This strange feeling of loneliness

[svenrus]

- strange because it can come to me when being amidst lovely people as well when finding meself alone and it can be absent in both cases as well, without me being able to control it's appearance as well as absence.
I asked: How shall I relate to it ? and got hex. 49 UC

Honestly: I'm confused. I did not ask what to do about it but How to relate to ......

The closest I come to a possible answer is The Image at Richard Wilhelm:

"Im See ist Feuer: das Bild der Umwälzung.
So ordnet der Edle die Zeitrechnung
und macht die Zeiten klar. "

Maybe stupid question but: should I relate to it as to the calendar/the change of Seasons ?

 

[Trojina]

Maybe relate to it as part of your process of shedding skins. All of us are evolving and we literally do shed our skins and our entire bodies all the time. That is I read somewhere in 7 years there is not one cell of the body that was the same as the cells 7 years before...or something like that.

So as evolving creatures, never static, always growing we also necessarily also are always moulting not just our bodies but also parts of the emotional nature, the psyche, the soul. I feel your answer is saying to look at your feelings of loneliness that way.


We are all essentially alone as in we are born alone and die alone. However pleasant or close the company we keep there will always be a part of the soul yearning for more, for greater union because we know all the things that keep us from loneliness here on earth are temporal, they pass away. The union we search for is greater, union with God or the Great Spirit or the Universe or whatever one chooses to call it. That loneliness I believe, that crops up at certain points in life, is a signal of growth, a yearning to grow more to find more than what relationships can offer.



For example I think in puberty and early adolescence one can experience a great loneliness. One becomes less close to family as the soul starts to realize it's individuality. Likewise perhaps in later years the soul calls again for change as one's life comes into the ending phase. I don't mean when death is actually imminent (although when it is there are changes again as I hear most people naturally accept death as it approaches) but naturally one's psyche will change in later years as it did in adolescence when the call of one's individual soul seeks a greater union in order to know itself.


So I have automatically started writing about life phases and change and growth and moulting which is all very much to do with 49.


So I would be inclined not to see your lonely feelings as a bad thing but a natural signal from your soul that change is happening.


I wonder if it would help to look back at previous big inner changes, previous times where you felt lonely often and see if at the time you were becoming a different, a more aware or individualised version of you ?

Maybe stupid question but: should I relate to it as to the calendar/the change of Seasons ?

So yes I agree with what you say here. This is to do with the seasons of your life as you evolve and grow and shed old parts you don't need.

 

[svenrus]

Thank You so much. What You wrote here is in accordance with what the ancient Ideograph of hex. 49 shows, as Alfred Huang explains it:


"The ideograph of Ge is a picture of a raw animal skin, with a head,body, and tail stretched out over three horizontal lines representing three twigs. The skin is exposed to the sun for drying. The structure of the gua is Lake -= above, Fire -- below. Lake contains water, which can extinguish fire. Fire, in turn, is able to dry up water. Water and fire overcome each other. This phenomenon suggests a picture of revolution-abolishing the old. Confucius's Commentary on the Decision says, "Heaven andEarth abolish the old and bring about the new, then the four seasons complete their changes. Tang and Wu . . . brought about the new. They obeyed the will of Heaven in accord with the wishes of people. The time and meaning of abolishing the old is truly great!"

I normally check out this aspect at Huang or HeyLise but now, just after reading Your striking answer it occurs to me.

 

[moss elk]

Forgive the simple question but,
are you something of a loner or single?

Lonliness is natures way of saying to find companions. Because they are usually good for us.

 

[wayopens]

Relate to it differently than you have been. It's been sneaking up on you; perhaps try inviting the feeling, sitting w/it and allowing the feeling to shift as it will and noting the changes.

 

[svenrus]

One of the reasons why it's strange is that I love to be alone. I'm single, yes, but not alone.

A funny thing is that when I decided to ask the I some while ago I immediately looked it up in the Wilhelm ed. - this was the first book I ever got, meaning that my question may have had a special importance for me to be clarified. But I don't like the language in the Wilhelm ed. ie. "Noble man", "the king" etc. - not saying that this isn't the right interpretation according to what Wilhelm's mentor/master, Lao Naixuan, teached but it feels like a hindrance when trying to get rid of daily/down-to-the-ground-issues.
When reading Trojina's answer my attention then were led toward Alfred Huang's ed. (a book I got much later). He uses the tag "Abolishing the old" and I'm nearly sure that this is the way I shall relate to it. Because the feeling of loneliness don't belong to situations where I'm surrounded by people, so I guess it's me having difficulties in getting loose of what allready has past away - or hanging on to something that is not there anymore....
Thank You for your replies !

 

[veavea]

Not sure exactly how this relates to the hex but a 'strange feeling of loneliness' as you describe it, that seems disconnected from whether or not there are lovely people around, seems to me to be about how one relates to - and experiences - the self, and also to what is universal. So as you describe it, it has nothing to do with other people at all, whether they are there or not.

I love the shedding of the pelt image. I think... what do I think? I think that, if I were to try to connect that image to what was struggling to come to consciousness for me (but maybe not you!!), there is an expectation that we exist for other people, that we behave and experience ourselves through the lens of community, but if we were to shed that mantle, what would we be? Would we be something different if we were not cloaked in other people's expectations, their projections? And if, in the end, there is just me - well, what might that be, who am I, what should I be? What am I, without all of you?

 

[svenrus]

I love the shedding of the pelt image.

This image relates to my question. This hexagram tells me that I shall relate to my feeling of loneliness as to a skin that has been laid off or to parts of me that I can't get back anyway.
(But I couldn't read that out of the text given in Richard Wilhelms book - not that it was not there to see somehow; I just could'nt)

Hope it's OK that I linked the quote of yours: a quote You haven't linket

 

[veavea]

Hope it's OK that I linked the quote of yours

Of course! I also think it's interesting that you call it a 'strange feeling of loneliness' - why not just a feeling of loneliness - which makes me think it isn't loneliness at all, but still a 'strange' feeling - perhaps of separateness? perhaps even a muted sense of grief that a part of you is being outgrown, along with all the things that might have connected you to other people? Perhaps I am over-interpreting (I'm good at that!!)... 'water and fire destroy each other, two daughters live together, but their minds are not in chorus. This is called revolution.' Something is lost, something new is rising. You are separating from what has gone before, and this is what feels 'strange', perhaps...

 

[svenrus]

Constantly new changes happen and I wouldn't have asked the I for such a thing if not it had went on for a longer period of time. It, the feeling of lonelyness, got it's own will. It appears when no reason at all exist for it to arrive and it leaves as suddenly as it came - like a strange visitor (not like a ghost) that reminds me of something old stuff that had passed on long time a go or recently.
I'm used to it, not to say familiar with it but how to relate to such a strange thing ? Having fun with old friends and there it is. "What are You doing here ?" - but it is silent.
No ! If I couldn't manage it, this Forum, Onlineclarity, wouldn't be the place I would contact and it is not the reason I contacted this Forum. I simply couldn't see the answer to my question in hex. 49 but - as said before, Trojina showed a track which I followed and which spreaded light on it all.
Thank You for insight !