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Yi is a she!

heylise

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The Yi (Zhou Yi, I ching) is utterly feminine. Many women have been searching for the female part in this book which is so clearly written for and about men. The Junzi is a man, and almost all advice is for men. When women are mentioned, Yi talks about them but very seldom to them.

Of course men did need the Yi. Emperors and warlords consulted the Yi. Not for male advice - they had good brains, clever enough to become a general. What they needed was feminine advice, how to intuit the movement of the enemy or game. The voice of intuition, of nature herself. They couldn't bring women along. All women were pregnant or nursing a baby or caring for a bunch of children or all of that at once.

Most questions asked by women concern "facts of feelings". The facts of love, emotions, children and relations, way of living, buying a house. Usually they know about the emotional part. They want to add the rational part, logical decisions, how to deal with facts. Yi does answer, even though it is not her strong side. But even for extricating facts you need intuition to interpret the text.

It is for me the main reason why the Yi fascinates me so much and does so since so many years. I am a brainy person. Well - not really, but I grew up in a way which emphasized thinking and neglected feeling. The only girl among 6 brothers, a rational father and a mother who did not show feelings that much.

Living by thinking caused a lot of trouble for me. Most of all inside. Depressions, lack of self-esteem, insecurity. I was lucky that I had a good intuition, despite my habit of listening more to my rational inner voice. I am a stubborn person, and it seems my intuition reflects that too. That tiny little voice always keeps nagging me, until I do what she wants - even against all my logic.

Yi has always been a wonderful ally for her. When thinking gets me in dark places, I ask Yi, and I usually get an answer which agrees with the little voice of intuition. The interpretation is not always easy. Thinking often makes a mess of it. But when I am a bunch of emotions the answer becomes clear, with very few exceptions.

I read somewhere that men need to concentrate on the exact question before consulting the Yi. Women need to "feel" what they need to know, and not concentrate on it. They get the best answers when multitasking.
 
N

Nevermind

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I do agree.
In general the whole Five Arts can be viewed as a mathematics based on curves/waves.
While the western math is very much centered around lines, and when we need to work with curves we always find a way to represent them with lines, in Five Arts everything is based on movement of curves/waves and we work with them directly by looking at different point of the wave.

The 5 elements/phases can be viewed as a different part of the movement of wave, with Fire being the highest point and water being the lowest(in later heaven arrangement - Metal and Earth for earlier) and we have Wood when the wave moves upward and Metal when it moves downward.

Anyway, long topic, but I very much agree the whole Chinese five arts are a very female approach and that includes all forms of Yi Jing.
 

hilary

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Oh, I need to feel and know what I'm asking, and get the most powerful answers when I'm fully present to the question, or maybe drowning in it. No multitasking here.

But about Yi being female - Freeman Crouch would agree with you, you know. In the introduction to his Chameleon Book translation, he suggests it was written by female diviners. Also that a lot of the marriage imagery is describing the king as 'bride' to the people, which makes for interesting layers.
 

Kris Pryo

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For me, the peronality I experience via the Yijing is female as well as male and can present as either or both. I too nurture both the feminine and masculine aspects of my self though society would classify my gender as male.
I'm sure my teacher has many other people/personalities she reaches out to, maybe even through the Yijing, but while there is a commonality in our nature's, our experiences will be uniquely our own in interaction via the Yijing because our teachers are quite likely distinctly different personalities.
Incidently I experience the same teacher personality whether I'm reading the Tarot or a newspaper or dreamscape ... or even experiencing a serendipitious series of events in my day to day living :).
 

heylise

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What I liked myself about the idea of Yi being feminine, was the recognition. Many women have been searching in the Yi for the woman. She was always quite absent. A few times she is mentioned, but usually from a rather male point of view. IN 37 and 44 she gets respect, but that is all. Or did I forget another instance?

I think searching for the woman is a quest of this time. Feminism has been useful on the outside, for women rights, but it didn't tell women what they were inside. I myself have been searching a lot, both in the Yi and in me.

Here in Holland there is a translation where every instance of a he has been turned into a she. It feels concocted, weird. Not an Yi I could ever use. I want my Yi to be universal. I can easily relate e.g. a story of a man in the woods to my own mind wandering in unknown or dark places. No need to turn that man into a woman. And maybe it has to be a man, related to my own male side, who knows. That was what made me wonder about Yi being a she in the first place. Most people search for someone of the other sex for sharing their life - for talking to day in day out. To add what they don't already have themselves.

Men going to hunt or fight - taking along their mate in the form of the Yi. In that time their wife was usually pregnant, nursing a baby or caring for the kids, she couldn't just up and leave with him. He needed a portable other half.
 

hilary

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Well, there is 54. I know traditionally it's read as the experience of the man who has to deal with this dodgy young woman, but to me it's always seemed to be about her experience of marriage. 53, too. There are two different verbs for marrying in the Yi: 'taking a wife' as in 31 and 44, and 'marrying' as in these two. One for his experience, one for hers: one for taking something new into your life and remaking it (or unmaking it!) from the inside out; one for transplanting yourself into a whole new environment and making your home there.

Of course then in readings Yi asks women to imagine themselves as men and men to imagine themselves as women, and it all works.

My experience is like Kris': talking with Yi is like talking with a woman, and a man, and neither of the two. I'd never thought of what speaks through Yi being a different 'teacher' personality for each person asking, but the idea feels natural.
 

charly

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Of course, for me the Changes was always female.

I believe that there are many sequences begining with H.2 followed by a quiclky increasing yang presence ending with H.1.

Then follows a long way of of mixed alternatives that leads slowly to H2 again. For me the first hexagram was GRACE, not ADORN of course. Sometimes I believe that the first is PEACE for which the old character depicts two hands holding a great man, rescueing him from the dangers of water.

The voice of the woman was censored as time passed. Maybe that's why OBSTRUCTION says «ZIP THE LIP».

All the best,

Charly
 

rodaki

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I like the idea that Yi is a she, although I do wonder if we aren't restricting it a bit by thinking it so. It does make more sense though for it to be a she rather than a he since its easier for females to adopt male modes when need be rather than the other way round .. Anyways, I just came here after a long time cause I asked Yi what to make of my nagging intuition about an issue and it came back with 54.2,5 > 17 .. it makes me think that Yi might just be the place for that she to find her seat in the scheme of things
 

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