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legume

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i haven't seen this discussed before in particular and when got asked by a friend to do a reading for her a while ago, i started to wonder about others experiences. i shared with her my fascination with the book and she asked for help, thus i suggested she casts the hexagrams and give me the result while i can help with the interpretation. she enjoyed how poetic it felt but i found it all of a sudden really difficult, not only lost in translation of the languages, but also the symbolism and meaning, usually so close and familiar were all of a sudden diluted in myriad of possible answers :confused:

i found these posts really helpful in gathering myself:
Why reading for others can be hard
Using Yi to help others
What do you give, when you give a reading?
Who should cast the hexagram?

but i'm actually more curious about what sets one on the path of divination, especially when doing it for someone else, friends or family? and maybe even more so, the path of making it part of one's income?
on a side note, how come "tarot readers" sounds like a profession, while I Ching readers sounds... well, like I Ching readers :bag:

could you share your experiences? did people somehow come to you or did you reach out to them? did you see yourself doing readings for others before it happened, or did it just evolve naturally? if so, how did it happen or evolve, what were and what are your thoughts and feelings about it? would love to hear your stories :)
 

hilary

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I'm glad you found the articles! (Note to self: dig out the 'Reading for Others' class materials, improve and update, and run it again some time.)

After I'd been doing readings for myself for a while, I just woke up one morning (in 1999) with the thought in my head, 'I could do this for other people.' I have no idea where this thought came from, but once it had landed I followed it. (At the time I'd recently given up on academia and had no idea what work I might do next, so there was plenty of very empty space for the idea to land in.)

The next question was how to find people to read for. I wrote a leaflet offering free readings, printed out mountains of them, and got to work phoning and travelling round asking permission to leave them in places I thought might work. They didn't: I think I had about one person contact me from a leaflet. But when I phoned an alternative health clinic and its owner answered, she knew at once that she wanted a reading. (She became my first paying customer, too.)

Then husband suggested I make a website; I said, 'Don't be ridiculous, I can't even turn on a computer without breaking something'; he took no notice and bought me one of those computer magazines with a DVD on the front that contained a WYSIWYG website builder... and you know most of the rest.

So the feeling/ desire to do it didn't really evolve at all, it just arrived. Nowadays I recognise it as a kind of inner pull: I start hearing people's problems and wanting to read for them, and I know it's time to open up for full readings.

A reading from December 1998, well before any ideas landed. I was wondering whether to concentrate entirely on supporting David, or whether there might be something else I could do.
'What I sought an independent occupation of my own?'
Answer: 30 zhi 16 - Clarity's Enthusiasm.
 

jukkodave

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Isnt doing readings for others now the Yi originated. Manipulating the Yarrow stalks was considered to be a skill that took a considerable time to master. So most would have gone to their Yi diviner for readings. Perhaps the difficulty that we face nowadys is that we dont know how to get "out of the way", and perhaps the real skill in learning the yarrow stalks was not so much how to draw them , which is really not that difficult at all, but how to "connect" with the person requiring a reading.

How personal does it have to be though. We can do remote readings for oursleves, using the wonders of the internet, and even if they are not as accuate as doing a reading directly for onesself, they are still incrdibly insightful. Would the same be possible for doing a reading for another person. Mt gut feeling is probalby not. I think there has to be some sort of real connection witht he person asking the question. It is not sufficient to rely on the words of a question alone we need to be able to experience the person to knw what the inner question really is.
 

Trojina

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i haven't seen this discussed before in particular and when got asked by a friend to do a reading for her a while ago, i started to wonder about others experiences. i shared with her my fascination with the book and she asked for help, thus i suggested she casts the hexagrams and give me the result while i can help with the interpretation. she enjoyed how poetic it felt but i found it all of a sudden really difficult, not only lost in translation of the languages, but also the symbolism and meaning, usually so close and familiar were all of a sudden diluted in myriad of possible answers :confused:

I think there's a reason for that and it will sound odd but it is my experience. I never found it worked very well with people I know or people who paid me, people in 'real life' that is not people online. I wasn't able to loan Yi out as my little device to work for me, it just doesn't work like that for me. Odd things would happen whereby I and 2 other people I did readings for cast the same cast and I just think it was more of a comment on what we were doing or it was for me rather than for them. One time I was reading for a woman I really had had enough of and when she cast 33 with a line, can't recall what it was but I felt it was Yi talking to me. When I say I 'felt' I mean I kind of 'knew'. Hilary would say it's quite usual to share casts and why can't people synchronistically be having the same experience and that may be true for her but it didn't feel like that to me.

It could well be that I don't have the necessary boundaries to do live readings. I think some people do and some don't, it's just how you're made. If you feel it just doesn't work the same when you are reading for others I think it may be a good indication you aren't meant to be doing it.


Yi isn't tame. It does not lend itself out meekly so that people can make little businesses from it, I think it is less pliable than Tarot and more truthful IMO and of course has a whole different 'character'. Where tarot lays itself out for anyone to use Yi does not (is Tarot the whore of the divinatory world :mischief:)
I think it is a great gift when you find Yi and it talks to you but that may be all that your path with it is. I mean that when you discover and use Yi it's such a gift to you on your own life path but it doesn't follow that it's a good idea to think you can just do the same thing for others as you can for yourself, it may not be your path with Yi or then again it may be for those who find it's quite natural.

For some reason it is not like that all when answering on readings online, that feels okay, that flows easily and that's possibly because the boundaries are much firmer. The person isn't near you, the communication is necessarily limited. That is if I am responding to readings online or in email it's fine, the problems of the real life ones aren't there. I think they are far less draining and much more clear. The person is just presenting the problem, it's boundaried, whereas in real life the reading is happening in the midst of the whole relationship so if someone is going on and on about their redundancy talking to you for a long time you have all that to carry too.


on a side note, how come "tarot readers" sounds like a profession, while I Ching readers sounds... well, like I Ching readers :bag:

The definition of 'profession' is something one has to have had an extensive education for, I do not think of tarot reading as a profession. I think there are fewer I Ching readers because of the nature of the Oracle, because it's less known of and because it can be blunt. If you have a really blunt answer for someone how are you going to spin that out for an hour ? Also to some degree I think there are people who have some kind of path to find with Yi and they are the ones who will find they go back to it even after 'leaving' it and there are people who just have no connection with it. I'm thinking the Yi is bigger than us with this. You might be reading for someone who has no connection to Yi at quite a deep level, it's just not there. If Yi is on your path doesn't mean you can take it to others but some people can like Hilary but probably many can't.
 

Trojina

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...and just to add a connected issue. Sometimes people think they ought to 'spread the word' about Yi . That is because it's helped them they want others to know about it. I no longer think that is necessary because I think Yi gets through to Yeeks, Yi gets through to Yi people, it finds them.

Of course places like this are Yi appointed. It is right so many people come here to learn about Yi but I don't think it is necessary to 'promote' it to friends and family in your own life or feel any obligation to.
 
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legume

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thank you all for the answers and thanks so much Hilary for joining in and sharing your journey! re the class, i saw your post on the previous one, out of curiosity, when considering another edition, would it be only UK based or is there a possibility of an online course / web class version as well?

It could well be that I don't have the necessary boundaries to do live readings. I think some people do and some don't, it's just how you're made. If you feel it just doesn't work the same when you are reading for others I think it may be a good indication you aren't meant to be doing it.


Yi isn't tame. It does not lend itself out meekly so that people can make little businesses from it, I think it is less pliable than Tarot and more truthful IMO and of course has a whole different 'character'. Where tarot lays itself out for anyone to use Yi does not (is Tarot the whore of the divinatory world :mischief:)

first of all, the last bit, great point well made :rofl:
thank you for actually putting my feelings into words... jokes aside though, the idea of boundaries you put forward is very relatable. personally i'd see it more as some sort of an indicator, maybe not as innate inability to form proper distance, just something like a lack of certain readiness (that could also be understood as a form of "mastery", mentioned by jukkodave)? on the other hand can't disagree that there are simply people who are naturally more drawn to and better at any form of, let's say counseling or at least giving advice and forming proper relations with others... i'm at the stage of "working" with hex 60, so i guess only time will tell ;) anyway, definitely something to ponder on.

but going back to the topic of Yi's nature and how some people simply connect with it on a certain level while other's don't necessarily engage in its "depth" (for the lack of a better word) - this is more or less the feeling i got as well while reading for my friend. and maybe the online world allows for that better distance (and thus clearer perspective) and setting right boundaries indeed. there's no presupposed image of the other person and no expectation of that person either of some (magical) result (less pressure in a way but a more "open space"?).

It is right so many people come here to learn about Yi but I don't think it is necessary to 'promote' it to friends and family in your own life or feel any obligation to.

yup, lesson learned :D
 

hilary

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...and just to add a connected issue. Sometimes people think they ought to 'spread the word' about Yi . That is because it's helped them they want others to know about it. I no longer think that is necessary because I think Yi gets through to Yeeks, Yi gets through to Yi people, it finds them.

Of course places like this are Yi appointed. It is right so many people come here to learn about Yi but I don't think it is necessary to 'promote' it to friends and family in your own life or feel any obligation to.
Not necessary, no, but I think it's a good idea to talk about it to people you think will appreciate it. I think a more common problem is people not daring to mention divination in public for fear of being thought stupid/ gullible/ woo-infested.

thank you all for the answers and thanks so much Hilary for joining in and sharing your journey! re the class, i saw your post on the previous one, out of curiosity, when considering another edition, would it be only UK based or is there a possibility of an online course / web class version as well?
Yes, all my classes (so far) are online.

Re-boundaries... to some extent that's learnable. I never had a problem with one-off readings, but mentoring - talking with and reading for someone once a week - was a lot trickier. I think that's probably closer to reading for a friend, because the weekly chat does start to feel like a friendship.

My first ever mentoring client quit because, she said, I was giving her too much of my own opinion and not enough objective reading. She was right, too. It's not even a matter of 'judging' people, just of really wanting the best for them (and thinking you know what that is) and having that percolate through everything. Since then, my boundaries have got a bit less permeable.
 

Trojina

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Er I think you may have both completely misunderstood what I meant by boundaries. I didn't mean anything to do with boundaries between people but boundaries of the actual reading. It is hard to explain so I can see why you misunderstood.

Maybe I can't ever explain so you will understand. There's my relation with Yi, there's readings, but when Yi I feel is answering me through other people's readings when I am reading for them then this is about the boundaries of the reading. This is to do with my experience of Yi and what Yi does.

I know if I am reading for someone in real life I'll be being answered in the reading at least 75% of the time. I'll spend time talking about the reading to them and they will go away quite happy but I have the feeling the something that's bigger than both of us, Yi, looms there and there's this awareness I have that it really won't be going down the route of 'ah this is your reading let us explore it'. Nope, it's not like that, something else is happening. And no for me that does not mean the reading applies to both of us, that has never resonated or felt true on any level for me, but it might be true for you.

So I am not at all talking about interpersonal boundaries alone, I mean we handle them eevery day, we can learn those for doing readings etc etc but those other more amorphous boundaries that arise like a cloud when you bring in a powerful Oracle. It isn't just a book you open and it will just work in the same way for everyone intending to do readings for others. It's just not like that, there is an energetic component, I don't know what to call it but it's there. Actually one could say it's the big Tiger in the room. Is it going to sit at your feet so you can do a reading to hand to someone else or is it actually going to play games some mildly call 'synchronicity'. For some people that cloud/tiger/oracle may allow readings for others but for me there's a real sense of pull back. I feel pulled back to my own work and my own journey with Yi that isn't about doing real life readings.

I meant this is not an issue online, I don't feel that, it is far more boundaried, it's okay


It's frustrating I cannot make myself understood but never mind because it is impossible to explain because it is all to do with the energy of what Yi is beyond the book so to speak, my own sense of it others may find completely bonkers.
 

hilary

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games some mildly call 'synchronicity'
Extremely well-put.

I did get what you meant, I was just extending / blurring it a bit, and then waffling. With less waffle: I think interpersonal boundaries and boundaries around a reading might actually be the same thing. I mean, if you are identifying with the person you're reading for to some degree, imagining yourself in their shoes and thinking about what you would(n't) do, then that blurs both kinds of boundary. I think that's something you naturally do more than I do - or to put it another way, that I'm more like a space alien than you are... :odd:
 

Trojina

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Possibly, re what you said about the boundaries being the same thing.

Space Alien ? I don't know. I don't know what you are ever since you posted that music as a backdrop to an instructional video. The term 'passive aggressive' comes to mind since nobody can possibly follow that video without muting the music. Perhaps it's just a holiday you need.
 

hilary

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Which music? Oh, that music. Harmen commented on Facebook that it should play on every visit to the forum. :mischief:
 

Trojina

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Oh yes that would definitely set the tone :rofl:
 
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legume

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It's frustrating I cannot make myself understood but never mind because it is impossible to explain because it is all to do with the energy of what Yi is beyond the book so to speak, my own sense of it others may find completely bonkers.

i think this bit says it all, as similar to Hilary, i feel like i get what you mean, just tried to relate my own experience to yours. although in the context of boundaries it might be different, as in for different people the issue might come up in different ways or on different "levels"? as the "limit" (?) of operating with certain type of energy, can also express itself differently... but these are indeed concepts that are very difficult to translate into words. :brickwall:

I don't know what you are ever since you posted that music as a backdrop to an instructional video. The term 'passive aggressive' comes to mind since nobody can possibly follow that video without muting the music. Perhaps it's just a holiday you need.

haha, i actually left the music on and followed the whole vid (made me chuckle), but it was friday after work i believe and am definitely in need of holiday myself, so you could be on to something ;)
 

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