It occurs to me that back in an agrarian society, every ordinary activity would have its ritual place in the bigger scheme of things. Ploughing, sowing, harvesting, storing and ripening – these things have so much latent meaning that we still use them as part of our daily language even now. (Projects ‘break new ground’, ideas ‘bear fruit’, and so on.) And at each stage you would know the names of the particular gods and spirits who participated in what you were doing. In other words, you knew what your activities meant.
Now… what is the god or spirit of setting up email filters, or redesigning a website, or installing a new program? I spend most of my waking hours working in this virtual world, and I felt the need to bring some ‘ritual significance’ to my daily activities.
So I thought of a new question to ask Yi – no, actually, I simply rephrased a very old question to ask Yi. ‘What is the ritual of doing this?’ Or, ‘What is its sacred significance?’
I asked this first about a project that’s taken much of my time and energy lately – moving the I Ching Community over to new and better software, and integrating it with some more general-purpose membership software at the same time. In practice this means time spent fiddling with templates, forging through thickets of menu options searching for the one I need, technical messages to forums, entreaties to helpdesks, and really nothing anyone else would ever want to hear about…
So what is the ritual, the sacred significance, of changing forum software?
Yi says it’s Hexagram 5, Waiting, changing to Hexagram 11, Flowing.
To Wait for – or on – something is to prepare for it, to invite it into being with activity and faith. The new software is Waiting for the renewed Flow of communication and creativity, and so am I. I’m preparing the ground for people to move in, inviting the ‘rain’ of participation (and purchases). I’m preparing food and drink (new features, new downloads for members) and laying them out, and also relishing them myself.
What I love about this answer, though, is how directly it responds to the thoughts behind my question. In the ideogram for Hexagram 5, someone is dancing under the falling rain. I’m not just editing templates and setting file permissions, I’m performing a rain dance.
Dear Hilary,
I think “Waiting” here means you should postpone your software changes and take a little break, like going on a date with your husband, or whoever.
It is a propitious line to be sure. Then whatever obstacle there is will clear up in the meantime.
When I got that one I thought it meant my 30th high school reunion in August ’06 but unfortunately the Peace hasn’t yet arrived.
John
Waiting on , wait for, and attending to(o)?
But what I want to know is whether it was necessary to drown anyone in the sacrificial pit? And does one let the blood of an Ox in this situation?
My ritual often involves posting incesantly to help forums (ancestors)… the blood is that of my self bitten tongue and the techies are often driven to cutting their own ears off when I take them cyberhostage during the campaign.
And how many more times do i need to close the borders to View the cyberland anew (ritual crashes)?
Yours sincerely
Cyber Wen
Greetings.
i think that yee might b communicating that
One should wait for some other event to fall in place
or the individual has not spent time enough in the begining
or
the individual has to dissociate for a short while and collect newer thoughts on the subject
or timing of the event per se is not ripe.
looking for more enlightening views.
may all b blessed with GGF 4 ever
thanks
subramani
This is very interesting. I wasn’t asking the oracle what I should do; I was asking it about the significance of what I’d already undertaken – and as such, the reading made a huge amount of sense, with that feeling of something that’s so right it’s funny. Yet here are two people telling me the response was advising me to wait – and considering how much hassle was involved in the changeover, and how little time I had for it, I couldn’t say you’re wrong.
Xu means most of all ‘waiting for what you need’, or simply ‘needing’. It does not necessarily always tell you to wait.
It is a time though in which you have little say in the results, that is indeed what you have to await. So doing a little dance for the spirits is a great idea. It works a lot better than only doing all the grunt work.
Relaxing, having fun, and enjoying whatever presents itself. Not thinking too much of all the problems, but trusting the same spirits, that they will listen to your dance and give you a nice outcome.
“Staying in 11 and getting things done”, it could be a bestseller. From Yi, the ‘personal productivity guru for those who don’t like stress’
Guess what I have been reading…
LiSe
Content to play, gathering in pools, soon to be a river.
For the lines I have:
1. Abide
2. Fear
3. Bog
4. Danger
5. Refresh
6. Open
Looks like this is a time to refresh. 🙂
Good one!
It turned out there was something to be said for getting this done while I was in ‘midstream’ with more important stuff. It made what would otherwise have driven me quite mad almost relaxing.
Whenever I receive five I also look right
over and see 6 and I know that I am asking
the wrong question.
So I also look at five as my not looking at
the spirit of the time.
Nelson