Clarity,
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If the thunder trigram is 'starting':
Yes, that's lovely.
Back to the girls: how about adapt to it, cleave to it, enjoy it?
Li would be 'cleave to' of course, which would include the idea of being faithful to.
So, 36 would be more a matter of 'cleaving to the darkness (remaining out of the light)' than a way of seeing something, for instance.
But if that's the case, then it's strange that 17 doesn't have li in it.
I don't know. Some make sense, some don't. We need more meanings for each trigram, and we also need to just accept that sometimes meanings were ascribed to hexagrams independently of the meanings of the two trigrams.
I'm not sure Li is just 'cleave to'. Li embraces the paradox of the flame both clinging to the log and leaving it. For me, there's something in that about non-attachment: like taking a perspective on something, but being able to change it as you move, or it does. On second thought, I guess really that's a higher order of 'being faithful to', in the same sense that 32Heng describes constancy, but is composed of the two most changeable trigrams. Faithfulness to (seeing/learning about) a person/thing AS IT IS: in process, in the ever-unfolding moment.
Then again, there's a similar paradoxical meaning around the word 'cleave': as well as meaning to adhere to, it also means to penetrate or pass through.
I've just realized something. In trying to come up with variations on the sisters and brothers, I've been thinking of their gender in relation to a partner. But it's not like that, cuz it's Chinese, right? It's their characteristics in relation to the *parent' first of all, and then to each other and then to the partner. So sun is gently, adaptively penetrating in relation to the parents first of all. She's the serious one who has to adapt her behaviors to the parents, by contrast to the younger one, the charmer who just enjoys daddy as a way to get around him. So if the first one's serious and self-effacing and the youngest is the one who smiles and charms and 'funs' her way through things, does the middle one have characteristics of both somehow? Is she ambivalent? Is she faithful both to others and herself? Is that her brightness, and is it ambivalent?
The sons:
Let's do it.
Keep going.
Now just a minute.
cesca said:And Li? She neither toils nor spins, but my bet is on her to take over the family business, or the town council.
24: new beginning ("Let's do it" - a tiggerish enthusiasm)
7: get organised (which you need to do if you're going to keep going)
15: respectful and deferent (but not necessarily very dynamic)
It's as if the Middle Daughter and Middle Son are like goldilock's porridge, 'just right' to actually accomplish some necessary practical task (like a battle in wartime or the relatively laid back administration of a village in peacetime).
Claiming 1,2 is a standard evasion of the two number test since that clearly did not arise within your own mental process. Though the Flock of Dragons without a Head, the traditional Commentary upon Yi Oracle hex 1 >> 2 is an excellent Oracle comment upon your verbiage.
I haven't got that far - but the 'looking through' metaphor only fits li. Dui, inside, often seems to receive and circulate (/'reflect on') the outer trigram.
However, although it is possible to take any tangent or imagery or trigram notion and run off with it; as you have found they never work totally or completely at all. The analysis of the hexagrams from their component parts is part of Shang era technique. The notion that King Wen and the Chou I Ching hexagrams involve a quantum leap to a novel idea of the hexagrams as a whole as the unit of meaning (with line judgments, trigrams, line pairs and other components belonging to a later generation of work) is still too new to be accepted generally yet; and probably may remain so till next millennium.
Really not queasy about that, though I think that the technique of getting your subject to choose two numbers might work a lot less well when they know what those numbers stand for. I assume Chris has the hexagram numbers and names committed to memory by now. Even if he were filled with goodwill and willingness to go along with your experiment, what are the chances he could make anything approaching a 'random' selection? I couldn't.fkegan said:Hi Hilary,
What of E's style should I emulate as an example of how to make a polite reply? Or were you just a bit queasy about putting Divination to empirical verification?
The only interpreter I have seen on this list indicate a positive attitude to the EIC is LiSe but even then she still maintains her approach and ignores reconsideration of the I Ching interpretations given the EIC findings on getting the I Ching to describe itself by reference it itself.
Hey, you hurt my feelings!!! Sometimes I feel you are hailing from the 2300's AD but I like your theories. The XORing of hexagrams is something I find very useful and, as the years pass, I believe I understand your theories much better. I may disagree with the effort of finding a dichotomy between past exegesis and current mind research as I don't see a need for it other than supporting one in detriment of the other but I've learned to see past it or I'd be stuck. Further, the publication of your EIC helped me a lot, indeed. The prose is classic "Chris L" but the effort is good and I can hold it in my hand.
(Nice to know you can hold Chris' "effort" in your hand Luis. Conjures up an interesting image )
I think you are spending too much time in the seedy parts of France...
Really not queasy about that, though I think that the technique of getting your subject to choose two numbers might work a lot less well when they know what those numbers stand for. I assume Chris has the hexagram numbers and names committed to memory by now. Even if he were filled with goodwill and willingness to go along with your experiment, what are the chances he could make anything approaching a 'random' selection? I couldn't.
You know I'm not asking you to emulate anyone, just to use your own insight and discretion.
Hey, you hurt my feelings!!!
Thing is, I'm completely incapable of thinking of a number between 1 and 64 without thinking of its hexagram 'personality' at the same time. .
Thing is, I'm completely incapable of thinking of a number between 1 and 64 without thinking of its hexagram 'personality' at the same time. So you're basically asking me to choose two hexagrams... is that the result you want, or are you looking for something to reveal what I don't already know I'm thinking about? (As if so, I think one of us had better pull out the coins/ stalks/ beads.)
As for insights/ discretion - don't worry. Just the usual request, and what pretty much everyone here does pretty much all the time - to do your best to keep debate from spiralling down into content-free flaming.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).