Please help with interpretation of 17.1>45

[Liselle]

This is where I have the biggest problem with the oracle!! Who is changing their mind, me or him? I can never really tell if the IC is talking about me or the person I am enquiring about!!! I have been consulting the IC for years

Oh dear. This is difficult because--- well, I hope you'll accept the following in the spirit it's intended, which is trying to help. It's almost impossible to offer constructive criticism without saying things that sound like just criticism. :hide:

For what it's worth, there's probably not a one of us who doesn't have these sorts of problems at times, no matter how long we've been consulting. I think it's just part of working with Yi (an oracle) while we are human beings. It's not a form of communication that comes naturally.

The best way to straighten something like this out is usually to go back to the question, and (as Hilary puts it), read Yi's answer as an answer, to that question. Sometimes it helps to think about it as an actual conversation (the general idea here is cribbed from Trojina).

You: "Yi, will I ever see him again?" (or whatever your exact words were, something close to that I guess)

Yi: "Well, Pepita...an official has a change of heart. Constancy, good fortune. Going out of the gates, joining with others, there is achievement."

...and then you think about how that could make sense in some real-life way.

However. Since you/we have done that, and you're still confused, maybe a problem is what Hilary, in her courses, calls "question-muddle."

Your question was a perfectly good human-being-question, but Yi is not really a person, so questions to Yi generally have to be a bit different from how we'd normally put it.

Some possible sources of confusion here:

(1) you asked a yes/no question, and Yi can't answer those as straightforwardly as we might wish. None of the 64 hexagrams are named "yes" or "no." Now, there are certainly times where an answer will be recognizable as basically yes or no, but if it isn't, as with this one, then what? The author Stephen Karcher said in an interview that Yi isn't really a yes/no oracle, it's a "what about" oracle. So it almost always makes things easier if the question is some form of "what about?" Hilary has whole lessons and pdfs on question-writing, but some possibilities I can think of for this sort of topic might include: "What is the status of our relationship?" "What is the highest potential for a relationship here?" "What should I make of the fact that he hasn't called me?" "What attitude should I take towards him not calling me?" "What attitude should I take towards our relationship?" "Advice for me about our relationship?" "What could I expect if I phoned him?"

(2) Your question was sort of about both of you. "Will I ever see him again?" And now it's hard to figure out who the "official" is - you, or him. It might be better to make the question more general, asking about "the relationship," or to make it very clearly about you, as in the above suggestions.

The following pertain to your second question, "Why did he change his mind?"

(3) Asking what someone else is thinking or feeling is hard to interpret, for one reason because it's harder to recognize Yi's descriptions of someone else's feelings than to understand your own, because you're not the one feeling it.

(4) "Why" questions can be hard in themselves. My personal shorthand term for the resulting answers are "biochemistry answers." "Why do I have a pain in my stomach?" - and Yi proceeds to give an answer that's perfectly accurate, but recognizable only to a biochemist or doctor. "What is wrong with my car?" Yi gives a terrifically useful answer - if you're a car mechanic and know what it's talking about.

(5) Assumptions in questions are generally good things to avoid. In this case, what if he didn't change his mind? (Chances are good he did, but we don't know that for sure.)

Also, have you had a chance to read this article Hilary wrote, which is pinned to the top of the Shared Readings forum? I've read it several times just because it's such good advice, and I'm not even in a relationship.
Blog post: Advice for relationship readings

 

[Trojina]

Oh good Liselle gave the link to the relationship questions link

Hi equinox’ thanks for taking the time to comment on my thread. This is where I have the biggest problem with the oracle!! Who is changing their mind, me or him? I can never really tell if the IC is talking about me or the person I am enquiring about!!! I have been consulting the IC for years

It isn't a problem with the oracle, it's just if you ask what is in other people's heads you will never be sure who the answer is for. Anyway effectively you don't need to know what's in his head you need to know what to do. That's what the oracle is for to guide you rather than to penetrate his mind. You can often get a good idea of someone's motives anyway by what Yi advises you.

Here I'd say the advice was to go out and mingle in 17.1.

You aren't ever going to get an accurate idea of why he did what he did without speaking to him.

This isn't a matter of how well anyone understands the I Ching it's just not effective asking Yi why he did what he did. So bluntly it boils down to asking him himself or just letting it go. I don't think more questions on his motives will help.

 

[pepita45]

No equinox, he just texted me to say that he was home after taking the dog for a walk, and then radio silence.

 

[pepita45]

Ok the consensus seems to be that I must ask questions differently,I know that I must not ask yes or no answer, and I realise that I did, in my first reading. I did read Hilary blog post and of course it's very useful, but there is no guarantee I would understand the reply of the oracle. It is true that you cannot be sure what is going on in someone's mind, but if I think about my reply, he just changed his mind, seems a perfectly good answer, and yes Trojina, if I wanted to know why, I should ask him. I have no intention of doing that, and I can assure you that after the first 3 days of silence, I just deleted his number!! I maintained my dignity, I think it is very important to make a good exit, in a situation like I have just experienced.
A heartfelt thank you to everybody's input in trying to make me understand the IC better.

 

[diamanda]

I know that I must not ask yes or no answer

I disagree. Yes/no questions are in the heart of human existence, and perfectly valid.

You asked if you'll ever see him again. The answer says yes but not as a couple. Perhaps in a crowd. Since you haven't changed your mind about him, it looks like he is the one who changed his mind and went out with someone else.

 

[pepita45]

Thanks diamanda for your contribution. Now I am truly confused ��. We do not have any friends in common or live near each other in London, so it will be difficult for us to bump into each other, but not impossible ! Romantically I have lost all interest.