Questions????

[jjw2]

Hi Hilary,my name is Kim a friend of Johns. He has introduced me to the I Ching. Could you please help me with my reading? My question was:
Am I making the right decision in leaving my 15 year marriage and continuing my present relationship with my boyfriend who is also married. I appreciate your help!!!

 

[jjw2]

Hi Hilary, I forgot to tell you my Primary Hexagram was #32 and my Relating was #23.
Thank you again for your help!

 

[hilary]

Hi Kim, good to meet you. I hope you will enjoy the I Ching!

But I have an unpleasant feeling that you won?t enjoy this answer. The I Ching doesn?t do ?yes? and ?no? answers as such, but this one does sound to me like a ?no?.

If John told you much about his answer, you will know something of Hexagram 23 already. As the relating hexagram, it?s more your personal perspective on what?s happening ? in fact, it describes what you?re experiencing, and what you?re contemplating, ie separation. It means splitting apart, or stripping away: suffering a loss of purpose and certainty; finding it?s no longer the time to preserve appearances, but rather to strip them away (painfully?) to get down to the essential, and deal with what is rotten at the core of the situation. Time to concentrate on the foundations, as everything else is taken from you ? and to honour the emptiness, the pause and moment of dissolution, and wait to see what new things might grow in the space.

So this is something of the force acting on Hexagram 32 ? or your perspective on it, at least. Hexagram 32 is Persevering, and is traditionally regarded as the hexagram of marriage. ?The way [tao] of husband and wife can?t fail to endure? ? hmmm. But in fact there?s more than one way to read this ? who are you really, spiritually married to? (And the other side of the coin: who is married to you??)
Persevering follows from Mutual Influence, the swift attraction and magnetism of Hexagram 31. The attraction brings you to the place where you belong; first desire, then lasting ? as you will know well enough, if you?ve been married 15 years! But the emphasis now is on what lasts.

?Persevering: the constancy of te.
Persevering: variety that is not repressed.
Persevering: in the unitary te.?
Te is the virtue of following your path, expressing it in practice with constancy and unswerving truth to yourself. This hexagram emphasises that it is single, undivided. With this, variety ? and disorder ? does not need to be disciplined.

This hexagram doesn?t mean ?pressing on blindly in the same old way?, though it can be a warning against flitting from one thing to the next. It is about what stays the same throughout change and transformation, natural cycles and fresh starts. Nor is it a ?happy ending? hexagram. It makes it quite clear that at every level of creation, what endures is what changes. You only need skim through the images it uses: thunder, wind, the sun and moon, the seasons. They last with respect to their tao and never reach an ending. It is ?beneficial to have a direction to go? ? a sense of what you want to achieve ? but not to envisage any goal as an ?ending?.

With this huge, cosmic perspective, the changing lines are very important ? because they are on a human scale, showing where you stand in relation to these huge issues. This is where the I Ching pours cold water on your plans?

Line 2 says simply ?Regrets vanish? ? which sounds good. But tradition says this line represents someone who find circumstances stand obstinately between her and fulfilment. Rather than pursuing her desires immediately, she recognises the force of circumstances and lets be: staying centred, and on the ?middle way?. This is when ?regrets vanish?, with acceptance.

Line 3: ?Not persevering in your te. Perhaps receiving humiliation. Persisting ? shame.? This is not a good line! If you are less than true to yourself, all you can hope for is embarrassment and regret. At the least, the I Ching is suggesting you need to re-examine what you?re planning from the point of view of truth to yourself. When acorns germinate, they begin their growth with a long, strong, root for months before the leaf even shows itself.

Line 4 offers another reason to rethink: ?The field with no wildfowl.?
If there is no game, the hunter can?t catch anything; if there is nothing there worth having, there?s no point pursuing it. In other words, on a purely practical level, what reward can you hope for from this? You say your boyfriend is married himself ? where does this leave you?

And line 6: ?Excited persevering, misfortune.? Overwhelmingly strong feeling, great purpose and excitement ? not the right ingredients for perseverance. All that lasts is the restlessness and agitation, but there?s no solid achievement.

??????
Well, there it is?
Let me know what you think?