Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
If we are in time of crossing a big river, better to focuse in crossing it. For after doing it comes the good.
Not a bad promise, I believe.
Fox Worship
The Chinese worshipped foxes, though never at the level of official religion. Instead, foxes were a part of folk religion. This unofficial worship reached to the highest levels of society; in the late 1920's, in a family shrine ostensibly dedicated to the Buddha, Kuan Yin, and other official deities, Lao Tai-tai, an aristocratic woman of Beijing, shows off her family's icon of a fox:
"This," [Lao Tai-tai] said with a beaming smile, "is the best of all."
"And who is this?" I asked, for I did not recognize the scholarly-looking old man in the picture hanging on the west wall, the little old man with the intelligent, shrewd face. He was sitting in a garden with a great tree behind him and flowering shrubs around, dignified in his long flowing blue silk robes and tall black hat of a long-past dynasty.
"He is the Second Son of the King of the Fox Fairies. He was so good and learned that he was allowed to take human form. We worship him for scholarship and for official position and for wealth." These, I knew, were synonymous to most of the people. She lit a big bundle of incense and set it in the burner on the table. (Old Madam Yin: A Memoir of Peking Life, by Ida Pruitt, p. 35)
Kang, Xiaofei, "Power on the Margins: The Cult of the Fox in Late Imperial China." Thesis (Ph.D.), Columbia University, 2000, 414p.
The Aurora Borealis, also known by many as the Northern Lights, is know by Finns as Revontulet. It stems from an ancient belief that the colours flying in the sky, were actually created by an Arctic Fox's tail sweeping across the snows in the far, far north and creating colourful sparks.
(http://arcticrainbow.blogspot.com/2009/02/northern-lights-of-lapland-sadlynot-so.html)
hi Charly,
urged by your post I went out on the net looking for more on chinese tales about foxes . . it seems so strange that most of them seem to be full of warnings while here we get a fox as an example to follow . . and while we get so many rewards about catching them in other Yi lines :confused
Bruce:I'd like to offer my thoughts on 64 but they are not yet.
Hi, Dora:
Hi, Dora:...
looking (just a quick look at zhendic dictionary) at the 'dog' character I realized that it appears as the first character of the names of other animals too, like wild cats, lions ...
So now I'm starting to think that the fox of 64 is all too careful because it is tied to a fait accompli (as in 64's nuclear hexagram) that could make or break the deal that's underfoot . . what follows seems to be more important than the animal itself (did you know that the name 'fox' actually comes from 'tail'? another curiosity . .)
...
I'd like to offer my thoughts on 64 but they are not yet.
We could have in the Changes a LITTLE ORPHAN THAT GET HIS TAIL WET, even maybe a baby...
Charly
Hi Charly and Tuck,
This is not a hexagram about guaranteed results. It is about working to make things happen. Again the advice is to be aware of the dangers, watch carefully the actions, it is possible to fail but it is also likely to succeed--if you continue to pay attention to your efforts now rather than dreaming about what could be the glorious victory.
It is the best fortune (superlative good fortune) that can be offered without sabotaging your effort.
Frank
The trickster is the wounded inner child helping us to evolve...sometimes when we jump headlong into the illusion that the trickster has created we find waiting for us is a grand humiliation or it might be a mildly embarrasing situation....but all is not lost it's something for us to learn from and a chance to start afresh and another step towards us being who we really want to be. A sense of self repair making the ice thicker all around.A primitive cosmic being of divine-animal nature, on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unreason and unconsciousness. The more civilized we become, the more we will blame a "shadow" for our misfortunes. Like the trickster of old, the shadow represents a quality that isn't accepted into the awareness. It can 'pester' us unmercifully but always has a gift for us, a missing quality, an attitude needed to cope, or self-realization.
Did anyone notice that fox in numerology equals 666? The lower loop of the six equals the womb, the full tummy, the material world.....so the 'beast' seems to represent man's lower nature. 6 is also the number of regeneration and 666 = 9, the circle of continuity, the tail being the lifeforce that propels it.....this has been proven mathematically.
ravenstar
The root number of 666 is 9.....the number of humanity and of intiation.
Hi, Dora:
Maybe the tail is more important that the fox itself. The chinese character for tail 尾 means also the rear, the back, the stern of a ship, is composed by left and up a SITING PERSON (now a corpse, a body) and at the left and down HAIRY. Then it can be applied to persons, animals and things.
Although I suspect that, given the reputation of foxes, the chinese foxlore described by KANG XIAOFEI (it sounds like STRONG LITTLE WIND, good name for a girl), wetting the tail con have something to do with LOVE. Maybe also with SEAT & TOIL or with BEING SCARED.
Etymologies are very interessing, even when imaginative, say folk etymology, little to do with history but much to do with meaning.
Your,
Charly
We sit in a powerful place at the threshold of Hex 64, having just completed an important transition we are told at 63.6 that we have to be careful, not to rest on our laurels or to celebrate too hard....the successful end is in fact only a new beginning. And then here we are at the new beginning being greeted by thin ice and the wily fox; the trickster; the shape shifter .... just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water you have to realise that the water isn't as clear as you thought it was....it's time to get the radar up and working again as there is already a new plot hatching - the rules of the game have changed. The ice that was formed has become thin in places and we need to tread warily
Carl Jung says of the Trickster archetype
The trickster is the wounded inner child helping us to evolve...sometimes when we jump headlong into the illusion that the trickster has created we find waiting for us is a grand humiliation or it might be a mildly embarrasing situation....but all is not lost it's something for us to learn from and a chance to start afresh and another step towards us being who we really want to be. A sense of self repair making the ice thicker all around.
So maybe we have something like this:
64.1 - Keep your wits about you. You are stepping into the big picture but all is not how you think it is.
This old classic always comes to mind with the image of this line. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDosgkws0-c&feature=related
Mike
Took a stroll on the beach this weekend. Thinking about 64.1 and getting one's tail wet I very carefully took off my sandals and turned up my pant cuffs. But the waves still soaked the jeans and since I hadn't brought a towel my feet were wet and coated with sand by the time I slipped them back into my shoes. It was all very irritating, but didn't ruin the evening. Perhaps this is the meaning of 38, if you're not attempting too much perhaps getting one's tail - feet - wet doesn't prevent success in small matters.
rosada
64.1 - Keep your wits about you. You are stepping into the big picture but all is not how you think it is.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).