Help needed, please. #19

[becca]

Greetings! I am new to this site and have been consulting the I Ching for 15 years now. A question I asked recently was trying to ellicit information regarding the time of a future tumultuous event and I was confused as to the response: Hexagram #19 Approach. The Judgement says "When the eighth month comes, there will be misfortune," but the general description before the judgement says the hexagram is linked with the 12 month (Jan-Feb) and the time of the winter solstice. So is the event I am asking about going to happen in the eighth month (August)or in Jan/Feb? I am using the Wilhelm/Baynes edition. Any help on this reading would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bradford_h]

Hi
The eighth month is a reference to the 20th hexagram, the inverse of 19.
This is the time to do the work, not to contemplate the end of the work. Stepping up or accession is the approach to take here. There is work to do (and to oversee).
The Chinese doesn't really say "when the eighth month comes" but rather, "to arrive in the eighth month is unfortunate" (zhi yu ba yue you xiong), because then it is past the time to do the work needed to succeed.

 

[dobro p]

Brad - there's a bit of a parallel between 19 and 63, isn't there? I mean, the 'things being less fortunate and/or advantageous after a passage of time' idea. So, what do you see as the difference between 19 and 63? Is it that 19 is a time to put effort into the situation, and 63 is a time to sort of kick back and let the situation be itself?

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Dobro-
There's disorder (luan) at the end of 63, but for a different reason than the misfortune of starting to work too late at 19. From my new commentary on 63's Tuan: "...perfection is an unstable state. A system left to itself falls apart. The work?s incompleteness is what kept it going; its finishing starts the decay. The building has turned from verb into noun."

There's still work to do at 63, but it's anticlimatic - mostly finishing touches and maintenance, and some eighth month stuff, like admiring the work or the harvest.

b