I Ching readings for the New Year: 'Answers' issue 70

Some thoughts and experiences on readings at this time of year. Click the 'play' button below to listen - or if that won't work in your browser, click here to listen with your usual audio player.

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™Subscriber's reading: moving house? ˜

Most of the readings I share with you in the newsletter are 'in depth' ones - or at least as near as I can get in the space. I delve into related hexagrams, tour round related lines, and fill in the big picture. This one is different: a quick survey of options, to help someone make a decision. For this kind of quick overview, I concentrate on moving line texts and hexagram names - the pivotal points of the reading, and its foundations.

The subscriber - who prefers to stay anonymous - is thinking of moving house; the question is where to move to.

Option 1 would take him close to a friend who is somewhat controlling and really doesn't 'get' his interest in esoteric and spiritual matters. Yi's comment was Hexagram 30, Clarity, changing to Hexagram 62, Small Overstepping.
Option 2 would take him close to a friend who is very much alive and awake, profoundly spiritual, but with a tendency to neuroticism. Yi said Hexagram 58, Open Communication, changing to Hexagram 24, Returning.
Option 3 would take him to something of a 'spiritual hub' - but it's very remote and the climate's hostile to computers, so he's concerned he'd be isolated and bored there. For this one, Yi gave 45, Gathering, with no changing lines.
And the final option is to stay where he is. It's a hostile neighbourhood, and he doesn't like it in the least. Yi said hexagram 35, Progress, changing to Hexagram 23, Stripping Away.

So which of these is the best option? (You might like to look these four answers up now, so that you can compare your impressions with mine.)

The first thing I notice is that Option 3 has no changing lines, hence no relating hexagram. There's a Gathering - a religious one - but he has no 'relation' to it. And in fact it turns out he's already dismissed the idea of going there; single hexagrams, in this kind of question, often do refer to a decision already made.

Option 2 is a more realistic prospect for living close to someone he could truly communicate with. Hexagram 58 is the joyful exchange of ideas, and maybe also refers to the celebratory nature of their shared faith (Krishna devotees). And underlying this, a sense of 'finding himself' and meeting someone on the path.

But looking at the three moving lines, there are potential problems here.

Basically good, in the spirit of 58...

'Sincere and confident communication, good fortune.

Regrets vanish.'

... but his friend's neurotic anxieties making themselves felt...

'Haggling opening, not yet at rest.

Putting limits on the affliction brings rejoicing.'

... and this presenting real personal risks:

'Trusting in stripping away,

There is danger.'

The querent's had his own mental health problems in the past. I can't tell for sure just from this reading whether this is about the corrosive effect of his friend's instability, but it seems likely.

Staying put? Progress, but with Stripping Away.

'Prospering like a bushy-tailed rodent,

Constancy means danger.'

This line describes how he feels about the neighbourhood pretty well. He can prosper and make progress here using rodent tactics, keeping out of the way of the local predators, not insisting on 'sticking to his guns', but he is probably always going to be nervous.

Option 1, moving near the not-so-sympathetic friend...

He 'relates' to this as 62, making a Small Transition, continuing the tricky work of being a spiritual idealist out in the 'real world'. And what he gets here is Clarity on that small transition, and 'holding together' and support through it. This might be the best option to look after himself materially, to 'raise cattle' (30, Judgement) to sustain his higher development.

What about the lines?

‘Treading, hence confused.

Honour it,

Not a mistake.’

... a continuation of the journey - muddled, as the first signs of something new often are, but only because there is something there worth knowing.

‘The king makes good use of marching out,

There is a triumph.

He executes the chief, the prisoners are not so loathsome.

Not a mistake.’

Obviously, there's more story behind these readings than I know. But it sounds to me as though taking himself and his beliefs out into this less-than-sympathetic environment would actually be a way to take charge, focus in clearly on the essential, and hopefully have a positive influence. He's not particularly keen on this option, but the lines repeat it's 'not a mistake'.

So I would say it boils down to a choice between making a life where he is, keeping his head down, or going more adventurously with option 1, gaining and bringing Clarity, always in small steps.

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™Links to explore—

Offsite:

Even though I know little to nothing about tarot, I like to keep an eye on what's available on the other side of the fence, because of the amount of creative, original thinking that goes on over there about ways to use divination in modern life. One of these is available over at Tarot Tools - 7 chapters of 'Putting the tarot to work', about divination-cum-brainstorming in the workplace.

Thrysse says that some of the lessons currently available at her excellent Tarot Moon site will be gone by February, when they'll be published in the old-fashioned way on paper. It's not clear exactly what she means will go and what will stay, so if in doubt, download now. I find the articles for readers especially good.

Harmen's kindly translated some more of his I Ching articles into English. There's 'the Chinese Icarus', about 1, line 6, and 'the valley and the mare' and 'the mare and the heavenly coach and four' about hexagram 2.

At the I Ching Community:

Has anyone tried...? (What people use to help them focus on and connect with their readings.)
I Ching and the random factor (The age-old question - how does it work?)
Depth readings - an old approach (One of those wide-ranging threads touching on many things, including a very quickfire conversational method.)

™I Ching services—

I provide personal I Ching readings from Ł25. All readings are completely private and unconditionally guaranteed.
Clarity's I Ching correspondence course is available for Ł22.50 for the self-study version, or Ł137 for the full course including personal tuition, with the same unconditional guarantee.

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™Audio transcript—

Most of us, most of the time, consult the YiJing in times of crisis. The underlying message of so many readings is 'Help! I can't see what to do - I'm at my wit's end!' Or in my case, 'um, I think I must have passed the end of my wits some miles back, but I've only just noticed...'

If readings aren't about crisis management, they're often about specific plans. Starting up something new, wanting Yi to comment on the idea - endorse it, hopefully - and give some advice on how to make a success of things...

New Year offers an opening for a different kind of reading. The 'everyday' readings are about getting to grips with things - this is more a time for opening your hands to welcome what comes. Time to take two steps back and get an overview of past and future.

According to Stephen Karcher, winter was a time for the people of ancient China to leave the fields, stop work, retreat into their homes and shut themselves in. Rather as if people became like deeply buried seeds - you know there are some seeds that won't germinate at all unless they've first been exposed to frost. Activity has to stop, completely, before it can start again. (I can't help thinking that it must be very different in the southern hemisphere. Maybe if you're listening to this from over there, you'll want to come back to the idea in about 6 months' time.)

Of course we still recognise something similar, with the 'New Year's resolution' tradition. And all the people selling coaching programs and goal-setting software know it: they're promoting on overdrive this month. We still consciously set this time of year apart to take a couple of steps back, disengage, and take the longer view.

So... some good questions for the New Year. I like to start out by asking about the old one... and for 2004, for me, it boils down to 'What happened?' I'm using this time to work out why so very few of the things I had planned a year ago have come to anything - and gradually getting clearer about it.

You might have some particular event or non-event or trend of 2004 to ask about - perhaps with a question like 'how can I overcome that?' or 'how can I build on that?'

Or you might settle for asking, simply, 'What can I learn from last year?'

Then I'd suggest taking a while - maybe the next ten days or so :-) - to turn that one over in your mind and let it sink in. These things take time to ripen.

When you've looked at how you got here, you'll want to face the other way - see where you're going. I wouldn't suggest asking for a prediction, no 'what's going to happen in 2005?' I mean, it's not as if you were going to spend the next 12 months sitting watching your life pass by on a little screen. Try asking instead for advice for the coming year - or 'What do I need to know?'

The way I usually put it is to ask for my path for the coming year. It's more of an open-ended question: you might get a picture of where you're headed or advice on how to deal with any monsters along the road.

This year I asked for my path for 2005, and please, to show me something I could use now to ensure I started off on the right track. Yi gave me hexagram 56 changing to 52: the traveller keeping still. When I do keep still - not something I've done a lot of in 2004 - I realise that I'm only in a temporary shelter, and the property and axe I've earned so far are not going to gladden my heart. They're only means to an end at best, and I need to refocus on the destination.

OK, this is probably hard to convey, but for me that was one of those readings where the master clouts you on the head with a big stick to wake you up. It's quite unlike my reading for 2004, which basically took me all of 2004 to understand. So anyway... how can you use what I've learned from this?

First, do take the time for annual readings. There's something about doing a reading you don't have to do, asking for insight you don't have to have - a rare opportunity to see that bit further and deeper.

Secondly, think about what you most want and need from this reading, and focus on asking for that. Maybe something to unfold over the year, maybe something to get you back on track and help you stay there - whatever it is, Yi will provide what you ask for.

Thirdly, do record your reading somewhere you'll see it. Pin it on the wall, write it on the mirror, load it as your computer's screensaver -whatever will bring your attention back to it throughout the year.

Oh yes - and enjoy it! Isn't it extraordinary that we should be given insight like this just for the asking?

Have a wonderful Christmas, won't you? And I wish you all the very best for a joyful and fulfilling New Year.