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Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

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36		24

Hexagram 36, Brightness Hidden

Key Questions

When no one is looking, who are you?
How do you safeguard that light?

Oracle

'Brightness hidden.
Constancy in hardship bears fruit.'

In the last days of the Shang dynasty as it fell into corruption, Prince Ji was one of the very few virtuous men remaining at court. Remonstrating with the ruler would invite brutal retributions; to flee would be a shameful desertion.

The story goes that once, the king and his entourage were so drunk they literally didn't know what day it was. Messengers were sent to ask Ji. Rather than reveal himself as the only one who knew, he feigned drunkenness and madness. In this way he was able to survive through the last days of Shang without compromising his principles by cooperating with the regime.

'Brightness Hidden' also means 'Brightness Wounded'. Since others do not share your standards or insight, it would be dangerous to let the light of your character shine out freely. Perhaps you have been injured; perhaps you fear injury. Yet you cannot, or will not, leave the situation in search of a stronger position. Instead, you stay true to the light and keep it burning in these hard times by hiding it away.

Image

'Brightness enters the earth's centre: Brightness Hidden.
A noble one, overseeing the crowds, uses darkness and light.'

Sequence

Brightness Hidden follows from Hexagram 35, Advancing.
'Advancing necessarily has occasion for injury, and so Brightness Hidden follows; Brightness Hidden means injury.'

Changing Lines

Hexagram 24, Returning

Key Questions

What is just beginning to germinate?
How can you follow your sense of direction more closely?
Where might the path lead now?

Oracle

'Returning, creating success.
Going out, coming in, without anxiety.
Partners come, not a mistake.
Turning around and returning on your path.
The seventh day comes, you return.
Fruitful to have a direction to go.'

Your journey leads you out and home again, through the turning points on your way. Vigour and authenticity return in the still moments of those turning points; life regenerates from the roots, and light returns.

By walking constantly to and from your source, you participate in a two-way flow of creation You go out and rediscover your own way; you return through an open door to your home and relationships. This is a living motion, like breathing, that revitalizes and restores. Relaxed and spacious, it allows time for the path's natural meanderings, never creating resistance.

Since you are in motion, helpers of all kinds come – travelling companions who walk alongside you for a while. (If someone is meant to be with you, you will never need to leave your path to chase after them.) Just as any road can be travelled in two directions, your path also leads both out and back again, and so – in the fullness of time and following a natural progression – there comes a moment to turn round.

Through all this going and coming and starting afresh, it is good to have an overarching direction and purpose to guide you. The quality of Returning is alive, growing and dynamic – a good time to rediscover your own deepest intent and its harmony with the Dao.

Image

'Thunder dwelling in the centre of the earth: Returning.
The ancient kings closed the borders at winter solstice.
Itinerant merchants did not travel,
The prince did not tour the regions.'

Sequence

Returning follows from Hexagram 23, Stripping Away:
'Things cannot be completely used up. Stripping Away comes to an end on the outside, and there is turnaround on the inside, and so Returning follows.'

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