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 come I can't click Laugh, Like and Thank You all at the same time?!Hi David:
Believe it or not when we are reading and interpreting the Changes we are handling with a long tradition that came to us thrugh written text, like the received version. Chinese script is a monster of comlexity, even sinlge words like GU or GOU have acquired lot of meaninings some of wich can be quite different and some even contradictory among them. Much of those meanings have get lost in the time. From all the written texts along the history the majority have dissapeared.
We have no other alternative than use a little handful of meanings brough to us. Whyt to take only one or two?
See, I believe to perceive a connection between GU (Bewitchment) and GOU (Ancestral Queen) maybe History ant Anthropology can shed some light. Going back less far I've found this story:
«...
Darrin Stephens: Well, I'm just not going to stand for it in my house. If I have to, I won't go home for a year!
Stranger: It's just about a year since I've been home.
Darrin Stephens: I mean it, I... It is?
Stranger: I never should've told my mother-in-law to get out of the house! She owns it.
Darrin Stephens: You hadn't seen your family in all that time?
[the bartender rolls his eyes. The stranger begins sobbing]
Stranger: I went back once about six months ago. My kid didn't recognize me; and the dog bit me and he's my dog!
[the stranger drops his head on the counter and sobs some more]
Bartender: Comes in every night and cries like that.
Darrin Stephens: Wow!.
Bartender: You know, pal, this job gives me a chance to see some pretty good observations. Now he thinks his mother-in-law's a holy terror and you think your wife's queen of the witches. But if the truth be it known, they all got their good points. Right, pal?
Darrin Stephens: They sure do, pal. They sure do.
... »
View attachment 3720
The quote belongs the TV serie «Bewitched» 4th. season, 1st. episode «Long Life to the Queen»
[ Source: IMDb ]
Is there maybe a connectioon with some stories fron far away and long ago?
From a coutry and time where the Highest Ancestress, Mothers of Dynasty Innitiators or of Cultural Heroes, were said to get pregnant in casual encounter with God's footsteps, Bird's eggs, Dragons or other strange agents like it, without need of humans be husbands, masters, kings or villains.
The history of those times, for not to speak of those of the ours, is full of disreputable stories. Historians that wrote it belonged in general to mainstreams. They were not pornographers in spite of the character the stories they told.
Trust me David, the whole think is a monster of complexity that nobody is able to tame. Even less if armed with simplistic principles. We are condemned to work with little parcial stories, not with the whole History.Why to discard any?
All the best,
Charly
It does seem to come up a lot in questions about relationships that are driven by sexual passion and are perhaps not socially sanctioned (outside marriage, affairs, so on).44.G, From the Glossary
gou4 (to) couple, pair, connect, mate, copulate, meet (with), pair (up) with, come
in(to) contact with, come in(to) conflict with, encounter (s, ed, ing); (a, the)
(chance) encounter, (temporary) affair, (ad hoc) coalition; temptation, seduction,
dissipation
Charly, believe it or not, from the beginning of my Yi studies and use, I have been aware of this long tradition and the wide range of meanings - this monster of complexity - that the words and the Yi carries with it.Believe it or not when we are reading and interpreting the Changes we are handling with a long tradition that came to us through written text .... Chinese script is a monster of complexity, even single words like GU or GOU have acquired lot of meanings, some of which can be quite different and some even contradictory among them.
Hi David:Charly, believe it or not, from the beginning of my Yi studies and use, I have been aware of this long tradition and the wide range of meanings - this monster of complexity - that the words and the Yi carries with it ..
That is of course you right. But that does not mean you get to redefine what the Yi means based on your own desires. That does not feel any different to me than when people create 'The Christian Yijing" or the "Marxist-Communist Yijing" (and I believe there are actually versions of each of these).Only that I think love is carnal, I don't trust in platonic love.
I guess it is worth remembering that every person on earth* is here as the result of an act of sexual passion involving their parents. Sexual attraction is pretty fundamental. And there is quite a lot about that in the old Chinese classics, particularly the Book of Songs. The Spring fertility rituals, the periods when the rules about sexual propriety didn't apply. The idea of the broken line representing female, the solid line representing male, a precursor to the idea of yin-yang. I'm not sure I buy the whole thing, but it certainly seems to be worth considering.That is of course you right. But that does not mean you get to redefine what the Yi means based on your own desires. That does not feel any different to me than when people create 'The Christian Yijing" or the "Marxist-Communist Yijing" (and I believe there are actually versions of each of these).
I didn't say you were a pornographer, only that's how what you are saying feels like to me. More to the point is: you keep talking about a broad range of meanings, and then turn around a narrowly define what the Yi means (usually in terms of carnal love, or sex).
Those kind of ideas do pop up in mythologies from around the world all the time. They don't necessarily involve white men and colored women, although they often do in societies dominated by white men. The Javanese have plenty of myths about female spirits that seduce unwary men, and the Javanese are definitely generally dark brown, not white. The spirits generally look like women from the front, but are invisible or transparent from behind. The stories are used to scare horny adolescent males away from casual encounters with women they meet in dark corners. You can also find similar stories in the Greek classics, the Sirens and so on.And finally, you may not mean anything by it, but what you say feels both a bit sexist and racist to me: here we are being told that the (perhaps white) innocent explorer / merchant / wanderer needs to be careful of being seduced by - fill in the blank - the dark, seductive, Mexican, African, Amazonian, Hmong, America Indian beauties ....
(coming from former post)Hi David:
Surely there is much truth in your words, David. In some things. In others I think you are wrong.
I will answer you asap, going by parts.The access to Internet is not always affordable for me.
I don't believe to be a pornographer. Must recognize that I 'm very intrested in love. Only that I think love is carnal, I don't trust in platonic love.
(to be continued)
All the best,
Charly
Source: «Visualising Ethnicity in the Southwest Borderlands» by Jing Zhu,
Allthe best,
I remember reading this article a while back:(coming from former post)
Some documents for those interested in it:
Visualising Ethnicity in the Southwest Borderlands: Gender and ...
By Jing Zhu,
Chapter 2: Dancing in the Moonlight - Fashioning Sexuality on Non-Han People
Pages 89-156
Available in Google Books.______________________________
Given that it provides a parcial preview, some pages cannot be available at random.
放 野, Fang4 Ye3, can be translated almost literally as «Letting go at the Outskirts» or «Releasing at the Wilderness». I believe to remeember that something alike was said of Confucius' Mother without affecting her reputation. [Charly]
Ref. taken mainly from MDBG
1-syllabe words:
放, fang4: to put / to place / to release / to free / to let go / to let out
野, ye3: field / plain / open country/ wilderness / outskirts / limit / boundary / wild / feral
合, he2, to close / to join / to fit / to be equal to / whole / together / round (in battle) / conjunction (astronomy) / 1st note of pentatonic scale // euphemism for sexual intercourse, as in "joining the yin with the yang" [Charly]
郊, jiao1: suburbs / outskirts
交, jiao1: to hand over / to deliver / to pay / to turn over / to make friends / to intersect // euphemism for sexual intercourse, maybe the former sense [Charly]
2-syllabe words:
野放, ye3fang4: to release (an animal) into the wild
野合, ye3he2: to commit adultery
郊野, jiao1 ye3: open area outside the city / countryside .
Allthe best,
Charly
I will answer you asap, going by parts ....
I am assuming that you'll still be getting back to me, yes? What I see so far is another document and some glosses for words. But neither of those tells me what you think or feel about what I said.Source: «Visualising Ethnicity in the Southwest Borderlands» by Jing Zhu,
Chapter 2: Dancing in the Moonlight - Fashioning Sexuality on Non-Han People
I never said or implied anything different. That's sort of a no-brainer. But I don't think this fundamental urge or idea means that the Yi is all about - and only about - carnal love, nor that this is the only type of love which exists - and that's pretty much what Charly's posts feel like, and even more so because of the response he gave:I guess it is worth remembering that every person on earth is here as the result of an act of sexual passion involving their parents. Sexual attraction is pretty fundamental.
For someone to say that seems to me to be pretty darn obsessive, and not at all about divination nor the Yi - which was the point I was getting at.I think love is carnal, I don't trust in platonic love.
Apparently searching out the source is pleasing to the spirits. He also annotates the point of change as 'seedburst' ( One for you there Charly )"Corruption / Renovating describes your situation in terms of poison, putrefaction, black magic and the evil deeds done by parents that are manifested in their children"
All part of the dance between light and dark, methinks."There is an angry old ghost in the situation that has returned to take revenge for past mistreatment"
Thanks:Karcher, ... writes for Hex 18: "Corruption / Renovating describes your situation in terms of poison, putrefaction, black magic and the evil deeds done by parents that are manifested in their children."
Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Now I want to read it myself!IrfanK: (#10) I've found no mentioning of the Miao/Hmong in Prof. R. J. Smith's book but thank You so much for leading my attention to it. When reading it I saw a mountain of information, valueable to the mind of the seeker.
Just to update.
I like the idea of Yi as a nurturing parent: I have seen that quality many times in my consultations. When we are able to open a 'window' to view a situation from a different perspective change is a natural consequence. Karcher looks to be inviting the man to allow empathy, compassion and forgiveness into his relationship with his father. No bad thing for him and no bad thing for the rest of us either to embrace these qualities. Great tonics, all, for removing the poison from old wounds............. but he made a point that we should think of the Yi as a kind parent offering us advice - and not so much as teacher or guide. He recalled that once when he said this, a man told him afterwards that his father was an 'alcoholic son of a bitch' and that he could never think of him with any kindness or as a teacher or guide, or friend.
Karcher described the conversation that followed - including his suggestion that the man think of the illness and pain that his father was in; Karcher said that this opened a 'window' to different way which this man could then view his relationship with his father.
Some modern day thinking also sees addiction as stemming from a lack of belonging or connection. Connection to self becomes broken when we have been hurt by others and addictive connection to 'another' can present a false god of safety and wholeness. Gabor Mate springs to mind as a person who speaks of this in his You Tube videos on the subect.That's what his talk reminded me of, along with some of Jung's ideas concerning addiction: that it can also be seen as a quest for longing and wholeness.
Thanks My-key:There is a place and a need for trusting in both carnal and platonic love. If you follow the Ancient Greeks they valued philia (platonic) love higher than eros (carnal) love although each have their own beauty. For me though the top two are agape - love of everyone (metta for the buddhists ) and philautia - love of self. Which may be what Karcher was ushering towards our man in the video.....just like a nurturing parent.
Yep, I agree Yi can influence and nurture in many ways. Mostly though I think that Yi speaks to each of us individually as that is the only place where we can truly be responsible for the change advocated. A warm and nurturing hand guiding us with each reading towards the best practice for the superior person.Thanks My-key:
For me, one lesson here is that the Yi includes all of this - and more. Any situation we ask the Yi about might be entirely about carnal love, or (as is many times the case) may have nothing to do with it. And even 'carnal' love I would define as including relationships between people, and that includes much more than just sex: there is joy, trust, friendship (even between lovers), communication (especially between lovers!), metta, karuna (compassion), decision-making, conflict, safety, community, and a whole host of other things.
For me, that's what the Yi and its contents speaks to.
D
I didn't expect that you would. I only meant to link to stuff about their religion and rituals.I found no relevant information in the link's given by You on #23 concerning the Hmong's use of Divination associated with the I Ching.
.... hope to find some traces on material that could spread light on passages in the I Ching. Just to update.
Hi again,Thanks for the update. To refresh my memory, I think one of these passages you are talking about this from the 6th Wing (one of the later commentaries) of the Yi:
In earliest times, knotted cords were used in administration. Later sages changed this, introducing written documents and bonds for regulating the various officials and supervising the people. This may have come from (Hexagram 43).
I wonder: is it possible that the Shang, Zhou, and Hmong peoples all came from the same region and lived with (or side by side) each other. And in many ways they maintained their individuality as people, but also shared customs, rituals, ways of counting ... and that they later went their separate ways .... ?
Or ... maybe that's not what happened at all.
But this also makes me wonder, if there are other peoples (societies, clans, tribes, etc.) who also used knotted cords for counting and keeping track? It might be interesting to see if we find this in other parts of the world (African, the Americas ...), and what the implications of that might?
Good luck with your continued search. Best, D.
I ask myself: could it be possible that some expressions used in the I Ching, cryptic to us today, can be found (or) explained in some of their songs and ceremonies?
- those missionaries, on the other hand, made a remarkable effort in collecting those songs and tales. One of such collections can be downloaded from the link beneath here *)I'd be interested to see what you find.
Or more importantly (for me) ... will they help me better understand how I can make use of these cryptic phrases in my Yi practice?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).