Distressed mother (from Chile)

[imh]

Hi, I am so happy to join this group as I have been following your discussion and apart from learning a lot I have enjoyed it. I am planning in participating in your discussions as I have done it in the past but only in my mind.
I wish some of you could help me with the answer I just got from the I. It is about my daughter. she left home (drugs), well and to make a long story short I am not suppose to see her. My birthday is coming soon so I asked, which should be my attitute if she calls me. The answer was Hex. 32 and lines 1, 4, and 6, and rel 26. Hex 32 talks about "standing firm" and "not changing directions". Rel hex says "it furthers one to cross the great river". And the lines, they just confused me. Tks so much for yr help. IMH

 

[willow]

Welcome lmh,
I'm a little confused about the situation. What I see you saying is that she left, you are not supposed to see her, but your concern is what if she contacts you soon. I wonder if you could say a little more about the circumstances -- who it is who says there should be no contact, and why.

As to the answer, I don't have any sort of a reading, but I think I could start with a couple of points that might help:

First, the kind of "standing firm" in 32 (Duration) is not at all inflexibility -- it is the kind of consistency that comes with being able to adapt to the times. Right now you are asking what is appropriate at this time. Maybe the answer is pointing you toward examining what the big picture is, the long term -- what does this situation with your daughter mean in the context of the whole of your relationship with each other, in the whole of your family? Then, from there, maybe what is appropriate at this time will emerge.

Then, 26 (taming power of the great) seems to me again to emphasize this looking for a bigger understanding of standing firm:

"The hexagram has a threefold meaning, expressing different aspects of the concept "Holding firm." Heaven within the mountain gives the idea of holding firm in the sense of holding together; the trigram Ken which holds the trigram Chien still, gives the idea of holding firm in the sense of holding back; the third idea is that of holding firm in the sense of caring for and nourishing."

It seems to me that drug issues can be about one type of effort to find "treasure" in this life, and as the image of 26 continues, if you are thinking about what is the bigger picture for your family, maybe it will lead you to think about other kinds of treasure that your relationship with you daughter holds, or maybe ways to understand better each other's different ideas of treasure:

"Heaven within the mountain points to hidden treasures. In the words and deeds of the past there lies hidden a treasure that men may use to strengthen and elevate their own characters. The way to study the past isn't to confine oneself to mere knowledge of history but, through application of this knowledge, to give actuality to the past."

Looking within the vast mountain storehouse of your whole relationship to each other, maybe you will find a treasure you have overlooked.

I hope this helps, and I wish the best for you and your daughter.

 

[imh]

Dear Willow, Thanks so much for your help (yr reading really helped me) and well wishes. I am getting back to you next week, as now I am going off for a few days.

All the best, IMH

 

[hilary]

Hello IMH, it's good to have you here. Sorry to be a bit slow in coming back to you (Tuesdays are my ?day out?!) and thanks, Willow, for filling the gap with your insights. What?s left to say?

Hexagram 26 is a great aspiration to have, to lead you forward. It suggests holding on to all your energies, assimilating the past so that you can move on to very different experiences in the future. ?Not eating at home? implies that you are not prepared to repeat the same patterns. This does need a foundation of Hexagram 25, being Without Entanglement - not caught up in regrets about the past or hopes/fears about the future. That creates room for this kind of wise, strong spontaneity.

I said this was a great aspiration: what you need now is found in #32, Enduring. What is it that lasts through all the changes you and she have experienced? This is what you need to stay with. This means sticking to the very basics of what you know, not constantly changing direction. But it does also mean that there is no such thing as ?the end?. Every end is a beginning.

The moving lines are more like a series of warnings of what not to do. Although you have a great drive to move things forward, there?s no point in saying everything you feel at once. That plunges you into emotional depths that can so easily turn into a trap. At this early stage you need the self-control to match your great hopes.

Of course you want to make progress - but for now you need to reduce your ambitions. The fourth line suggests that even if your daughter does phone, there?s a limit to how much you can achieve at this stage. The I Ching describes this as a field with nothing to catch there - so you don?t want to be drawn into a profitless hunt. You need to accept the idea of very gradual growth, be willing to keep moving on.

And the sixth line points to your desire to start over, on a new and stronger foundation. Once again, this is good - but (always a ?but?, it seems!) stirring things up, starting afresh again and again, is of no use. Ultimately you do need total renewal - but that begins when you hold things quietly together, finding a whole new image for the relationship between you.

So the basic advice seems to be this: keep travelling, this journey doesn?t end here. Don?t attach a huge weight of expectation to this opportunity for communication - it?s not the time for deep emotional analysis or for a major new start. The ideogram for Hexagram 32 is a lovely one, though - it shows a boat between two shores, and a heart - a sure image of how things change, and what doesn?t change. It rests on the strong connection and mutual influence of Hexagram 31 - even if this is not the moment for a big change, that will not be lost.

I join Willow in wishing you both all the very best.

 

[imh]

Dear Hilary and Willow,

Just back from a Seminar that kept me away for a few days.

First of all I would like to thankyou both for your caring by taking yr time in helping me with my reading. May God bless you both as well as this service and the people who participate in it.

In relation to my daughter. She came to see me for my BD with a big bouquet of flowers. This was after she called and I was more receptive this time (tks to you, I know we both have a special gift to give to each other and that is our unique love). We had the chance to talk (actually I did) and this time, as I said "no more lies". Just for you to understand a bit, I learnt two yrs ago that my daughter was into drugs and had been for almost 8 yrs, of course neither I nor my other daughter nor anybody else knew about it. Needless to say the shock it was for me. I then decided to help her as much as I could. She got help but would not hear about rehab. I was not working at the time and decided (I believe unconsciously) to fight this addition together with my daughter, I took this fight as mine as well, I joined the "NA for the family", and as you may already have guessed I became "co-dependent". After she left (actually she managed to create a fight so as to leave and go to live with the guy she was either "obsessed with, addicted to or in love with" and at present she is no longer with him and is living with one of my sisters). I went into a very deep depression of which I am slowly coming out. Today she sent me an email wishing me "happy mother's day" and telling me that on Sunday she will come to visit me. There is one more thing. On Sunday she mentioned she had been to the doctor and that she had lost, or almost lost one of her lungs. My reaction was a very skeptical one as I thought she was exaggerating and manipulating (she is an expert) me to try to gain my attention and that "mom's comfort" that probably she was missing. Later I felt a bit guilty but found it was too rough to ask her to show me the X rays, so I asked the I (what should be my approach to it) and got the hex "Enthusiasm" and no changing lines. Later I asked about the truth of this, and I've just realized that I don't have it with me now, I remember getting Hex "Holding together" as related. Hilary I remember this because I've been following your readings and realized that in general you read first the relating hex. for context and even sometimes you go to the previous hex to see what was before this context, and then you go to the first hex as a general view on the situation of the question and finally you read the lines as the real answers to the question. I must say that I got a bit confused as I had interpreted the relating hex. as the future, or a possibility. Now I don't know if the relating hex could be both depending on the question ..... well, it seems to me the more I get into the I, I know less! But I love it!. Tks so much again and all the best to you all! IMH

 

[willow]

Hi Imh,

Welcome back! It sounds like a difficult situation, and many difficult lessons, especially how to find a way into love when there are so many questions and doubts. You deserve much credit and respect yourself!

I wonder if you could clarify a bit about what were your two questions and two answers. What it seems you're saying so far, is that the first question was how to respond to what your daughter says, when your first reaction is skepticism. Is that close? And the answer was #16 (Enthusiasm) unchanging.

The second question was something like "Are you sure?" or "Is this true?" and you don't have the answer at hand, but you recall that it changed into #8 (Holding Together). Is that right?


As far as #16 is concerned, you might look at Candid's topic "What waits in the hereafter?" for a wonderful explanation of it by Hilary (also, with no changing lines!)

For #8 (Holding Together), it talks about people willingly putting their energy and respect into social relations (mother-daughter, of course being one of these). In order to do this, people need to have some shared sense of what it is they are putting their energy into mutually supporting.

#8 has that "inquire again" line, and my (limited understanding!) paraphrase of the question one is supposed to ask is, "In relation to X, am I being called upon to be a leader or a follower? What role is appropriate here?"

To apply that to your circumstance, I wonder if it would help to reflect upon what motherhood and daughterhood means to both of you. You might also expand that to think about what does being a daughter mean to you, and what does being a mother (or aspiring to/or choosing not to) mean to your daughter. What does it contribute to your understanding to remember you are a daughter, and remembering that your daughter is or will one day be a mother (if not of children, then of something else that she nutures to birth)?

It just seems to me that one of the things you're struggling with is finding new ways to relate while recognizing that you can't change everything about the old ways at once. So I'm guessing the I Ching might be saying that in this way you might find a little distance from your old habits and assumptions and ways of living the roles.

 

[hilary]

Dear IMH,

It?s good to hear that you and your daughter are talking again. I hope the visit yesterday went well!

I may be a bit late with this, but here it is FWIW?

That first reading of yours seemed to be advising you that the way forward was not to try to ?dig? emotionally or try to make this into a big event. So looking at your next question, about whether your daughter is being honest here or exaggerating for sympathy - maybe the idea is that you shouldn?t try too hard to find out. It could be that there are more important things. Hexagram 16, in this context, sounds to me like ?channel your feelings into positive expression? - feel your enthusiasm for contact with her and your motivation to keep this alive, and let the strength of this carry you forward. The intense emotions involved can easily harm you - so this hexagram talks both about expressing emotion positively and also of guarding against harm. If you?re raising an army, you have to have the means in place to keep it from running amok.

About relating hexagram and so forth? I?ve been thinking about this a lot, looking back over several years? worth of readings, for the I Ching Correspondence Course I?m just finishing off. You?re right that the second hexagram can be the future, or that it?s a possible future. I think, though, that it starts as the subjective context - fears, desires, attitudes. Of course this is a kind of directional pull on the objective situation, and it can in fact turn into the future. Hexagram 26, with its idea of storing up treasure, of using experience as a way to a completely different future, is what you are looking for and also what you can create. Those awkward changing lines don?t say it can?t happen, just that the way there is not easy or obvious.

Hope this helps!

 

[imh]

Dear Willow and Hilary,

Thanks once again for all yr help.

Willow you were right in yr understanding of my "half-message"... missing an hexagram, uff!, but yr reading was perfect, the same to you Hilary but in yr case I just would like to explain to you, that the talking to my daughter in spite of the advise of the I about not to do it, was essential without which it would have not been possible any connection between us. Anyhow things went fine and, well, from now on I will play it by "the ear" (without anticipating myself and seing what events take me).

All the best,

IMH

 

[willow]

Hi Imh,

Sometimes I think that doing the very thing that it seems we've been advised not to is exactly what's needed. Not out of contraryness, but out of inner conviction. It seems to me one of the benefits of saying, "I don't know," and opening yourself up to advice and possibilities, is that you also get to listen to a deeper level of what you do know. And, I'm sure that you did incorporate much of the advice into *how* you did it!

 

[hilary]

Hi Imh and Willow,

Sorry to be so - um - absent. As I was saying on another page, I'm very busy with boring technical things for the course, but hope to get them sorted out very soon and come back and be more use to people...

I think the messages from the Yi definitely have to be combined with your inner conviction - I agree with Willow on this one. But I didn't think that the Yi was actually saying not to talk to your daughter - of course not! - just to do exactly as you have been doing, and make the connection without loading it down with emotional demands or fears about the future. From what you write, I think your own intuition has brought you into harmony with the oracle. A good way to be!

I must get back to work again. I'm so glad things are going well for you and your daughter.