The melons of 44.5

[heylise]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

LiSe

 

[dobro p]

I knew a girl like that once. Beautiful.

The first Dali morph was really clever.

 

[heylise]

Oo, I see that Carin posted it in open space. She sent it to me, and it was so appropriate for 44 that I posted it this morning. Oh well, it is good enough to be in two places at once.

LiSe

 

[hilary]

Oh wow, yes, there She is. And definitely something uncanny about her, after the eyes have followed you through a few centuries.

 

[mollies]

I knew a girl like that once. Beautiful.

The first Dali morph was really clever.

Did you see the same video as I did?
Or else, I do not understand what you are saying... It seems not possible to me to speak of ‘knowing a girl like ‘that’

There are so many different women passing your eye within three minutes.
All being who they are, captured in their time.
Each with her own soul.
Saint and innocent, Modest and shy, Severe and decisive, Warm and attentive, Careful and doubting, Seductive and self-aware, Almost-human and out-of-time, Motherlike and earthlike, Strange, Pious, Prudish, Alive, Intelligent, Soft, Strong, Beatiful, Female.
Etc

Carin

 

[charly]

Regarding the word Gou, there's a character Gou that refers to
"dog" that is the title of this hexagram in the Mawangdui ms.
But it refers to a bitch, and the word has the same derogatory
meaning here as it does in the west. The woman here
is to be avoided as an untimely distraction. But there are
plenty of other places in the Yi where the woman is to be
embraced, empowered or celebrated.

Brad:

I go to re-read your rendering for H.44, I don't get why MWD should refer to a bitch.

I actualy thinks that the women denigratory sense comes from ulterior moralistic readings, not from the text itself.

Giveme a pair of days to collect my notes, I need your opinions about it. Of course, I apreciate very much the tools you provide in your page.

Yours,

Charly

 

[charly]

...There are so many different women passing your eye within three minutes. All being who they are, captured in their time. Each with her own soul. ...

Carin:

You'r right. I personally prefer diversity.

When the Guy thinks abstractly, he often tends to wiew all the women the same, the only thing he is interested in. But when the Guy finds a real woman, he tends to belive nobody can be like «his» Lady.

When the Guy thinks and when the Guy feels, he doesn't use his eyes. And the Guy not ever has the sense of touch. That's our psychology. «Nobody's perfect».

Yours,


Charly

 

[bruce_g]

I have no problem with 44 being the bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)

 

[bruce_g]

It may sound good or "superior" to live without Maya, to become entirely Brahma, but nothing creative in this world happens that way.

When I dissipate too much, when I become only Brahma, when there are no goals or ambitions left in my life - I cook up meat and offer it to Maya (by eating). Then illusion returns in a powerful way, and I again can have goals and ambitions. But it is a choice, and not just grasping at the woman.

"Everywhere under Heaven there is Wind: Coupling.
The ruler by issuing his commands announces them to the four regions."

 

[bradford]

Brad:
I go to re-read your rendering for H.44, I don't get why MWD should refer to a bitch.
I actualy thinks that the women denigratory sense comes from ulterior moralistic readings, not from the text itself.
Charly

I think the image of the Zhuang Nu, the strong woman, is so captivating in itself that we nearly always forget that this is only an analogy or a metaphor, not a prediction. Even for the subset of horny young men and hot young lesbians, the Yi is only going to be referring to an actual hot young woman only a tiny percentage of the time. It might just as often refer to a financial investment or automotive repair or a smelly old man.
I think it's important to first grasp what the symbolism is about. Why would they pick an aggressive young woman? Perhaps because she is the most powerful force known to man when it comes to distracting him from his higher purposes and interfering with his grand schemes and plans. She stands in here for a form of entropy, the dissolution of order. That's why in the Da Xiang the sovereign has to be redundant with his commands (say again? we're breaking up).

 

[cesca]

First off, let me say that I have just looked at this thread for the first time, and missed my dinner because I couldn't tear myself away until I'd read it 'cover to 'cover'. It’s awesome. What a great conversation about Hex44, via God and the world (literally!), including comparative slang and an in-depth discussion of the metaphysics of divination. Absolutely wonderful. :bows:


now...

I believe it's like in astrology where 'good' and 'bad' (or 'benefic' and 'malefic') are words that hardly any astrologer will use nowadays. But some configurations are still considered to be 'easier' than others.

In the I Ching, hexagram 40 is not 'good' and hexagram 3 is not 'bad'. But I find hex 40 the easier of the two.

It's also personal, I think. A hexagram might be easy for me and less easy for you or the other way around. It depends on type, history, on what you are good at or not so good, and so on. Hexagram 3 situations require a lot of patience, in my experience, and I'm not all that good at being patient.

I had an illustrative experience of this recently. Hexagram 23 is not one of my personal favourites; I dread getting it. To me it generally feels like 'How much worse can this GET??!" (It's not that I think it's BAD -- but it's certainly uncomfortable).

But it came up in a reading I did for someone a few weeks ago; last year he separated from his wife and they sold the family home. From someone who had a big house with a lot of possessions, he has purposely moved to a condition of having almost no possessions and living in a rented flat. He wanted to clear the decks, put his old life behind him, and start over. He got Hexagram 23, I told him what it meant, and he just nodded and shrugged, and looked at me like "Of course". He's actually looking forward to losing that last bit.

Cesca

 

[RindaR]

I have no problem with 44 being the bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)

To get to this article, add the last closing parenthesis to the url in your browser address window.

 

[bruce_g]

He wanted to clear the decks, put his old life behind him, and start over. He got Hexagram 23, I told him what it meant, and he just nodded and shrugged, and looked at me like "Of course". He's actually looking forward to losing that last bit.

Cesca

I also went though this, though at the time of such eager stripping, I hadn't reckoned with the difficulty of growing them back. Moral of that story: be careful what you ask for.

 

[charly]

I think the image of the Zhuang Nu, the strong woman, is so captivating in itself that we nearly always forget that this is only an analogy or a metaphor, not a prediction. Even for the subset of horny young men and hot young lesbians, the Yi is only going to be referring to an actual hot young woman only a tiny percentage of the time. It might just as often refer to a financial investment or automotive repair or a smelly old man.
I think it's important to first grasp what the symbolism is about. Why would they pick an aggressive young woman? Perhaps because she is the most powerful force known to man when it comes to distracting him from his higher purposes and interfering with his grand schemes and plans. She stands in here for a form of entropy, the dissolution of order. That's why in the Da Xiang the sovereign has to be redundant with his commands (say again? we're breaking up).

Brad:

I agree with you that the «strong girl» is a metaphore, but as all metaphors finally rest in concrete sensorial experience and nothing more concrete that the sexual interest not only for horny young men, hot young lesbians, also for smelly old man (I believe we among them).

I was recently informed about the results of a survey conducted in my country, the three most interesting things for all men, no matter the age, were:

1) football,
2) women,
3) cars.​

The same among plain people and among the most high economical and political elites, like our recently voted Governor (1).

If you think that football canalize hostility against womb and cars satisfy fantasies of tourning to womb, the only interest of modern guys draws around wombs, like paleolithic men that carved stone paunchy venus!

High purposes only masked the guy's real interests, that are sexual. And was sex, the biological strenght, that assured thousand years life for humankind despite all the entropy of war and death.

Some chinese classics also agree:

吿子曰：「食、色，性也。仁，內也，非外也，義，外也，非內也。」
[6A:4] Kao Tzu said: "By nature we desire food and sex. Humaneness is internal and not external, Rightness is external and not internal."
MengZi, translated by Muller
http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/contao/mencius.html#div-6A

My own version: «Food, sex: human nature, eh!». Without food and sex no humankind, not humaneness.

If women were not valued, which is the reason why Kings collected them in large harems? Why so much women generating entropy? I tell you, moral speechs were only «pour la galerie».

The Power wants warrior machines without sex, but without sex there are no warriors, no peasants!

Done that continued having warriors and peasants...

In the Da Xiang the Sovereign is no redundant with his commands, he is multidirectional. All men, yet more if from the elite, yet more if ancient chinese or japanese, are exhibitionists when having sex (the so called commands), proof of that, when in prints they are making «this», ever there is a witness, some one spying beteen courtains.

Better I go to collect my papers. I apologize, maybe I have read too much Wilhelm, Blofeld, Needham and Van Gulik! See you later.

Yours,

Charly
----------------------------------------------------------------
(1) the survey:

El auto es el objeto más deseado por el hombre argentino, después del fútbol y las mujeres
Así lo demuestra un estudio realizado por Rexona V8, que confirma la extraordinaria relación existente entre el hombre argentino y el auto. Los hombres le destinan una gran cantidad de cuidados, y hasta incluso cariño... [el estudio] se realizó a nivel nacional en abril del 2007 por la consultora TNS Gallup para Rexona.

...los empresarios en general están contentos con los resultados de las elecciones metropolitanas... algunos de sus jugadores forman parte del núcleo duro de amigos de Mauricio Macri...

 

[bradford]

Long ago I made it a first principle in my Yixue to simultaneously:
a) Subordinate the Yao Ci or Line Text meaning to the overall meaning or theme of the Gua, no matter how divergent or colorful or contradictory it was, and
b) Use the divergent or colorful or contradictory line symbolism to stretch out the overall theme or meaning of the Gua until I got a comfortable fit.

In the case of 44, I see the overall theme as recommending restraint, self-discipline or control, starting with putting on the brakes in line 1, even though in lines 4 and 6 this has perhaps been taken too far and a little lightening up is in order. So when I look at line 5, I need to ask why covering melons in willow leaves is an expression of restraint. That made it obvious to me that the melons were being kept in shady storage until they were perfectly ripened, until they became a gift from Heaven, which to the Chinese was intricately bound up with proper timing, Heaven being the cosmic clockworks and all. The restraint is in not cracking them open too soon and having an inferior experience due to ones haste.

 

[bruce_g]

In the case of 44, I see the overall theme as recommending restraint, self-discipline or control, starting with putting on the brakes in line 1, even though in lines 4 and 6 this has perhaps been taken too far and a little lightening up is in order. So when I look at line 5, I need to ask why covering melons in willow leaves is an expression of restraint. That made it obvious to me that the melons were being kept in shady storage until they were perfectly ripened, until they became a gift from Heaven, which to the Chinese was intricately bound up with proper timing, Heaven being the cosmic clockworks and all. The restraint is in not cracking them open too soon and having an inferior experience due to ones haste.

That makes sense to me.

My protective leaves embracing this line and the virtue of this little whore is that she receives so little understanding. And besides that, she may be able to accelerate my Tantra practice.

 

[dobro p]

Long ago I made it a first principle in my Yixue to simultaneously:
a) Subordinate the Yao Ci or Line Text meaning to the overall meaning or theme of the Gua, no matter how divergent or colorful or contradictory it was, and
b) Use the divergent or colorful or contradictory line symbolism to stretch out the overall theme or meaning of the Gua until I got a comfortable fit.

Even when you draw one active line and it has a meaning that is the flipside of the main text message? How do you arrive at a comfortable fit when the main message says A, and the active line message says Z?

 

[heylise]

Men want to be seduced. And of course sometimes they choose to restrain themselves, but other times not. A man who restrains himself all the time.. There were monks who chastised themselves far away from 44, but they are no average men. Maybe not even wise men.

From a man's view 44 is about restraint AND about letting go. It is about the woman, and that includes both. I am woman, sometimes I seduce (or at least try to), other times I don't. Sometimes it is good, other times it is not. I got 44 many times when it was good. But also many times for questions which were 'only' about my own feelings. Overall their meaning was 'get your woman up and about again, she is strong enough, make her live again'.

In that same time I got a vision of a huge wooden woman, immobile, empty, nothing behind the eyes. Looking like an Easter Island statue. But then a little coyote started to live inside that big wooden statue, coming out for hunting, going back in for a safe place. And now the wooden woman has life inside.

About contradicting lines.. why should women never contradict themselves? One time sweet, another time nagging, every man knows all about it. That goes for all hexagrams, they are about something bigger than reality, but narrowed down to our question of that moment, the line can give a specific warning, which is not contradictory to the whole, but just one aspect of it.

LiSe

 

[bradford]

Even when you draw one active line and it has a meaning that is the flipside of the main text message? How do you arrive at a comfortable fit when the main message says A, and the active line message says Z?

You just have to expand the implications of A to include Z. That's more easily done if you see the Gua as representing fields of meaning that include choices, and limits.
For example, in 44.4, it's starting to dawn on our subject that he's in danger of making his chastity a chronic condition instead of a temporary measure to keep focused on something else. The Yi is charting the outer edge of the wisdom of restraint, the place where it becomes unwise. Ditto for 44.6, but issues of control and acting out of frustration are present there.

 

[charly]

Men want to be seduced. And of course sometimes they choose to restrain themselves, but other times not. A man who restrains himself all the time.. There were monks who chastised themselves far away from 44, but they are no average men. Maybe not even wise men.

LiSe:

Insteed, there are. Your writings are balsam for my eyes.

In male psychology there are something called «fear to castration», some guys think that having commerce with women they can be castrated. As an internal resource for not having commerce they think that all women (maybe except mothers) are whores, so they are not interested in them.

In the very deep, I believe, they are stingy guys ever thinking in the value for money. Most whores value what they cost. Honest wifes are much more expensive that whores. Some guys care his money trying of not to pay women (yet more if they are divorced from).

Some guys fears that the only weak line could break all the block of the five strong lines from the base to the summit. The image of the idol with mud feets, the image of the rotten apple, the image of the failure.

I think that to view whores in H.44 is totally crazy. It doesn't spek of whores as it doesn't speak of marriage, althoug everyone can put in it all they want.

The word that supposedly means marriage has an EAR and a HAND, plain rendering should be:

1) «don't take from the ear women». Taking from the ear is something humiliating for a human being althoug it often happens with children and women.

2) Also can be: «don't take the ear of a woman» alluding to the practice of taking ears from enemies dead in battle as a proof or trophy, an image not far from oracle bone records.

I think both are very close to the reality to be the message, BUT LITTLE TO DO WITH MARRIAGE. «Don't marry with a dominant woman» can be a naive advice for people who taked for granted that women must be pretty, weak and shy.

I believe that taking the image as a metaphor the message coul be: be cautious with woman, be gentle, advance softly, all them have natural hidden powers, all of them have an ancestral mother in the heaven, better don't commit mistakes. A way of restraining not to denigrate a woman but to have joy with her.

For some guys this message is terrible for other it's a good advice, not from economical, moral or political points of view , but from the point of view of life and pleasure, say, yin tao.

And, of course, the spiritual and the phisical are two slopes of the same thing. Besides, I think that dogs are good friends not only for men, for woman too.

Maybe I'm wrong (but I don't believe)

Yours,

Charly

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Sears says:

取 = 耳 er3 ear + 又 you4 right hand
to take hold of the ear 耳 with the hand 又
...
to take / to receive / to fetch / to obtain / to take hold of / to select / to choose / to summon / to recall / to marry / to take a wife
http://www.chineseetymology.org/Cha...aspx?characterInput=取&submitButton1=Etymology

He attachs very much oracle bone characters. May be the last quoted meanings the more recent.

 

[charly]

LiSe:

Both translation and connections make much sense in the whole hexagram context.
I have made some searchings looking for additional stuff and I find two:

1) etymology:
包 bao1 ... A person leaning over and holding or covering an object perhaps a baby
From Sears' ChineseEtymology

2) Maybe a mother like this?

Leaning over her little baby.

THE POWERFUL GIRL !!!
​

I always think that the GOU advice of «not marrying such a gir» was a fake advice.
I like more something as:

姤 gou4: Wow!!! (1)
女 nu3 壯 zhuang4: Girl is powerful
勿 wu4 用 yong4: don't use
取 qu3 女 nu3: to force girls (2)

Don't you agree?:bows:

Yours,

Charly

-------------------------------------
(1) like dog's barking exclamation .
(2) freely inspired from Harmen

The picture of Mother Tigress with her Cub was restored.
Ch.

 

[lena_p]

Long ago I made it a first principle in my Yixue to simultaneously:
a) Subordinate the Yao Ci or Line Text meaning to the overall meaning or theme of the Gua, no matter how divergent or colorful or contradictory it was, and
b) Use the divergent or colorful or contradictory line symbolism to stretch out the overall theme or meaning of the Gua until I got a comfortable fit.

In the case of 44, I see the overall theme as recommending restraint, self-discipline or control, starting with putting on the brakes in line 1, even though in lines 4 and 6 this has perhaps been taken too far and a little lightening up is in order. So when I look at line 5, I need to ask why covering melons in willow leaves is an expression of restraint. That made it obvious to me that the melons were being kept in shady storage until they were perfectly ripened, until they became a gift from Heaven, which to the Chinese was intricately bound up with proper timing, Heaven being the cosmic clockworks and all. The restraint is in not cracking them open too soon and having an inferior experience due to ones haste.

This was actually informative. Thanks!

 

[deflatormouse]

I always think that the GOU advice of «not marrying such a gir» was a fake advice.
I like more something as:

姤 gou4: Wow!!! (1)
女 nu3 壯 zhuang4: Girl is powerful
勿 wu4 用 yong4: don't use
取 qu3 女 nu3: to force girls (2)

Don't you agree?:bows:

Yours,

Charly

-------------------------------------
(1) like dog's barking exclamation .
(2) freely inspired from Harmen

Oh yes, we like this very, very much indeed; we think it is one of the finest translations of "姤女壯勿用取女" we have seen. We also suggest that anyone who may feel this very potent idea is merely political posturing au currant ought to take a look at Harmen's thoroughly researched article on this portion of the text, to which we are also quite partial, with its implications of gender non-conformity. Thank you for this, Charly.

 

[charly]

Oh yes, we like this very, very much indeed; we think it is one of the finest translations of "姤女壯勿用取女" we have seen. ... Thank you for this, Charly.

Hi, D-Mouse:

Glad that you like one of my translations of H.44. Of course your words are excessively positive. If you read the former posts will see that all the merit belongs to Lotty Heyboer (LiSe), whose translations are always better than the mine. Only that, maybe sometimes, less playful.
Harmen is a must and even maybe Margaret J. Pearson (http://originaliching.org/#) although her translation is I believe far from being literal.

The WOW! idea comes from the title of H.8 in Mawangdui manuscript which is 狗 gou, dog. I imagine that it could be used as onomatopoeia of dog's barking, that in my country have admirative value and in the ODES has connection with LOVE and SEX.

The Great Image (Da Xiang) of H.44 姤 gou, say temporary ANCESTRESS (Harmen):

天下有風: 姤
tian1 xia4 you3 feng1 gou4
HEAVEN BELOW THERE_IS WIND: ANCESTRESS
In the whole world, in all the earth, there is wind.
The way of Wind is gentle and penetrating.

后以施命
hou4 yi3 shi1 ming4
(THE) QUEEN ACCORDINGLY CARRIES_OUT (HER) DESTINY
Following the way of Wind, the Queen performed what she was fated to do (for bringing a heir)
Of course, she was a former queen, mother of the first king of a dynasty, mother of the first heir.

誥四方
gao4 shi4 fang1
PROCLAIMING (IT TO THE) FOUR DIRECTIONS
And made it in the open fields, not in the intimacy of the women's chamber, she was a Queen.
There she could step onto a giant footprint, swallow the egg of a black bird or even have sexual intercourse with a dragon.
And so was how she got pregnant and later gave birth to the first king of a dynasty.
​

Maybe so was how the title of the ancestress came to mean UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER, but NOT UNWANTED, of course .

H.44 is one of the few hexagrams whose exemplary subject in the Great Image (Da Xiang) is not a NOBLE ONE. The other occurrence of HOU in the Great Image has also to do with a sacred marriage, but that's another story...

All the best,


Charly

 

[deflatormouse]

Hi Charly, I am a huge fan of LiSe's work of course, though I have been much more attentive to her etymological notes or "hexagram stories" than her translations because I prefer to make my own. But I must have seen her translation of 44 judgement at some point. I do see how the translation you presented here is derivative of LiSe's now that you have pointed it out, but there is a very significant difference: LiSe's translation presents wu yong as futility, whereas yours presents it as a disapproval. For this reason qu in LiSe's translation is a more generalized domination, while in yours I feel it is specific to rape. This, to me, is a much more striking and powerful statement, so I do not feel my words are excessively positive at all.

Although I am pretty familiar with the Mawangdui variants but for some reason had struggled to recall the connection to a dog the other day.

I am not yet very proficient in Chinese, but approach translation as you seem to: very playfully, and with little interest in a fixed, "master" translation. I am much more interested in the ambiguities and potential modularity. If it makes sense to read a character onomotopeiacally in the context of a reading, I will generally prefer to transliterate than translate: Gou for 'bow-wow' works very well, I think. I tend not to concern myself with the philosophical beliefs of the book's authors at all in divination, and for this reason have not referred much to the Daxiang in interpretation (actually, I have never even once read Daxiang in Chinese, only English). I pretty much consult the Zhouyi, and treat the rest of the Yijing as a very interesting book. Nevertheless, this is a very interesting observation about the absence of nobility in 44.

And of course Harmen's work is indespensible, "a must" as you say.

 

[diamanda]

The WOW! idea comes from the title of H.8 in Mawangdui manuscript which is 狗 gou, dog.

Charly I loved the "wow" suggestion! A word which very much sounds like another word would be an excellent divinatory text technique. I don't think that the original title-character for 44 was the dog one, as it would be very odd to have an exclamation as the title of a hexagram. But I do believe that puns are purposefully part of the divination 'game'.

I also really like your rendition of the Great Image, although in my experience "ancestress" can also be a man. 44 unchanging had come up many times related to a previous boss, who had started bullying me out of the blue, and finally made me redundant. So for me it was rather a "prince declaring the mandate to the four corners". Of course, it could also equally refer to a woman in a high position, depending on the circumstances. But for sure I've witnessed 44 refer to a dangerous man (and my exclamation was more like a "f**k!" instead of "wow" ).

Very interestingly, and I only make the connection now, after I had been told that I was being made redundant, I received 44.5 > 50. A wrapped 'packet', a windfall - indeed I received very good redundancy money."The word for gourd is pronounced “hulu,” which is a homonym for fortune and prosperity" (visiontimes.com) - quite apt in my story.

And also, on the never-ending subject of hexagram 44... here's yet another interesting take. It's from a website which briefly analysed oracle bone characters. The website sadly doesn't exist anymore, and it didn't mention who wrote it.

 

[charly]

Dear Diamanda:

Many thanks for the attention given to my post.

Charly I loved the "wow" suggestion! A word which very much sounds like another word would be an excellent divinatory text technique. I don't think that the original title-character for 44 was the dog one, as it would be very odd to have an exclamation as the title of a hexagram. But I do believe that puns are purposefully part of the divination 'game'.

I believe that DOG in the MWD manuscript was indeed a pun based on the phonetic whose meaning got lost in the time. Brad said that BITCH fits well wit a derogatory intention. But I believe that it was not the earlier intention, goddesses and female forces where worshipped in communitarian cultures before extensive agriculture and state centralization. I believe that the sense was more admirative (WOW!) than pejorative.

I also really like your rendition of the Great Image, although in my experience "ancestress" can also be a man. 44 unchanging had come up many times related to a previous boss, who had started bullying me out of the blue, and finally made me redundant. So for me it was rather a "prince declaring the mandate to the four corners". Of course, it could also equally refer to a woman in a high position, depending on the circumstances. But for sure I've witnessed 44 refer to a dangerous man (and my exclamation was more like a "f**k!" instead of "wow" ).

Of course, no gender is sure in that sort of titles. HOU means RULER or QUEEN id different times and contexts. It was applied to LORD MILLET the god of agriculture but some people think that it was a goddess, a queen, LADY MILLET given that agricultural deities where female in most cultures. Of course that applied to divination the context of the questions rules the seeking of a meaning among different possibilities.

Very interestingly, and I only make the connection now, after I had been told that I was being made redundant, I received 44.5 > 50. A wrapped 'packet', a windfall - indeed I received very good redundancy money."The word for gourd is pronounced �€œhulu,�€� which is a homonym for fortune and prosperity" (visiontimes.com) - quite apt in my story

Gourds have usually fertility meaning due to the quantity of seed contained but the HULU, the bottle gourd, also can have a phallic sense because of its shape in some stages of fruit evolution. In my country it is the PORONGO, which addresses to the container made of that gourds and is also a rude slang for PENIS. There is a folk wind instrument HULUSI made with a gourd and three pipes maybe depicted in the character YUE that shares connotations of music, joy, spring and peasant marriage customs.
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/frie...-The-clouds-of-Hexagram-9&p=212067#post212067

And also, on the never-ending subject of hexagram 44... here's yet another interesting take. It's from a website which briefly analysed oracle bone characters. The website sadly doesn't exist anymore, and it didn't mention who wrote it.

View attachment 1701​

​

Are you speaking of Dan Stackhouse's ORIGINAL I CHING ? It's a pity that even if one should find it in Wayback Machine the pictures of the characters will get lost. I had once a copy but the disk crashed and I could not retrieve the document.

All the best,

Charly

 

[charly]

...
I tend not to concern myself with the philosophical beliefs of the book's authors at all in divination, and for this reason have not referred much to the Daxiang in interpretation (actually, I have never even once read Daxiang in Chinese, only English). I pretty much consult the Zhouyi, and treat the rest of the Yijing as a very interesting book. Nevertheless, this is a very interesting observation about the absence of nobility in 44...

Hi Deflatormouse:

I agree with most of your concepts. About the DA XIANG I believe that, even when it doesn't belong to the core text YI JING, it maybe works with much earlier tradition of illiterate divination using the component trigrams.

Divination by the core text requires a book for having direct access to hexagrams and lines. Oral tradition of long texts doesn't allow quickly direct acess but sequential access. Divination by trigrams allows to work with a reduced set of concepts, better for illiterate diviners.

The DA XIANG traces a moral for each hexagram from a cosmic characterization of each component trigram. It has a fixed structure:

• The cosmic equivalent of higher and lower trigrams. The general law of cosmic behavior.
• The name of the hexagram, whose characters bears not only linguistic information but also iconic one.
• Actors that behave exemplary for the consultants, following the cosmic rule.
  These actors are few, mainly JUNZI, «Noble Youngs» (2). Less frequently «Former Kings», «Queens», «Great Men» and «Those of High», if I remember well.
• The exemplary behavior of the Actors following the cosmic rule, say following the behavior of the cosmic actors that belong to each trigram.

Only two hexagrams have the HOU / QUEEN actress, performing a hyerogamic rite. H.44 I believe connects with the childbirth myth of dynasty founders. (1)

It's illustrative the work of Chou Tse-Tsug:

Available at Google Books:

https://books.google.com.ar/books?i...A#v=onepage&q=needham childbirth myth&f=false

The book is wrongly indexed as pertaining to Needham while the editor is David T. Roy.​

All the best,

Charly

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(1) Rendering HOU as male instead of female in the case of H.44 obscures the connection while the hexagram name has the WOMAN radical which requires, I believe, a female actress.
(2) The «Superior Man» Wilhelm in german used only NOBLE.
Ch.