Your reading

though a Shocking sequence, what good after the dust settles?

Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

	changing to
22		23

Hexagram 22, Beauty

Key Questions

How can you make the essence visible to others?
What do you choose to communicate?

Oracle

'Beauty. Creating success.
Small yield from having a direction to go.'

This is about natural beauty, like the beauty of a plant, whose form is the perfect, simple expression of its nature. It's also about the way people create images to communicate something of a person's or thing's inner nature.

This becomes a fruitful way to engage with the world when you have a purpose in mind – like someone who becomes a suitor for the sake of his bride, or a figure of authority for the sake of those she teaches. This is an image created for the sake of communication and relationship, as a first step towards a chosen destination.

Yet it only bears a 'small yield' because it is only a first, small step. Becoming something for someone is not sufficient to bring about significant results on its own – it's not the same as wholehearted conviction, or ultimate fulfilment. No created image could ever express a whole person.

So this is not a time to concentrate on results: it's a time for imaginative, lively exploration of beautiful ways the essence could flower and be seen.

Image

'Below the mountain is fire: Beauty.
A noble one brings light to the many standards, but does not venture to pass judgement.'

Sequence

Beauty follows from Hexagram 21, Biting Through:
'Things cannot carelessly unite and be completed, and so Beauty follows. Beauty means adorning.'

Changing Lines

Hexagram 23, Stripping Away

Key Questions

What has worn out?
Is there a less painful way to let this go?
What is underneath the surface?

Oracle

'Stripping away.
Fruitless to have a direction to go.'

The surfaces are cut and sliced away; the old and unviable is stripped back to expose the living core. This inevitable, natural process often feels like a flaying: the more you have invested of yourself in these old things, the more painful it will be.

It's no good, at such times, to imagine the future and make plans. You need to bring your energy back to the centre and honour the process: this is a time to be transformed, not to act. Moreover, until the old is so utterly stripped from you that you have no choice but to think in new ways, you will only be able to re-create the old patterns.

Image

'Mountain rests on the earth: Stripping Away.
The heights are generous, and there are tranquil homes below.'

Sequence

Stripping Away follows from Hexagram 22, Beauty:
'Involved in brightening the appearance; this means success will be truly exhausted, and so Stripping Away follows.'

Pair

Stripping Away forms a pair with Hexagram 24, Returning:
'Stripping away: rotten. Returning: turnaround.'

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