Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
How does it feel?“Hi Hilary,
Ok. Point blank – what does crossing the great river mean?”
He: ‘The gourd has bitter leaves;
The ford is deep to wade.’
She: ‘If the ford is deep, there are stepping stones;
If it is shallow, you can tuck up your skirts.’
The Book of Songs, trans. Arthur Waley
‘The boatman beckons and beckons,
Others cross, not I;
Others cross, not I.
I am waiting for my friend.’
‘Increasing, fruitful to have a direction to go.
Fruitful to cross the great river.’
Hexagram 42, the Oracle
‘Wind and thunder. Increasing.
A noble one sees improvement, and so she changes.
When there is excess, she corrects it.’
Hexagram 42, Image
‘People in harmony in the wilds: creating success.
Fruitful to cross the great river.
A noble one’s constancy bears fruit.’
Hexagram 13, the Oracle
‘Waiting, with truth and confidence.
Shining out, creating success: constancy brings good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.’
Hexagram 5, the Oracle
‘Arguing.
There is truth and confidence, blocked.
Vigilant and centred, good fortune. Ending, pitfall.
Fruitful to see great people,
Fruitless to cross the great river.’
Hexagram 6, the Oracle
I agree that something is more than likely calling us to set off and that we have expectations of what we will find on the other side. Rambling along the bank is very much like not accepting the calling - I'm not even going to dip my toe in the water.I think you have to have hopes about the other side, at least, or a sense of being called. Otherwise, as I was saying, you could go for a nice ramble along the bank, or just drift downstream.
By stepping into the river we are naturally facing a challenge or if the river is fast flowing and deep we may even be facing disaster if we proceed out of our depth. Hex 6 is warning us of the dangers of this.Crossing means going into the current, and also across the current. The river is going one way, and you are insisting on going somewhere else.
I think that's the problem with 6 - the insistence shades into defiance, 'So what if it's the wrong time to cross? I'm crossing anyway and you can't stop me, so there!'
The ferry man releases a call for progress and a caution against proceeding without connection.Come to think of it... 5 and 6, which introduce the motif of river-crossing, are just one line away from the big river hexagrams, 63 and 64.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Arguing is the wrong mindset for river-crossing; Waiting (attending, expecting) is what you need. But when in an Argumentative frame of mind, I for one am tempted to go further, commit to my position irrevocably... which is probably why Yi specifically warns against river-crossing at such times.Again here I don't see this element of battle between the person crossing and the current. Yes, if we got Hex 6 and we defied the guidance of seeking out some kind of betterment first then there would be a problem. In this case there would be a battle if we tried to cross the river and things would have a ghastly outcome. The river would be too deep and the current too fast over shadowing our ability to cross.
I like your reflections on the experience of entering the water.
Two responses...It always sounds like a process of initiation to me. Joseph Campbell once said that the process of initiation is only really meaningful if there is a very real possibility that the person going through it may not survive. It feels a bit like that -- passing through more or less severe ordeals and trials to reach a place that is definitively different from the place you left behind, probably to win some favor or gain knowledge or find something valuable, and probably to bring it back for the benefit of the kingdom or community.
Haha. Well, maybe there's a very real chance that you won't survive moving your photos out of Flickr. I don't use it, but I've heard it can be traumatic.Yes, and... readings come on all scales. Sometimes it'll be a Campbell-esque initiation process, and sometimes moving your photos out of Flickr.
There's a nice section on Chiang Yuan becoming pregnant when she trod on the big toe of God's footprint. You and Charly were talking about that on a thread about Karcher. And a fair bit on early shamanism. Speculative, of course, but what can you do? I meant just to read the Chinese Mythology section, but before I knew it, I was well into Japan. He's a stylish writer with some interesting ideas. A lot of Jung. The idea that all world religions evolve along the same basic paths, with the same underlying myths. Perhaps some of it is a bit dated now, it was written in 1962. The section on the Yi obviously couldn't include all the research and discoveries since then, but it avoids the most obvious blunders.I haven't read that one, either. Should I add it to the ever-expanding reading list?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).