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littleone

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A while back I discovered the I Ching, and have learned to use it to look in depth at my situations and seek to learn from the results I am given.

Recently, a particular problem occured that has happened before, and though I have never thrown on this question/idea, I did so tonight.

My first Hexagram was #50, changing to #40. I was wondering if anyone from here could help explain both of these hexagrams a little better - as I feel I am reading too much into them.

littleone
 

willow

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#50 is The Cauldron. Only #50 and #48, the well, are named for things made by people. The cauldron is a tool. Most simply, it's a cooking pot, a structure, a container that, used in a certain way, can effect a change in the materials that go into it -- a transformation that can make ingredients/stuff into delicious food. Equally simply, and right alongside that use, it's a "door" an access point to what we call "spiritual" things, you can "cook" yourself in that pot if you want to. A lot of the language of the hexagram encourages you to remember that the two uses are very related. Every meal well made is an offering. A meal carelessly made, not offered, clogs the connection.

You mention looking in depth, but also fearing you read too much into what you see. Well, #50 is made for looking deeply into. But look deeply with flexibility, imagination and play. If you're hesitant to accept what you "see," throw that hesitancy lovingly into the pot too. Are you scared that your intuition about something is right, but you don't want it to be? Are you wondering on the other hand, if you are being too literal, and somehow sense you're missing the point? Or maybe you fear getting lost in the cooking and forgetting that the point is to make the offering, to serve the meal. At any moment one of your most basic choices is between love and fear. If you can love your doubts and incomplete understandings, you're stirring the pot.

If this is a situation that you've faced before, and it's come around again, probably one question in your mind is, "What am I going to do about it?" and I suspect you have a somewhat negative opinion about what you did about it last time, or if not that, some other sort of dismay about the outcome. I would suggest that getting #50 is encouraging you to bring your sense of yourself as a "doer" to a larger frame of reference. It wants you to forget for a moment about the effectiveness of your response, and pay attention instead, to the purpose of your response. How many times have you cooked and served something, and it was really a so-so meal, but everyone got fed anyway? Or completed a project, and it didn't turn out all that great, but it did get done, and people were appreciative of that? What you are going to do is cook. What you ARE, is a cook. What you are going to do is make an offering, serve what you cooked. What you ARE is a being in relation to other beings. And tomorrow, you cook again.

In a lot of ways, I see the 2 changing lines and the relating hexagram as emphasizing the "serving." #40 is Deliverance, Release, suggesting that when you're done working at this pot, you're going to serve a meal, and like the thunder breaking open the clouds, there is going to be a big rushing nourishing change in something.

Or maybe it's going to happen a little different from that. Line 3: the handles are broken, the meal goes uneaten, but the rains come and wash away, cleanse. I once was driving home at 3am, and I happened to drive by a large regional bus terminal. In the middle of the deserted street I drove up, there was an island, where one of the connector lines stops. On this island, there was a man standing, alone, standing straight, but head down, shoulders slumped, arms to his side, in one hand dangling limply, upside down, a bouquet of flowers. As I got closer, and passed, I could see tears streaming, STREAMING, down his face. He was crying with an aching, utter despair and release. That is the image that keeps coming to mind for me with this line 3. It is a line for knowing that, if you touched spirit as you cooked, you will still be touching spirit, sustained, guided in your next step, even in the midst of the most unimaginable outcome.

And finally, in the changing line 6, well, it all turns out great, everyone loves the meal, you really grew from the lesson of the situation, sittin' on top of the world, etc... The thing is though, what is emphasized in this line is not the fine fortune, but the beauty of the rings, the handles of the cauldron. Whatever literal situation your question is about, the line suggests that if you attend to cooking with generosity and spirit, in the end it is you who will shine.
 

littleone

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Willow,

I appreciate your words, they have given me great insight to my question and to the answer I received through the hexagrams. I thank you for helping me see things a little clearer...
 

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