.

Now, let?s imagine that a new emotion enters into that relationship. This new emotion could be called, Desire. Desire has a mind of her own and can at times be quite stubborn to have her own way. The intent of Desire may be constructive, at least in her own mind. Since Desire is driven by emotion (Tui), she can be pretty assuming and may even supplant the Mistress of the house, which is the original wife of Spirit. Desire is not the original intended wife, but is now being introduced to the Master (Spirit) of the house. Imagine all the misunderstandings and ill will which can be created if Desire insists on running the household. Arguments will crop up, jealousy, envy and discord are sure to follow. (44) Therefore, nothing would serve to further that situation.

Now, there may well be the opportunity for this new maiden (Desire) to integrate into this delicately balanced relationship. Its not as though she?s cast out the door and into the cold. If she knows how to conduct herself, to first give honor to the original intended wife of Spirit, and then is willing to take her place under the proper wife, she may find a suitable place to live within the household. But she must remain modest and make no attempt to usurp the established order of the household. She must blend in tactfully.

If you pay heed to what is right, and controllably use this energy and force, which is available to you at this time, and if you are cautious to support the original marriage first, your power will serve to further the entire undertaking. The way the Wilhelm expresses this is: Understand the transitory in the light of the eternity of the end. In other words, keep your focus on the big picture, not on just this transient period of activity.

Your friend,
Candid

Thank you Candid,

This opens up the meaning so remarkably to me! You may recall that the central question in my previous thread, Comes a Time... was "Tell me the story of my desire."

The racecar illustration helps me to understand in a new way the times when I encounter in myself hesitancy, caution, and holding back to the point of paralysis. For example, in school and earlier work settings, I could always manage to pursue my own interests and also achieve that which was required/expected of me because, when the time called for it, I could easily "power through" the expected task. I had a "big car" at my disposal, and I knew how to use it when I needed to. Eventually though, I found myself loosing the will and inclination to ever get behind the wheel -- even fearing to. In the context of your analogy, I think I might now say that what was going on was the development of my own interests was putting ever more powerful vehicles at my disposal, but I wasn't doing the requisite work to develop my driving habits, or learn how to adapt my powers to practical use. When I did take the racecar out for a spin anywhere near responsibilities, I'd get negative feedback quite appropriate to a "reckless driver." (Leading me to have difficulty distinguishing between the situations of power-shown-is-power-challenged and those of legitimate criticism.)

And, yes, it is of course Power of the Great, not Possession in Great Measure.