Your reading

in terms of the loss of lives and livlihoods

Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

	changing to
38		64

Hexagram 38, Opposing

Key Questions

What if the difference were not a threat?
How could this tension be creative?
If you can't see eye to eye, what can you see?

Oracle

'Opposing.
Small affairs, good fortune.'

'Opposing' describes irreducible differences – desires, motivations and especially ways of seeing that diverge from one another. 'Opposing' people see differently even when they're looking at the same scene; they are utterly strange to each other, as if they came from different planets. With an inner state of 'Opposing', you contain mutually contradictory impulses – like two siblings under one roof – or see from two angles at once. You might see things not only for what they are, but also for what they mean, as if they were omens.

In small affairs, this kind of difference of view means good fortune. It's a challenge, a source of comedy, or a creative stimulus. In matters of great personal importance, though, where people's sense of identity is threatened by a different way of seeing, it will stir up survival instincts and trigger conflict. If you can scale matters down to 'small affairs', it becomes much easier to give space to both visions.

Image

'Fire above, lake below: Opposing.
A noble one both harmonizes and separates.'

Sequence

Opposing follows from Hexagram 37, People in the Home:
'When the way of the home is exhausted, you naturally turn away, and so Opposing follows.'

Changing Lines

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.'

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