http://gnostix1.wordpress.com/recent/mindscapes/100-characters/

Good things here – and including some responses to Brad, Ewald and LiSe.

Laws 5 and 6 -

If you cling to the answer you will lose the solution.

The symbolic replies from the Yijing can invite you to endless lingering in the field of metaphors, chewing on every possible piece of information that might or might not be meaningful to you. Many users are afraid that they might overlook something in the answer, as if under each insight another insight is hidden which they must uncover. There is no use in wrenching the answer of the Yijing. Once you have what you need you have to decide your next step and move on. Therefore, “if you cling to the answer you will lose the solution”.

There is no text in the Yijing.

The words are not important, and although it can be very rewarding to look at the original Chinese text from a historical and philological point of view, you should not be carried away by the endless sea of possibilities that such an undertaking can give. What the Yijing gives you when you use the book are images, an overview, a situation, an idea – not words. Therefore, “there is no text in the Yijing”.

I think these are laws 5 and 5a, really – and my response to them is a typical ‘Well… yes and no.’

It is possible to set up camp in that field of metaphors, or set yourself adrift in the sea of possibilities, and explore connections – and the breadth and depth of these connections is such that this can go on indefinitely, without ever doing or changing anything in response to the reading.

However, in my experience that’s a pretty rare and unusual problem. Far more people are inclined to move on and forget the reading too soon, not allowing time to be changed by it.

It may be that some readings can be used as telegrams: they convey their information, and then you hurry off to act on it, discarding the telegram as you go. But the thing is that there is, in fact, a power to spark off personal change right here in the midst of the ‘field of metaphors’. To be changed by a reading, you generally need to inhabit it for a while and let it reshape your understanding. Some of the ways this is happening will be apparent to you; some probably won’t.

So it’s good, I find, to keep the reading with you as you move on: not to depart the real world and move into the field of metaphors, but also not to discard the reading quick and run back into the world of plans and action.

Actually, this is connected with law 9 -

The Yijing does not solve your problems.

I think this is an obvious one. “I have consulted the Yijing and the answer was great. I really understood it. But nothing has changed!” Of course not. The process of change only starts with the Yijing, it will not be accomplished by the Yijing. Using the Yijing means hard work and put in a lot of honesty. So kick your butt and live the answer of the Yi. The Yijing is only a book. Therefore, “the Yijing does not solve your problems”.

Yes, it’s obvious, in the same way that it’s obvious that no amount of positive visualisation will bring about any real-world change until you go do something different. (That is, not quite so obvious that it doesn’t need saying.) And yet… there is more to the Yijing than a message-delivery mechanism; the act and experience of divination has its own ways of changing people – a kind of re-tuning, re-aligning effect – that goes beyond what we can consciously understand in a reading.

I have relatively little to say about the remaining laws, but I’ll include them for the sake of completeness.

I would like to engrave law 7 in gold, set it to symphonic music with a Mahlerian-scale orchestra, and project it in fifty-foot high letters onto the sides of buildings:

When you read the text of the Yijing: read the text of the Yijing.

Many times when I ask one of my students to cite a text from the Yijing they do not give me the text from the Yijing but the commentary from the translator. Most people do not work with the Yijing, they work with the translator’s explanation of the Yijing. I find this a strange practice – it’s like driving a car but having Hyacinth Bucket – excuse me, Bouquet – sitting next to you giving you directions while you are perfectly capable of driving yourself. I was very surprised when I heard someone say that beginners should start with the translator’s commentary, after all, he said, that’s what all beginners do. I would say, only read the commentary once you have grasped the meaning of the text yourself. If you make it a habit to immediately go to the commentary, instead of contemplating on the actual text of the Yijing you will never learn to appreciate the direct and illuminating answers that the book can give you. The commentary is just what it says: commentary. It does not hold the answer of the Yijing, and many times the commentary can clash with your actual situation, leaving you more baffled than if you would have taken the time to listen to what the Yi has to say. Therefore, “when you read the text of the Yijing: read the text of the Yijing”.

Law 8…

If you want change nothing will change.

Often the Yijing is consulted when a situation is not as we desire it to be. We want change, we want things to be different. But this need can conflict with what the situation, or yourself, really needs. When you consult the Yijing and have interpreted the answer, the need for change should be gone: instead, you should be aware of the necessity of change, or the want of it, and how it can be accomplished in the most natural way, without forcing it. If you need change you will most likely not be willing to wait for it and let it flow into your circumstances. If you can accept your current situation and if you can see how you got there, change will not be a necessity but a simple part of the flow you are in. Therefore, “if you want change nothing will change”.

…seems related to law 4: the more you require that things should be a certain way, or that the world should operate in a certain way (for instance, that change should happen through your agency), the less likely you are to hear the answer. And the less you hear the answer, the less likely you are to be in tune with the way of things.

Law 10 -

The Yijing exists to make itself unneeded.

The Yijing is not only a book, it is also a principle. What it shows you is like the air that you are breathing: you are in it, you use it, you need it, but most of the time you cannot see it. Once you are aware of the principle you don’t need a tool to make it visible anymore: when you know how to operate the TV you will hardly consult the manual anymore. The Yijing is a learning aid to help you see the underlying principle that weaves the chaotic structure that we experience. But learning aids are not meant to be used all the time. When you have learned the principle you can discard the tool. Therefore, “the Yijing exists to make itself unneeded”.

Maybe – I don’t know. Ask me about this again in at least fifty years’ time.

(I’ll probably say, ‘What’s that, dear? Oh… maybe about half-past two?’)

Law 3 -

Too much is less than enough.

“Can I expect any positive movement from P’s corner in the next couple of months?” I got Hex 10 unchanging. I get a sense that 10 means moving with caution. So I asked ….. “Why would he hesitate or cautiously?” I got 53.1.4 > 13 which I assume is about wanting to make gradual progress the natural proper way but I’ve seen various interpretations of this line so I’m not going to try to work this one out…….any help is appreciated. I also asked “Do I need to do anything more at this stage or should I just wait?” I got Hex 13.3.6 changing to 17. 13 & 17 often confuse me!

Asking many questions to the Yijing is most often not very helpful and does not bring any positive progress to your situation. If you don’t give yourself the time to understand the first answer from the Yi, then there is no use in asking again – and again – and again. If the root is not properly planted the tree will not grow. The same goes for all the systems that can be applied to extract meaning from the answer, adding information to information. They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer. But it doesn’t make the answer go away, it only obfuscates it. Therefore, “too much is less than enough”.

Again I find myself mostly agreeing… . As I was saying in the thread about the first post, people often ask repeated questions not out of impatience, but out of a lack of confidence. They don’t understand at once, and so they think they will never understand at all; they don’t trust their own intuition as guide, and find little or no value in their own natural response. The key is (as Harmen was saying in that thread) to give yourself time not to understand. You immerse yourself in the reading, you keep on reading it as answer, you ask yourself questions about its imagery… and understanding starts to emerge. This may take a few minutes, hours, days or months.

One way to simplify the whole thing is to allow time for choosing the question, too, and start by asking only what you need to know – but that’s a discussion for Law 4.

Points where I don’t agree -

If you do allow that time not to understand, and then to understand, and then find another question arises… then there’s no reason I can see not to ask it. And of course some questions naturally belong in pairs.

And I especially don’t agree with,

The same goes for all the systems that can be applied to extract meaning from the answer, adding information to information. They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer. But it doesn’t make the answer go away, it only obfuscates it.

On the contrary – the systems for going deeper into an answer are there to give people more time with that first answer. They often reveal that the follow-up questions aren’t necessary because those questions are already answered. They can become a way of ‘adding information to information’ and evading what the answer actually says (so can lots of things), but they are not ultimately about getting ‘more information’ but about diving deeper into the reading and getting a stronger sense of what it has to say.

For instance, if I need to do some 13-ing, create some harmony with people, what do I not need to do? Hexagram 7: lead an army; run a ‘campaign’ to realise my objective; start regarding P as an obstacle or an enemy rather than a partner. Where might I be coming from? Hexagram 12 – utterly blocked communication, no messages getting through. That’s certainly recognisable, so how can I get it ‘unblocked’? Have a look at the trigrams and their associated Image text, see what changes to create ‘harmony between people’… and so on.

Law 4 -

When you cling to your question you will lose the answer.

This Law is similar to what I talked about in another article: questions can be misleading and drive you away from what you actually need. Asking questions to the Yijing is not bad, as long as you take care not to frame your question in such a way that the answer that you need can not be given. Questions are a very subjective matter, and questions like “is he the right guy for me” make it easy to ignore your own responsibility. Don’t be afraid not to ask questions, the answer from the Yi can be more encompassing if you leave out your own limited understanding of the situation. Therefore, “if you cling to your question you will lose the answer”.

I wrote a post in response to that article of Harmen’s, too. In the comments, several people described how they had received the answer by not clinging to the question.

I’d suggest asking a question that’s as open, simple and direct as possible – but asking, all the same, because the practice of thinking out what you need to know and putting it into words as a question is useful in itself, and because it is much, much easier to read what Yi has to say as the answer to a question. Is the answer telling you what someone else is doing, what you are doing, what’s happening in general, what will happen next, what you should be doing…? Especially for those beginners who are already having trouble trusting their intuition, it doesn’t help to add this extra layer of uncertainty. Just asking ‘What do I need to understand about this?’ is enough to simplify things, without limiting what Yi can say.

There are two important points implicit in Harmen’s ‘fourth law’. First, that your choice of question can make it enormously hard for you to hear what you most need to know. To ‘Is he the right guy for me?’ I’d add ‘How does he feel about me?’ ‘What will he do?’ and, as often as not, ‘What will happen?’

I find it helps to examine my question before I ask it, along these lines:

‘I want to know whether he will reply!
Why do I need to know now whether he will reply?
So I don’t have to live in suspense any more!
Why do I need not to live in suspense?
So I can think straight and see what to do next.’

So what I need to know now, in this moment, might be ‘what’s most important for me to tackle next?’ – or even ‘how can I live with suspense and still think straight?’ Or, come to that, ‘What do I need to understand now about this?’

The second point is that it’s as well to hold only lightly to your question as you read the answer. The question is your gateway to understanding the answer – because, and insofar as, it’s a clear and direct expression of what you are asking in your heart. The Yijing responds to your whole self, through your question.

I’ve had someone ask me,

‘I asked the Yi whether I could succeed in accomplishing a, but in its reply it seems to be advising me to do b instead – so has it failed to answer my question?’

In a sense, I suppose you could say that it has. More to the point, it has answered you: what you need, the reasons why you want ‘a’ so urgently in the first place. This is another moment when you can lose the answer by clinging to the question.

Law 1:

If you receive the same hexagram three times you have three different answers.

The meanings of the hexagrams are not fixed, they change according to your situation. Hexagram 3 can mean that you are experiencing initial difficulties, but it can also mean that initial difficulties elsewhere have to be addressed. A friend of mine was asked to give a beginners course at the upcoming Yijing Symposium in Ruigoord. He asked the Yijing whether this was a good idea, and he received hexagram 3 (5th line moving). You could see this as a difficult start, leading to a troubled course, and be tempted not to do it. But who were the targets of the course? Indeed, those people who experience difficulties when starting to use the Yijing. Therefore, “if you receive the same hexagram three times you have three different answers”.

This is very often true. Its corollary is that when we receive that same hexagram again, we still need to go read it afresh as a new response. There is a risk of getting stuck in a mental groove: ‘Oh, that one, I know what that means,’ substituting what we ‘know it means’ for what it says.

A related and trickier question: when you receive the same hexagram three times, should you assume that you have three connected, related answers, and Yi is pointing out a connection between your questions?

Or if you form a strong personal association between, say, Hexagram 53 and marriage, is it reasonable to assume that when you ask a work question and receive Hexagram 53, this is a reminder to consider your marriage?

I think this can only be answered by intuition, in the moment. Repeating hexagrams is one way Yi can point out connections you’d otherwise miss; however, rather than saying the Hexagram 53 reading is about your marriage, not your work, I’d be more inclined to look for a pattern of Gradual Progress that’s common to both areas of life. Those personal thematic associations need to be taken lightly and allowed to come and go, so the conversation stays free and alive.

However… sometimes when you receive the same hexagram three times, you might have one answer and two reminders that it would be a really good idea to take notice of that answer. (For example, there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve spent a long time thinking about a reading’s primary hexagram, finally asked a clarifying question, and received in response, with no lines changing, the relating hexagram from the original reading. I imagine the oracle speaking to me extra – slowly – and – clearly… )

Law 11 of Yijing Practice: there are not many laws.

Law 2, from Harmen:

Moving lines do not move.

Many users have the habit of immediately changing the moving lines in the received hexagram to generate a second hexagram. Apart from the fact that moving lines were probably a later invention and not used in the early days of Yijing practice (Rutt, p. 154-155; Nielsen, p. 22), the habit of generating a second hexagram makes it tempting to bypass the original answer of the Yijing if the second hexagram is more to your liking. But you do not receive the second hexagram as answer from the Yijing, you receive the first hexagram. And that’s the hexagram you have to deal with. An example from Clarity’s forum:

I got 39.3>8. Then, my I Ching book asks me to throw again when I receive hexa 8, so I asked for clarity and I got 37 “Family”.

The querent seems to skip hexagram 39 completely, going right over to hexagram 37 which could be called the third hexagram. But that is not the initial answer that she got from the Yijing and that she should have started with. Therefore, “moving lines do not move”.

• Bent Nielsen, A companion to Yi jing numerology and cosmology
• Richard Rutt, Zhou Yi – the Book of Changes

Well, this is more contentious!

As far as I know – which is nowhere near as far as Harmen knows – line texts have been described in terms of the hexagram they lead to for a long time. 39 line 3 is 39 zhi 8, 39′s 8. Impossible to tell from this, of course, whether or not this implied that people would actually go on to read Hexagram 8.

More important for me is what I find works in divination, which is that if you receive 39.3 changing to 8, you have received the combination of both hexagrams, and the relationship and ‘conversation’ that takes place between the two. You could also say that you’ve received Hexagram 39 in a context of 8: Difficulties and Limping as seen from or through a perspective of Seeking Union, the Seeking Union experience of Difficulties. So you might expect this to focus on how, when you are struggling, you seek people with whom you have a natural affinity. (Hexagram 39 already contains the idea of changing direction and going ‘southwest’; Hexagram 8 accentuates that aspect of its meaning.)

If Harmen finds that this second, relating hexagram often draws people’s attention, that would be because it tends to describe them: where they are, how they relate to the situation, what the reading is about for them. In this case, the reading was about a woman’s strong desire to leave an environment where she was struggling and move back home to her family and friends. Her moving line reads,

‘Going on, limping; coming back, turnaround.’

- endorsing her desire to change direction and go home, as the readers on her thread agreed.

Generally speaking, hurrying to ask again – not necessarily what Hexagram 8 advises – is not recommended. However… if this reading is an example of a broken ‘law’, it’s also an example of Yi’s flexibility and responsiveness to the sincere questioner. After she skimmed over her first reading, she was given a second answer that carried the same message, clear as day.

(More later on laws 3-10.)

Harmen describes fu specifically as the quality of sincerity that inspires confidence and allows connection. He makes the connection (one that most people don’t attempt to explain) with the early, oracle bone meaning of ‘war captives’ because captives prove the king to be a trustworthy war leader. I’d add that they are also your only official evidence that a war has been fought and won at all. (It’s not as if journalists had been broadcasting from the front lines!) The returning leader might make claims, but with captives there is very present proof.

The old character fu shows a hand or claw coming down to grasp a child (see LiSe’s page on Hexagram 61). This sense of present grasp is important, I think. Fu in the Yijing is contrasted with cares and warnings, and particularly (four times) with regrets. If you have regrets, you’re only half here, and half in the past. If you have fu, you are entirely present: regrets vanish.

17, line 4 draws a contrast that’s especially interesting in the light of those grasped war captives:

‘Following makes a catch. Constancy, pitfall.
With fu, holding to the path [dao] with clarity,
How can this be wrong?’

Following to capture something is a bad principle to follow; it’s very different from fu and mindful presence on the path. By definition, fu is what you have here and now – it’s not somewhere else, not something to pursue.

Harmen cites lines from the Shijing and from Yi that show fu as confidence inspired in others, especially by the king. In Hexagram 49, Radical Change, fu seems to be what makes a king. Yet it’s also what binds communities and connects neighbours (hexagrams 8 and 9), and the way the messenger speaks truth to the prince in 42.3.

And beyond the human world, fu is a spiritual connection: when Stephen Karcher chose a single phrase to translate all instances of fu, he opted for ‘connection to the spirits’. Fu is the key ingredient when you make offerings (20, 41, 45.2, 46.2). In Hexagram 5, Waiting, there is fu connecting you to the spirits who will bring the weather you need. And in Hexagram 29, there is fu and holding fast the heart (or a joined, connected heart) creates success, even in repeated chasms. Fu can overcome the darkness and uncertainty of the situation.

Harmen – obviously speaking from a diviner’s understanding of the Yijing, as well as a scholar’s understanding of a word – writes:

So what does it mean when you read in the Yijing that there is fu? It depends on the situation, but it could indicate that there is sincerity (genuineness, naturalness, authenticity), which enables to connect with the goals that are set, or with the means that can be put to use. Without fu there is no connection and it will be very difficult (though not impossible) to achieve anything. Fu works on the long term, without fu you are only able to achieve limited goals on the short term. Fu enables you to get and keep processes going, it is the oil that keeps the motor running smoothly and avoids damage. If there is no fu in you or the person(s) involved, it is better to reconsider your plans and think about your motivations and intentions. Fu is a quality that is essential when you work with other people. Without it, cooperation can be pretty tough.

The key to all this seems to be that ‘without fu there is no connection’. This is what truth, sincerity, trust and confidence have in common: connection, with people, goals and means, and simply with what is. Given this connection, things flow freely:

‘The well gathers,
Don’t cover it.
With fu,
Good fortune from the source.’

There’s a long introduction before the interview: the first mention of the I Ching is 27 minutes in, and Carol joins the call at 33 minutes.

at least some of the bonus sessions mentioned below are gone now (including the ones with me – see CK’s comment). Check on the sales page to see which are left.

~~~~~~~~~

As you know, I don’t exactly litter this blog with recommendations for other people’s products. (I’m trying to remember the last time I did this – I think it might have been in 2007.) But this is a good moment to make an exception.

I’d like to recommend that you try the Divine Purpose Unveiled course by Michelle Vandepas and CK Reyes.

And I do mean ‘try’ – this is a downloadable course with a one year money-back guarantee, so you can download, read, digest and use it to the full and then decide if it’s helped you. This is the kind of guarantee you get from people who have plenty of experience and know that what they’re offering works.

This is a very down-to-earth course about a very big idea:
“Your Divine Purpose is your unique expression, that when brought into its fullest manifestation changes the world.”
If this is a theory you’d like to explore on a conceptual, philosophical level… don’t buy the course. It’s really not about exploring the theory; it’s a process of discovery through experience.

The course is based on a weekend workshop Michelle and CK have run many times (you can see video comments from people who’ve taken it on the page) – in other words, it’s based on real experience of what works. This shows: they start with intention ; they set the ideas in a working, human context. So instead of seeing ‘goal setting’ in isolation (where it can get people into all kinds of trouble, ‘setting out to bring order’ in all the wrong places), it comes after the lessons on ‘Trusting your Intuition’ and ‘Visioning your Heart’s Desire’.

(The ‘Trusting your Intuition’ chapter is a highlight for me, with simple advice on how to listen to intuition and how to recognise it. I actually tried to coax Michelle into excerpting this from her course so I could offer it as a bonus with Opening Space for Change, as it’s all very relevant to the divination process. But I can see why she wanted to keep it in context.)

Also, the majority of the course doesn’t present you with ideas to learn; it gives you exercises to do. These are imaginative, often playful ways of self-discovery – things that you’ll actually want to do, in fact. Also, these have the effect of making the course about you, not about its authors.

In addition to the course, which you can download right away, the price also includes four teleclasses where you get support from Michelle and CK. This kind of thing normally comes with the ‘premium version’ of a digital product, but it’s all included in a single price. The authors are obviously determined that their offering is not just going to sit round and gather digital dust.

The really unusual thing about this course, though, comes with its bonuses. It comes with a nicely-chosen collection of intriguing extra downloads, but also – and this is something I’ve never seen done before – with a choice of one-on-one help from a whole variety of contributing experts. If you order in time, you can choose a coaching session, healing or reading. There is a really broad spectrum of help available here – from expert business coaching to Soul Whisperer healing (from a true Reiki master) through to I Ching readings (yes, I’m in there – just read through to the end). Most of these are normally sold for more than the price of the course.

So if you get in soon enough you’re actually buying a discounted personal session with a coach, diviner or healer, and a very wise and lucid course on unveiling your purpose.

I keep saying ‘if you order in time’ and ‘if you get in soon enough’ because there is a real time limit here. Firstly because these one-on-one sessions are going on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, so that the whole lot will be booked up after the first 16 copies are sold. (I don’t know how many have already gone, but I’m sure there must be some bonus sessions left still since they’re still listed on the sales page.) And also because the whole course goes off the market on March 1oth.

What does this have to do with divination – besides having my mug shot in that list of bonuses? Well…

1. the exercises will support real self-discovery and growth in self-awareness. Self-awareness makes it a whole lot easier to grasp what an oracle is trying to tell you.
2. a sense of purpose also enlivens and clarifies readings, about any area of life
3. the basic idea that your life has its own purpose is not unrelated to the idea that your experience has its own meaning, which (for me, anyway) is an fundamental reason to divine. I think this is a pretty deep resonance, and underlies 1. and 2.

So – I recommend you click through, read the course description, and order it today if it feels right for you.

(Full disclosure: if you follow this link and buy the course, I receive a commission. You don’t pay any extra – the authors just share part of the regular price with me as a ‘thank you’ for making the introductions.)

The earliest pertinent reading I found was from 24th May:
“What will an Obama presidency bring to the nation?”
Now, there’s some ambiguity around this reading: for one thing, by July the original poster was saying the question had been different; for another, the hexagram numbers aren’t given, and there’s no actual translation of the lines. But the answer looks to be
49, Radical Change, changing at lines 2, 4 and 6 to 9, Small Taming.
Radical Change, hm? Not that I’ve been following the campaign closely from over here, but hasn’t ‘change’ been something of a theme?

Moving on to September, we have,
“Will Obama become president?”
The response was Hexagram 26, Great Taming, moving at lines 3 and 5 to 61, Inner Truth. Line 3 shows how much work was still to do, and no-one posting at the time ventured an interpretation, but both lines are favourable.

As far as I know, there’s just one I Ching reading online dedicated to McCain, and that’s at our own I Ching Community, where Willowfox asked about both candidates on September 21st – when the outcome still wasn’t obvious from the polls. Yi gave her 20.1.2 to 61 (Seeing Inner Truth) for McCain and 31.6 to 33 (Influence’s Retreat) for Obama, and she concluded it would go to McCain by a narrow margin – not an unreasonable response to a reading that mentions Retreat. (It’s a reminder, though, that the I Ching isn’t limited by its commentary. The writers of commentary take a very dim view of 31.6, but the text itself doesn’t mention good or bad fortune, just eloquence.)

Into October, and there’s,
“Will Obama be the next president?”
with the response 18.2.6 to 15: Corruption, and dealing with Corruption, with Authenticity. The writer concluded the corruption was America’s and Obama would shortly be dealing with it.

Then “Who will win the election?” – non-partisan author and a complex method, concluding it’ll be Obama.

This thread from the I Ching Community (October 19th) contains several interesting readings:

• “Will Obama be the next President?”19.2 to 24
• “Who will be the next President?”13.1.2.3 to 6
• “What will be the world’s response?” 1.1.2.5 to 56

…and a second Hexagram 49 about Obama.

Then
“Is Barack Obama going to be the next president of the United States?”
received hexagram 11 in response – unchanging, apparently (though the writer might just not have known about or had access to changing lines – it’s not clear).

Here’s an interesting one: a worried Democrat on October 28th asking,
“What do I need to know right now?”
and receiving Hexagram 49 (surprise…) changing in the fifth place to 55, Abundance/ Feng. 64% of respondents to this post thought the reading meant an Obama win (while only 13% thought it was about a pet squirrel called Ralph).

And finally… on November 4th I found a Twitter message from _Darryl:
“I Ching, what can you tell me about Obama’s chances of winning tomorrow? Answer: hexagram 49″

(Radical Change. I think we get the idea.)

“I know the I Ching works, but I don’t have time for it.”

Ever said it?

I have… which is more embarrassing than I care to think about. Naturally I have endless time to work on readings for clients, and work out the best possible ways to help people learn the I Ching, and even write the occasional blog post about it. It’s just for my own puzzles and decisions that there somehow isn’t time to bring out the full ‘diviner’s toolkit’ and work out what’s really going on, and why, and where the solutions are. Odd, that – in a breathtakingly stupid kind of way.

I can see I’m not the only one when I glance through the reasons given by people who unsubscribe from Friends’ Notes. Some are just changing email addresses, or going on holiday, or trying to find the bottom of their Inbox (I can relate) – but the biggest single reason offered is ‘not having time’.

It might be nice, at this point, to introduce the 27-second I Ching Express – if it existed. There’s no getting around it: the I Ching does take time. Yes, casting a reading can take just a few seconds, and yes, it’s possible to get a quick answer just by glancing at the line texts – but frankly, getting a genuine, clear, non-superficial answer quickly is one of the most advanced interpretive skills there is, and guess what it takes to learn that? And no matter how much you’ve learned, it will still always take time to receive all a reading has to offer, to let it seep into the deeper levels of awareness and bring about change. Understanding takes time.

All this made me extra-delighted to come across this article by Havi Brooks: Solving the “but I just don’t have time!” problem. I love Havi’s writing, I’m a fan of her duck (naturally), and I think she has the internet’s best order-button at the foot of her ‘Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic‘ page (note to self – should really get round to ordering that before the price goes up tomorrow…). I think she’s really nailed it here:

“It takes time to make time. Taking the time now makes it all go faster when you’re actually doing it. Because . . .

• When you’re functioning from a place of clarity, you’re way more likely to catch (or even avoid) those errors that get made out of haste and annoyance. The same errors that result in everything becoming a tangled, irritating mess. Huge time-saver.

• When you’ve taken time out to get your bearings, you make better decisions. Decisions that impact everything else you do.

• When you stop to re-assess, ground yourself and calm down, everything you do happens more quickly and smoothly. Things start falling into place. That’s what flow looks like.

Plus you have perspective. And perspective is the thing that keeps you from banging your head against the wall. Yay, perspective! Good stuff.

You have to stop to get started.“

Every word of this holds true for divination. The place of clarity, better decisions, grounding, moving into the flow, perspective…

Who else has bruises, and possibly some structural damage to nearby walls, that they know could have been avoided if they’d either a) taken time to consult or b) taken more time to pay attention to a reading?

The I Ching takes time; it also gives time back, quiet and uncluttered and translucent.

‘Harvest from ever-flowing constancy.’

If you use the yarrow method of consulting, or a method with yarrow odds – as I do – then this is the answer you are least likely to receive. And in fact, in all these years of divining for myself and hundreds of other people, I’ve yet to receive it. (If you have experience of this one, please post it in the comments!)

What’s happening at this point? Every yin line is becoming yang: every open line is becoming transparent to the creative energy behind it. I found the perfect representation of this in Jaliya’s ‘Quotable I Ching’ blog (which is a joy): ‘Earth’s crammed with heaven.’ Exactly – and here it shines through.

Another couple of quotations, this time drawn from Matthew Fox’s One River, Many Wells:

“What does God do all day long? God lies on a maternity bed giving birth.”

from Meister Eckhart, and

“Even when there are no atoms, and no elementary particles, and no protons, and no photons, suddenly elementary particles will emerge. …The base of the universe seethes with creativity, so much so that physicists refer to the universe’s ground state as ‘space-time foam.’”

from Brian Swimme.

I think 2.6 must be where it ‘seethes with creativity’.

So why would there be harvest when you respond to this with ‘ever-flowing constancy’?

Yi has already started to coach us gently in the ways of ‘constancy’. First there is Creative Force:

‘Creative Force.
From the source, creating success.
Constancy is fruitful.’

There is creative force at work; it’s good to work with it, to have the loyalty, steadiness and sheer persistence to experience it to the full.

Then Earth, the Receptive starts by echoing hexagram 1:

‘Earth.
From the source, creating success.
The constancy of a mare is fruitful.’

If we can find it in ourselves to be as sensitive and responsive to guidance as the mare, we will gain what we seek. And then -

‘Peaceful constancy brings good fortune.’

The character for ‘peaceful’ shows a woman in the home. It doesn’t imply a limited domesticity, but a sense of being at home in the whole earth, like the mare who ‘bestrides the earth without limit.’

So already we are being taught that there are ways and ways of being ‘constant’. Then as all lines change from earth to heaven, it is good to have ‘ever-flowing constancy’ – ‘lasting perseverance’, in Wilhelm/Baynes. This character – ‘lasting’, ‘ever-flowing’ – actually shows flowing water. But also, in many versions of the character, it shows someone swimming in the current. Have a look at these, at the Chinese Etymology site; especially in the bronze characters, you can see the contours of the human figure flowing perfectly smoothly with the contours of the water.

If the universe is seething with creativity, it may no longer be enough to follow it, or even to be at home in it. Perhaps you need to be already in the flow and moving.