As I said in my last podcast, some readings are simply gifts. That one was like seeing your reflection in a clear pool and knowing all is well. There’s immediate recognition: not only recognising yourself in the answer, but feeling recognised – and affirmed, and comforted – by the oracle.
All kinds of readings can be like this: you ask ‘What if I…?’ or ‘How can I…?’ and the response reflects back what you half-knew already, brings it into the light of full awareness, makes it wholly visible. We feel renewed, empowered, more awake.
This doesn’t only apply to ‘positive’ readings. A conversation I’ve had with many querents goes something like this:
“I have these plans to do this thing, and I really think I should. What if I do the thing?”
“Er. Well. Of course you could do it, but judging from this reading, it would be a bit like diving headfirst into a bottomless pit.”
“Oh, good, that’s a relief. I didn’t really want to do it; I just thought I should.”
But… there are also some readings that are not like any of that. Not warnings, not ‘Oh yes, I was afraid you might say that’ readings, but readings that are a bit like running headlong into a wall. You don’t recognise yourself or your situation in the answer; you don’t feel seen. You can almost feel ignored. (Someone even said it felt like gaslighting.) If and when you do manage some recognition, the experience is… not comforting.
I’ve experienced several of these readings lately. Some are mine, and some are other people’s – people I read for, and that’s almost worse, because at least if it’s my own reading, I can put it away and say I’ll come back to it ‘later’. (Hm. I should probably put appointments in the calendar for my own readings, too.) What all our situations have in common is that we were asking about a painful situation, trying our best to understand it in a way we can live with.
I think this is strangely important for us humans: when we’re hurt, we feel better if we can explain it. We tell the story, and without changing anything about the situation at all, we can cope. We actually use the oracle for this quite a lot, asking what happened, why did it happen, why did they do that?
Which is all fine, until the story Yi tells us is not the one we’ve been telling ourselves.
So… I asked Yi about these readings – the challenges, the ones that feel like hitting a wall. It answered with Hexagram 26, Great Tending, changing at lines 1 and 2 to 52, Stilling:
‘Tending’ is originally the work of rearing and nurturing livestock: guarding them, leading them to pasture, gentling them, building up great sleek, placid herds.
‘Great taming,
Constancy bears fruit.
Not eating at home, good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.’
‘Not eating at home’ may imply going to work at the court, or simply that your fine bullocks are good enough to offer to the ancestral spirits, not just for family dinner. The overall idea is of becoming more resourceful and hence of greater service: this is a good hexagram for self-cultivation.
So in this reading… it suggests that these unwelcome, challenging readings are not your everyday questions. There is something big to learn here, something that requires a move across the river and out of the comfort zone.
(On the one hand, Hexagram 26, with its trigram picture of heaven contained under the mountain, looks like ‘getting on top of things’, developing mastery. On the other hand, its nuclear hexagram is 54, the Marrying Maiden: at its heart is the experience of not being in control at all. Welcome to your exciting new ‘learning experience’. Oh, is this not what you ordered? Too bad.)
The relating hexagram is 52, Stilling: the hexagram made of two mountain trigrams, above and below. As I was saying, these readings are like running into a wall – or a mountain. Hexagram 52 means stopping.
It follows from 51, Shock: storm, earthquake, panic, upheaval. ‘Shock begins, Stilling stops’ says the Zagua, the Contrast, and the Sequence makes it plain: ‘Things cannot end with stirring up; stop them. And so Stilling follows, which means stopping.’
There is no thinking about this kind of experience without being Shaken: earthquakes in the outer world, as often as not, and inner tremors. And, it seems to me, our response often only perpetuates the shaking. We mentally rehearse the shock: we tell and retell the story, revisit its emotions, develop theories about people’s behaviour, have lots of imaginary conversations…
Hexagram 52 puts a stop to all of this. Yi won’t join in.
‘Stilling your back,
Not grasping your self.
Moving in your rooms,
Not seeing your people.
Not a mistake.’
This hexagram is all about what doesn’t happen. There is no ‘coming to grips’ with anything, no communicating, probably not even understanding: just stopping. This is not a mistake.
‘Joined mountains. Stilling.
A noble one reflects, and does not come forth from his situation.’
That gives me pause. Reflecting on the situation is all too easy, especially at 3 in the morning. Reflecting and ‘not coming forth’, though? That would mean no re-telling the story (escaping into the past) and no what-iffery (escaping into the future), but only being in the present moment. Not so easy.
Joining these two hexagrams, showing how Great Tending is Stilled, are the first two lines of Hexagram 26:
‘There is danger.
Fruitful to stop it.’
‘The cart’s axle straps come loose.’
Well… it’s not hard to see Hexagram 52 at work. It’s fruitful to stop – and also, the wheels just fell off.
‘There is danger.
Fruitful to stop it.’
I’ve written and talked about this line before. (Change Circle members can download a transcript of the podcast episode.) It reminds me somewhat of the first lines of Hexagram 50, the Vessel, or 14, Great Possession: lines that show the importance of having a clean, clear beginning to something potentially great and powerful. Before you start Tending and building up your energy and resources, make sure that whatever you are building up is not going to make everything worse.
This line changes to Hexagram 18, Corruption, showing the nature of the danger: dark, diseased, a negative pattern that creates and perpetuates disastrous outcomes. In this reading, that danger is found in our existing patterns of thought. Corrupt beliefs, perhaps, or corrupt habitual responses, that are starting to feel natural. Fruitful to stop it.
‘The cart’s axle straps come loose.’
Taut, resilient leather axle straps under your cart mean its wheels keep turning and you can keep rolling. As they loosen, all that comes to an enforced halt. All ‘trains of thought’ are derailed; the whole system is out of order. All you can do is sit down by the road, amidst the debris, and start piecing things together – or maybe just start designing a better cart.
This line points to Hexagram 22, Beauty, which has to do with making things presentable and intelligible: that task I mentioned of trying to tell the story of our experience in a way we can live with. I’ve found 22 often has to do with self-image; my book says of this line, “perhaps self-concept is no longer connected with reality” and perhaps it isn’t. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing – the line doesn’t say so, after all. It only means we can’t carry on rolling along as before.
Why would Great Tending start this way – by stopping? Let’s revisit its Oracle:
‘Great Tending,
Constancy bears fruit.
Not eating at home, good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.’
It’s remarkable how much that doesn’t sound like incremental growth. Constancy bears fruit, yes, but not necessarily by building up what you’d already started. You might need to start over on new pastures.
It’s interesting to see how different this feels from Hexagram 9, Small Tending. The difference between small and great seems more qualitative than quantitative. Small Tending patiently watches the clouds and does its best to adapt and respond. Great Taming needs to think bigger, be more adventurous, more resourceful, to find a way to carry its intention through.
And the work of Hexagram 52 is not only stopping. Its commentary on the oracle says,
‘Stillness means to keep still
If time to stop, then stop
If time to move, then move
When activity and rest do not lose their timing
One’s path is revealed and clarified.’
(Bradford Hatcher’s translation)
That reflects something we already know: if you’re hurtling along at speed and want to change direction, you need to slow down first. To be free to set off in the direction and at the pace you choose, it helps to stop. It should come as no surprise at all that the nuclear hexagram of 52 is 40, Release.
So… when we feel unseen, ignored, even gaslit by a reading, this might be our cue to stop, let all our ideas and coping mechanisms come apart, and pay attention. If I can’t see my own reflection in the pool, I might peer further into its depths – maybe catch a glimpse of the dragon under the surface.