Clarity,
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PO Box 6945,
London.
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The fox’s dilemma‘Across’ has two parts: the river, and a sign for what is neat, together, complete, like a field of grain ready for harvest. Together, the word means ‘cross a river’[…]
River crossing is a big, important image in the Yijing, of course, with the expression ‘cross the great river’ describing a significant and risky commitment. Crossing rivers in old China was perilous in general, not something you’d undertake if still unsure of your direction.
The image also has two more specific roots: one military, one marital. The Zhou people had a great river to cross to enter the territory of the Shang regime they were called to overthrow. And as part of marriage rituals, men and women would cross rivers to be with one another. Both of these provide useful ways of thinking about what kind of commitment ‘river crossing’ can represent in readings now – in the ‘cross the great river’ idiom, and in hexagrams 63 and 64.
‘Not yet across, creating success.
The small fox, almost across,
Soaks its tail:
No direction bears fruit.’
Hexagram 64, the Oracle
‘Things cannot be finished, and so Not Yet Across follows – and so the completion.’
Hexagram 63, Sequence
‘Marrying Maiden: completion for the woman.
Not Yet Across: exhaustion of the male.’
The Zagua
‘The high ancestor attacks the Demon Country.
Three years go round, and he overcomes it.
Don’t use small people.’
Hexagram 63, line 3
‘Constancy, good fortune, regrets vanish.
The Thunderer uses this to attack the Demon Country.
Three years go round, and there are rewards in the great city.’
Hexagram 64, line 4
‘Fire dwells above stream. Not yet across.
A noble one carefully differentiates between beings, so each finds its place.’
Hexagram 64, Image
‘You have to understand the elements of the situation and all the forces at your disposal. You have to get people working together rather than against each other, and you have to get all of your resources working together in synch rather than randomly and haphazardly.’
Jack Balkin, The Laws of Change
.... and just when I thought I was being so sly and foxy in my response!I think it's also that when things are in their right place, they work: the kettle boils, you know where you are and what you're doing. Something far from clear in 64.
Thanks. I'm wondering how you might look at this 'inbetween' place when responding to a more worldly or mundane query - say a business venture or love interest? (I ask this with some hesitancy, because I think that the responses are understood within the context and framework of the question/query, and here we don't really have a question.)I experience 64 as describing the experience of being between lives. The old life has completed and the molecules that held it together are now dispersed and looking to realign in a formation more in sync with the soul's actual level of awareness.
It's worth noting that there are only 16 hexagrams which can be nuclear ones (16 out of 64), so each nuclear is the nuclear for four hexagrams. Which means that many of the connections you find with 63:64 you can also find with many, if not all, the hexagrams.I see nuclear hexagrams which are not 1:2 or 63:64 as modulators of the energy from these two pairs. Their nuclear hexagrams are always 1:2 and 63:64 which I see as the core energies powering change.
It sounds like you're saying that 1 and 2 and 63 and 64 are somehow 'outside' (pre and post) of the actual hexagrams? We all have our ways of seeing and understanding the Yi, but I just don't see these hexagrams in that way.Thus far I have tried do demonstrate that in metaphysical terms 63:64 are also post sequence. Just as in metaphysical terms 1:2 are pre-sequence.
I remembered I'd already posted about this somewhere before, and thought there was no need to do it again. But here 'tis, fluffy tail being put to good use:@Liselle, why did you delete the floof?
No, only when looking at the sequence in metaphysical terms .... In this light 1:2 are generative and pre-mundane .... When looking the responses of Yijing to mundane questions, yes, of course we include 1:2 and 63:64.
Thanks Kevin. I get the sense that we may be looking at different aspects of the Yi or how the Yi responds, which is not to say either one is right or more right..... What is different here is those changing lines emanate from 63:64 and they return directly ... back to 63:64 .... This is not a response to a question. It is trying to uncover the inerrant meaning of this pair. The "What are they doing" in the change sequence.
I disagree, these two pairs are doing something very different compared to all other pairs .... Though I would agree every reading, as you say, has 'astonishing qualities'. The matrix of King Wen is a most beutifull and intricate thing.
Some, but not many. 63 and 64 are the only pair that are one another's nuclear hexagrams. They're not the only opposite-and-inverse pair (4 of those), and obviously not the only exchanged-trigram pair, but they are the only pair that have all these qualities at once.It's worth noting that there are only 16 hexagrams which can be nuclear ones (16 out of 64), so each nuclear is the nuclear for four hexagrams. Which means that many of the connections you find with 63:64 you can also find with many, if not all, the hexagrams.
Er... but it is (naturally) true that every hexagram's first and sixth lines change to one with the same nuclear.When the lines of the pair change at the margins (lines one and six) they move to hexagram pairs 37:38 and 39:40 whose own nuclear hexagrams are 63:64. Thus at the margins hexagram 63 has an exchange of 64 energy and Hx. 64 has the same from Hx. 63.
Enjoying this. Also I suggest looking at complements!37:38 is the movement from dwelling people to one leaving the dwelling and going on a journey, a quest (Puer going forth from the community to find that which is required).
39:40 May be seen as the Limping Struggle of Yu, or the wounded Puer completing their quest, in Deliverance at Hx.40. The margins are important here they are the influx of the energy entering the hexagram in the lower trigram as an unexpressed Yang or stimulation and leaving as a fully formed, yet now fading, manifestation of the time. These are the places of transmission and transition.
I do like the idea of li and kan here, and their direction of movement, as spirits and ghosts. Hun and po souls, maybe?Hx.63 After Completion / Already Across
Li, bright knowing beneath Kan the Gorge with its dark rushing water. Here SK refers to Li as Spirit and Kan as the Ghost River. I sometimes wonder whether Spirit and Soul (Jungian model) might be more appropriate, but I will stay with Karcher’s idea just now.
The Confucians saw Trigrams as having a direction of movement. Some like Heaven rise and others like Earth have a downwards movement. Here Li is rising and Kan moves downwards. Li, the Spirit is rising out of the Ghost River – The process, whatever that might be is complete. We are already
In Hx.64 Before Completion / Nor Yet Across Li, the Spirit is submerged in Kan 'Ghost River'. The process is underway and not complete. The Spirit has not yet emerged from the Ghost River.
Only... li is fully immersed in kan in 63, and outside it in 64...?
Mind your tail!So in 63 the Spirit/Soul is already immersed and in 64 we have not yet immersed. After some six hours I think I ended on both banks at the same time!
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).