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I love wood

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I love wood. I also just love a good bonfire, seems we need more of these times to come together and talk around a central fire. It always seems to bring out the creative process, even with just good creative conversation and exchange. It seems to strip everything down and people start talking more about the root of things.

So, yes, I went to a bonfire last night and woke up smelling quite smokey. But when I was gazing into the mesmerizing flames I had an idea floating around in my head. I was looking at the wood and how it was burning. Then I just started thinking about wood in general! This is just my little take on looking at wood as the central idea and how the other trigrams and elements circle around it, but I am sure I could single out any of the trigrams and do the same. I just happen to love wood :)

So I was thinking of Heaven above and Earth below and how they correlate with male and female. I was thinking of wood as right in the middle of these two energies (for the time being). The wood has it's roots in the earth but get's it's light from heaven and it is 'born'. Then I was thinking about thunder and how (at least in Chinese thought) it comes from the ground. I saw it as earth's helper and quite possibly the dot of white in all of that darkness (in the taijitu). Like earth's helper from heaven. Like thunder is the little bit of heaven that resides within the earth. I was also thinking about how a mountain reflects symbols and represents the sage. So I began to flip the 'helper' idea and was seeing the mountain as the earth's presence in heaven. The dark spot in all that light. The mountain reaching to the heights of heaven, for people on earth to get close to the heavens. So there would be a little peice of earth in the heaven's (maybe not as much as there is thunder in the earth). Then I was thinking of the water elements, the 'water' and the 'lake'. The lake rests on the earth but evaporates and gives to heaven. Also, the water from heaven rains down and gives to the earth. And last but not least, I was thinking of fire and it's ability to clear things away and start anew. And because I was thinking of wood as the center of my thoughts, I was thinking, I apply fire to wood and all of the moisture in the wood evaporates up and all of the ash goes down. So, despite it clearing things out, it still gives back. The heaven's receive water and the earth receives ash. Just a little journey that was going on in my head, a trigram tale that I thought I would tell :D
 

dilson

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Hi!
I think" your trigram tale" is a good creative exercise. I mean that when we begin to associate one trigram to another we learn in the process.
Dilson
 

heylise

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Beautiful story.

I have been hardly thinking about trigrams until two or three years ago. But since then a lot, more than about hexagrams.

Wood, which is also wind, is for me the form or law which is blown into all beings. Not just in living things, in all of it. A crystal gets that form, and not another one, because of the wind it has received. A tree the same. The bit of Heaven which is blown into all. Haven brings the laws, without them there is no form.

Thunder is the life-energy of Earth, which hits a seed and makes it germinate. But also everything else which has to start, or else nothing will happen.

Wind/Wood and Thunder together are the tools of Heaven and Earth to fill this world, and to fill the whole universe.

It is not enough to have this blueprint of Wind, you need surroundings and obstructions to turn it into reality. Water is the medium, the sculptor. It uses the possibilities Earth gives to form according to Heaven's laws. We use our body to give form to the laws - we are 80% or so water.

With the wake-up of Thunder you start to exist. After that first moment you travel from moment to moment, and every moment is new. Every moment you experience Thunder. This going on of moments is fire, every next one is lighted on the previous one. As long as there is food for it, it burns on and on.

Lake is the place where feelings can grow and live. The water is contained, can be shared, enters down into the Earth and evaporates up into Heaven. Lake gives meaning to our life in the form of love and exchange and experience. Both with other beings and with the teachings of Heaven and Earth.

Mountain is the individual, which contains the fire. Matter is full of energy, it needs borders and a solid space. Even a stone is a ball of burning energy, when that gets released it is huge. In Mountain we learn to set those borders, which is also a way to give meaning to our life. Without them we dissolve into a meaningless mess.
 
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I realised something on vacation.. I missed this website dearly..

I was also thinking about fire. For me the two main examples of fire are first the sun, and secondly, a bonfire (or fire for cooking). They are central and they bring people together. I was on the beach and everyone was laying around together as if there was one big bonfire in the sky. The sun was the central fire. When it moved, so did everyone... and so did the ocean. Even the sun's reflection from the moon changed the tides very drastically.

If there is only one fireplace in a house, that is where people would have gathered around. For me there is also a fire within, in the solar plexus, that all the rest of the body is gathered around for use of it's energy.

I got fried on the beach early on in my trip. I did a daily reading and received 36.3.5 >3. I stayed in that day, but was with a bunch of party animal's so I was moving against their grain but with the Tao. I did not feel like partying because I was drained and burnt. I stayed in and read some of Karcher's Ta Chuan and another burnt person kept me company for a bit too.

Whenever the girls would come back to the room from being on the beach, I acted like I was drinking, then would pour it into the sink when they left. I found this quite commical because it completely worked! The group of ladies I went with have a tendency to not only be wild but also make you partake. I am a lightweight and don't really enjoy some of the things that they do even though we perfectly get along. Before I did the reading, I was thinking about my burnt skin and how I did not want to go out into the sun and drink cocktails all day. I thought about how they would try and convince me to go etc. My reading could not have been a better one. It gave me the confidence to stay in and go against their grain, but it also gave me the confidence to pull a fast one and act like I was drinking.

Karcher's book so far is amazing to me! He is very easy and simple to read, but has a lot of the information I was trying to figure out in my subconscious already. I did get a little confused in a couple parts where I thought they might have been type-o's (editorial mistakes). I am not sure about that, but it doesn't matter. I really like Karcher's books in general. I can see where one might get overwhelmed with I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change. For me, that is one of Karcher's that is most away from his style and unlike hi, but is very true to how he himself gathers the information to give to people. He tends to be simpler or easier. I haven't ready EVERYTHING of his so this is just an observation from what I THNK. Obviously, Plain and Simple is just that, plain and simple. And the Ta Chaun is set up so that even people who are slower at understand (like myself) can get it.

I have to get back to work but just wanted to blurt all of this out and say that I missed everyone!
ALSO!!, I love what you posted LiSe!! ..more about it later
 

Trojina

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II got fried on the beach early on in my trip. I did a daily reading and received 36.3.5 >3. I stayed in that day, but was with a bunch of party animal's so I was moving against their grain but with the Tao. I did not feel like partying because I was drained and burnt. I stayed in and read some of Karcher's Ta Chuan and another burnt person kept me company for a bit too.

Whenever the girls would come back to the room from being on the beach, I acted like I was drinking, then would pour it into the sink when they left. I found this quite commical because it completely worked!
The group of ladies I went with have a tendency to not only be wild but also make you partake. I am a lightweight and don't really enjoy some of the things that they do even though we perfectly get along. Before I did the reading, I was thinking about my burnt skin and how I did not want to go out into the sun and drink cocktails all day. I thought about how they would try and convince me to go etc. My reading could not have been a better one. It gave me the confidence to stay in and go against their grain, but it also gave me the confidence to pull a fast one and act like I was drinking.

LOL this would have made some pretty funny footage with a hidden camera. AQ drunk ? 2 seconds later AQ totally sober and reading Karcher ? :rofl: who says 36 can't be fun. I have had this experience of 36 too....more serious situation, not drinking but I acted for all I was worth and was totally convincing. 36.4 was my line then
 
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haha. It really was fun times to pour the cheap wine out and then get back onto the squishy couch with the book. Oddly enough Trojan, I felt at the time like it was in fact a serious situation (because of the amount of sun that I had already taken in). I did end up blistering a little on the nose and shoulders :( I could not have went out there for ANYTHING. My anxiety and fear of going back out was caressed and soothed by the Yi like chilled aloe Vera Gel soothes a burn. :) It seemed to know my worry even though I technically ask for guidance for the day.

It's weird because the girl that joined me for a bit was the wildest one of the bunch, the leader that was captured so to speak... but I even made sure to pour it out without her knowing just in case! I didn't want drug out by my arm into the sun, by a bunch of "lord of the flies" ladies .. haha .. maybe we should be actors??! :D I feel like I could only act if given 36.5 to give to the confidence.

36.4 does seem more serious.. It does seem to say that something serious is happening and there is a need for hiding in 36 and line 4 hits to the center or heart of the matter. Sounds like hiding is very important.

On a side note, Karcher's mentioning of 'shen' and also the different periods of time like the Shang, Chou, Warring Period and Han Dynasty... This really is simple, but it just clicked for me when reading it this time in his Ta Chuan. I am starting, just starting, to understand the bigger picture of the Yi Tree, based on the roots.
 
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Wood, which is also wind, is for me the form or law which is blown into all beings. Not just in living things, in all of it. A crystal gets that form, and not another one, because of the wind it has received. A tree the same. The bit of Heaven which is blown into all. Haven brings the laws, without them there is no form.
I am having a hard time understanding wood and wind together, this helps, but it is not clear. I know it is just a concept and not just the actual elements. There is a penetrating force.. something that pushes threw? I see how wind shapes crystals, I like that, and I see trees that are sculpted by wind. I thought of wind as the soul from a long time ago (with hexagram 57). I wonder how breath/prana fits in with this.....

Thunder is the life-energy of Earth, which hits a seed and makes it germinate. But also everything else which has to start, or else nothing will happen.

It is the jump start to all things. It's interesting to me that it works from the ground up in this philosophy, not just because we learned in school years ago that thunder doesn't come from the sky and doesn't travel downward, but because it STARTS in the earth. Things start from an open receptive space. It shows how feminine earthly traits have their part, their big part in the skeem of things.

(I think in actual science, thunder starts inbetween the sky and the ground, coming together in the middle)

Wind/Wood and Thunder together are the tools of Heaven and Earth to fill this world, and to fill the whole universe.

☴ ☳
They are opposites as far as yin yang theory is concerned.. together they make quite the pair!

It is not enough to have this blueprint of Wind, you need surroundings and obstructions to turn it into reality. Water is the medium, the sculptor. It uses the possibilities Earth gives to form according to Heaven's laws. We use our body to give form to the laws - we are 80% or so water.

I like what you are saying. Also the ocean sculpts the land and the sand of the earth. Earth which is a lot more water than land on top. Yet the seabottom is there to give it the form which it needs to have and the shore line of sand is there to make an edge. All at the same time, the water effects the earth slowly with erosion. Earth is heavily influenced by the forces of water, yet water is the reason for substance on the fields of earth. I wonder how much the surrounding space around the physical planet earth is affected by the giant orb of water that is spinning through it's vaccumed space??

With the wake-up of Thunder you start to exist. After that first moment you travel from moment to moment, and every moment is new. Every moment you experience Thunder. This going on of moments is fire, every next one is lighted on the previous one. As long as there is food for it, it burns on and on.

In a book I read called Clan of the Cave Bear, they would only use fire from the first fire. It was bad luck not to. So when they travelled, the neanderthals would take the horn of an animal and put a small ember from the fire in it to travel and maintain until they made camp the next time.

What you say makes so much sense, one of the reasons is because every moment is shaped by the moment before and branching off in time. Or there might be magical moments where something from another time is shaping the moment, but it all seems to come from one source (you can probably tell I am reading Karcher? I swear these are things I have thought loosely about in the past, yet Karcher helps me understand).

Lake is the place where feelings can grow and live. The water is contained, can be shared, enters down into the Earth and evaporates up into Heaven. Lake gives meaning to our life in the form of love and exchange and experience. Both with other beings and with the teachings of Heaven and Earth.

I always put water with emotions, probably because of the Chakras. If I think of the lines of the trigram for Lake, I can see where it would be a sort of happy exchange. I can chunk up the peices like that of the human body and the top is a yin line, it is sort of in a state of bliss and not forcefully so (I correlate them with the third eye and crown chakras being yeilding in nature). The middle, the throat for communicating, the heart for compassion and the stomach for the will, I see as having a drive to keep those all going which is important for true joy. Without communication (there was a study with babies, they all died because they were not spoken to), we are not happy without communication nor are we not happy without a good balance of compassion and sense of self will. I like thinking of the communication in Lake as a softer yet bubbly kind. One that is fueled by the heart and the will together, and pushed up to the top of the lake that creates a mist. The mist is the soft yin line at the top. The bottom line of the trigram Lake is like the stability of it all, like the sacral (swadhistana which means 'sweetness') Chakra AND the root Chakra. The emotional tide in a lake is more firm and controlled and the bottom is less stirred by it.

Mountain is the individual, which contains the fire. Matter is full of energy, it needs borders and a solid space. Even a stone is a ball of burning energy, when that gets released it is huge. In Mountain we learn to set those borders, which is also a way to give meaning to our life. Without them we dissolve into a meaningless mess.

Mountain is what I am working on a lot right now because my life is such a mess. I am not sure what I am jutting up towards but I understand I am jutting slowly. This is where the brain surely does play a part. And to know when to STOP. Using this has helped me tremendously in my relationships. It has also narrowed my relationships greatly down to not as many people.

I can see in a way how Lake and Mountain are opposites as far as Yin Yang theory goes. The lake is the party thrower (in a joking way) and they mountain is the hermit that stays at home... within the walls pushing down to refine.
 

meng

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The only connection I've ever been able to make between wind and wood is that they're both penetrating elements. Wind may help shape the ground but only wood actually moves through it, has her way with it, you might say. Being the eldest daughter, she's used to getting her way eventually. Water can be contained in a lake, river or ocean, fire can be contained by barren barriers or stone, thunder can be grounded but can not move far through the ground, even heaven can not enter the earth without her cooperation, and mountain can only rest upon the earth, but wood pushes upward through the earth, can shatter stone with time, is fed by water, all within the earth. So whether within or without, Xun manages to penetrate, even the mind.
 
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I can see a connection where they play with one another. Wind carries the seeds and drops them, wood is born of these seeds, seeds make the wood..

And just like Bruce I only see them as both penetrating. I am trying to think of other qualities they possess to help me get a better understanding.... I am the eldest daughter, I should understand this... I feel like I get my hands into everything, try and help, try and get to the bottom of things when things go wrong in the family for my parents and my sibling. I would make all of their beds and cook for them if that is what is needed. Whatever is needed really. I can correlate this to wind. Wind is a force that is coming from a source (from heaven) and it is brushing up on things and changing their very existance. Wind is always in Tao. It is always going the way that it should. Usually the eldest daughter is the same, doesn't get in trouble, sticks to the helping path (I might be way off on this, and I am not always like this, just generalizing for sake of trying to understand).

Wood though... sturdy... pushes like wind.. IDK, they both seem to be a "connector" to me. pushing and connecting.. not really connecting physically but more in functioning. The tree actually gives water to the earth by ways of it's roots. The surrounding earth by the roots is influence by the water (and the roots themselves). The tree connects the sun to the earth in a way, through functionality and photosynthesis. The tree or wood really accommodates the other elements well.

Applying this accomodation to wind... hrm... the wind does not do this. I am stuck! :D
 
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Ok, no wait, the wind INFLUENCES the surroundings like the wood does. ... It sort of takes it into it's "belly" and turns it. Like the wood does for the water and the fire (sun). The wind also takes up the water and the earth, takes them and turns them up, puts them in a different place....

...just a thought
 

meng

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Courtney, I'm very curious if as the eldest daughter you have had times of confrontations concerning your will with or in opposition to your father? If you'd care to share something of that personal dynamic, I'd find that interesting and helpful in relation to 44 and/or possibly 9.
 
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Courtney, I'm very curious if as the eldest daughter you have had times of confrontations concerning your will with or in opposition to your father? If you'd care to share something of that personal dynamic, I'd find that interesting and helpful in relation to 44 and/or possibly 9.

Personally, and I don't mind sharing, I have not had many confrontations concerning my will with my father. I would say we have similar Will and both try hard, have good work ethics, try to do good. My dad is also quite the joker so we spend much time laughing.

A lot of times I believe this very thing to have gotten in the way of my relationship with my mother. Now there is a relationship with confrontations and opposition of will for sure. My mother and I go back and forth and have a terrible relationship. I have tried all that I can and it will not seem to get better. I leave the home I grew up in with a heavy heart every time, because that is directly where I seem to be phyiscally and emotionally effected by my mother. I am trying to not have this occur and it could be quite possibly the HARDEST thing for me to overcome. It is screwing with my subconscious to say the least...

My mother and I do not see very many things eye to eye, I mean barely anything. My nerves are shot by the end of a visit because I know she will be telling me I am going to go to hell and that I should just pop a pill and the list goes on and on.

I don't know if this plays a part in what you are curious about. :footinmouth: I hope so. It might be strictly situational for me. When I ask the Yijing about my mother's condition (health situation) and what SHE can do about it, 53 Unchanging and what I can do 64.5 >6. Recently I asked for guidance with her and I and thinking about her being so unpeaceful in her heart and got something that tells me to enforce law that included thunder (the reading is at home and I am not. I forget).

When I think about 9, and apply it to my father daughter relationship, and heaven and wind, and how it says Clouds but no Rain... I think about my dad's way of discipline. I have always had a lot of respect for my father. If he said my name, I was at attention. I do not know how he got me to be this way, but I have a fear that he would be dissapointed if I did not listen to him. I respect his ways and used to think of "the great man" as him when I first started IC. Infact sometimes I still do. The thing is, is my dad has never been "mean" to me. He never treated me disrespectfully or in an UNJUST way. He gave me a whipping on the butt here and there, but I knew I deserved it. It was cut and clear. He has never "rained" down on me though, he just clouded up like a forceful leader, with a voice and a stare, but didn't ever need to actually "rain" down his laws much because I never gave him reason to (maybe :D).

When I think about 44 and my father, I feel like, since it is the flip side of 9 as far as trigrams go, it would be a situation where the daughter, or myself, would be overtop of my father in some way, and he would allow this because there is nothing he can really do about it. He would be passive (??) My dad is a very passive person most of the time. This situation did not occur very often I don't think.. at least I think we both want peace, and really strive for it in a proactive manner. Can someone be proactive and passive?? I feel like my dad and myself can in this respect.

We are Swiss, so maybe there is a little bit of that neutrality involved and laced through all of this.
 
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Ok, I was just thinking, it is like heaven, the father, he is the ruler and if the daughter knows this and acts in accordance, with reverence, then there is really no need to further with the discipline (clouds no rain). I feel like he had to have had a couple thunderstorms when I was very little to instill the fear of not having one... but I honestly don't really remember one off hand... no wait, one time I wouldn't eat and he was pretty upset and forcefully made me eat. I do not remember another time. Perhaps that is all it took. All I know is that whenever he said my name, his voice and firmness was enough. Powerful like heaven. But at the same time, if the flip were to happen, 44, it would have to be where I was actually right in doing so, right to be "above". I wouldn't go above him if it wasn't the right thing to do, and if I did, he would know that and step back.

I need to look at the mother daughter hexagrams...
 

meng

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Thanks for your candor, Courtney. Don't mean to pry, nor suggest that every eldest daughter and father relationship is stereotyped. And if I were to get into that, I'd imagine that the rest of the dynamics would involve whether you have younger sisters, and for that matter brothers too. The Yi's family hierarchy is based on three brothers and three sisters, and so to try to compare, I suppose it would be necessary to share that same hierarchy. And even then, the Yi's model won't stand to that example in nearly every instance. Still, I could see a practical, orderly and efficient relationship model of 9 existing there. From that I'd gather that your father respects you a lot and could even say he lifts you up or edifies you. Thanks again.
 
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The Yi's family hierarchy is based on three brothers and three sisters, and so to try to compare, I suppose it would be necessary to share that same hierarchy. And even then, the Yi's model won't stand to that example in nearly every instance.

I do think about this as well. The Yi family is more like the Brady Bunch. I am the only daughter. I could very well see myself as all three daughters at different times. I am the oldest sibling however and feel a 'connection' to Sun.

I wish I had sisters! Do you have a daughter Bruce? If you do, maybe you could share the Father side of 44 and/or 9.

I was just thinking, Sun is close in relation to Ch'ien. Ch'ien being strong throughout, Sun's only yin is at the bottom, that is where it's most feminine aspect resides, but will rise up and penetrate the rest of the trigram in the cycle of things.
 

meng

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I wish I had sisters! Do you have a daughter Bruce? If you do, maybe you could share the Father side of 44 and/or 9.

No daughters, two sons I've raised to adulthood, one who was given for adoption at birth while we were still teens, whom we've become friends with later. None come close to the types within the IC family hierarchy.

I think there's a great deal to what you've said about being all of them at one time or another. It may be difficult for some guys to see themselves as, say, the youngest daughter, Dui. But if it were not so, it would not be in the Book of Changes. These attributes are common to all humans alike.
 

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Wind - prana. Wood - that which grows, which is alive - which has prana. They are very close in meaning, different sides or names of the same thing. Archetypes are the ideas of things, but everything which can depict an archetype is like a branch of it. Wood can be a very different branch than wind, but they grow both from the same roots.
LiSe (also Swiss, but living in Holland)
 

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Thanks for your passion AQ, was inspired and enjoyed looking up all the wind images:

9 wind/heaven – wind restrains the clouds, wind drives across heaven
44 heaven/wind – [wind] blows under heaven, goes everywhere
18 mountain/wind – wind blows low on the mountain, it is thrown back and spoils the vegetation
53 wind, wood/mountain – the tree on the mountain is visible from afar, and its development influences the landscape of the entire region
20 wind/earth – wind blows over the earth and goes far and wide
46 earth/wind,wood – wood in the earth grows upward..adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them
28 lake/wind, wood – floodtimes when the lake rises over the treetops; tree, which stands firm even though it stands alone
61 wind/lake – wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water
32 thunder/wind – thunder rolls, and the wind blows; laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure
42 wind/thunder – thunder and wind increase and strengthen each other
37 wind/fire – wind stirred up by fire and issuing forth from it
50 fire/wind, wood – flame kindled by wood and wind
48 water/wind, wood – wood sucks water upward… which benefits all parts of the plant
59 wind/water – wind blowing over water disperses it, dissolving it into foam and mist
57 wind, wood/wind, wood – wind that disperses gathered clouds, leaving the sky clear and serene

Iams (oldest daughter, swiss dad)
(W/B, Book I)​
 
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Iams Girl, this is a good layout of the hexagrams with Wind and Wood. It is quite a versatile trigram and I am liking this Swiss connection :hug: LiSe and Iams Girl, my Swiss Sisters.
 

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