Blog post: Multiple moving lines, revisited

[my_key]

... I wonder what did Chris meant by «courting», maybe we need to check the chinese texts ...

I'd read 'courting' as meaning to take a risk that could result in unpleasant consequences such as 'Drinking and then driving is courting disaster'.

It could also mean to try to get something, especially attention like 'courting the attention of the press' but not so sure it aligns with being involved romantically with someone, with the intention of marrying.

Courting disasters and inviting trouble - also in english there is a phrase 'running around like a headless chicken' meaning "To be extremely busy doing more than one thing at a time, but in a disorganised or uncontrolled manner, or in a state of panic." So imagery of possible chaos resulting from a highly charged energy that is leaderless

Fury descends on our country like poisonous stingers - with chaos comes fury = wrath.
Reminded me of the phrase ''grapes of wrath''. I googled where this phrase was from. Its a biblical allusion, or reference, to the Book of Revelation, passage 14:19-20, which reads, ''So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God. ''
My arms and legs hurt - I'm not surprised if you've been put through a wine press
I cannot sleep - ditto.

 

[charly]

I'd read 'courting' as meaning to take a risk that could result in unpleasant consequences such as 'Drinking and then driving is courting disaster'.

It could also mean to try to get something, especially attention like 'courting the attention of the press' but not so sure it aligns with being involved romantically with someone, with the intention of marrying.

I wonder what the dragons' goal was when they flew without a leader and why in the Yi Lin seems so dramatic.

Maybe they were looking for for a lady, dragons did it, you know. Maybe their intentions were not so honorable. The dragon was an early symbol of kings and emperors that used to favor ladies without marrying them. A word for chaos (亂,luan4) also meant sexual debauchery.

And, of course, «courting» has connection with «courtship»:

court (v.)
1570s, "endeavor to gain the favor of by amorous attention," also "solicit, seek to win or attract," from court (n.), based on the sorts of behavior associated with royal courts. Related: Courted; courting.
Source: Etymonline

Courting disasters and inviting trouble - also in english there is a phrase 'running around like a headless chicken' meaning "To be extremely busy doing more than one thing at a time, but in a disorganised or uncontrolled manner, or in a state of panic." So imagery of possible chaos resulting from a highly charged energy that is leaderless

I understand that facing CHAOS whiout guidance could end badly. I don't understand why 1.7 has a lucky end. That's why I imagined the story of the soldiers.

Fury descends on our country like poisonous stingers - with chaos comes fury = wrath.
Reminded me of the phrase ''grapes of wrath''. I googled where this phrase was from. Its a biblical allusion, or reference, to the Book of Revelation, passage 14:19-20, which reads, ''So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God. ''
My arms and legs hurt - I'm not surprised if you've been put through a wine press
I cannot sleep - ditto.

Horribe! «Fury» also means fierce passion. Under the effects of passion people use to behave blindly, like to put the fingers into a press!
Maybe the moral was: «Keep your head cool or at least look where you put your fingers».

And «to sleep» also means... But that's another story.

Allthe best,

Charly

 

[my_key]

I wonder what the dragons' goal was when they flew without a leader and why in the Yi Lin seems so dramatic.

Maybe they were looking for for a lady, dragons did it, you know. Maybe their intentions were not so honorable. The dragon was an early symbol of kings and emperors that used to favor ladies without marrying them. A word for chaos (亂,luan4) also meant sexual debauchery.

And, of course, «courting» has connection with «courtship»:

Charly you move smoothly along the creative energy spectrum from courting to sexual debauchery, all through the dragon.....cool! Qian in it's purest fundamantal form is the 'creative potential' of the time. Maybe, like with the dragon suitor, when he meets her, has the potential to breathe out the flames and toast his fair maiden to a crisp or to whisk her away for a romantic, candle-lit dinner for two.

I understand that facing CHAOS whiout guidance could end badly. I don't understand why 1.7 has a lucky end. That's why I imagined the story of the soldiers.

Yes I haven't got a clear picture on this yet. A few musings for you.......

The potential for Chaos may well be the first port of call for our dragon as the new energy ignites the baser instincts in him. He has potential to start out as the 'headless chicken', or indeed a flock of them. Remember, everything works from the bottom up!! Then because 1.7 brings an 'instantaneous' change from Dynamic to Receptive this invokes into the situation the yin qualities of docility, acceptance, approval, adaptation, reconciliation, motherhood, promotion, service etc etc. as these now shine forth. Dragon has transformed in the blink of an eye and engages with the potential for the higher instincts of the superior person: he yields because only from the dark (if only for a short while) can he truly see the light and it is the recognition of this and the associated potential transformation that brings the 'Good Fortune'.

Your battle weary soldiers are despatched for a well earned period of furlough......candle-lit dinners and beyond.

Horribe! «Fury» also means fierce passion. Under the effects of passion people use to behave blindly, like to put the fingers into a press!
Maybe the moral was: «Keep your head cool or at least look where you put your fingers».

Fury is an intense passion. I wonder whether there might be some milage in the translation for a wider meaning. In Greek Mythology there were a shed-load of Furies and thanks to Google I can tell you that the three most important Furies are named Alecto (anger), Megaera (jealousy), and Tisiphone (avenger). All very much baser instincts and akin to the seven deadly sins of pride, greed, wrath (get those grapes out!), envy, gluttony, sloth and finishing with your favourite lust.

The sins are excessive versions of a persons natural faculties or passions. So our natural instincts can be exercised at 'normal' levels or become exaggerated by pumping them up with a potential for more.

Interestingly, the Furies are the daughters of the goddess of the night Nyx. The dark gives them birth and it is only the balance of creative and receptive that can bring them to a way of 'Good Fortune'.

The 'dragon's goal' may just be the release of potential: the release of the inspiration that creates an opportunity for change. How that opportunity manifests? .... well that's another story!

....or it might be nothing like that at all. Tomorrow I may have a different hypothesis.

Good Luck

 

[my_key]

I was curious about 'fury' in Chinese so went on a hunting expedition and found that at it's deepest level fury is an exaggeration of the feminine ( woman again and again and again and again ) which enslaves our soul. (There's that multi leveled word xin to contend with here)

So maybe the balance of creative and receptive in 1.7 is the thing that applies the brakes and prevents the soul's deep dive into the realms of darkness unchecked. Without the yang the yin on it's own is just too much.

MDBG says:

怒 nu4 anger, rage, passion; angry

怒 nu4 deconstructs to :
奴 nu 2 slave, servant
心 xin1 heart; mind, intelligence; soul (original meaning heart)

奴 nu 2 slave, servant deconstructs to :
女 nu 3 woman, girl; feminine
又 you4 and, also, again,

 

[my_key]

But all of that is a lot of speculation on my part - but still, I cannot see where fury fits into 1.7, nor how 1.7 - with its six headless Yang dragons - at all indicates the female being out of control! (Unless your a gang of rapists or a tyrant, and it's way more convienient for you to say or imply that.)

Hi Freedda
Not saying anything about my musings being right, or theorectically correct in any way shape or form, just throwing the musings around in some sort of free association way for me and sharing - because that helps me through the maze - especially when I see what comes back. You've covered a lot of stuff and it'll take some digestion.

The point I can respond to here is that Fury comes from the translation from the Yi Lin of Hex 1 to 2. Check up the thread a ways to see it's origin. I couldn't see a clear connection between 1.7 and the Yi Lin verse for that transformation, so Charly and I had been throwing a few ideas around for what the verse could mean and how it relates to Yi's headless line.

Hope that helps.
Take Care.

 

[hilary]

One translation I know reads:

1.7 - See a flock of dragons without head. Auspicious.
2.7 - Favorable long-term divination.

So, if I had these in my reading, I'd conclude something like 'this seems like a good thing, I'm approaching this or thinking of this in the correct way; it's auspicious and/or favorable.'

I don't see why I'd want to mine this for further meanings. All of the translations I've seen are equally positive, even though the words are different (usually only slightly).

Emphasis added, because I think this is where the divergence happens. Why do we want meanings beyond 'this is auspicious' (or 'this is inauspicious')? For the same reason we are consulting the Yijing and not tossing a single coin. Life is complex, life has layers, there are nuances. 'Good idea' is nice to know, but to relate to that, to be able to recognise it and use it in practice, it helps to understand what kind of good idea, why is this a good idea, under what circumstances...

And so we go digging - into relationships within hexagrams or between hexagrams, into structure and language, into divination experience, even the Yilin. Engaging imagination, looking for patterns, developing new ideas to test out with readings. This kind of exploring is how we do better readings, which is why we have a forum dedicated to it.

If some people's explorations are going a bit too far for your taste, you can always disengage and move on.

(The pig is an intrinsic part of 33's meaning.)

 

[my_key]

Hi Freedda
I've read your words now and you have explained your thoughts very clearly. The complete out of balance of the 6 changing line Hex 1; the leadership qualities lacking; the inability to plan or set goals and the associated aspects of creativity having gone to far. This, I see, as a position of change way beyond the arrogance of line 6.
Here is a position of creativity in the extreme - a picture like an elastic band stretched to it's limit ( a bombshell of potential energy). Here at this point, I agree when you say 'without earth on it's own yang is too much'. So when we cast the last coin, or we divine the last stalk and we get our 6th changing yang we unleash the super power of the transformation - the beginning of the restoration of balance.

This could be like the 'big bang' moment. Do Creative and Receptive exist at the same time? The image I had conjoured was one where, because I'm earth-bound and that is my place of perspective, the elastic band once released by the most sensitive of hair triggers that you can imagine obeys the laws of physics and pings off in a straight line beyond it's point of origin where it is securely attached. It travels way beyond this point of neutrality and flies faster than a speeding bullet into the dark and receptive arms of mother earth. This is the final act, the death throes if you like of the 6 lines dying in unison.

This journey of some invisible thing on the end of a piece of elastic will stop some way deep, deep, deep in the receptive realms but not quite at the extreme extreme of receptivity where the super power that is 2.6 is ruling the roost. For that is the earth bound way of the laws of physics. This is followed by a ping-pong tooing and froing of the elastic. Backwards and forwards, light to dark, dark to light until a balance of the situation that is appropriate to the time is reached.

An alternative way that I could think of is the at 1.7 a magic wand is waved that the unbalanced becomes instantaneously balanced i.e. no laws of physics. I asked myself the question that in this case what is the receptive doing here? If that extreme of creativity is out there where does it go within the newly formed receptive?. Is this change really one that happens in the blink of an eye? The qualities of Hex 2 are expressed as adjustment, docility, patience, yielding etc, and I wonder if all is now yin how does the situation display the most important quality of sevice to yang if yang is not there. Remaining as the foil to Qian, and not the leader is what yin does best. For me these qualities and the balance rest quite easily with the pinging back and forth of the elastic band, each time yielding to and cushioning the yang. Tending to the needs of the moment, nurturing and taking the sting out of any points of impact. (If you've ever been twanged by a fully stretched elastic band you'll know how important this is.)

If she tries to take the lead then that is where situations become unstuck, but just observing or experiencing the inferior without trying any way of attaching to it in any way the out of control creative juices is ok. So it would be natural for the dark elements of fury etc to come into the picture, especially in the early times of the ping pong when the journey into the dark is greatest.

My final perspective was that as all the lines were 'old yang' they were in some way all worn out and past their sell by date so just keeled over and let new mother earth step over the threshold.

After all this pondering, I could only see my elastic analogy meet with the the Yi Lin verse. After the tooings and froings of the change process i.e. the courting of disasters, the inviting of troubles and the successful navigation of the poison stingers all around the country the headless dragons would eventually settle into the soothing land of milk and honey and bathe in their well earned good fortune. Change is very rarely a totally smooth process in my experience.

1>2:
Courting disasters and inviting trouble
Fury descends on our country like poisonous stingers
My arms and legs hurt
I cannot sleep

With respect to your points about staying on the track of the Chinese text and about applying a bit of common sense and critical thinking. I can certainly say that with the former I am not well informed enough to do that and it was not my intention to do that with my dissection of 怒 nu4. I believe I apply common sense and critical thinking to much of what I do and understand fully that this may not align with your ideas of common sense and critical thinking.

I like brainstorming, free association and seeing where these roads less travelled lead me. I remember reading somewhere near the end of the 'The Portable Dragon', a few years back now, where it advocates leaving behind the I Ching and travelling without it to gain a deeper understanding. Over the years my journeys into the vague and misty world on the outskirts and even into foreign lands have brought many rewards and I still love to play and meander before coming home to a deeper insight. Many times the deeper insight has only appeared as a direct result of my play and meanderings. The left brain does not hold all the answers.

You are perfectly entitled to hold the view that what I wrote is a 'bunch of nonsense' although my intention was not to say '1.7 is about too much yin energy' and that is not what I believe. My intention was to explore the dynamics of the moment of change in 6 lines all changing at once within Hexagram 1 and to see if I could meander to some vantage point where I could see both the words in 1.7 and the words in the Yi Lin verse sitting side by side.

My 'free fanciful flying' managed that to my satisfaction.
Is it right? Is it a truth? Does it have legs?
Who knows?

It's like the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Glenda, the Good Witch asks Dorothy what she's learned, and Dorothy replies, 'there's no place like home' - but also that she had to first go on a wild adventure far, far away from her home to know that's true.

I can hear the Portable Dragon whispering in the winds the echoes of this sentiment. What also springs to mind for me is that it's important to remember that home for Dorothy is Kansas, however not everyone lives in Kansas....... or wants to move there.

Good Luck

 

[Liselle]

Freedda, there's a school of thought which says nothing beyond the original Zhouyi is valid, and it's perfectly fine if you're moving in that direction. But many of us do find value in the Wings, or even in things like the shadow, complement/opposite, and so forth. I'm not sure it's productive to come into discussions of those sorts of things to explain to us why we shouldn't.

I have no idea what I think of the Yilin, having spent about 15 whole minutes on it. But it's a lot more related to the I Ching than Republican leaflets, surely. (You were exaggerating to make a point, I guess.)

 

[hilary]

Hilary, as you know, I often do quite a bit of 'digging' (and right now I'm focused on digging into the trigram/hexagram images in particular). So, I have no issue with that.

OK. You seemed to be saying that once you reach a certain point, maybe just knowing whether something is a good idea, you ought to stop digging, and people who keep on exploring past this point, shouldn't. But it's one thing to get to the point of being able to apply a reading, another thing to be able to apply a longer-term reading reliably and well through a deep understanding, and a whole other kettle of fish to develop an overarching sense of what a line might mean in all readings.

I do, however, wonder about the 'how' of doing this (perhaps along with the 'why'). If I take what you say here at face value (or perhaps take it to it's logical conclusion), then I could use any unrelated text, any neolithic-age ritual or myth from any culture, or use the trigrams, or bible quotes, or poorly translated (and therefor poorly understood) translations of ancient Chinese characters ....

... or the Tarot (which I do sometimes refer to via Bradford Hatcher), or verses from the Yilin, or a Walt Whitman poem, or a mailer from the Republican National Party, or my own flights of imagination ..... to explore what ...

1.7 - See a flock of dragons wih no leader. Good fortune!

... or any other line or any hexagram in the Yijing means.

Ahem. There is 'logical conclusion' and there is reductio ad absurdum, and perhaps they don't have to be the same.

But yes... you can use anything to help you understand what a line means. If you ask Yi to explain something about a GOP leaflet and get a clear, memorable reading, that leaflet can legitimately become part of your understanding of the line. If you notice correlations with some other mythical structure, then yes, that can feed in, too. The Yi describes everything; everything can describe the Yijing.

And if I take this approach it seems to me that we could conclude that Yi's words and images contain no actual meaning of their own, but are only meant to be 'springboards' and jumping-off points for us to make the Yi mean anything we want it to me.

That doesn't follow.

Yes, of course it is possible to warp lines into fitting our pet theories, in the context of readings or in general. And to some extent we are all, always going to do that - remake the oracle in our own image, as it were. But so long as we continue to pay close attention to the words of the oracle, they'll keep on reminding us of what they say (and what they don't).

So, maybe I think that 1.7 means that we need to apply more Yang energy to deal with Yin energy getting out of control. Or that the 'headless dragons are actually mythical flying pigs (and as an aside, an actual fly pig is one of only two real-world assocations I have with pigs) ....

... Or 1.7 means that we should all act like a pack of wild beasts (or a gang of headless dragons) and do whatever the hell we want. Or 1.7 means that we should "Honour thy father and thy mother" or it describes the mystical place where 'the Chokmah of Yetziah and the Binah in Assiah' converge (Qabalah) ...

... or whatever we want it to be.

Define 'means'. Always means, in some absolute sense?

What does a line 'mean' before it is part of a reading and answering a question? Where will you find that pre-reading meaning, and where can you set its limits?

I don't have a good 1.7 example for you, but I do recall one reading where 8.6 meant - beyond doubt - 'You have not closed the opening <head> tag.' Is that what 8.6 means?

So, I hope you get a sense of my dilemma here. At what point do we say 'enough is enough' or at what point do we apply some set of guidelines, or even our own common sense?

When you're interpreting a reading, and need to understand what this is saying to you, here and now.

Or do we simply look back at the text, or hexgram, or trigram and try to see how or where we're going with all this fits - in some way (maybe a logical or spiritual way) - with what the Yi is saying to us or showing us?

And if that makes sense at all, then it seems to me that it is okay to question someone's likely mis-interpretation of a Chinese character, or to call into question someone applying neolithic myth to the Yi (without ever explaining what those myths mean) ....

Yup, of course it is OK to challenge bad scholarship wherever we find it - with a view to using better scholarship.

Or, to simply question: how in the world do you get a bunch of headless (maybe out of control) dragons to mean that:

"... maybe ... 1.7 is the thing that applies the brakes and prevents the soul's deep dive into the realms of darkness unchecked. Without the yang the yin on it's own is just too much."

*** A.k.a a bunch of headless dragons mean 'putting a lid' on Yin (e.g female) energy, to keep it from becoming too much.

And so, are you saying that I shouldn't question that?

All the best ....

Question the ideas, debate the specifics, propose alternatives, by all means. I'd rather see discussion opened up than closed down.

 

[charly]

One translation I know reads:
1.7 - See a flock of dragons without head. Auspicious.
2.7 - Favorable long-term divination.
So, if I had these in my reading, I'd conclude something like 'this seems like a good thing, I'm approaching this or thinking of this in the correct way; it's auspicious and/or favorable.'
I don't see why I'd want to mine this for further meanings. All of the translations I've seen are equally positive, even though the words are different (usually only slightly). So, I feel I'm better served by finding a translation or two that I trust and then rely on and work with these.

Of course 1.7 and 2.7 are auspicious and favorable and you can use the translation that suits you best.
But:

• H.1 is not the same as H.2
• 1.7 and 2.7 have their proper way of being positive.
• I wonder why Yi Lin H1 going to H2, in Gait's translation, looks so less auspicious that 1.7 in the Changes.

I might be curious about what a particular word or phrase means, or what it's origins are - and sometimes it's just fun to follow one's curiousity. And there could, perhaps be some benefit, but for me, it's often a case of diminishing returns to dig into the 'original text' or to look at the old pictograms, oracle bone or bronze inscriptions and so forth - especially when I really don't know what I'm doing.

Everything is doubtful except our own convictions. Hard work does not ensure reaching any absolute truth.
Let all of us follow our own vocation. Why worry?

For one thing, I don't know Chinese, or how the written language is put together or structured, or how these characters were used at the time the Yi was written (and even some translators whom are native Chinese speakers/writers do not know this). Also, the meanings of many or most of the very early characters changed over time, and almost never know what they meant or how they were used prior to or in the Yi.

I know very little, meanings are always uncountable, polysemy is law. Things are not what they seem, even more, they are changing all the time. How could anyboby be perfect?

And this makes me wonder, do a great many people end up making assumptions about what the characters mean (often called MSU, or making sh_it up), or assign so many meanings to them that they become more murky - not less so? And I think this is often done either out of ignorance, or out of a desire to have a character mean something it doesn't - often because we want it to be more mystical, or mythical or magical than it acually is.

All we know are but assumpions. The soon we realize it, the soon we'll get serenity and will stop seeing sh_t everywhere.

All the best,

Charly

 

[Trojina]

Going back a step these caught my attention

So we are left with a bunch of nonsense, that 1.7 is about too much yin energy! Or that the meaning of Hex. 33 centers around some mythical pig, because of someone's admittedly inaccurate translation .... Or we look to the Forest of Changes, even though a great deal of the book is not known to us, and we don't really know how accurate the words are when applied to the Yi, and so forth ....

There's a lot of 'we' here and I Ching interpretation is very much an individual thing.

Regarding the pig Hilary has confirmed more than once

(The pig is an intrinsic part of 33's meaning.)

The pig is there and it isn't because of someone's 'inaccurate translation'. I think you spent an entire thread recently arguing against the pig. Hilary confirmed there was indeed a pig. Now you are still saying there is no pig.

I think you and Hilary should have a direct discussion re pig or not pig. I believe Hilary as I am not a translator. I didn't know that you were ?



THERE IS A PIG ---I wrote in capitals since you missed it last time

If you want to explore, you want to explore - and I do it all the time, in my own way (which is sometimes quirky, contrary, and nonsensical) - and if it leads us to something useful .... but sometimes this really doesn't lead us anywhere useful, or it just complicates things beyond all reason, but I see far to few people ever stepping up and saying that's the case.

You believe more people should 'step up' ? Firstly this forum is around 20 years old and you have been here about 2 of those. Now I have seen many many people, myself included, making points you are making, you aren't a pioneer in this respect. If you read more of the archives you would likely see all kinds of objections raised to this kind of thing and quite honestly after a while you have to let people go their own way.

I myself have 'stepped up' to challenge yours and other's views but maybe that doesn't count. I have challenged Charlie's work many times in the past but now I've given up since his way is his way.

It's a bit like the 'trigram only' way of interpreting. As I have said before many times that can easily go the way of la la land and so I am surprised that you would level this particular critique of others when the same critique can be levelled at your own preferred method quite easily.

It's like the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Glenda, the Good Witch asks Dorothy what she's learned, and Dorothy replies, 'there's no place like home' - but also that she had to first go on a wild adventure far, far away from her home to know that's true.

However here, I feel many people never make it back from Oz or from La-la land. And they never admit that staying closer to home might have being the best option, and given them the most useful solution to their situation.

So you are confident that you made it safely back from Oz or Lala land whereas other unidentified 'people'
here, on this forum, are lost ? You are placing yourself above them then ?

 

[charly]

For all those interested:

The monster of complexity is turning us crazy. Iif we don't trust in multicausality, it happens by its own. The same happens with polysemy.

Oracle responses used to look strange, almost ununderstandable if not silly but it keep sending its messages. It keep speaking with obscure symbolism, lacking of accuracy, contradictory senses or bad poetry.

If we don`t trust in it, don't ask what are we doing in divination: we are doing our job. Believe it or not.

Why worry?
Be with peace,

Charly

 

[charly]

I believe that the Yilin and the Yijing are two entirely different beasts, and even though thy have in common the Yi's hexgram and line changes, I do not think that they were ever meant to match up or compliment, or explain one another ...

Hi David:

Yijing and Yiling are very old the Yijin is still alive in many countries, the Yilin hasn't done the same career along the history. Between the Zhouyi, the core text of the yijing, and the Yilin there are more than a millennia and half.

The composers of the Zhou didn't respond to the Yilin but the writer of the Yilin did know not only the Zhouyi but all the received text of the Yijing, used the same name for the hexagrams and the combinatory mechanism for changing (or not) from the cast hexagram to another. It's sure that the Yilin texts has to match with the moving lines ans the jugements or at least tried to do so.

Whether or not did he succeed in achieving it is perhaps difficult to verify, maily with the texts that have been duplicated to fill the void of those lost in the sands of time. But H.1 going to H.2 is not one of the repeated texts. We can try with it. If only Chris were on hand to help us!

I get it that Chinese characters can carry many meanings and change over time. And I'm not looking for perfection. But I still think that we're better served by understanding - to the best of our ability - what these characters really mean, instead of applying ways of translating them that are not correct. It's not unlike wanting to work with trusted sources in just about any field.

Character deciphering is not a way for translation, although some had believed so, but they did not invent it, it was an old hobby of the Chinese that the native interpreters and counsellors transmitted to the first Westerners interested in their literature. I believe what is a tool for deeping into meanings, getting the hidden and widening our sight.

It's a work that requires imagination but not arbitrary inventions, I think that it is necessary to give foundations and to give sources, as long as one has them, or to recognize that it is what one believes that it possibly is.

The example I've given a few times is about the use of phonetic characters in Chinese: as I understand it, these characters give a sense of how a word is supposed to sound or be pronunced. And I gave an example a few times regard My Key's interpretation of the word Fury.

Compounds existed since the Shang's times in oracle bone script but the analogic features were still not lost like happens now. The phonetic-signific type grew geometrically within the set of characters in use as the linguistic needs, the systematization, abstraction and simplification of writing grew. I happened mainly with the Han dynasty and the access to the administration of the Confucian intelligentsia.

Disambiguation needs required not only more compounds, one-syllabe words were not enough as soon as the literature tried to reproduce the common speech, technology developped and society and legislation become more and more complex.

Source: Endymion Wilkinson (1)
​

In the time the Zhouyi was written, old rites and religions were still alive, common people and even nobles were illiterate, remnants of matriarchy or matrilocality were common, in the court kings were but primus inter pares with nobility. Iconic value of characters had not yet vanished.

And some characters, common in Qin's small seal or later scripts, used in Han's rendering of the chinese classics were maybe not yet invented. (2)

Another example I first learned about is the Chinese word for 'Sea' - it is made up of the characters for Water and for Sheep (at least one version of it is), but I understand that you put these together like: 'here we have the characer for water, and it is supposed to be pronounced like the word for sheep, and putting these together, we get the word for Sea!'

Do you mean someting like this?

Kohoon Lee: «The Origin of Chinese Characters»
an illustrated history and word guide
Algora Publishing, New York 2018
Preview available at Google Books with a little of luck can see this page.
海 hai3, Sea, Ocean
Uncle Hanzi says: Compound 海 from three-dot-water 氵 shuǐ and phonetic woman-mei 每 měi.
But 每mei3 doesn't mean «woman», in bone script it depicts a woman with a sort of stramge hairdress or a tricorn hat, in bronze script the woman shows her nipples, a breastfeeding mother, maybe nourising her baby with rivers of milk, with seas of milk or maybe an allusion to the Weaving Girl of the Milky Way, the way that flows like a river of milk in the chinese sky? She was allowed to meet her husband only once a year as said in the Zhou folk story. But that's another story ... A story of LOVE, but one has to look carefully to find the lucky end (3). As with the problem if 海 mei3 is actually a phonetic compound... or not?

And a majority of compond 'words' that are made up of multiple characters are constructed this way. But I think that if we don't understand this, or choose to ignore it, we might end up with something like ...

But in Zhou times the mos current characters in use were iconics, say simple or compoud type-1 or type-2 in Wilkinson's resume. See the notes scrolling down.

So, again, applying these ideas to the word Fury: first, I don't think that the Yilin accurately or even closely describes the Yi's changes, and I don't think Fury is realted to or means a slave girl (or whatever it is that My Key came up with), and therefore it is not describing 1.7 as a kind of out-of-control Yin energy which requires Yang energy, ... and ergo, that's not what 1.7 is about.
That My Key or anyone wants to go there with this is fine, but I think it's also fine to question it.
All the best ....

About the FURY, I read it as a STRONG PASSION, say WRATH-HATE or ENTHUSIASM-LOVE. I believe to see a connection between FURIOUS and HOT-HORNY. I promise that sooner or later will try to verify with the chinese traditional text of the Yilin. I'm afraid of not being able, maybe the fury should be a Chris' JOKE.

All the best,

Charly
____________________
(1) Endymion Wilkinson: «Chinese History: a Manual / Revised and Enlarged»,
Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge mass. and London 2000.
Preview available at Google Books

​

​

(2) Quick estimations based on Wilkinson:
[If somebody has better numbers may provide it]

Dynasties: .....................Shang ... Zhou ... Qin ..... Han ......Later
Scripts: ...................... Bone .... Bronze ..S.Seal .. Clerical .Scripts
__________________________________________________________________________________
Types:

• Phonetic Signific Compounds . 25% .... 40% (*) ..80% .... 90% .... 95%​
• Iconic + Phonetic Loans ..... 75% .... 60% ..... 20% ..... 10% .... 5%​

___________________________________________________________________________________
(*) But the most frequently used

(3) Those things happen when a girl of good family falls in love with a poor lonesome cowboy! Maybe that's why Lucky Luke was called «Lucky».

Ch.

 

[hilary]

The idea is that I can circle back and that I can then field or 'fact' check these ideas againsts the Yi (which might be the text or the images, etc. - I don't know that matters for this explanation). And I could say something like, hmmm, does this idea fit with what the line is saying? Or does this concept fit with my understanding of the trigram's meaning? Or ...?

And am I understanding (or interpreting) you correctly in this?

Yes, pretty much. Except that for me the main moment of 'fact checking' is the reading. Then you can see what, out of your cloud of associations for this line, actually resonates.

As to the Republican Party pamplet, I was saying the opposite of what you wrote - it's not that I can use the Yi to understand the pamphlet (though I suppose I could), but that I can use the pamphlet to understand the Yi. It's not a 'method' I'd use, but it doesn't seem out of the question - if again, I circle back to see how it resonantes with the Yi.

Yes, I know. I'm suggesting that - even in your reductio - the pamphlet can, in fact, help you understand the Yi if you cast a reading about the pamphlet.

 

[Trojina]

So, yes, I have raised some questions about how people may not have been correctly translating Chinese words, and I have questioned some of the conclusions they seem to have come to because of that inaccuract translation. Which seem to be a completely legitimate thing to do

So we are left with a bunch of nonsense, that 1.7 is about too much yin energy! Or that the meaning of Hex. 33 centers around some mythical pig, because of someone's admittedly inaccurate translation ...

But, as has been said, twice, it is not a mythical pig. Where do you get the idea it is 'because of someone's inaccurate translation' ?

Is Hilary entirely wrong then when she says

(The pig is an intrinsic part of 33's meaning.)

 

[hilary]

I hope we'll get back to the pig presently, on its own thread.

 

[Trojina]

The pig thread where I think pig negation comments have been removed

 

[my_key]

Wow!! What a shame I left the party, it looks like there has been a whole heap of moving lines thrashing their way through the ether and chances for learning delayed.

@ Fredda - I'm not going to reply in detail to your post (s) as just by scanning through I could feel the waves laying increasingly heavily on my brain. I did pick up though that you felt very much on the horns of a dilemma reading my early posts much of which took your to the edge of confusion and beyond. I, like you, at times do get lost in the thick undergrowth of the Yi Jing so I could hear your calls to keep things simple and I thank you for that.

Somewhere, I think I saw you refer to what I'd written as 'conclusions' but as I've said my posted musings are just that. At best be described as hypotheses - and some may well struggle to reach even that status. I had great fun creating them and exploring the Yilin, and will most likely dip my toe in that ocean again. I think there is value in its verses although many have been reverse engineered by the authors to fill the missing gaps.

Finally a general comment on 1.7 - as my brain started to ache through trying to read and understand all the creative posts I was trying to assimilate I saw a likeness to a 'flock of headless dragons'. Each of you creating in your own right: leaderless. Creative enegry flowing into the posts made from a questioning mind; a scholarly interlude; old wounds; a thrust and the defensive rebuttal; assertive response; injections of calm etc, etc which eventually combined to bring an outcome of good fortune; a veritable cornucopia of information and insights produced. Many of the edges were knocked off in the melee leading to a adjustment - if not quite acceptance.

Something looks to have descended on the country of the 'Multiple Moving Lines' thread. Perhaps it started when the original post was made, perhaps it started with overly creative (for some) flights of fancy touching on the laws of the universe or overly creative Chinese text dissection that led to confusion and ideas and dilemmas akin to courting with disaster. Perhaps some heated emotions arose and their was an element of dancing close to discord. I'd also like to share that last night I bodily felt 'out of sorts' and slept hardly a jot. ( So that brings into my experience the last two lines that I could not really 'see' before).

Stranger things have, indeed, happened at sea , however I'm going to hypothesise that we have collectively co-created a 1.7 experience dancing to the tune of the Yilin.

....... or it may be nothing like that at all.

1.7 - A flock of dragons appears without heads. Good fortune.

1>2:
Courting disasters and inviting trouble
Fury descends on our country like poisonous stingers
My arms and legs hurt
I cannot sleep

 

[Liselle]

I am not, nor have ever claimed to be some sort of Zhouyi purist (at least I don't remember saying that)!

No, you haven't, I think it has started looking that way to me because at various times (not just in this thread) you've objected to context hexagrams /lines /etc. on the grounds that they take us away from the meaning. (And then in turn I've tried to convince you otherwise, which - sorry - I will stop doing, it's just as much not my business.)

Bringing in other stuff can muddle; it can also illuminate; I've had both experiences. Probable antidote: use it all lightly, don't try to force anything. (I can get myself into that mood: "Well the xyz hexagram has to mean something in this reading, what does it mean??" and then drive myself nuts. Not helpful.)

And of course as Hilary consistently tells us, none of it is essential.

 

[charly]

...
Something looks to have descended on the country of the 'Multiple Moving Lines' thread. Perhaps it started when the original post was made, perhaps it started with overly creative (for some) flights of fancy touching on the laws of the universe or overly creative Chinese text dissection that led to confusion and ideas and dilemmas akin to courting with disaster...

Stranger things have, indeed, happened at sea , however I'm going to hypothesise that we have collectively co-created a 1.7 experience dancing to the tune of the Yilin.
...
1>2:
Courting disasters and inviting trouble
Fury descends on our country like poisonous stingers
My arms and legs hurt
I cannot sleep

Hi Michael, maybe this belongs to another thread, but being that it happened here, I will tray to undestand Cris' translation at the light of the chinese text.

An almost literal translation of H.1 > H.2:

乾之坤：
qian2 zhi1 kun1:
MALE_PRINCIPLE GOING_TO FEMALE_PRINCIPLE
Men going to women:

招殃來螫，
zhao1 yang1 lai2 shi4
CALL CALAMITY COME POISONOUS_INSECTS (1)(2)
atracting calamities poisonous insects will arrive,

害我邦國；
hai4 wo3 bang1 guo2;
DESTROY OUR COUNTRY STATE
destoying our country and state

病在手足，
bin4zai4, shou3 zu2,
SICKNESS AT HANDS FEET (3)
our hands and feet will hurt

不得安息。
bu4 de2 an1 zhi1.
NOT GET PEACEFUL REST
not allowing us to rest in peace.
​

Maybe will have to try to get some hypothesis about if the Yilin fits with Zhouyi :

• With all extra line 1.7 of hexagrams Qian.​
• With judgements of both hexagrams Qian and Kun, seen as a passage fromone to another.
• With all the lines of hexagrams Qian, seen as expansion of 1.7.

And see scrolling down in the notes, how there is also here an HIDDEN PIG who seems to pervade almost all the Zhouyi or at least a good number of lines. (4)

All the best,

Charly

_________________________________________
(1) 招 shao1: call, provoke. It can have many meanings: to beckon, to attract, to provoke, to incite, to court dissaster, to flirt, to invite, to receive guests, to enlist, to levy, to tie up, to infect.
Some from Lin Yutang:

• 招募 [zhao1mu4], v.t., to enlist men for army or other form of service​
• 招親 [zhao1qin1], v.i., to look for or take son-in-law who will marry into bride's family (taking her family name and living with her family) ; ... (in vern. literature) to elope.​
• To provoke, flirt with: 招惹 [zhao1re0]↓; 別再招他了 don't provoke him again; 招蜂引蝶 (of women) flirt with men.
• (AC) to tie up: 既入其苙，又從而招之(AC) after they have got (the pig) into pen, they begin to tie it up.

[can see more at Lin Yutang online dictionary]​

(2) 殃 yang1, calamity, can also mean to destroy:
孟子曰：「不教民而用之，謂之殃民。」
Mencius said, 'To employ an uninstructed people in war may be said to be destroying the people.' [Legge]

(3) 手足 shou3zu2, instead of hands and feet can be read as a 2-sillabe word meaning «brothers». [Lin Yutang]

(4) For the hidden pig see the 4th line among Lin Yutang quotations.

Ch.

 

[charly]

P.D.:

See that the first sequence of H.1>H.2 of Chris translation allows another reading «EPIDEMIC DISEASE»:

招殃來螫，
zhao1 yang1 lai2 shi4
INFECTION CALAMITY COME POISONOUS_INSECTS
Infectious calamity will arrive because of poisonous insects,
Epidemic disease will arrive because of 蠱GU (1)(2)(3) :

• venereal disease product of excessive indulging with women.​
• black magic.​
  • evil spell made with some highly poisonous bugs put to fight into a container.
  • love spell for capturing the will of a desired person.

Compatible with old dominant ideology: all excess was thinked pernicious be with women, wine or food, disbalance passed from the body to the family, from the familiy to the community ending with the government even causing the fall of a ruling dynasty, the loss of the Heaven's Mandate.

Maybe the moral: don't eat suspicious meats, have a healthy diet. Also for men going to women, but that's another story...

All the best,

Charly


____________________________
(1) 蠱 gu3: arch. legendary venomous insect / to poison / to bewitch / to drive to insanity / to harm by witchcraft / intestinal parasite [MDBG]
(2)蠱 gu3:

• A grain (eating) bug. [14217] [source(s): Gakken]
• A bug (insect) living in a vessel or container. Internal worms. [source(s): Gakken]
• An insect used in the performance of magical spells. [source(s): Gakken]
• A poisonous substance; that which is harmful to people; evil vapors. [source(s): Gakken]
• Insanity. [source(s): Gakken]
• To mislead, delude, bewilder, charm. [source(s): Gakken]
• Spell, incantation, charm. [source(s): Gakken]
• Hexagram number eighteen of the Yijing "work on what has been spoiled" ☶☴ (巽下艮上)... [CJKV]

(3) GU poison in manga:

Remember to read the sequence in manga order:
from right to left.

​

​

Ch.

 

[my_key]

Hi Charly
It's helpful to see the original Chinese text and it does appear that there is some poetic licence around the inclusion of the word 'fury' which Freeda's comments were pointing towards. Looking back up the thread it appears that he has deleted his inputs which for me robs the thread of it's diversity and richness. Luckily fragments of his contributions remain embedded in other people's posts.

You've certainly gone to town on the translation and particularly got your teeth into those 'poisonous insects'. I'm not following how 蠱 gu3 has come into play but I love the idea of an archaic 'legendary venomous insect' and their ability to drive one to the point of insanity.

The H1>H2 comes from position where 6 old yangs are acting as one, the fundamental point of change from old yang to new yin. This verse in the Yilin is attempting to explain something about this process and I guess by extension to aspects of a single old yang line changing to new yin in any hexagram - maybe the same but just scaled down in magnitude. So I went for a trawl around MDBG, CJKV and hanziyuan.net and come up with this wording:

乾之坤：
qian2 zhi1 kun1:
male principle/ it’s / feminine principle
The feminine aspect of the male principle

招殃來螫，
zhao1 yang1 lai2 shi4
Summon , beckon / calamity, misfortune / coming, returning (decomp: hanging fruit on tree)/ poison, sting. poisonous insect
Attracts calamity to her like poisonous insects returning home

害我邦國；
hai4 wo3 bang1 guo2;
Injure, harm, destroy,kill / our, us, i, me, my, we/ country / state (home town?)
Disrupting all that I call my hometown

病在手足，
bin4zai4, shou3 zu2,

illness, sickness, disease / (located) at / (to be) in / to exist / in the middle of doing sth / (indicating an action in progress) (cjkv- resident in)/ 手足 hands and feet; (fig.) brothers / retinue, henchmen, accomplices , or 手 (cjkv-person engaged in certain types of work; person skilled in certain types of work; personal(ly); convenient / 足foot; the lower limbs attain, satisfy, enough

My resident faults become engaged in activities to satisfy her

不得安息。
bu4 de2 an1 zhi1.

不得 must not / may not / not to be allowed / cannot
安息 to rest / to go to sleep / to rest in peace

Never allowed a place of rest

So altogether the verse could be ( and bear in mind my translation skills in amongst all this, so feel free to correct me)
Receptive Dynamism
The feminine aspect of the male principle
Attracts calamity to her like poisonous insects returning
Disrupting all that I call my hometown
My resident weaknesses become engaged in activities to satisfy her
Never allowed a place of rest

The sentiment of this aligns nicely with the image of Hex 1 where 'the superior person strengthens himself without pause' and somewhere in there I like the idea that the weaknesses could be likened to fruit on a tree just waiting to be plucked off and eaten. The old yang cannot hang onto the tree anymore and transforms to serve the wishes of ' she who must be obeyed'.

My world and the old habits, thoughts and actions that I have identified with are turned upside down. Looking from an old mindset point of view that could well be viewed as a calamity - especially with all 6 stages of the process transforming at the same time........ a really unsettling disaster!!! Weaknesses get a wiggle on and are re-balanced towards the receptive needs of the time.

The verse that I have cobbled together reminds me of the role of the anima in Jungian Psychology where she is the troublesome catalyst for many of life's transformations.

@Charly: I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that she plays excellently the role of the seductress and there is ample room for connections to the darker arts of magic and bewitching to arise as she vamps along the streets and alleys of our hometown. This article https://frithluton.com/articles/anima/ gives a useful basic guide to her never ending comings and goings.

......and of course it may be nothing like this al all.

Good Luck

 

[charly]

... You've certainly gone to town on the translation and particularly got your teeth into those 'poisonous insects'. I'm not following how 蠱 gu3 has come into play but I love the idea of an archaic 'legendary venomous insect' and their ability to drive one to the point of insanity...

蠱 gu3 ,poison, venom, harm, bewitch [Zdic.net], is an associttive compound since the Shangs oracle bone script, depicting some bugs put onto a dish or container.

See 蠱 gu3 in Schuessler ABC Dictionary of Old Chinese:

Parcial preview available at Google Books​

«Poisonous insects», I believe, leads directly to the image of GU as if it were a periphrasis for poison/venom/virus with it's connections with charm, bewitch, women...

All the best,

Charly

 

[charly]

Hi Michael:

I'm not sure if I understand you right, I need more time to analyze, I believe to perceive some bias towards men's supremacy but maybe I'm wrong. And thanks for the article on the Jungian Anima.

Meanwhile, have you Chris' translation for H.2 > H.1 for comparison?

All the best,

Charly

 

[my_key]

Meanwhile, have you Chris' translation for H.2 > H.1 for comparison?

I did happen to copy this down before Amazon shut down the access to the Look Inside feature. I was curious too about what the process of 'Dynamic Receptivity' may manifest as.

Chris Gait's translation of Yilin H2>H1:

The northeast wind blows
The myriad living things awake
The east wind brings them to maturity
And the leaves and flowers set forth

King Wen correspondence
Northeast - the direction of stillness, relaxation and calm (EDIT ( after first posting): ......and immobility !!)
East - the direction of excitation, revolution and division.

I'm no expert on directions but King Wen operates in this worldly reality, so it could mean when things become excessively receptive - passivity in it's extremeness ( 6 lines changing yin) - perhaps even to the point of extreme stagnation or stuckness, The point is reached where the world rebels and awakens and then under the guiding wings of the new creative yang encourage new opportunities to reach maturity from whence are created emergent growth and resultant blossoming.

Sounds a good explaination of 'Dynamic Receptivity' to me and I would be interested to hear other views and again if you can @Charly do a comparison translation from the original Chinese text.

Also I Ching comments on the usefulness of six changing yin as " It is beneficial to be perpetually persevering." Perhaps the spark of dynamism is needed to set the 'perseverance' ball rolling again after having become stalled.
Interestingly, this is beyond having encountered a 'dragon in the wilderness' in line 2.6, where the dead end is reached according to Alfred Huang. After 40 days and 40 nights of wandering in the wilderness, where, in these extreme conditions you have been fighting with the earth for survival, a friendly dragon comes along and whisks you away to the nearest oasis.....or something like that ......or perhaps nothing like that!!!

This seems an altogether easier path to follow between the two different texts i.e. Yi jing and Yilin.

Good Luck

 

[charly]

I did happen to copy this down before Amazon shut down the access to the Look Inside feature. I was curious too about what the process of 'Dynamic Receptivity' may manifest as.

Chris Gait's translation of Yilin H2>H1:

The northeast wind blows
The myriad living things awake
The east wind brings them to maturity
And the leaves and flowers set forth

King Wen correspondence
Northeast - the direction of stillness, relaxation and calm (EDIT ( after first posting): ......and immobility !!)
East - the direction of excitation, revolution and division.

I'm no expert on directions but King Wen operates in this worldly reality, so it could mean when things become excessively receptive - passivity in it's extremeness ( 6 lines changing yin) - perhaps even to the point of extreme stagnation or stuckness, The point is reached where the world rebels and awakens and then under the guiding wings of the new creative yang encourage new opportunities to reach maturity from whence are created emergent growth and resultant blossoming.

Sounds a good explaination of 'Dynamic Receptivity' to me and I would be interested to hear other views and again if you can @Charly do a comparison translation from the original Chinese text.

Also I Ching comments on the usefulness of six changing yin as " It is beneficial to be perpetually persevering." Perhaps the spark of dynamism is needed to set the 'perseverance' ball rolling again after having become stalled.
Interestingly, this is beyond having encountered a 'dragon in the wilderness' in line 2.6, where the dead end is reached according to Alfred Huang. After 40 days and 40 nights of wandering in the wilderness, where, in these extreme conditions you have been fighting with the earth for survival, a friendly dragon comes along and whisks you away to the nearest oasis.....or something like that ......or perhaps nothing like that!!!

This seems an altogether easier path to follow between the two different texts i.e. Yi jing and Yilin.

Good Luck

Hi Michael:

Of course, female receptivity can be anything but passive. Giving birth depended always on female innitiative or at least ability. Chinese mithology is full of women getting pregnant without men, for example, having relationships with foxes, dragons, footprints, stones, but of men I only remember that with vixens. We cannot go without the female sex. (1)

See that 2.7 doesn't say 吉, yi2, LUCKY, it says 利, li4, PROFITABLE, a character that connotes HARVEST.

H.2 > H.1
坤之: 乾：
Kun1 zhi1 qian2:
MALE_PRINCIPLE GOING_TO FEMALE_PRICIPLE
Men going to Women
[intent of almost literal but idiosincratic translation]:

谷風布氣，萬物出生。
Gu3 feng1 bu4 qi4, wan4 wu4 chu1 sheng1.
VALLEY WIND ANNOUNCE WEATHER, THOUSAND THINGS BEEN BORN GO_OUT LIFE.
Valley’s Winds announce Weather, all Living Beings will open to Life.

萌庶長養，華葉茂成。
Meng2 shu4 chang2 yang3, hua1 ye4 mao4 cheng2.
BUD ORDINARY ALWAYS GIVE_BIRTH, FLOWER LEAF LUXURIANT ACCOMPLISH
Buding ordinarily will always bring up Children, Flowers and Sprouts luxuriantly accomplished.
[Young Commoners will always reproduce having beautiful Girls and Boys.]
​

Before believing it or not, please, check the sources!

All the best,

Charly
____________________
(1) For those interested I recommend to read:

Kang Xiaofei: «The Cult of the Fox», Columbia University Press New York 2006
Parcial previews available in Google Books and Amazon.
Ch.

 

[my_key]

Using the text of the Yilin you've located Charly here's my attempt at some weasly words that proclaim the machinations of H.2 > H.1 at the point in the archetypal world of the Hexagrams where all 6 yin lines transform instantaniously to a yang. Where old yin has reached her nadir and has only one way to go and that is to call on the warmth of heaven fan the flames into ' Dynamic Receptivity'

H2 to H1 Yilin:

坤之: 乾：
Kun1 zhi1 qian2:

坤 earth; feminine, female; female principle
之 it, him her, them; go to
乾 male principle

The fundamental masculine aspect of the feminine principle

谷風布氣，萬物出生。
Gu3 feng1 bu4 qi4, wan4 wu4 chu1 sheng1.

谷 valley, gorge, ravine
風 wind / news / style / custom / manner
布 cloth / to declare / to announce / to spread / to make known
氣 gas / air / smell / weather / to make angry / to annoy / to get angry / vital energy / qi
(orig: steam from food ….from qi and rice)

萬 ten thousand; innumerable (myriad) ( orig: scorpion)
物 thing, substance, creature, matter
萬物 all living things
出 go out, send out; stand; produce
生 life, living, lifetime; birth
出生 to be born

The valley winds spread the vital energy
That brings life to the myriad beings.

萌庶長養，華葉茂成。
Meng2 shu4 chang2 yang3, hua1 ye4 mao4 cheng2.

萌 to sprout; to bud
庶 numerous, various; multitude (orig: to cook with hot rocks)
長 length / long / forever / always / constantly / leader; chief; head; elder; to grow; to develop; to increase; to enhance
養 raise(animals), rear, bring up (children); support

華 flower; flowery; illustrious; magnificent /China / Chinese
葉 leaf, petal; page of book; period
茂 thick, lush, luxuriant, dense; talented (orig: lush, as in many plants)
成 completed, finished, fixed / to succeed; to accomplish; to become; to turn into

Sprouting a multitude that is forever nurturing (growth and development)
(The common people) become festooned in magnificent , lush foliage.


So all together:

The fundamental masculine aspect of the feminine principle
The valley winds spread the vital energy
That brings life to the myriad beings.
Sprouting a multitude that is forever nurturing (growth and development)
(The common people) become festooned in magnificent , lush foliage.

Comparing with he original Chris Gaits version:

The northeast wind blows
The myriad living things awake
The east wind brings them to maturity
And the leaves and flowers set forth


So the story might be that when all 6 aspects of the yin have become old and weary, from the depths comes a breath of fresh warm air, revitalising the situation of that time - a spark that spreads and brings opportunities for growth and development to the people all around - and creating a place for the growth of a constantly nurturing and supportive energy, that if the spark is properly received will propogate and multiply in the land of the common people.

...... or it may be nothing like that at all.

Good Luck

 

[charly]

...See that the first sequence of H.1>H.2 of Chris translation allows another reading «EPIDEMIC DISEASE»:

招殃來螫，
zhao1 yang1 lai2 shi4
INFECTION CALAMITY COME POISONOUS_INSECTS
Infectious calamity will arrive because of poisonous insects,
Epidemic disease will arrive because of 蠱GU (1)(2)(3) :​

...

For those interested on historical context of 蠱 GU Witchcraft (1):

Prof. Olivia MILBURN (2) just posted in Academia.edu a review of Liang Cai's «Witchcraft and the Rise of the First Confucian Empire», State University of New York Press, 2014.
Here: Book Review

May you enjoy it.

All the best,

Charly
_____________________
(1) 巫蠱, wu1 gu3 means WITCHCRAFT. As in 巫蠱之禍, wu1 gu3 zhi1 huo4: «91 BC attempted coup d'etat against Emperor Wu of Han 漢武帝|汉武帝, beginning with accusations of witchcraft» [MDBG]
(2) Prof. Olivia Milburn:

College of Humanities at the Seoul National University
She have posted much stuff in Academia.edu . I recommend: «The Broken Trap": Reading and Interpreting "Shijing" Mao 104 during the Imperial Era»
Can download for free with simple registration.

Ch.