Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
(The purpose in) 'protracting the time' is that, after waiting, the thing may be done (all the better).
So I'm starting to think of casts as suggesting the lay of the land and the form of the weather. What you do with that remains an open question, and victory can be pulled from the jaws of defeat or vice-versa.
More and more I am seeing ALL castings, whether they say good fortune or misfortune, not as straightforward prediction of what will happen but as terrain and tendency -- which then have to combine with human decisions to result in what will actually happen.
Let me give you an example.
Several months ago, I was going to meet someone I'd had some contact with. He was going to be a potential partner for future creative endeavors.
I asked what the prospects for such a meeting looked like.
I got 12 Standstill, unchanging.
"Standstill . Evil people do not further the perseverance of the superior man. The great departs; the small approaches."
"Heaven and earth do not unite: the image of Standstill. Thus the superior man falls back upon his inner worth in order to escape the difficulties. He does not permit himself to be honored with revenue."
About as unfavorable as it gets, right?
But it turns out that this contact was actually quite amazing -- he turned out to be an outstanding person and partner, and it in fact resulted in being honored, though quite some time later, with some "revenue."
So I more recently asked Yi -- what's the deal? Why such a strange result from such a straightforward cast?
And it responded
54.1.2.4 Marrying Maiden > 2 The Receptive
.1: "The Marrying Maiden as a concubine. A lame man who is able to tread. Undertakings bring good fortune.
.2: "A one-eyed man who is able to see. The perseverance of a solitary man furthers.
.4: "The Marrying Maiden draws out the allotted time. A late marriage comes in due course.
I read this as a kind of analogy. Yi is saying: "Look, even in a highly unfavorable situation, like 54, you can make the most of it if you are adept. You took what you could with a positive attitude, and so even though the situation might have been blocked for a while -- like a lame man or a one-eyed man or a concubine, you took what was possible from the situation. Your undertakings and your perseverance worked... eventually. It took some time for the situation to mature to yield concrete results (.4) but they eventually came."
So I'm starting to think of casts as suggesting the lay of the land and the form of the weather. What you do with that remains an open question, and victory can be pulled from the jaws of defeat or vice-versa.
I mean I don't know that of course but is he really an 'outstanding person and partner' for the long term ?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).