so, back again and thought I'd share a reading that had me perplexed before leaving for my holidays -and I am talking about the big, bald, brash 1.2,3,5 going to 21 I had . .

I mean, OUCH! 21 is not a favorite of mine, I get a feeling of someone trying to grasp my insides using a pair of pincers each time I get it . .
As you can tell, I was not very happy about it and tried to figure it out beforehand . . Yi kept giving me readings with 9 when I asked for more and my dumb dumb doo be doo me could only think of the cruel greek sun which can be unforgiving to mindless sunbathers
. . well, I think I made Yi burst into laughter with my idea cause it gave me a straight 16 when I asked it (ok, ok Yi, 9, I can't know now, have to wait and see little things taking place and taking care)

So I was careful and vigilant but didn't expect what went down . .
First thing was a series of strokes of bad luck: moored on a beautiful place and immediately got attacked by hornets, lot's of them, got stung myself on day one (grr) . . anyway, no sting left in my foot, just a bit of pain, no big deal. We learned to live with them, after we send lot's to swim in the sea (ever played tennis with hornets? two things happened once in water: either they made a couple of swirls and flew again or little fish grabbed and ate them- nature taking care of its own). By the end I 'd just brush them aside gently and go on with whatever I was doing. We even put out a bowl of water for them which took them some time to discover (not very clever, huh). Funny thing was they stung us again the day we were leaving -what first you attack us to leave and now you get sore for us leaving? oh man . . They did sting twice my mother, left their stings in, which I later had to take out using a clean needle . . 21 it is!)

Next BIG strokes of bad luck . . My father's favorite pastime for the last 40 years or so has been fishing. So he got his new dingy and engine and left to fish . . came back after dark with a rapala hook on his left hand . . he was fishing for a baraccuda-like fish -very nervous- which got away leaving him hooked instead . . he's gotten hooked like that before on his thigh but that was fishing tuna . . ok the hook was in for good and the only way to get it out was to pierce thru the flesh on an exit point and cut the hook's edge (no other way to get a hook out cause it might rip you badly) . . GOSH these 9s can do some real damage!! Luckily we got it out alright ..
As if that wasn't enough, 2 days later he goes out again -he has to get that fish you see! He comes back with a bucket full and the new rapala hook he had replaced, this time hooked on the little finger of is right hand . . This time it was really messy, lots of blood and pain . . good thing the hook had exited his flesh already which meant he didn't have to do it -he wouldn't be able too with his left hand . . Like last time i had to help him since I'm the one who can keep cool under stress and not being too squeamish abt blood . . but that hook was new and too strong and hard to cut . . and i had to be swift and strong even though I feared of ending up with part of his finger in my hands . . . . yes, right, 21 . .


ok, was that enough for you? it was for us women on deck, so we didn't let him go out for coming days -we even agreed to learn play 'bridge' to keep him in, and let me tell you, none of us three girls is really adept at card games, oh well, we had some good laughs there

just to top this off rather mildly, I think there was another case of quite different 21 too . . some days into our hanging out in that place, there comes a boat which chooses out of all the empty cove we were, to anchor just about where our anchor was, and does it really badly . . well, guess what happened . . it got our anchor unhooked, which had us doing the whole mooring thing again -no big deal, just annoying when you just want to cool and the wind is quite strong . . That got a whole discussion going about which would be best anchor to buy for the tough mediterranean seabed and my father even discovered an old english article in some magazine which I had to translate for him (in case you're interested, a Spade anchor was the winner of this guy's research). Was thinking then that 21 with its 3 spikes does look like an anchor and I remembered how 21 is also about market browsing and investigation hmmm . .

lastly, I, at one point, asked Yi, what would be my part in this 1/21 reading . . got 22.4,6 to 55 . . thinking abt Lise's healing translation of it, it made perfect sense . .


heh, I think I've spoken enough for the past days of absence here huh
Would love to read any more ideas or stories on 21 if you wish to share . .

Hi Rodaki,

Hexagram 21 is the monad of the third and final decad of the first part of the Chou Yi. It represents the natural consequences that follow from prior action. It is the Yi's version of the Law of Karma.

My most recent experience with hex 21 as a Yi Oracle resultant was when I cast the Yi about an insight that struck me about making an angry review of a book I consider a fraudulent and criminal violation of copyright law. I fully expected the oracle to tell me to keep my insight as my fantasy and be reasonable.

However, instead I got hex27.4 >>hex 21. I took that to mean I should make my case. I did, feeling much better that I had cleared my internal registers of my feelings and upset. After that I no longer cared what happened and so far nothing much has although I have made my statement publicly that the line "What would it profit someone to gain the whole world, but lose their soul" applies to those promoting this book which has been declared in esoteric terms not worth prosecuting, but those who align themselves with it may face difficult issues on the other side.

The net result is that I am at peace internally although other folks in this forum have been driven to distraction and upset by their reflection of themselves in the mirror of me.

Your Yi Oracle of 1 >> 21 is a statement of the ongoing process (hex 1) developing into the expression of Karma (hex 21) which is the other side of the line judge not lest you be judged, when you are judged be grateful if you come out of it OK, which I would say was the Yi message in the hex22 oracle.

Welcome back and congratulations for surviving your holiday,

Frank

wonder why this was moved from Exploring Divination Rodaki isn't asking for help with the reading just talking about 21 in general and her experience of it.

hey, there is my 21 thread . . I was wondering the same Trojan but I'm never really sure where these threads actually belong . . maybe better the 'aha' place . . anyway, if the hostess say here I won't object . .

hi Frank, thank you for your words, yes my trip had a 'survivor' taste but nothing too grave luckily. I read about your own recent case . . It's good to know that you feel at peace about it, although it must be strenuous to have to defend an experience so fluid as what you have described elsewhere. But then again, our inner experience is something that cannot be taken away, the rest is just procedure -important, I understand, but not more substantial from the knowledge we gain when working with someone. I hope things will clear out for you swiftly so you can resume your own work.

Would you -or anyone else for that matter- like to share a bit more on how you see the relation between 21 and 22?

I did find it a bit odd getting those two hexagrams as two sides of the same coin -the one complementing/remedying the other . . is there a strange symmetry lying there?

Hi Rodaki

What a great few days of experience you had here. Its' good to have you back.
Hex 21 - "A warrior never gives into fear when (s)he is searching for what (s)he needs" - Paulo Coelho
Hex 22 - "Adorning means you begin without a face" - Karcher
These are a couple of weird things that stick in my mind about these 2 hexagrams.
Mike




21

hi Mike
it's good to see you all again
love the Coelho phrase, as for 22 . . hmm, I really need to get that book by Karcher

anyone else out there with ideas about the relation between 21 and 22?
I'm really intrigued . . I'll be back if I get any ideas myself

Hi Dora,

I have a very different view of the difference between and progression from hex 21 and hex 22. In structure, hex22 is the line pattern of hex 21 tumbled upon its head. However, that is just the rhyme scheme of the Chou Yi. Like good poetry, the rhyme scheme has no place in understanding the meaning.

Hex 21 ends in 1, so it is a monad. That monad expresses the entire theme and meaning for all the hexagrams from 21 all the way to 30. Hex 21 is about justice or natural consequence or the Law of Karma or the Rules & Order of Themis in the archaic Greek system before the conquest by the Olympian Gods when Themis was forced to marry Zeus.

Hex 22 is the structural skeleton of this decad; in contrast to hex 23 which is the dynamic action. The harvest and threshing of grain is the active process to make real the natural consequences of agriculture. Splitting apart the grain stalks into wheat to send to market and straw to burn.

Hex 22 is the structure exposed when all the the situation is highlight first and foremost. So it is the fire in the mountain valley which still provides a useful campfire, but cannot be seen much outside of that camp since it is overshadowed by the mountains all around. Thus it becomes Grace, the embellishments and adornments that decorate but don't really change things much.

Hex 21 is justice overall. Hexagram 22 is natural consequence (or justice) in specific detail known only to the immediate community around the campfire. Upon what does the true beauty or Grace in hex22 depend? The subjective feelings and shared fellowship of the folks around the campfire who have integrated their experiences and situation into the fire that they have made their special experience. Not done well it becomes just a beard without substance as Confucius reports he got once and felt he had been wronged. It was a rebuke from the Yi that he wasn't the most Superior Man and he needed to work harder to make his commentary speak more and his status less.

That is the decad perspective of these two hexagrams.

Frank

rodaki said:

hi Mike
it's good to see you all again
love the Coelho phrase, as for 22 . . hmm, I really need to get that book by Karcher

anyone else out there with ideas about the relation between 21 and 22?
I'm really intrigued . . I'll be back if I get any ideas myself

Click to expand...

Hi Rodaki
The Coelho quote came from "Manual of the Warrior of Light". I have found it to be a great compass . I just came across another Coelho Link that may help show an aspect of Hex21 / Hex 22 relationship.Try
http://www.warriorofthelight.com/engl/index.html

Hi Frank

Thanks for sharing some more thoughts on the decad perspective. One of your comments has got me really puzzled

Thus it becomes Grace, the embellishments and adornments that decorate but don't really change things much.

Click to expand...

Standing initially in the facelessness of Grace, to my mind, provides the structure for immense changes.

Grace - elogance of expression; effortless beauty; courtesy or decency; a place of allowing, of honouring and non judgemental acceptance. Starting any expedition with these things tucked away in my rucksack seems nothing but a bonus in my world. They can be fitted in to any small space remaining between the tent, the cooking equipment, the food supplies, the clinbing equipment, the swiss army knife, and the clean pair of socks and underpants.

Are you really saying that the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God (in whatever guise people may percieve Him to be) "don't really change things much"?.

If you are able to share your thoughts some more, I'm sure it would help us all.

Mike

my_key said:

Hi Frank

Thanks for sharing some more thoughts on the decad perspective. One of your comments has got me really puzzled

Standing initially in the facelessness of Grace, to my mind, provides the structure for immense changes.

Grace - elogance of expression; effortless beauty; courtesy or decency; a place of allowing, of honouring and non judgemental acceptance. Starting any expedition with these things tucked away in my rucksack seems nothing but a bonus in my world. They can be fitted in to any small space remaining between the tent, the cooking equipment, the food supplies, the clinbing equipment, the swiss army knife, and the clean pair of socks and underpants.

Are you really saying that the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God (in whatever guise people may percieve Him to be) "don't really change things much"?.

If you are able to share your thoughts some more, I'm sure it would help us all.

Mike

Click to expand...

As discussed on this thread http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=7807 we can attach to much weight to the title of 22 as 'Grace' and so be misled into linking it with notions of the Grace of God and so on.

The 'free unmerited favour or beneficence of God' is your personal association to the word 'grace' but it has been argued grace is a poor translation of the title of the hexagram...see link.

Whilst 21 bites through the suface to find the truth 22 stays on the surface.

my_key said:

Hi Frank
Thanks for sharing some more thoughts on the decad perspective. One of your comments has got me really puzzled

Standing initially in the facelessness of Grace, to my mind, provides the structure for immense changes.

Grace - elogance of expression; effortless beauty; courtesy or decency; a place of allowing, of honouring and non judgemental acceptance. Starting any expedition with these things tucked away in my rucksack seems nothing but a bonus in my world. They can be fitted in to any small space remaining between the tent, the cooking equipment, the food supplies, the clinbing equipment, the swiss army knife, and the clean pair of socks and underpants.

Are you really saying that the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God (in whatever guise people may percieve Him to be) "don't really change things much"?.

If you are able to share your thoughts some more, I'm sure it would help us all.

Mike

Click to expand...

Hi Mike,
Grace is Wilhelm/Baynes term. My Flux Tome term is 'Highlights' that emphasizes it is not Divine Grace (no matter how cool that lady may be) but rather the flickering light of the campfire that has its lovely details, but compared to the majesty of the high mountains about and the Moon and Stars above is less than small potatoes.

I would agree with that aspect of your remarks contained in "provides the structure for immense changes" that is what I was speaking about. In the decad structure, the hexagram number ending in 2 is all about the structure polar opposite of the set. Hex22 is the structure upon which dynamic energies can come into play to form overall the Divine principle or rule of Karma, Justice or Consequences following upon prior events. It is this hard structure, drained of any process dynamics that is being focused upon and analyzed by this hexagram.

Even in the most structural detail (the skeleton left after the living flesh has been removed completely) of karma is built upon the relationship of the tiny flickering campfire to the high and awesome Mountain. You reference actual camping, so let me return to that exemplar. You are in the High Sierras of CA or the Himalayas in China.

You have your rucksack with you with your gear with which you light a campfire. More than any Grace, divine or Kelly you have with you, I would hope you would have a sense of awe facing the dark with the infinite Heavens above you, mountain ranges surrounding you and hardly enough with you to be sure your fire will burn as long as you need it as the tangible security that cold and things that might go bump in the night will not get you. You able to imagine that picture and situation and feeling?

OK, now you turn from staring into the flickering flames of your campfire to turn to the mountain peaks behind (no matter what way you turn--you are in a bit of a valley [archetypal Yin, the dark valley around a mountain--Wieger, S.J.] What do you experience then. The tiny highlights that the light of your campfire is able to put into the gloom of night and brighten up a bit of the magnificence of those peaks--not Klieg lights to bring the summit into bright illumination, just enough of non-darkness to make it clear that when the dawn comes you will be awed and overawed by what you will see.

Chinese is a relational language. It describes things not a substances like Hindu or English nouns; but with interactions between. Yang and Yin are the interaction between a big mountain and the dark valley or context that allows the mountain to be seen as a mountain. If the context of a tall mountain is deep ocean, we don't see a tall mountain, we see an island.

So the interaction of a high mountain and a tiny campfire creates Highlights or the structure of 'plussage' by MEJ jargon or those small details that can either represent vanity (Confucius' beard when he asked about his legacy) or the magic of human experience taken as intense subjective milieu.

Hope that explains better. I used the Wilhelm/Baynes name as its text is best known.

I have been distracted between being summoned to Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid's office on Health Care Reform input; and being attacked for being much too much of a Nobody to have possibly known either Marc Edmund Jones or Gia-fu Feng. Nice to have a Yi text explanation to take refuge from the Storm.

Frank

trojan said:

As discussed on this thread http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=7807

The 'free unmerited favour or beneficence of God' is your personal association to the word 'grace' but it has been argued grace is a poor translation of the title of the hexagram...see link.
we can attach to much weight to the title of 22 as 'Grace' and so be misled into linking it with notions of the Grace of God and so on.

Click to expand...

trojan said:

Whilst 21 bites through the suface to find the truth 22 stays on the surface.

Click to expand...

Hi Trojan

Thanks for the link to this thread - it was useful to have a read of this. There was quite a diverse set of opinions, some coming down on your side of the fence and others with a different take.

I can see that stepping back from a 'state of grace' can add a different perspective, and in the past I have used this view in my own readings. Seeing the superficiality of adornment and how it lights things for us, brings things to our attention, in a fleeting manner is a powerful perspective. Sort of us focusing on things that are not really core to our best interests. Yes, I can sit with that.
At the moment though I do seem to be drawn more to the beauty and elegance of things. We all have a right to sit in grace, however if we are unable to see beyond the nose on our face we will never recognise it, we lose the chance to see beyond because of our short sightedness.

You have your rucksack with you with your gear with which you light a campfire. More than any Grace, divine or Kelly you have with you, I would hope you would have a sense of awe facing the dark with the infinite Heavens above you, mountain ranges surrounding you and hardly enough with you to be sure your fire will burn as long as you need it as the tangible security that cold and things that might go bump in the night will not get you. You able to imagine that picture and situation and feeling?

OK, now you turn from staring into the flickering flames of your campfire to turn to the mountain peaks behind (no matter what way you turn--you are in a bit of a valley [archetypal Yin, the dark valley around a mountain--Wieger, S.J.] What do you experience then. The tiny highlights that the light of your campfire is able to put into the gloom of night and brighten up a bit of the magnificence of those peaks--not Klieg lights to bring the summit into bright illumination, just enough of non-darkness to make it clear that when the dawn comes you will be awed and overawed by what you will see.

Click to expand...

Hi Frank
This is a really nice picture you have painted here. I could hear someone softly playing his harmonica on the other side of the fire and a lone wolf howling at the moon. The fire light dances into the darkness and gives us brief encounters with the beauty and splendour that is to come.

Yes - I can sit with that toooooooooo.

Thanks to you both. These pictures Have helped clarify this more for me........I hope Rodaki is reading these as well.

hi everyone

been reading your new posts and taking everything in - thank you so much for keeping this thread alive and sharing your thoughts! My splitting head and a friend in need did not allow me much computer time so far but I've been doing my own digging in the 21/22 pair and I'll share it as soon as possible -for now, I have to run after bureaucracy . .

b back soon!

hmmm . . let's see if I'll be able to tame my thoughts here . .

it was great help to read all the great things already posted here . . Mike especially your 21 associations and Frank your 'cause and effect' were very illuminating . . Trojan also, this phrase also quoted by Mike brought a flash of lightning! I've done myself a bit of reading about inverse hexagrams in Bradford's books and tried to figure out how 21 and 22 act and interact . .

21: I think that by now 21 is clear enough. 21 is active, dynamic, it will undertake projects and willfully break down what stands in the way
22: I believe that 22, being the inverse, works the other way round: it does not act but it does perform . . in a way, 22 emanates like the scent of flowers, or like flowering itself.
Where 21 comes fro the exterior to break down defenses, 22's essence emerges from some inner dynamics. As Trojan put it:

Whilst 21 bites through the suface to find the truth 22 stays on the surface.

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I would even add to that that 22 exhausts itself in the surface, meaning that 22 can not go beyond its circumstances. That, still, does not mean that 22 comes from the surface and stays there. I would propose then that where 21 goes from outer to inner, 22 moves from inner to outer.

22 poses serious doubts about its quality because it rests in the 'eye of the beholder'. Beauty is too much a subjective construction, see it in people for example, it can come from a random combination of genes that provide an appearance irrespective to what lies beneath (although in passing time the inner is revealed for what it is) but it can also be a 'something' that abides not on objective criteria but rather on how one's skin is inhabited. Both cases apply to 22 and that's the question the hexagram poses, that of correspondence of outer to inner also shown in etymology

"PI : embellish, ornament, deck out, beautify; variegated (flowers); elegant, brilliant; also: energetic, passionate, eager, intrepid; capable of great effort; brave. The ideogram : cowrie shells (money) and flowers, linking ornaments and value."ERANOS p284

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So 22 might indeed need some 21 to figure out, without still being itself on par with 21's agency
The other way round, I wonder if 21 needs 22, still without being itself of 22's disposition. 21's lines are filled with warnings about keeping the posture most fitting to the goal it seeks -maybe in that way it does. Maybe the way each incorporates each other relates to their nuclei

But even if 21 and 22 include one another, I think they diverge completely especially in their 6th lines . .
in 21.6 one is incapable of distinguishing what they're looking for . . It makes me think of people digging a mountain for minerals . . That mountain looks like it hides great wealth, so here comes all the machinery and systematically, methodically they bite through the mountainous hard matter only to find an ordinary, empty cave. Nothing there, appearances lie, only they miss the paintings on the wall -nothing profitable for them but a treasure none the less: 22's field of occurrence does not coincide with 21's value or purpose

on 22.6: been reading lately a text by Massumi called "Chaos in the 'total field' of vision", where he talks about experiments done by scientists in order to uncover "the physical and physiological conditions of vision at their purest -at their simplest and at the same time their fullest" to discover the elementary nature of vision. So, they devised methods and tried to eliminate "inhomogenieties" like the nose which casts shadows or stands like a "bloblike center" (lol). What they discovered reminds a lot of 22.6 and needless to say, was of no use to them. Participants reported nothing of an objective outcome -in fact, they had trouble breaking down the experience in visual terms at all. Most reported an endless whiteness, or a foggy expanse "vaguely surface-like", an emptiness, very much like what those born blind report after the reconstitution of their sight -nothing good for analysis. The results were embarrassing. Massumi ponders on that and writes:

As experience takes off, its empirical conditions fall away. By the time the arising experience comes to ground in its empirical functioning, its remainder conditions of emergence have already flown for the cracks

Click to expand...

21 reminds me of the science of anatomy, 22 as good circulation of energy -or 21 dissecting the flower to study its biology, 22 just looking or smelling it to understand it . . somehow they are entwined in the same subject but they come from such different sides . .

p.s.: Now these are associations that come from all sides as you can see, not proper Yi studies so I'd love to find out if what i say rings any bells or has missed the mark altogether . .
Any ideas?


:bows:

trojan said:

wonder why this was moved from Exploring Divination Rodaki isn't asking for help with the reading just talking about 21 in general and her experience of it.

Click to expand...

Um, because she's sharing a reading?