Dear {FIRSTNAME Subscriber},
As you may know if you've visited the I Ching Community lately, my father died last month. This was utterly sudden and unexpected, and Mum and I are both quite stunned. So while I helped her and tried to accept this new world myself, you wonderful people have been sending messages of sympathy and patiently waiting for me to be ready to resume the readings I was doing for you, or to start helping with your course assignments again. And though most of you probably didn't know the reason why you didn't receive the promised newsletter two weeks ago, not one person wrote to complain! Now I'm getting back on track to some extent, I'd like to say thank you for all the patience and quiet understanding you've shown.

I'm afraid this newsletter may still lack variety, and in particular it's missing the 'subscriber's reading'. I know I owe someone one, but many of the requests for readings I received have got quite old by now - and some situations are bound to have moved on. If you wrote before, please do send me an update, or just a reminder.

Meanwhile I do have a 'hexagram of the month' for you - the first time I've tried this idea, so let me know what you think of it - and a couple of intriguing questions from Marcos for 'DIY corner'. I hope you'll write in with comments and suggestions for future issues: I could really use some reviews and letters!

With warm wishes and many thanks,
Hilary

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™DIY Corner: more from the Learner—

Thanks again to Marcos for this excellent series of questions, continued from Issue 23.

To recap - Marcos asked the I Ching what was his optimum role as traveller or pilgrim, and received Hexagram 4, the Learner, changing to Hexagram 57, Subtle Penetration or Wind. In the last issue I tackled just two of his many questions about this answer - so here are a couple more.

"Apart from 'danger', what other attribute has the trigram Kan?
I can relate to the attributes of all the trigrams except that of Kan. For example I can envisage 'Clarity within, strength without'. I can also understand 'danger without'. However 'danger within' is still incomprehensible to me. Can you help? Are there other expressions for the attributes of this trigram? I can appreciate the imagery of those hexagrams that have Kan as a lower trigram when Kan is 'water', but the image of 'danger' remains, like water, beyond my grasp."

You've pinpointed the source of the problem, I think - regarding Kan as meaning nothing but 'danger' doesn't always make sense. Kan is water in movement, the essence finding its shape through action. It is danger, but it's also the human response to it: fear, commitment, and the courage needed to take risks. Stephen Karcher actually gives the character usually translated 'danger' as 'venturing': something you do (or maybe as an inner trigram, part of who you are), not just something you encounter.

The oldest sources we have for the meanings of the trigrams are the hexagrams where they appear doubled: Hexagram 29 is Xi Kan, Repeated Gorge (and the only repeated-trigram hexagram to mention repetition in its title). Its Judgement speaks of 'holding the heart fast, creating success', and of honour through action.

Hexagram 29 is defined in contrast to Hexagram 30, which is Li, fire and warmth. Kan is below; Li is above. Li is light, consciousness and culture, and the experience of being upheld by a community - so we can imagine Kan as solitude, darkness, the unconscious and unknown. It's very apt that this should be the trigram you find hard to grasp!

As the inner self of the young learner, Kan suggests someone inwardly fluid, still malleable, with as many life courses open to them as a new stream. Many actions and decisions will have to be 'leaps of faith'. Perhaps this brings a sense not so much of 'inner danger' as of inner unease or changeability: flowing like water, you only discover your own essential identity through the risks that shape it.

"What's inside?
In terms of helping the understanding of this hexagram, what is the contribution of the nuclear hexagram (Hexagram 24, Fu, Return)? And that of the nuclear's nuclear (Hexagram 2, Kun, Earth)?"

A quick primer for real beginners:
The nuclear hexagram is found in the inner lines of a hexagram. If you think of the original hexagram's lines as numbered 123,456 from the bottom up, then the nuclear hexagram is formed from the lines 234,345.

And so the nuclear hexagram of Hexagram 4...
...is Hexagram 24...
...and its nuclear hexagram is Hexagram 2 -

There's more than one way of benefitting from nuclear hexagrams in a reading, but I like to think of them as a core possibility. They're like a kernel at the heart of the hexagram that might yet unfurl and become manifest through the situation it describes. So the process of learning, and the experience of being ignorant, could lead to Returning.

Hexagram 24 describes a relaxed, natural movement back to your own path, and the cyclic return of vitality. It seems only natural that Learning should carry in it the opportunity to rediscover yourself. This in turn contains the kernel of Earth, the open field of possibility where returning energy can grow and flourish. Again, it seems natural that we should glimpse this as the foundation and ultimate goal for the process of Learning.

It's also interesting to see how this nuclear hexagram applies directly to the situation you were asking about. I simply can't resist a quotation:

'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

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™Hexagram of the month: 54, the Marrying Maiden—

'The maiden marries: setting forth to bring order - pitfall.
No harvest in having a direction to go.'

The Judgement of Hexagram 54 seems pervaded by a sense of helplessness. There is nothing to be gained by knowing the goals you seek - and actually setting out to create the life you envisage is a trap. So how is this connected with marriage?

When a woman married in ancient China, she would be accompanied to her husband's house by her young sisters and female cousins. They became 'second wives' - with the duties of a wife, but without the status. The marrying maiden here is one of these second wives. Her life is suddenly, utterly changed, and the change is altogether beyond her control. The marriage wasn't arranged with her in mind; she will have to find a way to fit into the new household, as she surely won't have any direct influence on the way it works.

In practice, men and women alike who receive this hexagram find themselves drawn through changes that are quite beyond their control. Perhaps they feel dwarfed by the powers surrounding them, or 'out of the loop'. When a woman receives this hexagram in response to a relationship question, I've learned to ask her whether the man isn't already involved with someone else. Very often, he is - and the poor 'second woman' explains that she never wanted to fall in love with him...

I've chosen this hexagram this month because I received it myself when I asked for help and guidance in coping with Dad's death. After a while, I started to understand how I felt through the marrying maiden's sense of insecurity. I was being catapulted one stage further into adulthood by a change I certainly hadn't asked for. Like the second wife, I was finding that the ground couldn't be guaranteed to stay firm and solid under my feet.

However, this hexagram is not just the story of any second wife. The fifth line reads:

'The Emperor Yi marries off the maiden
The first wife's sleeves were not so beautiful as the junior wife's sleeves.
The moon almost full.
Good fortune.'

Receiving Hexagram 54 often reflects a very insecure, frustrating situation. But although this is change you didn't ask for and can't control, it could still be bringing you something of value. 'Marriage' can also mean finding your own place and fulfilling your destiny. The moving lines will show where you find yourself in this new situation: if line 5 is among them, then great things can grow from here.

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™Links to explore—