 Clarity's I Ching Newsletter: Issue 49 "There is no good reason at all why today should bear even the slightest resemblance to yesterday. If you had no expectations, anything could happen." My own notes to Hexagram 4, line 2 |
™Letter from the Editor— Dear Subscriber, Well, the year is turning, and I'm just about to let the business 'hibernate' for a couple of weeks while I spend some time with the family. I'll close down on the 20th, and re-open on January 5th. In case you missed the email I sent out a few days ago, there's a page of I Ching gift ideas for you at the website. I've just completed and added to it a small Christmas gift for you: an ebook anthology from the newsletter over the last year, containing 11 'hexagram of the month' articles (including LiSe's on 31-32), and 10 subscribers' readings. While you download, do have a look at the I Ching calendar, which has so far proved the most popular item on the page. Have a wonderful holiday, and a very Happy New Year! Warm wishes, Hilary "Hi, Hilary: Jack" ™DIY Corner: Is it all right to ask about...— Over the years as an I Ching diviner, I've had the great privilege to encounter people for whom contact with this oracle has meant renewed connection to God, and even the discovery of a spiritual dimension. I've also talked with the I Ching, whether for myself or for others, about business decisions, computer malfunctions, and the rival merits of various second-hand cars. This is a seriously disconcerting aspect of divination. The same hexagram and line might describe life-changing marital discord, or 'Error 405, Method Not Allowed' - just as truthfully, just as helpfully. But do we deserve truthful answers about cars and computers? Many would say that we don't - and we deceive ourselves when we imagine such answers to mean anything at all. I would agree that we don't deserve meaningful answers - but I don't think that the question of our 'deserts' has anything to do with it. By this I don't mean that truth is automatically dispensed as if from some cosmic slot-machine. There is no manufacturer's guarantee here, or none within our comprehension. But nor are there limits. I think that the condemnation of trivial questions is born from a number of false ideas. Firstly, that spirituality belongs in its own box, where certain aspects of life may not enter. And then that we should feel guilty for 'wasting the oracle's time' - as if it had limited processing power, or there were some universal shortage of truth. Or that we are letting ourselves down by engaging with the ordinary stuff of existence at all. (As if there were nothing to learn from the small things!) Over the past few days, advice from the oracle has been instrumental in curing my computer's habit of freezing up totally at creatively-selected moments. More on this online...
™Hexagram of the month: 49, Radical Change ˜ The revolution in hexagram 49 has deep roots. In hexagram 47, you experience Oppression, and turn inward to reconnect with the Well. And drinking from the unchanging source creates the imperative for change in the outer world. 'The way of the Well does not allow not changing radically.' Change is essential, to make the forms and patterns of life into a better Vessel. As Jack Balkin puts it, 'You must change your life in order to make it cohere with who you are now.' 'Radical change: putting away the past.
The Vessel, Hexagram 50, securely encloses a sacred space where the energies of life can blend, interact and create new substance. Such renewal is not possible unless the old patterns of reaction have first been completely eradicated. Before renewal, revolution. The authors of the I Ching knew this truth through a historical example: the Zhou people's conquest of the decadent Shang dynasty. This would have been unthinkably Radical Change, to overthrow a dynasty whose power had been guaranteed by Heaven for far longer than living memory. But the revolution showed that Heaven's mandate could change. The power to rule had left one dynasty and moved to another, like a snake changing its skin. This is the key Change of the I Ching - sudden, total, leaving no familiar 'handles' to grasp - the kind we attempt to map out and understand through divination. In divination, Radical Change means very much what it says: the complete overthrow of old ways of understanding and ordering life. The Judgement says that there is truth and presence on Si day, the day of the snake: it is a time to shed your old identity, to try on new ways of being and of relating to others. The old character for Radical Change shows an animal skin: an identity and power the shaman could put on with the skin. The new power can come from the new skin, or it might demand one: you cannot pour new wine into old vessels. The trigrams, fire in the lake, show the same idea in elemental form, 'changing inner awareness that melts away obsolete outer form.' (Karcher, Total I Ching) The new clarity of vision has to find expression; fire shines through the water, like the naked intelligence in the eyes animating the mask. Tradition tells that water and fire stand in opposition here, 'mutually suspended' - holding one another in check. The same two trigrams in Hexagram 38, Opposition, pull away from one another; here, they are on collision course. A clash of objectives - unlike diverging visions - has to mean radical change. In practice, the key issue in revolution is one of timing: charting the dynamics of the momentary equilibrium, finding the moment when it can or should be broken. What is 'your own day', when there will be truth and confidence? The Image describes the work of finding the right moment: 'At the centre of the lake is fire. Radical change.
Wu Jing Nuan introduced me to the idea that this is about astrology. It's one thing to rely on one's intuition to know when to sow and reap, but what if the flowers are late or the birds sing early? The stars are a more constant, objective way to know the time. Long term, repeated patterns and objective analysis create greater security than just trusting your perceptions and intuitions, moment to moment. Such understanding allowed the authors of the Commentary on the Judgement to fit unthinkable change into a greater scheme of things: 'Heaven and earth undergo Radical Change and the four seasons are accomplished.
Wu founded the Zhou dynasty; Tang had founded the Shang. The chaos, upheaval and bloodshed were part of the natural order, though on a huge scale: seasons that might take many centuries to turn, but still seasons. This may be the kind of understanding we look for when we divine - a sense of perspective, of over-arching stories that relativise our own traumas. We contain the changes within narrative and ritual - but can we be sure, even then? The core of Radical Change (its nuclear hexagram) is Hexagram 44, Coupling: the arrival of a new force with the power to overturn the old order. It shows the inner possibility that with Radical Change, you may be unleashing powers of change that you never intended or predicted.
Well, actually just a couple, as I haven't had time to dig up anything original for you. You can browse the latest I Ching Community posts here - and don't miss the Wisdom of the I Ching pdf: a complete commentary by Eyler Robert Coates, once available in its entirety online, now very kindly retrieved, compiled and formatted by a generous forum member. I provide personal I Ching readings from £25.
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