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Being, doing, having – and questions for the I Ching

It’s something of a truism that the cosmos works in this sequence: be – do – have. Who you are leads to what you do which leads (by a more or less direct path! 😉 ) to what you get. Also well-known is that universal human tendency to get this very precisely backwards:
‘If I had lots of money I could do what I want and then I would be happy.’
(If you haven’t come across this before, try googling “be do have”, for about 4,450 pages making the same point.)

So where in this sequence do we usually break in with questions for the I Ching? Unfortunately, there’s a huge great cultural misconception that divination can only approach the ‘have’ end of the sequence. I suppose it’s the popular cliché of the fortune-teller in her tent, with headscarf, greasy card pack, etc: she tells you what you’ll get. (Then you go away and wait until you have it before doing anything different.)

‘Favourable to have somewhere to go’ in hexagram 24

Hexagram 23 is the Pair of 24, Returning, which Nelson asked about. Unlike Stripping Away, the Judgement of Returning concludes that there is harvest in having a direction to go.

This could get particularly confusing, as the Daxiang (the Image) says that this is time to stay home and most definitely not tour the border regions. But I think this is is a snapshot of just one stage in a whole cycle described by hexagram 24 – and that ‘having a direction to go’ fits naturally within the broader context.

Yi blog riches

Two pieces of excellent news for ‘Yi people’:

Steve Marshall is updating his blog again at http://www.biroco.com/journal.htm. On April 2nd (scroll down!) he wrote about hexagram 25, line 2 – something I’ve been wondering and speculating on for years.

A novel view of hexagram 29, line 4

‘A cup, a drink, and a plate,
Using earthenware,
Letting them in on ropes from the window.
In the end, no mistake.’

Someone is confined in the Pit – someone reaches them in simple ways. I’ve seen this often enough as advice on how to keep a relationship alive through impossible times… the connection always felt like the one ray of light. But now I have a reading that makes me see an alternative perspective.