This was going to be a simple post

A worried client emailed me. He'd just been organising his journal, listing all his readings, and found there were a whole lot more on one topic than he'd thought. He said he was wondering if he'd become 'a bit of a Yi-aholic.'

What's a 'Yi-aholic'? Someone addicted to readings, someone who does too many readings - but how many are 'too many', and how would you know?

I had a clear, elegant answer to this question, I thought, so I emailed it to him. Then I thought I would write it up as a blog post, and give the post more 'meat' by consulting Yi on the question too. And that - predictably - is where my nice clear, simple post started to go sideways.

My idea: readings to avoid reality

A good sign that you're doing too many readings (I wrote to my client) is that you're using them to avoid reality. That's exactly the opposite of what readings are truly for, and yet it's uncomfortably easy to do.

The classic example is the woman who doesn't want to talk to him about their relationship, and asks Yi instead. How does he feel about me? How does he feel about the other woman? And then she follows up with more readings about her hurried interpretations of the first readings, and swiftly builds a whole castle in the air of subtle relationship analysis - all without any contact with him at all, as that contact could so easily demolish the whole edifice.

But there are other ways readings can depart from reality, too. There's consultation with Yi when there's a human expert available (a doctor, a lawyer, a financial adviser) who could give a clear, definite answer that's not open to interpretation. And there are readings when you already know what to do, you just don't much want to do it, so perhaps you (by which I mean I) start asking about optimal timing or something. Like I said, this kind of avoidance is uncomfortably easy.

Yi rearranges my ideas

So after outlining the above, I thought I'd cast a reading to give me more idea of how to recognise this reality-avoidance thing.

'What does unhealthy, excessive use of readings look like?'

There aren't any explicit assumptions in that question, but there was one great big assumption behind it: that I knew what 'Yi-aholism' was, and just needed more of a picture of how it manifests.

Yi did not oblige. Instead, it gave me Hexagram 19, Nearing, with lines 1 and 2 changing to 2, Earth:

'Influence nearing.
Constancy, good fortune.'
'Influence nearing, good fortune.
Nothing that does not bear fruit.'

Hexagram 19, lines 1 and 2

Whatever else that reading is, it is not a picture of anything unhealthy or excessive. Influence - connection, rapport, being moved by the oracle - is nearing; this is good fortune; nothing does not bear fruit.

'Nothing does not bear fruit' sounds like 'there is no such thing as an unhealthy reading,' or at least not in the realm I was imagining. They're all 'influence nearing' - all connection with the oracle.

On reflection… because this reading seemed to call for some of that… perhaps this is just human nature, that we need to draw near to an understanding through readings, find a way to relate to hard stuff, before we confront the bald reality. Understanding wells up and grows in its own time, and 'arrival at the eighth month means a pitfall' - there's no benefit to inducing it prematurely.

(Is there anything at all in my idea of 'readings to avoid reality'? I'm reluctant to let it go - but perhaps I should.)

Yi's idea: readings to shoot fish

So if 'reality avoidance' isn't a good description of the problem, what is? Because I think we know there are healthier and less healthy ways to engage with the oracle; we recognise the unhealthy ways when we see them (especially in other people, naturally).

Time for another reading. The question sounds very similar, but the mindset behind it was different: realising I don't get this after all.

'How can we know when there's a problem with readings - what are the signs?'

And Yi answered this one with Hexagram 48, the Well - so often its choice to talk about itself - changing at line 2 to 39, Limping:

'In the well's depths they shoot fish.
The jug is cracked and leaking.'

Oh.

Shooting fish in the well - a reading with immediate utility, looking for an answer I can use, right now. This isn't about watering the growing crops, it's about tonight's supper. I choose my target, focus and shoot. I'll get exactly what I aimed at, if I get anything. (And incidentally, accidentally, my shooting might just crack the jug I'd need to draw water.)

Think of the other way of approaching the Well: lowering the jug until the water flows in and fills it. It could not be more different.

What are the signs of a problem with readings, then? They could be a string of readings that are nothing but 'How can I achieve x?' and 'What if I try approach y to achieving x?' Lots of readings hemmed in by assumptions that I know what I'm aiming for, and can see all the choices available. Even if I got a perfectly clear, usable answer to each reading - a fish with every arrow - I'd still have to keep on coming back again and again, for lack of any deeper understanding.

(Not avoiding reality, exactly - just remaining ignominiously unaware of all of it except for one measly fish.)

Postscript…

I'm pretty sure this reading is talking to me personally, about what misuse and overuse of the oracle looks like when I do it. (I'm trying to escape that, at the moment, by returning to weekly open readings: just asking for guidance and letting Yi set the agenda, for a change.)

I've shared this reading anyway because it's so clear and eloquent, but the answer might well be different for you. If (and only if!) you're concerned about your own reading habits, don't take my word for anything, but ask Yi instead. A more open question, like 'Please show me a picture of my consulting habits,' could be good.

This is episode 11 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, featuring another listener's reading.

Sarah asked,

"How can I better convey my authentic and true self with others?"

and Yi replied with Hexagram 45, Gathering, changing at lines 4,5 and 6 to 23, Stripping Away -

It's a deep, rich reading, profoundly reassuring.

As we were talking about 45.5 -

'Gathering together has a position.
No mistake.
No trust at all.
From the source, ever-flowing constancy.
Regrets vanish.'

Hexagram 45, line 5

- I showed Sarah this page of ancient forms of the character yong, 'perpetual, ever-flowing', which shows a human figure flowing with the river currents. The story it reminded me of was this one, from Zhuangzi.

Enjoy the reading! And if you'd like a free podcast reading yourself, you're very welcome to apply here.

This is by way of a follow-up to my 'Dispersing Nourishment' reading. I thought I'd share as it's another reading that shows how Yi helps with the small stuff, and on multiple levels. Besides, I appreciate the eloquence of the trigrams in this one.

Background, reading…

My joints ache - not a lot, but more than they used to, especially in the mornings, and especially over the past year. I know the basics I need to do about this (move more, eat more turmeric and less sugar, lose weight), so this reading wasn't about that. Instead, I was thinking about the symbolism of this, with its 'no, you're not free to move' message.

So my question was,

'How to change this? Not so much what to do, as how to be? What inner change will help?'

Yi answered with Hexagram 60, Measuring, changing at line 2 to Hexagram 3, Sprouting.

The central idea of jie, Measuring, is the way bamboo divides itself into regular sections. And Sprouting is associated with the new seedling breaking through the soil. So with the two together (my usual first step of looking at the primary-relating framework), I can imagine the bamboo growing, sprouting again from the root. New stems, new joints - time for some new measures?

Out of the gate

There's plenty more to be said about those two hexagrams, of course, but I mostly wanted to share this reading for its very apt moving line:

‘Not going out of the gate from the courtyard.
Pitfall.’

Hexagram 60, line 2

That one got a wry smile - it's far too literal for comfort. Yi wasn't really accepting the tidy inner/outer distinction I'd tried to make with my question. The Dispersing flood of pandemic-related changes (no shopping, no orchestras, and volunteering confined to Zoom) meant I'd barely been outside our front gate in over a year.

Inner and outer, lake and stream

I adopted 'out of the gate' as a guiding inner principle - learning new 'cello pieces, reading different books, studying new things. That’s all good, but it's surprised me how big a difference it makes literally to head out of the gate, get on the bike and creak and rattle away.

On another level, I feel this reading's talking about free circulation between those inner and outer worlds I'd attempted to separate with my question. After all, the inner and outer trigrams of Hexagram 60 are both made of water, which means it doesn't divide neatly into two separate realms in the same way as - for instance - 38 (fire above the lake) or 41 (mountain above the lake): it's one continuous substance.

I think the Image authors were picturing a flow from inner reserves (of de, character) out into action -

'Above the lake is the stream. Measuring.
A noble one crafts number and measure,
Reflecting on character in action.'

My moving line is just at the water-surface of that inner lake: filling up, ready to flow (through the gate!) into the outer stream. And as it changes, it reveals the thunder trigram behind it in Hexagram 3: lake with latent thunder, lake in motion, with a need to move. Water in the lake may be still and contained, but it still remembers how to flow.

(This is the kind of trigram imagery I enjoy - animation, relationships, meanings changing with each new combination - and teach in the Foundations Class. If you've ever found trigrams and their long lists of attributes a bit dry, I can recommend it.)

And finally…

When I came back to this reading, I realised it was a sequel to my 59-27 from the beginning of the pandemic. Not only is 60 the paired hexagram of 59 -

but 60.2 is the paired line of 59.5:

Open up all your granaries, yes, and all your stores of knowledge and/or lentils - but opening doesn't stop there.

I Ching Community discussion

This is an embarrassingly 'first world problems' kind of reading, but happily Yi doesn't judge - and it was tremendously helpful at the time, so I thought it would be a good one to share.

The background

How were things for you in March 2020? Round here, they were just getting weirpd, and my husband had become too worried about infection for either of us to enter any shop at all, not even the amazing little farm shop where I normally bought fresh vegetables.

This might not have bothered me had supermarket deliveries been available, but they were at capacity providing for the very elderly and vulnerable. Somehow I had to put food on the table - and preferably without creating any more stress.

It seems ridiculous with hindsight, but at the time I was really worried about this. Suddenly my tried-and-trusted, familiar ways of doing things were gone, and I genuinely had no idea how I was going to get hold of things like vegetables, or fresh milk.

Hence the anxious question: 'How can I manage this?'

Yi's answer: Hexagram 59, changing at lines 1, 2 and 5 to 27

Primary and relating hexagram

When a reading has moving lines, I always like to start by getting a feel for how its two hexagrams work together. I find this sets the scene and context for the whole reading. In Yijing Foundations, I compare it to a tent frame: it lends structure to the whole and shows you where everything goes. Also, reading the two hexagram names together can give you a very useful, memorable summary of the reading.

How to cope with this? Dispersing Nourishment. One of the first things I wrote in my journal was 'Disperse your hunger.' (I do enjoy my food!)

59, Dispersing, was obviously what had happened to my weekly routine: I'd cycle to the farm shop on Friday mornings, and the supermarket on Friday afternoons after volunteering. This kept us in fresh food, and had the added benefit of giving me some much-needed exercise, as I creaked and rattled my way along with panniers full of shopping. Now all that had been swept away down the river.

From my journal:

´Dispersing, creating success.
With the king´s presence, there is a temple.
Fruitful to cross the great river,
Constancy bears fruit.´

My habits need to go downstream. I need to stop trying to hang on to my usual sources of nutrition and my usual enjoyment of food. Release it, let it dissolve and evaporate.

…Dispersed Nourishment. Where do I find that sense of being supported and nourished by the world when I can´t have fresh food from the shops? Disperse, look for it elsewhere, from more diverse sources. The garden, the woods, the ´cello, Yi.

Yes, this is why I find it so distressing. I´m not going to be lacking calories, but I´m going to miss out on the frying pan full of orange, green and purple which tells me my health is supported, the earth loves me, I belong. Vegetables from Worton have been a key way I get that input. This is the 27 hunger at work.

(Journal entry, March 2020)

In other words, 27 as relating was comically-obviously about food, but it wasn't just about food - it's the need for balance and stability in 27, and all kinds of nourishment.

Moving lines

Then inside that framework, the moving lines…

'Rescuing with a horse's strength,
Good fortune.'

'Dispersing, flee to your support.
Regrets vanish.'

'Dispersing sweat, his great proclamation.
Dispersing the king's residence / granaries
No mistake.'

Hexagram 59, lines 1, 2 and 5

Line 5 was the first one I could recognise clearly:

ROFL!
Actually literally laughing out loud at that. Getting to the bottom of the king´s freezer & using up the venison stewing steak that´s been there since 2016 (or 15).

(It was 2015. Emptying our freezer was an archaeological expedition.)

Then I began to realise that all three lines were - amongst other things - step-by-step, calming guidance to keeping us fed.

'Rescuing with a horse's strength,
Good fortune.'

59, line 1

Deliveries! Supermarkets didn't, but the local butcher did, and after a week or two I found a small local firm that would do milk and vegetables. Having carrots, no less, arriving on our doorstep really did feel like a visit from a rescuing horse.

'Dispersing, flee to your support.
Regrets vanish.'

59, line 2

I realised this meant finding other ways to get in touch with my sense of nature-as-support - but I only learned gradually how many there were.

The day after the reading, I cycled up the road to see if eggs were still on sale at the farm gate. (They were!) And on the way, by someone's front gate, I spotted a cardboard box - like people use in autumn to share their windfall apples. This one was full of sprigs of sage:

What a delight. From the journal:

Sage. As in 'Cur moriatur homo, cui salvia crescit in horto?' and as in smudging, and the best tea for throat infections. Magical.

I took a sprig, with profound gratitude. After a day or so, I thought to put it in water, in the hopes it might last longer that way.

I also headed out into our garden, which contained exactly no useful vegetables, but in those early spring days did have…

• nettles
• ground elder
• yellow archangel
• cleavers
• willowherb
• primroses, violets, violet leaves, hawthorn buds, the first shoots of marjoram and the occasional dandelion to make salad.

…all of which were perfectly edible. Heading into the garden for a morning forage became a new routine. And I found that the ancient puy lentils lurking in the back of the pantry would still sprout.

As for

'Dispersing sweat, his great proclamation.
Dispersing the king's residence/ granaries
No mistake.'

59 line 5

I excavated all the way to the bottom of the freezer, which turned out to contain enough meat and fish to keep us going for at least a week, supplemented by some beans and rice from the depths of the pantry.

After ten days or so, the rescuing horses arrived with fresh food - and if I'd had the sense to take the lines in order, I might have arranged that rather sooner. But in any case, all was well.

In conclusion…

After the moving lines, I naturally circled back to the primary-relating framework - something I normally do, as it often looks different. It did this time.

From the journal:

The difference now: I feel absolutely provided for; no need to go hungry at all. Dispersing/ scattering the appetites = disperse among all the options, broaden your focus. We are sitting in the middle of plenty, even this early in the year.

Things I learned…

Dispersed nourishment comes from everywhere, and is all the more robust for that. Instead of feeding us with a settled routine, I found myself drawing on all sorts of odd bit of knowledge I'd picked up over the years: how to sprout seeds, how to forage, how to cook dried beans, how to make kefir.

There's more support in line 2 than you knew, if you only take a step back and See. (59.2 zhi 20.)

A whole new appreciation for supermarkets! (I'm back to them now, post-vaccination).

And… when you put a sage sprig in water, it grows roots. You can pot it on and plant it out, and then look what happens…

I Ching Community discussion

Introducing the 缶 fou jar

Here's another character that occurs just three times in the Yijing: fou 缶. This is a vessel for holding liquids, something like an amphora, with a narrow neck and large body.

It's originally a pottery jar - that's the first meaning of the character - but was also made in bronze. And from early times, according to Wikipedia, it was also a percussion instrument used in ritual.

There are three of these jars in the Yijing (the italicised word in each line):

'With truth and confidence, seeking union,
No mistake.
With truth and confidence to overflow the vessel
An end comes - further good fortune.'

Hexagram 8, line 1

'A cup of wine, a pair of dishes,
Using earthenware.
Let in with ropes from the window.
In the end, no mistake.'

Hexagram 29, line 4

‘In the clear light of the setting sun,
If not beating a pot and singing,
Then you will be making the lament of great old age.
Pitfall.’

Hexagram 30, line 3

8.1

'With truth and confidence, seeking union,
No mistake.
With truth and confidence to overflow the vessel
An end comes - further good fortune.'

The 'overflowing vessel' is 盈缶, ying fou. Ying itself shows an open bowl with something above it, maybe 'success'; it means full, surplus, satisfy. So here is a wine jar full of truth: all the truth concentrated and stored up in one place, like the energetic growing centre of the zhi gua, Hexagram 3.

In vino veritas, perhaps - or just an exceptionally beautiful image of the overflowing mutual confidence at the root of our desire to be together and sense of belonging. Start as you mean to go on, and it'll end well.

29.4

'A cup of wine, a pair of dishes,
Using earthenware.
Let in with ropes from the window.
In the end, no mistake.'

The fou here is translated 'earthenware' - translators generally agree on this. I wonder, though, whether it might not work better to pass wine in through the window in a fou, with its handles and narrow neck, and then pour it out into the wine-cup. It'd be hard to pass a zun cup without spilling the wine it contained.

So fou here means simplicity - just earthenware will do the job, no need for anything ornate - and perhaps also practicality, handling liquids. (After all, Hexagram 29 is made of the doubled trigram for running water.) How do you get the wine in through the window? 'On its way' or 'available' is not the same thing as safely arrived - this much is clear from other, connected lines (47.4, 48.3). There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.

An aside: I think this line may be riffing on the shape of the hexagram. There's an open 'window' of yin lines 3 and 4 with a 'window frame' of yang lines 2 and 5 - and these four inner lines unfurl into the nuclear hexagram 27, Nourishment.

30.3

‘In the clear light of the setting sun,
If not beating a pot and singing,
Then you will be making the lament of great old age.
Pitfall.’

Here the fou is the pot to beat on while you sing. A fou has two distinct uses: it can be full of liquid, or it can be empty and used as a drum. And 30.3 is a very empty line: not much daylight left, not much time left, and also not much human companionship. When you reach a 'great old age', most of the people you know are dead - that’s true enough now, but the experience must have been more marked in a smaller community.

So if you have no-one to drink with, empty out the wine jar and make a drum of it. And since the fou is a percussion instrument for use in ritual, this isn't just about making a cheerful cacophony with the saucepans, but honouring the spirits of the deceased. The music of your fou drum may 'bite through' (zhi gua 21) the obstacle that separates you.

Conclusions?

Is this a deliberately significant group of three, or just coincidence? I think there are signs it's deliberate. For one thing, the two states of this jar, full and empty, correspond to the trigrams of the three hexagrams: a full jar has liquid contained within earthenware :|: ; an empty one contains space within its solid walls |:| .

Also, the three lines share and develop a theme. In 8.1, the jar brim-full of trust is the very beginning of 'Seeking Union' - of people belonging together. In 29.4, the jar let in through the window is part of making a connection, overcoming the isolation of the zhi gua 47. And 30.3 can be about overcoming loneliness. Wine vessel or drum, the fou is about deep connection.

I Ching Community discussion

Episode 10 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast features a listener's reading.

Lynn Keller's book, Thanksgiving in America, is just coming out; she asked Yi what her focus should be now with the book, and received Hexagram 33, Retreating, changing at lines 3 and 4 to 20, Seeing.

In the course of the reading I mention a few Chinese characters:

遯 dun, Retreat. I couldn't find an image of the ancient character online, but LiSe shows us the components.

觀 guan, Seeing - the bird with great eyes and a crest, a heron:

and 好 hao, 'loving, good' (from 33.4), showing a mother and child:

As I mentioned on the podcast, the Yijing Foundations Class is coming up in September. Do have a look through the details at https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/c/yijing-foundations-class/, and if you're interested, sign up for more information.