Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
A compulsion? One thing I'm wondering is how you got that out of 21.1.4.6 > 2
I asked Yi the question,"What say you about me feeding the white-bibbed cat like I did tonight?" The response was 21.1.4.6 changing to 2.
21.1
‘Shoes locked in the stocks, feet disappear.
Not a mistake.’
21.4
‘Biting into dried, bony meat,
Gains a metal arrow.
Constancy in hardship bears fruit.
Good fortune.’
21.6
‘Why wear a cangue so your ears disappear?
Pitfall.’
I really don't understand that reading at all, except I guess it could have something to do with feeding or eating - but I really don't get 21.6. I don't know what it's saying. I don't know why it's there. All I know is that it's alarming.
I asked a follow-up question, the gist of which was (in more impolite language), What is wrong? Why did you give me 21.6?
The response was 6.5 changing to 64. I don't see how that addresses the question at all.
I'm tempted to see this as Yi fear-mongering - tossing out alarming readings and then refusing to identify the problem.
This is not the first time I've thought this has happened, and I'm getting tired of it, which is why I'm posting this, to see if anyone has any other ideas as to what is going on. Maybe I'm just missing something.
(Some background: My neighbor and I take care of some outside cats - food and water, boxes with straw, spaying, neutering, flea medicine, etc. for the ones who'll allow themselves to be caught. A couple nights ago this new cat appeared at the edge of the trees. I put a little pile of food over there, and after I left he came and ate it. I did the same thing tonight. Then I did the reading. It was just a general inquiry, to see if there's any reason I shouldn't put the food there for the cat.)
Why are you asking about such trivial things? If you feel gratified by feeding stray cats, by all means do so. (Five of my six were strays; three of these were from a family of strays we fed for several generations. I am quite familiar with the issue.)
The Yi does not suffer fools gladly. If Pocossin's replies have not touched on the issue, perhaps you are getting nonsensical answers in response to nonsensical questions.
I asked Yi the question,"What say you about me feeding the white-bibbed cat like I did tonight?" The response was 21.1.4.6 changing to 2.
Trojan,
Thank you. I forgot all about the scale aspect - and even if I had remembered it, I wouldn't have known how to apply it here. What you're saying makes a lot of sense, and thank you for the examples.
See, it's very easy for me to imagine catastrophes if there could even possibly be one. So in this case, when Yi answered an "any problem here?" question by saying that I wasn't hearing something (21.6), I envisioned the following: Since the pile of food was near parked cars and a line of trees, would the cat get run over or attacked by raccoons drawn by uneaten food? Etc.
[The fact that I was putting food in a weird spot (because the cat wouldn't come any closer to a sensible spot) is kind of why I was asking the question in the first place.]
If there really is nothing wrong, though, I wish Yi would just say there's nothing wrong! Yi should know I'm easily alarmed, and therefore shouldn't bait me, darn it!
"you have both lines 1 and 6 moving I think its a self contained situation."
That reminded me of something I think I read somewhere here, that when lines 1 and 6 are moving it's often something that will be resolved quickly - self-contained, as you said. Maybe in this case it meant that I put the food out, the cat will eat the food, end of story, nothing more to it. Right?
thats a bit OTT isn't it. I mean you can't say this person is a fool for asking if theres any reason not to feed a cat. I don't think so anyway.
Trojan,
I should have included those details in the first place. That's frustrating - I apologize.
It's hard to tell if there's extra danger in putting the food there. That spot is actually quite nearby in distance, and you're correct, all the outside cats (there's 3 or 4 of them) are half the time under the cars or sitting in the road anyway. (Oy.)
Do you think this reading is really describing that kind of danger? As you said, it's not saying there's nothing wrong, but is this what Yi would use to indicate "that cat will be in mortal danger if you feed it there"?
It just occurred to me that maybe 21.6 means I'm not "listening to" my own intuition or common sense. I don't want to twist the line out of all recognition, though, and it still could go either way: (1) it's a dangerous spot to be putting food, or (2) for heaven's sake stop catastrophizing.
The first two lines are not about danger (are they?) Does that make it less likely for 21.6 to be?
On the other hand, if the reading is really about compulsion - and I do see that point (Tom's with 21.1, and then Anemos touched on it in a different way, and you're concurring too, Trojan) - then how does line 4 fit, which seems to say that it's all worth it and should be done? What interpretation accommodates all the lines?
Anemos,
As you can see, I'm still not clear! I see people's points (yours and others), but I don't know what the reading is actually saying. (And maybe we won't know, even with all of your help. I don't want to drag this on in circles!)
This hexagram represents an open mouth (cf. hexagram 27) with an
obstruction (in the fourth place) between the teeth. As a result the lips cannot
meet. To bring them together one must bite energetically through the
obstacle.
When an obstacle to union arises, energetic biting through brings success.
This is true in all situations. Whenever unity cannot be established, the
obstruction is due to a talebearer and traitor who is interfering and blocking
the way. To prevent permanent injury, vigorous measures must be taken at
once. Deliberate obstruction of this sort does not vanish of its own accord.
Judgment and punishment are required to deter or obviate it.
However, it is important to proceed in the right way. The hexagram
combines Li, clarity, and Chên, excitement. Li is yielding, Chên is hard.
Unqualified hardness and excitement would be too violent in meting out
punishment; unqualified clarity and gentleness would be too weak. The two
together create the just measure. It is of moment that the man who makes
the decisions (represented by the fifth line) is gentle by nature, while he
commands respect by his conduct in his position.
The more we talk the more I see 21 manifesting in our conversation....its like you are over chewing this
You're right. I should have cut this off a few posts ago, or never started it in the first place. Frustration is never a good basis for a discussion.
My apologies to all of you, but at the same time this actually has helped, so thank you.
In general, though, there have been times when I've wondered if Yi "skips steps" sometimes, for efficiency maybe, to say two things at once.
I've read about things like that, but I've never tried them. I have used a program that generates only one moving line for each reading, to see if such readings would be clearer. They weren't.By some interpretive strategies it's not important that all changing lines "make sense."
I forgot to answer this earlier. I intended it to express good-natured exasperation, sort of like saying "Good grief!" or "Ai yi yi!" Wikipedia says it can mean exasperation, chagrin, dismay, things like that, and that the full form, "Oy vey," means "Oh woe" in Yiddish. (I didn't even know it was Yiddish. I thought it was a nonsense word. )I notice people using the word 'oy' here lately. What does it mean ?
And Elias, I don't know you, and I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt to a good cat person as you apparently are, but you don't know anything about me and my life. If I ask what seem to be silly questions out of anxiety or paranoia or something that makes no sense to you, telling me it's silly doesn't help anything. We're all "foolish" in our own ways, right?
And it's not like Yi has limited time or something. If it really is telling me I'm trapped in a cat-feeding compulsion, then fine. Then my next steps should be to ask how to extricate myself from the compulsion - which obviously can't be to just stop feeding cats we've fed for a year and remove their boxes, poof.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).