The Angels of Grace, A Spiritual Take on Hexagram 22 as an expression of grace…

[bradford]

well, i guess what you see is what you get.

Now THAT's closer to the core meaning of 22!!!
with the danger in 22 being "What you see is ALL you get"
if you are not mindful of the scale of things

BTW, the image of Grace, as in social graces, or graciousness, and not the
Christian kind, does have an important place in illustrating the core meaning
of 22, and I use the word seven times in my commentary, almost in every line.
But that doesn't make it the central idea.

 

[bradford]

Brad,

A question I sometimes ask (which usually goes unanswered) when someone negates something as belonging to a particular hexagram: What hexagram does it belong to?

In this case, these alleged misgivings of 22. If Yi includes all there is, then in what hexagram do we find the idea of energy and/or beauty showing, or the various meanings associated with the word “grace”?

Good one.
I think I'd start with these-
What to do with great gifts - 35, 42, 48
Gifts from Heaven - 14
Energy or beauty showing - 30, 35
Social graces or decorum - 22, 53
Graciousness - 02, 10

 

[charly]

...I think I've made my own bias clear - I favor the original Yijing and want to found my practice on the Chinese text first. Those who want to dance off with Grace for 22, or Women's Liberation for 44 are certainly free to do so. But they are leaving the Yijing behind in the process...

Brad:

Given that the YI isn´t WORD OF GOD each people is free for wanting to found the practise on different premises. Even without using any book.

I share with you the interest on the chinese text, I have ejoyed much time reading your studies but sometimes I dissent with your ideas, mainly when attached with arrogance and prejudice.

Am I dancing thus with grace and woman liberation? After all I believe it would not be so bad as authoritarianism and misogyny.

To see attacked woman liberation is unfortunately frequent in a world where women are still censored, oppressed, even murdered with the consent or indifference of much people.

Whorse things have been made with women than with the YI.

Yours,

Charly

 

[charly]

... i think there is difference between dancing off in free association, vs digging for the under standing of a word/chracter or phrase. that said, i think more than ever that Grace is a perfect term for what is being expressed in 22...

Bamboo:

I also believe that GRACE fits very well to H.22 and that is valuable all effort to understand the words an discourses we read.

Maybe we are wrong, but if it is so, we need reasons, answers based on evidences or on oppinions.

Attacks are proofs of weakeness. And associations never were free, even more, they are the stuff of meaning.

Yours,

Charly

 

[fkegan]

Hi Brad and Charly,
It isn't necessary to rely upon text, either ancient Chinese or any other to interpret the meaning of a hexagram. It is completely adequate just to note the placement of Yang lines in the gua:

hex 22 Yang lines in the first, third, and top places. Open Yin in the second, fourth and fifth places. Here the transition from prior roots to next transition is being moved by personal passion squeezed by the situation both as it was before and as it is developing to be. Here the individual is dwarfed by the enormity of the Cosmos, history, general progress, and natural environment all of which make manifest how puny we are in our own passionate desires.

All sources of interpretation are useful, and claims that only one perspective is right is mostly a statement of not understanding the universality of the Yi. Each and all perspectives add to the total understanding although no text is required or gives the ultimate understanding. This hexagram represents Grace or Elegance or High-Lights and many other names in various languages as it highlights or focuses upon the ongoing transition (first and final lines) as the personal passion or available light does its best yet is just a tiny piece of the process (structure, image and overall organization aren't focus--like a campfire in the mountains compared to the rising or setting sun in terms of making night day or day into night).

Perhaps any hexagram interpretation from any perspective needs to be taken with a bit of grace since none are everything or the only thing and all gain more as they are joined together rather than used to judge or belittle other sources or views.

Frank

 

[charly]

... It isn't necessary to rely upon text, either ancient Chinese or any other to interpret the meaning of a hexagram. It is completely adequate just to note the placement of Yang lines in the gua ...

Perhaps any hexagram interpretation from any perspective needs to be taken with a bit of grace since none are everything or the only thing and all gain more as they are joined together rather than used to judge or belittle other sources or views...

Hi, Frank:

I appreciate too much your points of view and amiable disposition.

You are one of the persons that don´t need a book for tracing meanings. But you also have your own text.

I´m preparing a draft translation of H.22 that I will post asap. I would appreciate your oppinions.

Yours,

Charly

 

[bamboo]

Now THAT's closer to the core meaning of 22!!!
with the danger in 22 being "What you see is ALL you get"
if you are not mindful of the scale of things

BTW, the image of Grace, as in social graces, or graciousness, and not the
Christian kind, does have an important place in illustrating the core meaning
of 22, and I use the word seven times in my commentary, almost in every line.
But that doesn't make it the central idea.

I never meant the christian kind of connotation. I may appear vacuous, but I m not that vacuous

thank you Charly.

 

[heylise]

I like grace for 22, a lot. But I don't agree with narrowing it down to just that.

Interpreting chinese figures is not a science, and the way it is interpreted can be wide and various.

Interpreting chinese figures actually is a science. The problem lies in finding back something of 3000 years ago. In the course of time words change meanings, the way to write a character changes, the way to combine characters changes. The entire culture changes. It is like figuring out those ancient books or tablets found in desert caves. A lot of it is missing, and what there is is for a big part illegible. Some scientists spend a lifetime on one single find.

Many chatacters from the Yi are found on ancient oracle bones or bronze vases. Sometimes it is possible to find out in what context they are being used. Even if it is a character which is still being used in modern Chinese, the meaning could be very different back then.

Some characters which don't exist on their own anymore can still be found as part of a compound. Sometimes "in there" a bit more of the old meaning is kept.

The ideogram says a lot. A picture of a woman obviously means something which has to do with a woman. Often the picture is less obvious.

Lots of things to find out, and science is only just beginning with it. So for the time being we have to fill in many things using our own imagination. But even so it is good to reckon with as many of those things I mentioned as possible. Otherwise you might stray off very far from what was intended.

I like the idea of asking Yi about it. I get such straightforward answers when I ask what "is" something, then why not about Yi itself?

 

[heylise]

About Mountain: in China a mountain also had more or less the meaning the Yggdrasil had in Norse mythology. So seeing it only as a big immovable obstruction is also limiting the meaning a lot. The name of hex. 11 is that of a mountain, Mount Tai. But there the mountain is not at all described as obstructing. Another meaning of Tai is eminent, and "spread out and reach everywhere"

The mountain is what gives the valley its fertility. Catching the rain and sending it down, protection from drying-out winds, from severe heat or cold. Valleys are very good places for living, much more so than open plains.

Vision in a flat country is not very far. Here in Holland I think I could walk to where I see the horizon within an hour. But reaching a mountain across a large valley may take more than a day. A mountain is visible far beyond the horizon.

 

[meng]

Good one.
I think I'd start with these-
What to do with great gifts - 35, 42, 48
Gifts from Heaven - 14
Energy or beauty showing - 30, 35
Social graces or decorum - 22, 53
Graciousness - 02, 10

Interesting. If I ponder that list openly, I can see traces of "grace/beauty/chi", etc in them each quite easily. But then, as I continue scanning other hexagrams, I can find traces there as well. It isn't until 22 arrives into view where those meanings feel at home, for me.

Social graces as 53 is one I wouldn't have thought of, but have recently found it to be precisely accurate.

 

[rodaki]

. . maybe I didn't express my dance metaphor as clear as needed
but I would like to post some cases were near-sightedness is also important for the honing of one's craft . . I always wondered about 22.2 going to 26 . . not saying this is its definitive meaning but I have found it could be part of it

 

[Trojina]

Am I dancing thus with grace and woman liberation? After all I believe it would not be so bad as authoritarianism and misogyny.

To see attacked woman liberation is unfortunately frequent in a world where women are still censored, oppressed, even murdered with the consent or indifference of much people.

Whorse things have been made with women than with the YI.

Yours,

Charly

I gotta say i find your identification with womens sensibilities really strange . I find your interpretations, without exageration, the most sexist ones I've ever come across since you seem determined to hunt out any imagery that may vaguely be construed as 'feminine' and wham bam turn it into a model of female genitalia...Wow great thanks Charlie, so all these years women have striven to be seen as more than their ******* and you go straight back and reduce half the population to a hole...which is okay if one might say well its Charlys way of reinterpreting a poem, the poem of the I Ching, why shouldn't he ? Thats my view of your work...As a poetic endeavour it stands in its own right..but it isn't the I Ching really. Nothing wrong with that but you can't claim your poetic endeavour is the real truth about the I Ching..even as a non scholar I notice you take a word which may be an English aspect of the Chinese and spin wildly off it to make it into a modern day phrase/slang/ idiom which would never have been intended from the original...hence veering in a completely unrelated direction to the meaning of the hexagram in the original chinese.

Like I recall you made out the title of 44 was "What the F*** !" hence using the word 'copulate', transformed into our modern usage of F*** as an expletive and "what the F*** !" a very modern turn of phrase and you made out this is what the ancient Chinese meant ..... so the ancient Chinese went around using modern anglo/american slang with all its current associations and it sooo neatly translates ...oh yeah I don't need to be a scholar to see a problem with that..BUT as your personal poetic endeavour why not of course...please share but please don't make out this is the real I Ching, that this is what was really meant. I think you do need to recognise your work as poetic more than anything...not uncovering 'real' meanings

What happens when people just free associate from an english word thats just one aspect of the original is that ultimately every hexagram starts to look pretty much like the next, each loses its true flavour. If everything can mean anything in the end everything means precisely nothing....which as a method for divination i think Brad explained might really suit some people..I don't think he was critisizing that, just saying it wasn't then the I Ching really.


I actually don't find you expand meaning Charly, I think you narrow it down...well to body parts really, you seem to lose ideas in favour of body parts so although one may say you free associate you free associate within very narrow boundaries..... between the waist and the knees usually lol..how does that make you so sympathetic to women ? and how on earth does it relate ever to real readings..I've never seen any of your translations in application to real readings have I ?

 

[Trojina]

Bamboo:

I also believe that GRACE fits very well to H.22 and that is valuable all effort to understand the words an discourses we read.

Maybe we are wrong, but if it is so, we need reasons, answers based on evidences or on oppinions.

Attacks are proofs of weakeness. And associations never were free, even more, they are the stuff of meaning.

Yours,

Charly

And experience of course is important..there must be something to be gleaned from ones expereince with 22..one can spin off the words and reinterpret the words in accordance with ones beliefs about what was really meant but at some point words must meet the reality of living if you are using the Yi in your life as an oracle not just a poetic exersize.

 

[Trojina]

I never meant the christian kind of connotation. I may appear vacuous, but I m not that vacuous

thank you Charly.

Well in Angels first post she was using the Christian connotation ..albeit she was not intending to be specifically Christian about it.,( reckon she had new age perspective.) That was the whole point of her post..it was spiritual take on Grace,...that is she was suggesting we take grace not just as beauty but in the spiritual sense too..as in blessed with favour from God or the Powers that be. I think new age models of thought also use the word grace in this way..probably other religions do too, i don't know.

Just wasn't sure why you thought meaning the Christian connotation would make you vacuous....don't worry using the word that way won't make you an actual christian

 

[maremaria]

I like what Brad says in his 22.3 comments: “The real beauty is not about beauty”
With the risk of being wrong, this phrase connects the words beauty and nearsightedness.
According to ancient Greeks, beauty is inside an object. They said that object or nature are inherently beautiful. And in their words and arts talk a lot about simplicity and symmetry.

I see beauty/ grace/ charis/ charisma as the power/energy inside. The problem is how that beauty comes out. If we try to put lots of adornments, beautify, it can lose its value but on the other hand, it has to flow to come out. Masks, in Greek theatre , were used to helped people to get into what happened in the story, and have their share in the final relief. So, masks, adornments, etc, might hide or revel what lays inside.

When I get 14 or 35 feel like Yi laughs in my face. I don’t feel gifted at those moments. On the other hand , when I get 22 I feel obstructed. there is energy inside but can’t flow.

 

[rosada]

Interesting that Hexagram 22 inspires talk about whether words have shared meaning, are they able to help us express ourselves, make ourselves clear to others, or are we just in love with the sound of our voice, our own image, a shadow on a cave wall?

 

[bamboo]

trojan, Vacuous was used in reference to Grace-faeries connection. This is getting confusing..i know angels meant grace as spiritual favor in start of thread. but as we got into this discussion, I was discussing the term grace as it is often applied to 22...not as spiritual favor, but as adorning, as more like a verb, or as graciousness.

I never said it is 'the whole picture' or only appropriate title or anything like that - - but i do find it apt. i dont agree that interpretation of language is ever a science, an art perhaps, and no doubt including a lot of serious scientific type investigation, but to arrive at one final conclusion is not possible. language conveys more than what can be pinned down by scientific scrutiny.

i have no objection to being called Christian, by the way, altho i dont call myself that. I dont really pin words down to certain hard and fast connotation, there is alot about the sense of "christian" that i find admirable and worthy. and to be honest, i dont even find the idea of consorting with faeries to be 'vacuous' either. I once saw a bunch of fairies on an acid trip in 1970, but they didnt talk to me...just kind of silently giggled in the leaves and branches of a gorgeous tree with tiny pink flowers that I was swinging from. they graced me with their presence. ahhh, a 22 experience

loved the pictures rodaki!!

 

[heylise]

i dont agree that interpretation of language is ever a science, an art perhaps, and no doubt including a lot of serious scientific type investigation, but to arrive at one final conclusion is not possible. language conveys more than what can be pinned down by scientific scrutiny.

It is not possible to translate a Chinese character to one final conclusion. With or without science. It means you shut out most of its meaning. That one conclusion may very well be right, but what about all those other meanings which are just as right?

Like cutting down a whole forest because you want only one single kind of tree.

 

[Sparhawk]

There was a passing comment about female genitalia and I felt compelled to say HI!! Having said that, don't mind me at all and carry on...

 

[bamboo]

It is not possible to translate a Chinese character to one final conclusion. With or without science. It means you shut out most of its meaning. That one conclusion may very well be right, but what about all those other meanings which are just as right?

Like cutting down a whole forest because you want only one single kind of tree.

that was exactly my point! science is about proof and pinning down. Please, I m not the one here who is demanding that there is one way to look at any hex , esp so re: 22. I never said "grace" to the exclusion of anything else!

 

[lucia]

These methods use orderly systems of symbols to divide the whole of human experience into a finite number of representations, usually less than a hundred. While each of these representations has a fundamental set of meanings, they do each represent a huge territory, range or field of meanings that are built up over many years of practice in the reader's experience. It's ultimately the reader's decision to guard what goes into these built -up sets of associations. The more sloppily and uncritically this is done the less articulate the divination method will be.

yep I think so too..

Lise

Interpreting chinese figures actually is a science. The problem lies in finding back something of 3000 years ago. In the course of time words change meanings, the way to write a character changes, the way to combine characters changes. The entire culture changes. It is like figuring out those ancient books or tablets found in desert caves. A lot of it is missing, and what there is is for a big part illegible. Some scientists spend a lifetime on one single find.

Yay Lise! Spot on.. This is central to debates on language and meaning. Signifier and signified - what if any are their relationships? If you go the whole hog and detatch one from the other you float way from any mooring in meaning at all. Then you can't take a position on anything because you are for ever deferring or displacing meaning.

Or alternatively, if you pin it down with cement not only are you imposing, you are also denying possibility. Either way is problematic.

Charly

To see attacked woman liberation is unfortunately frequent in a world where women are still censored, oppressed, even murdered with the consent or indifference of much people.

Well, I haven't seen any attack on "women's liberation" in this thread but now you mention it "women's lib" is a great example of what I'm talking about. Apart from the fact that I am sure we all agree violence towards women is wrong in any way (la violencia contra la mujer) what exactly is "women's liberation"? Whose view of "liberated" gets to be counted? I'm not being awkward, this has been a major critique within feminist debates. It was a critique initiated by black and asian women who see white western views of "liberation" as part of the problem.

I think the challenge is to have the courage to question our "universal" impositions while not sinking into the quagmire of extreme "relativism". Tricky but productive.

charly

Given that the YI isn´t WORD OF GOD each people is free for wanting to found the practise on different premises. Even without using any book.

fkegan

It isn't necessary to rely upon text, either ancient Chinese or any other to interpret the meaning of a hexagram.

and that to me is an example of relativism - if there's no book or text then what is it exactly? It's not got any moorings at all - and for me that really is away with the fairies..... maybe some hexes are quite muteable but they are still moored in something or they're not i ching hexes they become woolly and meaningless.

The irony is that so much of what we view as "new age" or modern "spirituality", has its roots in colonial power and domination. New agers just squeeze all the politics out of it - hippy India is a perfect example. Certain Indian-based 'spiritual' paths of westerners are actually supporting a violent form of Hindu fundamentalism that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Muslims and Christians in India.

So while hexes have shades of meaning - for me they have to anchored in something or it's just plain self-indulgence. Something we in the "West" seem to excell in!!! I don't read Chinese myself so I rely on the work of others and try to read a bit critically. For that I give thanks to the translators such as Lise and Brad and others.

Lise

The mountain is what gives the valley its fertility. Catching the rain and sending it down, protection from drying-out winds, from severe heat or cold. Valleys are very good places for living, much more so than open plains.

Yay! There are so many different kinds of mountains.... single individual ones, long deep chains like the Himalayas, steep valleys wide valleys etc., In Bali the mountain is sacred and the people look inland to it and mistrust the sea.

So while there may be fairies at the bottom of the garden there ain't any in the ching and the only angel I know is my bf when he cooks and cleans when I'm incapable!!

Translation is such a fine process - there is no word for word swop - sometimes it means expressing concepts that don't exist in our language or vice versa - that is the 'art' that goes along with the 'science' of the work no?

Lucia

 

[Trojina]

There was a passing comment about female genitalia and I felt compelled to say HI!! Having said that, don't mind me at all and carry on...

Thank goodness your compulsion is still intact, i was getting worried

 

[Trojina]

. i dont agree that interpretation of language is ever a science, an art perhaps, and no doubt including a lot of serious scientific type investigation, but to arrive at one final conclusion is not possible. language conveys more than what can be pinned down by scientific scrutiny.



!

I agree with you, it isn't possible to pin down meanings when a word can mean many things in many different contexts...but i thought Chinese had the edge on us there, being more fluid more subject to fluctuation in meaning according to context amongst other characters. I thought it is we who do the pinning down when we get fixated on a word in English that may be only one tiny nuance of the word in Chinese..so we may make multiple false connections (in free association to that word in english) that take us step by step by step ever further away from what the hexagram is all about. I think its said we most commonly do this in response to hexagram titles.., Still if we don't know chinese i guess its inevitable we do this to a degree...but i personally think its desirable to keep an eye on the degree to which we do this, at least to be aware of it anyway....

 

[fkegan]

Hi Lucia,

if there's no book or text then what is it exactly? It's not got any moorings at all - and for me that really is away with the fairies..... maybe some hexes are quite muteable but they are still moored in something or they're not i ching hexes they become woolly and meaningless.

Books are not the only source of meaning or mooring. In my work, after working on a Taoist translation of the traditional I Ching text with Gia-Fu Feng, making my own American names for the hexagram meanings, relating the Yi to the Zodiac and Pythagorean metaphysics, I came to the realization the precise moorings and meaning of each hexagram could be nailed down in a few simple principles:

That the gua was a matrix or gestalt background and the Yang lines were the image or focus. Thus, the meaning is not relative or away with the fairies but clearly determined by the line places and which line places have yang lines. The Yin line places are background, part of the overall matrix.

Texts require context. There are Confucian commentaries, Taoist perspective, ancient Imperial bureaucratic expectations and personal musings wrapped up in the texts since 600 B.C.E. And even more stuff in the translations and commentaries of our time.

References to the relevant web pages of my web site to explain my perspective are in my signature. Texts, translations, even correspondences with other systems are useful and fun, but definitely not required for hard content or precise understanding.

The power of the Yi, I believe, is its ability to mimic the fundamental process of the human mind to recognize and store meaning which unlike the Whorf hypothesis is not in any way connected to words or language--but that is metaphysics a bit beyond this thread.

Hi Trojan,

it isn't possible to pin down meanings when a word can mean many things in many different contexts...but i thought Chinese had the edge on us there, being more fluid more subject to fluctuation in meaning according to context amongst other characters. I thought it is we who do the pinning down when we get fixated on a word in English that may be only one tiny nuance of the word in Chinese.

There is also a theory that simple English shares with Chinese that it is the popular cultures street slang rather than the formal language of the occupying conquerors. Thus, that fluid quality you note to Chinese also exists in simple English or American terms. Another reason to deal with hexagram meaning through the line patterns or the King Wen Sequence numbering which avoid words as the basis of meaning.

Frank

 

[heylise]

that was exactly my point! science is about proof and pinning down. Please, I m not the one here who is demanding that there is one way to look at any hex , esp so re: 22. I never said "grace" to the exclusion of anything else!

Yes, I did misread your post. I see now what you meant.

I don't agree though that science 'pins down' in this case. It is rather the one who does not know about all those meanings, who picks one meaning out of all that and pins it down. That is also one of the reasons that so many hexagrams are seen as good or bad. Very often a Chinese character includes positive and negative things, even complete opposites of each other.

I think the best way is to put all those meanings together in a cauldron and cook. Like hex. 50. And then taste the soup. A really good soup makes you recognize every ingredient and still is one whole.

Not easy but fun to work with!

 

[bradford]

There was a passing comment about female genitalia and I felt compelled to say HI!! Having said that, don't mind me at all and carry on...

I just love this simple fellow

 

[Sparhawk]

Just keeping up with the spirit of 22... Sometimes one has to focus on the pretty trees and leave the rest of the forest to the loggers.

 

[bradford]

Just keeping up with the spirit of 22... Sometimes one has to focus on the pretty trees and leave the rest of the forest to the loggers.

You are a STOOT.
I wonder how many caught the relevance of that comment to 22.

 

[charly]

I gotta say i find your identification with womens sensibilities really strange . I find your interpretations, without exageration, the most sexist ones I've ever come across since you seem determined to hunt out any imagery that may vaguely be construed as 'feminine' and wham bam turn it into a model of female genitalia...

Tojan:

I like very much your straightforward and honest post. You give many detailed reasons although some of it I believe wrong. My job doesn´t allow me too much time for the forum. I ought to answer you by parts.

Meanwhile, I know a little of world history, sometimes I read the newspapers or watch some TV. Women continued being censored in many countries and nothing to do with lack of education or culture. See a sample. not the worst, of course:

From: Find the Ladies (the Israeli Cabinet Version)

... the original photo ... is of Israel’s new cabinet... it contains two female ministers. Since publishing pictures of women are considered a no-no for many ultra-orthodox Jews as a violation of female modesty, the Yated Neeman newspaper decided to do a little photoshoppin’

at: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/04/05/find-the-ladies-the-israeli-cabinet-version/

Now, going to the name of Hex.22, a little survey on 10 translations take randomly:


ADORN, DECORATION, ORNAMENT: Wu Jing-Nuan, Rick Kunst, Kerson Huang, Thos. Cleary, Alfred Douglas. Five out of ten.

GRACE, ELEGANCE, BEAUTY: Wilhelm (/Baynes), John Blofeld, Richard Lynn, Gia Fu / Frank Kegan, Carmelo Elorduy. Five out of ten.

Although it´s not a good sample, oppinions are divided but the opposition is no radical. But in translating we must choose only one word, sometimes we can refine the concept addign a second between brackets, as sometimes did Wilhelm/Baynes, no much more.

How to decide? I believe:

1) examinign the character bi4 賁, or
2) doing a trip by all the lines looking for sense.

Shortly, the ancient character has something like a POT or a VASE and VEGETAL SPROUTS (1). Do you see men putting flowers in a vase? A woman has passed by here. When characters were standarized close to the actual form, bi4 賁 show two components, FLOWERS AND SPROUTS atop of COWRY SHELLS. Cowries for ancient chinese meant MONEY and, trust me, FEMALE GENITALIA!

I believe that the YI is not obscene But has remnants of old censored rites, here, maybe, of ANCIENT GODDESS WORSHIP. The Goddess disappeared remaing her attribute or symbol, the COWRY (2). I would to read bi4 賁 as SACRIFICE / OFFERINGS of flowers and sprouts (3) on the SHRINE of the GODDESS.

Now, going to the lines, look for the dramatis personae:

匪 fei3: bandit / not, non
寇 kou4: bandit / robber
婚 hun1: to marry (speaking of a man) / to take a wife
媾 gou4: to marry / to copulate

No woman, even more, no other men than bandits and ****ers. This sequence is a remnant of the old costume or kidnapping the bride.

Hun-gou is understood as men looking for abducting women, Wilhelm says that with good intentions, but the chinese text says nothing about «propper time».

No women at H.22? Has half humankind been censored?

(to be continued)

All the best,

Charly

_____________________
(1)Ancient forms from Sears' ChyneseEtymology

(2) Remember the shell of Aphrodite.
(3) Or maybe another sort of offering.

 

[heylise]

Shortly, the ancient character has something like a POT or a VASE and VEGETAL SPROUTS (1). Do you see men putting flowers in a vase?

Lots of men in this business