Hexagram 14, Great Possession, says at line 4, 匪其彭。无咎。 – Not your (or its) peng, no mistake. Peng means power and dominance – Wu Jing Nuan translates with his usual succinctness, ‘Not his to be strong’ – and the old character shows a drum with three strokes next to it, perhaps… Read more »Pounding the drum
Hexagram 14, line 6 was part of my reading for the week. It hasn’t been a great week, and I’ve been using my reading not only for its advice, but also as a reminder, a kind of talisman. Waiting for the pharmacist to make up my Mum’s prescription, I went… Read more »Hexagram 14, line 6
The name of Hexagram 14 is Great Possession, and the character for ‘possessing’ also means ‘offering’ – suggesting that the two ideas are not so far apart as they might seem.
Interpreting this one, I’m often reminded of Molière’s play, The Miser. (Or was this in Plautus’s original, The Pot of Gold?) The miser has kept a pot of gold buried in his garden for years, sneaking off to gloat over it when no-one’s looking. Of course one day someone is looking, and the hoard is stolen, and he bewails his fate. Some witty character offers the consolation that he still has a dank hole in the ground to gaze down, so what has he really lost?
I came across this lovely article – The Abundance Site: Spending as a prayer? – and thought at once of Hexagram 14, Great Possession. The character ‘possess’, which also just means ‘there is’, shows an outstretched hand, holding meat. Owning? Offering? Is there a difference? I think the small ritual… Read more »Spending as a prayer? and Great Possession
