Your reading

Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

	changing to
64		31

Hexagram 64, Not Yet Across

Key Questions

How to prepare for the crossing?
How will you know when it's time?

Oracle

'Not yet across, creating success.
The small fox, almost across,
Soaks its tail:
No direction bears fruit.'

Here at the very end of the Yijing, nothing is settled or complete; everything is in flux.

A wise fox will only attempt to cross when there is solid ice on the river, and then pick his way over carefully, every sense alert. If he sets out when the conditions are not right, he won't be able to complete the crossing: he'll be shamed and stranded at best, and he may be altogether sunk. For a small fox on drifting ice in midstream, there is no useful direction.

When you are not yet across, you may be hesitating on the verge of a transition, trying to tell whether it's safe to commit yourself. It's time to use the skills of a wise fox.

Image

'Fire dwells above stream: Not Yet Across.
A noble one carefully differentiates between beings, so each finds its place.'

Sequence

Not Yet Across follows from Hexagram 63, Already Across:
'Things cannot be finished, and so Not Yet Across follows - and so the completion.'

Changing Lines

Hexagram 31, Influence

Key Questions

What influence is active – and what does it draw you towards?
What is its place in your life?

Oracle

'Influence, creating success.
Constancy bears fruit.
Taking a woman, good fortune.'

Influence is what moves people, and how people are open and available to be moved – by emotion or inspiration, physical responses or visiting spirits. All these things touch, stir and attract us, drawing us into relationship. The Chinese character for 'influence' shows a mouth and a weapon: the influence goes deep, and makes us vulnerable.

It is good to respond to the power of influence with constancy, steadying the motion it inspires and creating a place in your life to contain it. The man who 'takes a woman' in marriage brings her into his home and makes room for her there. Good fortune comes from this more feminine way of relating: being open and allowing space for new influences.

Image

'Above the mountain is a lake: Influence.
A noble one accepts people with emptiness.'

Sequence

The Yijing is divided into two canons: the Upper Canon ends with Hexagram 30, Clarity, and the Lower Canon begins here. Influence follows from all the hexagrams that precede it:

'There is heaven and earth, and so there are the ten thousand things.
There are the ten thousand things, and so there is man and woman.
There is man and woman, and so there is husband and wife.
There is husband and wife, and so there is father and son.
There is father and son, and so there is ruler and minister.
There is ruler and minister, and so there is higher and lower.
There is higher and lower, and so there is a place for rites and justice to operate.'

Pair

Influence forms a pair with Hexagram 32, Lasting:
'Influence calls, Lasting endures.'

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