Meeting Grey Rat
A few weeks ago, I went to stay with Mum for a while, helping her out after a stay in hospital. First thing after we arrived, I asked Yi for advice for the next week or so, and received Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, changing at the fourth line to Hexagram 2. I discovered what it meant to be the ’source of motivation’ and to ‘gather friends together as a hair-clasp gathers hair’ - and it most definitely had its foundation in the paired line, 15.3, which is about hard work. The feeling I get from these two lines now is that there’s a mysterious realising force that is somehow invoked by simple, authentic work. It seems to create inner change that sends out a ‘ripple effect’, travelling through something other than the ordinary lines of communication.
Anyway… thinking of Hexagram 16 - enthusiasm, motivation, the inspiration of big images, the power of the elephant… - I naturally also thought about Hexagram 15 as its secure foundation. Before you can weave elephant-power into life, it helps to have met the ‘uniting rodent’, the grey rat (OK, strictly speaking it’s a giant hamster, but it does look exactly like a rat), so you don’t develop an inflated self-image. And as we crossed the threshold, I saw Mum at once as an image of myself.
Oddly enough, this had never quite sunk in before - no matter how many people mistook me for Mum over the ‘phone. But now the reading had woken me up a little, I could see myself in her as if in a mirror. Some enforced self-awareness followed.
Apparently Someone wanted to be sure I didn’t miss the point, though. Walking into Mum’s room, the first thing I saw looking out at me from her dresser - woolly-whiskered, orange-eyed - was a home-made, stuffed toy, grey rat.
May 6th, 2006 at 4:09 am
My boy friend and I broke up one Month, he will come back or I will meet somebody else ?
May 6th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Hi Jenny,
I don’t think divination is really about just predicting what’ll happen to you, as if you were nothing but a passive thing, and stuff just happened to you, like it just happens to a rock. Have a look at the introductory article, What can I achieve with the I Ching? for some alternative ideas.
May 9th, 2006 at 3:25 am
cultivate oneself and the rest will follow, its all about the inner being within yourself, trust your instincts.
May 11th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
At the same time, shouldn’t we be willing to take a shot at making such a prediction, if asked? Even if we turn out to be wrong? I don’t feel that platitudes help the situation; a little concrete advice might on the other hand. We have a much better chance of being hit by a car when we are in a crosswalk than we do when we’re on a mountaintop–same is true of relationship–if we’re at a crossroads, or visible in some metaphysical way, or projecting our availability and interest, we’re more likely to attract a romantic partner than not. The Ching should be able to tell us whether we’re in that crosswalk (crossroads) or not, in my opinion.