Oh My! Averting disaster by actually understanding what the Yi is saying.

[cal val]

Today is a big day for me. I actually understood what the Yi was saying last night and was able to take measures this morning to avert a disaster before it happened.

I asked a question, and the answer was 14 ---> 33. I knew immediately that the Yi wasn't answering my question but telling me something I needed to know. My gut feeling was that it was telling me a large sum of money had been withdrawn from my account, and I went into panic mode because I very carefully track my expenses... therefore the only possibility was that some thief must have got into my account.

I talked about dealing with the bank on the way to work, and they answered 64.

I'm always confused as to how to apply 63 and 64 to my questions, so I threw again and said I'd deal with the bank after work, and they answered 63.

Ha ha! Very funny!

Well obviously it didn't matter if I did it before or after work, so I decided to wait until I got to work today to check my account through the internet. They answered 45.

That said, I threw a couple of checks I've been holding into my purse... just in case I needed to make a deposit today... and went to sleep. I just checked my account online and discovered that I'd not included two rather large charges my daughter had made to my account this weekend... I'd forgotten I'd given her my card.

PHEW! *wiping brow*

There's no danger of an overdraft now, but, if I hadn't checked my account this morning, complacent in the delusion of my fiscal efficiency, there very well could have been an overdraft in a day or two.

Geesh I do love the Yi.

Love,

Val

 

[cal val]

I just want to make one thing very clear. I did not look at any of the changing lines. I didn't need to. I knew... er... 'knew' the answer... heard the answer... just from the two hexagram titles together making one sentence.

If you look at the changing lines and try making sense of them, you won't get what the Yi was trying to say.

Love,

Val

 

[ellenj]

Interesting....

I've been wondering how Yi decides what to give us, considering its format is fixed to 'primary hex, lines, relating hex.'

In your case it seems that the lines were a means to an end. In order to give you the message 'your money (14) is retreating (33),' Yi HAD to use certain changing lines whether they mattered or not. Especially since Yi was interrupting regularly scheduled programming for a special report, so to speak. Had you been ASKING about your finances there may have been other ways for Yi to go. Since you weren't, Yi pretty much had to get hexagram 14 in there in order to get on the money subject, which then constrained Yi to a certain set of relating hexagrams. Dunno what they all are offhand, but 'Retreat' seems reasonable under the circumstances.
I tried asking Yi about how an answer's elements are prioritized, but I had a lot of trouble formulating a decent question and I couldn't understand the answer I got.

I've also been wondering, What if we released the I Ching from that format? Let it give us whatever of its elements it wanted? For example, allow Yi to give 3 individual lines and no hexagrams at all.

I haven't asked Yi about this; it's probably a really ridiculous idea. (*rolls eyes at self*)

How it came to mind was, I was reading about how in astrology they say planets have been discovered when they become important - like, say, Neptune got noticed when we needed to know about it and make use of it.

In the I Ching, casting a reading manually is complicated enough even when it's limited to hexagram-lines-hexagram, and that format seems to be a reasonable balance between information and logistical difficulty.

Now we have computers, though, and so it's logistically feasible to open it up to giving us ANYTHING. I realize that would include readings with huuuuuge numbers of elements, egads...tho just because Yi CAN give us something doesn't mean it DOES. I've gotten 6 changing lines, like, once. As opposed to zero changing lines MANY MANY times.

Not that this has anything to do with your reading. What a happy story! I'm putting it in my 'good examples' folder.

Ellen

 

[cal val]

Hi Ellen...

I've already blabbed a lot in your Hurrican Katrina thread, but here I go trying to address your very interesting thoughts here.

Actually the first word that came to mind when I saw 33 was a synonym of 'retreat' rather than 'retreat' itself... the word 'withdraw'. That was a little bit of my recent learnings about 33 and a lot of my intuition working. Had I first thought the word 'retreat', I don't believe I would have made the connection.

As to your musings about the 'fixed' format and releasing the Yi from that 'fixed' format, I have a story as to why I haven't been a slave to it for many years.

Basically my history with the Yi... When I learned about the Yi 31 years ago, I learned from a friend how to construct a hexagram, determine the changing lines and read using the 'fixed' format you described. I went right out and bought my own copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes Book of Changes, and I was off and running... but I never really get that much from it. And then after about 10 years of not really getting that much, I received my first real education in how to read the Yi from the Yi itself.

I asked if and when I was going to hear from my boyfriend again. The Yi answered 10 to 27. I was busy reading the lines and trying to make sense of them all when he called. I looked up at the clock when I answered the phone and the LCD read 10:27. I realized at that moment how whatever it is that answers us tries to communicate... by any means it can.

Althought the Book is a very flawed and limited tool, there really are a lot of ways the unconscious and 'Soul of the World' can speak to us through it. We just make it all that much more difficult when we limit it to a 'fixed' format. The trick is to 'listen' rather than try to 'think' what it's saying. Reading the Yi for me is a receptive rather than creative process... no-think... listen.

I don't 'analyze' every part of a line statement in any book that I use. Often a single sentence alone in all of the verbage in the primary hexagram, line(s) and secondary hexagram statements will catch my attention... that's my answer. Sometimes just the hexagram tags will be the answer. Sometimes just the numbers of the hexagram will be the answer... obviously. I've had both lines and neither hexagram statement be the answer as well. I just have to listen. Of course, that's easier said than done. I've missed some important answers because I either didn't want to hear the answer... plugging my ears and singing loudly "I can't hear you!" or I couldn't 'listen' because I was too distraught.

I get better and better all the time at hearing the voice behind the Book, and I've come into a very comfortable life and lifestyle from some serious hardships just a little over a year ago simply by listening and heeding the advice in the Book. And I do get quite tickled... obviously... when I do manage to hear what the Yi is trying to tell me in time to avert a catastrophe.

Love,

Val

 

[ellenj]

'Withdraw' tee hee - that'll work!

Everything you said makes real good sense, although I haven't yet had most of those experiences in my own readings (or at least I don't think I have...there is that whole figurative pile known as the "Huh? Hexagrams")

So, yes, the I Ching is highly creative and clever. Nonetheless, it does have to work through, or around, the normal casting methods and output. At the very least, maybe it'd be less 'work' for Yi (haha) if we just handed him a computer program that allowed him to be a little more direct. If we then asked about our nascent pregnancy, and he wanted to tell us we were having triplets (!) - a reading consisting of hexagram 3 (Sprouting - how cute, and I honestly didn't plan that) and every last 3rd line of the whole darn set would certainly send the message.

I really suspect, though, that this is ridiculous, because of the vast I Ching realms about which I'm clueless, that are discussed around here a lot by people who know what they're talking about, and which clearly have importance and meaning. A lot of that stuff depends on the hexagram-lines-hexagram format.

One example would be nuclear hexagrams. Yes, the 'anything goes' program could spit out that hexagram, but there would be no way to communicate that it's there in the 'nuclear' sense as opposed to, say, the 'contrast' sense.

P.S. The 'nascent pregnancy' is, of course, hypothetical, made-up, and intended for example only.