Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
21 is 'Biting Through', finding truth through using sharp discernment of mind or external means, the forces of justice.I’d love to share, one year ahead - what I thought this Message was truly about. this December my counsellor - who includes mysticism and spirituality in her practice - told me about 21 being the hexagram of the scapegoat.
I mistakenly used 21 but meant 27 - Jaws/Nourishment. Apologies! I corrected the thread.I definitely see the "putting a lot of [chewing and gnawing] energy into something" point! There's a lot of dried meat in 21 that yes, could take forever to chew through. Am very happy that it worked out for you with a new job.
Scapegoating - people unfairly blaming you for things, is that what you mean? - isn't a theme I've seen connected with 21 before, though. Has your counsellor explained why she sees it that way?
I apologise, I meant 27 not 21, but you can see how I made the confusion! I corrected the thread.21 is 'Biting Through', finding truth through using sharp discernment of mind or external means, the forces of justice.
If you were being scapegoated 21 would be to do with biting through to the truth, addressing the wrong doing to yourself. However that doesn't really make 21 'the hexagram of the scapegoat' so I'm not sure where she gets that from. Presumably she thought you were being scapegoated and needed to fight for yourself but then why would she say the entire hexagram is to do with scapegoating? The experience of being scapegoated would be a very 36 one, the understanding of it and challenging of it might be 21.
This is what the Oracle for hexagram 21 is
'Biting through, creating success.
Harvest in making use of legal proceedings.'
You can see a scapegoat might need to bite through and use 'legal proceedings' to combat their oppressors. That does not mean hexagram 21 is the 'hexagram of the scapegoat' though, that word is not there.
27.1 as being an easy target? The line saysLater during the year, my attachments turned me once more into an easy target - as I see it line 27.1.
Ah so you are getting this idea of 27 as scapegoat from an author writing from a particular perspective, someone who has gone their own way so to speak, that is far far from the words of the I Ching itself.Sure, to add more Context, she is working with several methods and practices - e.g. Jungian therapy, the enneagram, the gene keys. An interpretative version of the iChing - The Mystical iChing, written by a Jungian psychoanalyst - dives into various archetypes associated with each hexagram. 27 (not 21) is the hexagram of the scapegoat. Scapegoats are sacrificed and eaten to get rid of ailments. People don’t have to blame someone directly, what can happen is that the person becomes the target for group projections - and punished, outcast or sacrificed. The group would then feel that their issue was solved. It’s just socia dynamics and we see it in cancel culture as well As in office politics.
Well it's all based/rewritten on a set of beliefs or theories much like for example Carol Anthony's I Ching or the Buddhist I Ching or the Christian I Ching or the Medical I Ching. Here it is a psychoanalyst recreating Yi along the lines of Jung's archetypes.Will have to think about it, am drawing a blank.
Hi! Sure, no problemWell it's all based/rewritten on a set of beliefs or theories much like for example Carol Anthony's I Ching or the Buddhist I Ching or the Christian I Ching or the Medical I Ching. Here it is a psychoanalyst recreating Yi along the lines of Jung's archetypes.
As soon as a writer goes this direction they make another book that isn't really the I Ching anymore. They take away what the I Ching says and replace it with things that reflect or espouse their own philosophies. That is what Carol Anthony did, made the entire book about egos and shadows and 'inferiors' so that every answer became a sort of moral lesson. If you have a plumbing problem or constipation Anthony is not the I Ching for you because she will says the problem is your ego. I mean it has value as a take on the I Ching but it's not really the I Ching in it's fullness.
I'm saying you're drawing a blank because if this is based on a psychoanalyst's take on Jungian archetypes then it's about that not the I Ching as we know it. So we aren't going to 'get' this unless we read the psychoanalyst's book. I think this is a whole different animal.
Yes! Sure I’d love to hear more. I see the opposition as well!(Ohhh... I just subtracted from 65. Should I mention that 27's shadow is 38? Look at all the opposition (38) Helen ran into - job rejections, trouble from co-workers for being "different," etc. Am thinking of Hilary's shadow description, that it's what the situation "obviously" seems to be, but really isn't the intended point.)
(Helen, if you're interested, I'll try to explain that better.)
I like that, it’s a Clean interpretation of 27 indeed!Having said all of that (we're really not just trying to argue with your counsellor, Helen, in case it seems that way - it's just as Trojina said, some of her ideas are quite different from how we usually think about 27) -
- but that said, I can see 27 in your year. You were learning how to feed yourself. Getting a better job is quite well analogous. Bouncing back from being poorly fed to having better nourishment, and so forth.
I think the only thing we're questioning is the scapegoat idea.
That’s very well described. i do become an easy pray, either by looking at another for validation - as a result of infatuation or as a result of me introjecting others’ negative feedback or reaction. When you don’t have a sense of personal power you’re easily carrying and acting out what others project in you - hence it’s easy to become a scapegoat. E.g. Someone who thinks women are always “crazy and emotional” will project that into everyone they meet. When they meet me, they will act as if I could that way or even tell me that I am, and I introject their perception of me - starting to feel like my emotions are wrong. The more I accept that, the more I give them room to treat me this way, becoming their scapegoat.27.1 as being an easy target? The line says
'Giving up the spirit tortoise,
Gazing at me with jaws hanging down.
Pitfall.'
The line does describe someone sort of abandoning their own magic, their power of choice, their intuition and I guess that might in some situations make someone easy prey though I wouldn't say it was the main point of the line.
I disagree. It is not the case that any interpretation is adding richer symbolism if that interpretation is a million miles from the I Ching and not what it is saying at all. That's not respect to the I Ching, it's the opposite, making it mean just about anything.I’m very respectful of the I Ching and any interpretation is adding richer symbolism.
Yes it is the hexagram of how we choose to feed ourselves, our needs and necessities. But to go from that to the story of Cain and Abel and from that to scapegoating stretches it way too far with completely misaligned emphasis on 'scapegoating, blaming and punishing'. That's an actual travesty of what 27 is about.“This is a hexagram of Cain and Abel and is related to our offerings and how we choose to feed ourselves, through growing crops and eating the flesh of animals. Cain used a jawbone to murder his brother Abel for offering the meat of an animal instead of the fruits of his labors. It is the hexagram of the scapegoat and of blaming and punishing others rather than taking responsibility for ourselves.”
Cain and Abel were certainly two very different siblings...‘Opposing’ describes irreducible differences – desires, motivations and especially ways of seeing that diverge from one another.
‘Opposing’ people see differently even when they’re looking at the same scene; they are utterly strange to each other, as if they came from different planets.
‘Opposing’ as an inner state can mean a single person who contains mutually contradictory impulses – like two very different siblings under the same roof
I wonder if she has any translation of the actual I Ching in her book at all? Doesn't sound like it? You have to go to the I Ching itself to see what it says. Just free associating from the Cain and Able story to jawbones to scapegoating then saying 27 is actually 'the hexagram of the scapegoat' is not a perspective it's just incorrect and misleading.It’s “The Occult I Ching” by Maja d’Aoust.
It doesn't look like it, though Amazon's "Look Inside" doesn't show everything.I wonder if she has any translation of the actual I Ching in her book at all?
The Chinese word for ‘possession’ also means ‘there is’, so this is ‘great being’ as well as ‘great having’: what there is and what you are, as well as what you have.
All true except it is fatal at times. For example look at this for 14(Lack of actual text translation isn't great, but not necessarily fatal. Hilary likes Sarah Dening's book which doesn't have translation. It's just you have to (a) be aware you're missing something important, (b) be careful to use it alongside another book which has a translation, (c) be discerning about the commentary - be aware it's one person's take and might be from a unique angle, like I said about the writer's I Ching.)
Utterly.Still think the Cain and Abel story is misplaced.
I couldn't see where you picked that from, presumably 14 somewhere.The Chinese word for ‘possession’ also means ‘there is’, so this is ‘great being’ as well as ‘great having’: what there is and what you are, as well as what you have.
Directly from Hilary's book, Oracle commentary, a sentence/idea I've managed to utterly overlook all these years but which d'Aoust might be making more of.I couldn't see where you picked that from, presumably 14 somewhere.
Agreed.'If you draw this hexagram you will be on your own'
That just isn't there for 14.
I thought it sounded familiar. I hadn't overlooked it, great being as well as having. Well being is having in a sense but that does not equate to 'Messiah' as a title for 14. The problem with such books is people might think they are consulting/reading the I Ching when they really aren't.Directly from Hilary's book, Oracle commentary, a sentence/idea I've managed to utterly overlook all these years but which d'Aoust might be making more of.
This is a very valuable comment, thank you - for all the links too and for the teaching around interpreting a hexagram by looking at its shadow hexagram too! 38 makes a Lot of sense as a description of all forms of opposition I experienced.(crossed posts with Trojina)
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Thank you for the quote from the book. At first glance, I'm still not convinced. I don't really get the connection to the Cain and Abel story other than having "jawbone" in common. The book has the "Look inside" feature in Amazon so will look at more of it when I have chance.
Shadow hexagram... you're familiar with the King Wen Sequence, right, it's just the hexagrams in the usual order, 1, 2, 3 ... 64.
You find a hexagram's Shadow by counting backwards from the end. 1's Shadow is 64, 2's Shadow is 63, etc. Or just subtract your cast hexagram from 65.
Often you can see a theme in common: 1 and 64 are both about "beginning" or "before," 2 and 63 are about "manifesting" or "completing/committing," 4 and 61 are about learning (Not Knowing vs. Inner Truth) and so forth.
The Shadow is an idea of Stephen Karcher's - he wrote a little too briefly about it here:
Scroll about a third of the way down the page and download the pdf.ROOM || Using Change: Nuts & Bolts - I Ching: Living Change
Using Change: Nuts and Bolts Short articles on basic ideas and practices involved in using Change. Change Operators Change Operators offer a technique for determining the specific transformative action of the Two Powers in a given situation. They can give us a sense of effective inner...ichinglivingchange.org
His idea is that a hexagram's Shadow is a "negative screen" in your situation, the least effective way to think about it, which is "blocking transformative energy."
Hilary delved into it and made a whole mini-course about it a few years ago that's in the Change Circle library. She also wrote really good Shadow commentaries for each hexagram, in WikiWing. One of her observations is that the Shadow is often the most obvious way to see a situation. So it didn't surprise me to look at the description of your year, find a lot of opposition in it, and then notice that 38's the shadow of Yi's actual message to you (27).
Going way out on a limb, I wonder if it's possible d'Aoust got caught up in shadow-thinking when she wrote her hexagram 27 commentary? Hilary even says this about 38 in her book:
Cain and Abel were certainly two very different siblings...
Actually... "two very different siblings" does have a connection to jawbones, doesn't it? The upper and lower jaws are siblings, and yet they're quite different. One moves; one's fixed in place. So even more evidence that 27 and 38 are tied together.
I still suspect d'Aoust's commentary is misplaced, if I can be so brazen. 27 is more about how the jawbones work together - Hilary often describes 27 as an entire ecosystem for getting fed. 27 is more about the jaws' synergy, not their opposition. It's right up the Shadow's shadowy alley to confuse things like this.
Yes, I have been exploring and there’s lots to learn as well as develop more of an intuition for. I’ve been “lurking” for a year and happy to share my experiences as well as improve my interpreting abilities. Right now I go often to WikiWing.Aww, thank you for not being miffed that we (er, I) derailed your thread like this! I find the Shadow interesting because I've found it to be helpful, so it's fascinating to me when I think I find it peeking out of things unexpectedly.
There are many such things - paired hexagrams, change patterns, opposite/complements, nuclear hexagrams, etc. Helpful and interesting, but they can also be overwhelming and confusing - too much information. Hilary always points out this stuff is optional. Getting a good handle on the hexagram you cast (27 for this one) is a lot more important.
You're new to posting here, but of course I don't know how long you may have been behind the scenes reading things - have you found Hilary's blog, and her hexagram essays?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).