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confucius
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Etymology of the ideogram Kui.38
Kui.38 is assembled using two side-by-side groups. On the left is the common ideogram used for Eye; it is here written vertically to allow space for the other symbol used in its composition. Eye is used in China for anything concerning Sight, Vision. On the right part of the figure is a character belonging to a very particular group called the Cyclic Symbols. This group, inherited from one of the Chinese oldest conception of time, constitutes two series of ten and twelve ideograms respectively.
Practically contemporary to the development of writing itself – complete groups have been found on divinatory tortoise shells dating from fifteen-hundred B.C – these same two series are still used nowadays. Their principal use is for the countdown of periods, especially in the succession of years in sixty year-long cycles, characteristic of the Chinese calendar, and owed to these two series (5X12=6X10). It also plays a role in keeping track like roman numerals would do on a clock. The principal meaning of these series (the first one called Celestial Trunks and the second Celestial Branches) resides in their role of succession.
The symbol within this composition: Divergence, occupies a very particular place amongst the Ten Celestial Trunks: it is the tenth and last of the series. Like the ninth, it is associated to the North, Water, Winter and the middle of the night. As the last, it is at the end of a cycle, preceding the beginning of the new cycle in the Celestial Branches: Jia.
If an analogy is necessary to compare it to our European culture, it is to the roman god Janus, the double-faced, equally associated to the end and beginning of the calendar cycle: Janus, Januarius, January.
Applied to Vision, the duality contained in this cyclic symbol explains the proper meaning of the ideogram To Squint, which is the opposite of Strabism.
Confucius
38
Etymology of the ideogram Kui.38
Squinting is the convergence of the eyeballs, strabism is a diverging of sight. This lack of parallelism diminishes vision but allows the perception at the same time of both extremities of a situation. We find the same kind of deficiency in the opposite hexagram of Kui.38: Jian.39 (Obstacle, Obstruction), but there, applied to the faculty of Walking.
This association between a handicapped walk and a deficient vision is a Chinese particularity found in the context of the Yi Jing, as is the case at the transition level of Lu.10, and the Prefect level of Gui Mei.54. However, between this hexagram and its opposite the link is a bit more subtle, for it is to be found in the ideograms. In fact, the character naming Obstruction (Jian.39) is built starting with the ideogram Foot, as Kui.38 is built starting with the ideogram Eye.
Although its uses have had this character evolve in such a way that its negative approach emphasizes its character: To Look Away, To Disagree, the hexagram has managed to preserve all of its productive tension. To be able to foresee, , in one glance, the oppositions animating the situation in which one finds himself allows an added discovery to the productiveness proper to this tension.
38
Kui.38 is assembled using two side-by-side groups. On the left is the common ideogram used for Eye; it is here written vertically to allow space for the other symbol used in its composition. Eye is used in China for anything concerning Sight, Vision. On the right part of the figure is a character belonging to a very particular group called the Cyclic Symbols. This group, inherited from one of the Chinese oldest conception of time, constitutes two series of ten and twelve ideograms respectively.
Practically contemporary to the development of writing itself – complete groups have been found on divinatory tortoise shells dating from fifteen-hundred B.C – these same two series are still used nowadays. Their principal use is for the countdown of periods, especially in the succession of years in sixty year-long cycles, characteristic of the Chinese calendar, and owed to these two series (5X12=6X10). It also plays a role in keeping track like roman numerals would do on a clock. The principal meaning of these series (the first one called Celestial Trunks and the second Celestial Branches) resides in their role of succession.
The symbol within this composition: Divergence, occupies a very particular place amongst the Ten Celestial Trunks: it is the tenth and last of the series. Like the ninth, it is associated to the North, Water, Winter and the middle of the night. As the last, it is at the end of a cycle, preceding the beginning of the new cycle in the Celestial Branches: Jia.
If an analogy is necessary to compare it to our European culture, it is to the roman god Janus, the double-faced, equally associated to the end and beginning of the calendar cycle: Janus, Januarius, January.
Applied to Vision, the duality contained in this cyclic symbol explains the proper meaning of the ideogram To Squint, which is the opposite of Strabism.
Confucius
38
Etymology of the ideogram Kui.38
Squinting is the convergence of the eyeballs, strabism is a diverging of sight. This lack of parallelism diminishes vision but allows the perception at the same time of both extremities of a situation. We find the same kind of deficiency in the opposite hexagram of Kui.38: Jian.39 (Obstacle, Obstruction), but there, applied to the faculty of Walking.
This association between a handicapped walk and a deficient vision is a Chinese particularity found in the context of the Yi Jing, as is the case at the transition level of Lu.10, and the Prefect level of Gui Mei.54. However, between this hexagram and its opposite the link is a bit more subtle, for it is to be found in the ideograms. In fact, the character naming Obstruction (Jian.39) is built starting with the ideogram Foot, as Kui.38 is built starting with the ideogram Eye.
Although its uses have had this character evolve in such a way that its negative approach emphasizes its character: To Look Away, To Disagree, the hexagram has managed to preserve all of its productive tension. To be able to foresee, , in one glance, the oppositions animating the situation in which one finds himself allows an added discovery to the productiveness proper to this tension.
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