This is the continution of the discussion of Unchanging Hexagrams and our experiences with them, delineating each as a separate thread to make them easy to find in future. We move ahead here with Hexagram 5 Unchanging. Anybody coming upon these discussion is encouraged to add their thoughts and experiences at any point in the future.

There is a separate thread in Exploring Divination for general ideas on unchanging castings entitled "Your Experiences with Unchanging Castings Hexagram 0, so please enter anything that isn't specific to a particular unchanged hexagram over there.

I've cast Hexagram 5 Unchanging any number of times in the past few years, I think because life has been in a phase where so many areas aren't moving perceptibly, but building underneath, reconstructing in the background, in ways that weren't entirely clear. There has been a great deal to analyse, understand better, move around, move out, replace with better underpinnings.

Most recently I cast Hexagram 5 [once again] for the resolution of a protracted house-selling situation in another country; something that's been a huge worry and liability for three years. The last time this was cast I had an offer at the asking price [last week]. There was a muffled sound of rejoicing in my family and I had all my fingers crossed while realising what a huge push was required to make this happen and complete the move. Yesterday the sale fell through. Meanwhile I had actually thought through what the final moving process would require and mentally sorted everything in the house. And this seems to be the ultimate stage of getting myself ready, mentally and emotionally, to be done with this house and all it has represented. It seems to have taken forever to be really prepared -- but it's been a mental and emotional shift that would have been impossible to make in one leap.

Whereas, at the beginning of this process three years ago I had planned to take all the things there and reestablish myself back home in the UK much as I had been, setting up as though this were still a "family home," over the course of a couple years,all my ideas have changed. I'm significantly down-sizing, making life far simpler, focusing in an entirely different direction. In fact, life has entirely changed while this house-selling process has progressed. My kids have finished growing up. On visits home from university, or their first jobs elsewhere they've been piling into the little places I've rented on an "interim" basis -- and we've found it doesn't matter at all. Mostly, we can't remember a lot of what was left behind and we don't want it anymore. It's going to be sold where it sits. And that represents, not just a practical matter, but a big emotional change, a moving on.

In some ways Hexagram 5 unchanging says to me, you're waiting, but there's very significant change happening; there are important matters to consider, things to do and events in the meanwhile are going to redirect you in some way.

There's suddenly a lot of interest in this house and reason to think it's going to sell imminently and I'll be glad to see the back of it, but I've also realised in the past couple days that this unending procedure, as annoyingly gradual as it has been, has completely altered where I stand now from where I stood three years ago when it all began. Although Hexagram 5 Unchanging may mean "Waiting," for something to unfold, it's not a matter of remaining still, but of waiting in anticipation and preparing in every way. This is not about being dormant, but calls for a lot of activity in the background that may well change your outlook on life by the time the waiting is over. :bows:

After posting this one, I've got a retreat to go to and I don't know what time is allotted for things like the internet. So I can leave these five unchanging hexagrams to percolate -- or anybody who feels inspired could continue posting the next ones as seems appropriate. Please don't wait for me if it's time to keep the game moving! Arabella

This is easy

5 unchanging just means waiting


It can be around something very trivial or not

Last time I got it it was re asking if someone would contact me after a tiff. They did, after a while.


Simple


Edited to Add...i think the main advice here is to chill while waiting

Do you have an experience of hexgram 5 unchanging that is distinct -- beyond the hexagram in general? Of those we've done thus far, this one was most difficult for me to distinguish as endued with a special quality in an unchanging form.

Sometimes theres nothing especially special about the unchanging hexgaram its just that its all Yi needs to say.


If I ask a passerby for directions, which i often do...if i say "Am I going the right way to get to the library" she could simply say "yes" because thats all she needs to say ie = unchanging hexagram, or she could say "yes, but make sure you don't miss it, its set back from the road" which might = a changing lines advice . Sometimes I think we get simple or emphatic answers from unchanging hexagrams.

5 unchanging can mean....."theres nothing more to say about this situation of waiting. If there was I would throw in a changing line but there isn't" that was me mimicking the imagined voice of Yi.....


The meaning of an unchanging hexagram can't go beyond the meaning of the hexagram in general. It is the hexagram in general

So, you seem to find that the unchanging form is fairly generic then? I've noticed that from time to time.

But I often experience an unchanging hexagram as more intense than usual. Say, more intense than if it were in a relating position [no changing lines]. And not affected by any agenda of changing lines.

They are certainly different perceptions.

And, as I was saying, my experience of hexagram 5 unchanging is consistently as you point out in your directions example. Compared with Hexagram 3 which is generally so full on. I don't know why they would be so different. Maybe because one is about beginning and the other about waiting? But that isn't a standing still waiting. It's just waiting for an opportunity to move.

arabella said:

So, you seem to find that the unchanging form is fairly generic then? I've noticed that from time to time.

But I often experience an unchanging hexagram as more intense than usual. Say, more intense than if it were in a relating position [no changing lines]. And not affected by any agenda of changing lines.

They are certainly different perceptions.

And, as I was saying, my experience of hexagram 5 unchanging is consistently as you point out in your directions example. Compared with Hexagram 3 which is generally so full on. I don't know why they would be so different. Maybe because one is about beginning and the other about waiting? But that isn't a standing still waiting. It's just waiting for an opportunity to move.

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having trouble with the word 'generic'...googled it...no it makes no sense to me in this context it generally doesn't .....

It can be more intense yes....or it may not be. maybe some people have found 5 to be very intense...it is in its own way perhaps but generally its a much more relaxed hexagram than 3 which is about conception/birth/growth out of chaos...so being different they would all feel very different...wouldn't they


no general rule at all ...not even in how to apply them, or how to take them. 5 unchanging could feel very different according to ones situation

if you are on retreat then should you really be typing away on an internet forum ?

trojan said:

if you are on retreat then should you really be typing away on an internet forum ?

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Starts this evening -- I'm just planning a bit ahead and encouraging anyone interested to keep this going as I'll probably be off here until next week!

trojan said:

having trouble with the word 'generic'...googled it...no it makes no sense to me in this context it generally doesn't .....

It can be more intense yes....or it may not be. maybe some people have found 5 to be very intense...it is in its own way perhaps but generally its a much more relaxed hexagram than 3 which is about conception/birth/growth out of chaos...so being different they would all feel very different...wouldn't they


no general rule at all ...not even in how to apply them, or how to take them. 5 unchanging could feel very different according to ones situation

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Generic is a term used frequently in the USA, often in relation to food or medicine, means you are assured that this substance has the basic qualities you expect, no frills or embellishments.

I think I may have had 5 uc but never jotted it down in my diary () but I love one of Bradford phrases, and I think its for line 5 or another line and that's 'the mean time doesn't have to be mean'. I love it because I'm so impatient and I always want something to be happening, so when natural waiting times arrive I usually run around in circles feeling tortured by the inaction, and when I realise that its simply at time to wait, sit back, relax, its the best time ever.

edited to add: it's "the meanwhile is not that mean after all"

So far for me hex5 uc feels a lot like waiting in vain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i74Y-5WKFsA
This is not about being dormant, but calls for a lot of activity in the background that may well change your outlook on life by the time the waiting is over.
but it strikes me that it may be the case of waiting for too long and getting too little type of thing also.

Got hex 5.0 as a daily reading today.
I was waiting for courier to deliver the package to me for 4 hours, and I had to postpone some rather critical stuff.
But it turned out that the delivery date was mixed up, i was told "On Friday", but in reality it was "On Monday".
Wasted my time, and now I have to wait for 2 days more


Update 9 PM, Friday:
So the courier did show up after all, I think my call to the manager did something right.
And now I have my citrus press-juicer yay I-Ching

I once asked, "How likely [a pair of married public figures] are [at a particular event]?"

(I asked this for no better reason than idle curiosity and probably boredom .)

Yi's answer was 5uc. About a week later, I was watching the news. There was a story about a different public figure who was involved in the event, and as video filler they showed that person at this event, and lo and behold, there in the same shot was the couple I'd asked about.

Since I'm earning very little money at the moment which results in constantly being behind with my rent; and should I need to go to the doctor I wouldn't know what to do, I asked a suggestion on how to support myself, to which I got as a response 32.6>50

If your steadiness can change through influences, it is obviously not your own heart which sets the course. Try to find your real inner basis, the real values that inspire you. The things that move your soul and not just your ideas.

So I asked: What moves my soul? 5 unchanging
Creativity is not obedient. One cannot call for it and expect it to be there. But waiting in an open and quiet way makes the clouds clear up, and the sun of growth appear again.
Many things come by waiting, rather than by acting. As if one opens a cosmic door for them to enter. One’s own attitude is the door, if one waits in the right feeling, one acts at the right time

I guess it's saying that if I open this cosmic door and let things fall in instead of anxiously going around looking for them, I will bump into something which really moves my heart.
from http://www.yijing.nl

Asked the Yi, what is time? 5 uc.

I like 5UC! For me, it's the ultimate chill out. I have received it on many occasions when I was getting impatient about something - a delivery, a response etc... "Nothing you need to do. Just relax, enjoy yourself and wait". There is a definite "enjoy while you wait" vibe in it, for me. Usually, the resolution is rather rapid. And when it comes, it calls for action.

Along the same lines, I also like getting 2.2, also a total chill out line "just be, don't do". But I experience it as a deeper, spiritual meaning. As an attitude to cultivate in life, in general. Whereas I experience 5UC as more grounded, practical, immediate nourishment " there is nothing you need to do right now. Just wait and enjoy yourself while you wait - eat, have a cup of tea, get a massage, watch a film" etc...I often feel guilty taking time for such things, there is a little voice in my head that says "don't you have something useful to do? Or is there nothing you can think of doing to affect this issue?". Getting 5UC is license to stop thinking, worrying, and just enjoy whatever is there, absolutely guilt free. I hope that makes sense

Yup I've had 5uc about the strangest things that I wouldn't necessarily have associated with 5. It does indeed often indicate the ordinary parts of life. What I mean is those parts of life where nothing particular is happening but life is going on as usual. I'm sure I had a cast of 5uc related to housework, or rather it described housework as 5uc. So I've experienced 5uc mainly 2 different ways (since last posting here in 2012) One way is that it's a simple message of waiting which also carries some reassurance that what you wait for will come to pass. The other way is where is seems to describe those ordinary chunks of life one might call 'passing time'. I quite liked this recent thread on 5.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/frie...oughts-about-hexagram-5-Waiting-(Nourishment)

Much of life, human and animal is spent passing time 'as normal'. Eating, resting, doing daily tasks. It's like the intervals between the 'action scenes'.

Pearlescent said:

Asked the Yi, what is time? 5 uc.

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I saw this in the Aha! thread. Terrific question.

It's especially interesting because there could be a lot of ways to think about it, depending on one's own experiences with hexagram 5.

At the risk of misunderstanding or paraphrasing badly, those who see 5 as Yasmin described might think of this reading as saying, "Time just is. It doesn't have to 'be' anything." Trojina seemed to mention time as ordinary stuff, the ticking of the clock, marking out our lives in infinite intervals. If you've had experiences with 5 that emphasized attentive waiting, you might think, "Time is expectation." I never really thought about it before, but we probably all experience time differently in some ways.

hmmm…
I asked the iching what it recommends I do about a situation where a friend, with whom I have been out of contact with for about 6 months due to a series of disrespects and hypocrisy on her part, texted me asking me why I wasn't getting back to her, 'are we still friends, what did I do"? I have a whole spiel ready to text her, explaining what she did that pissed me off, and how if we remain friends the rules have changed etc…. I should add that I also think her messaging me has to do with other issues regarding a family member we share in common. I'm going to take the message from the iching that i should do nothing, only wait. Seems pretty straight forward… of course, wait for what? A period of time? Perhaps I will in time view this situation differently? reconsider what I plan on messaging her? Or simply decide that there is no need to message, and simply move on?

I still like 5UC, but wanted to add an insight. I think it's often waiting in good cheer for the right moment to take action.
Premature action exposes us to difficulties, because the time is not ripe (as depicted in 5.3 and 5.4). Perhaps something is still developing in the background. Perhaps it just takes time for a lot of variables to come into alignment, and any action taken now will just disrupt a process which is out of our hands. Like taking a soufflé out of the oven every 5' to see if it's done guarantees it will fall flat
Now is the time to relax, resource, so as to be ready when the time comes to tackle the problem or situation. Only then can we "cross the great water", ie face the situation, with success.
I don't think it guarantees that what we want now will happen as we want it to, or imagine it. I think it says that at the right time, we will be able to go through the situation and resolve it a successful way. All that is needed is calculated inaction and keeping up our spirits in the meantime.
I also think that the time for action is obvious when it arrives

These are direct extracts quoted directly from my journals. I apologize if I am repeating others' thoughts I have not read over this thread immediately prior to posting.
"pIdea" is a shorthand for "paranthetical idea". I have adopted this format from the notebooks of cellist, composer and singer Arthur Russell (see Marble - 'Buddhist Bubblegum: Esoteric Buddhism in the Creative Process of Arthur Russell', New York Times - 'Inside the Trove of Genre-Buster Arthur Russell').

"pIdea: (Unchanging, it's like 'Waiting for Godot''; The unseen character in recent 31 readings = a Godot?)"

"pIdea: (Waiting for the rain to go away assumes that it's going to happen eventually - unchanging suggests it may not?)"

"pIdea: (Patience might be my greatest 'gift'. I never really get bored. If there's one thing I can do, it's wait around indefinitely.)"
"pIdea: (Maybe that's a curse - 'What are you waiting for?')"

"pIdea: ('This is gonna take FOREVER at the rate you're going' or I just feel like it's taking forever)"
"pIdea: (A red light that's not turning green anytime soon.)"

"pIdea: (What if someone else is waiting for me, like that other time? Note: I had years preciously cast a 5 uc about whether to make the effort to strike up a friendship with someone who seemed really goofy, but cool and bright. I took it as an instruction to wait for him to make effort, so when he made subtle gestures of friendship I of course hesitated to react LOL. In hindsight, he was clearly waiting for my reaction What if I'm not the subject, or it's not an instruction?)"

"pIdea: (Being stuck. With the 34.4 from last night, it really sounds like a stalemate or deadlock.)"

"pIdea: (This is progressing so slowly that you haven't even noticed, or you are tracking your progress much more frequently or rapidly than actually progressing. Your fingernails are always gonna look to be the same length they were an hour ago.)"

"pIdea: (rain + beard = LONG HAIR? Other pronounciations, NO, NUAN can mean 'weak, timid, soft', what long hair projects on boys?)"
"pIdea: (Maybe so soft and timid that he's afraid to get wet, expose himself to the elements, wants to but needs to harden up a bit first and hesitant to do that too. He thinks he's too gentle, too fragile, and maybe he likes to think of himself that way. So just stays in the doorway indefinitely.)"

"pIdea: (Loitering. At least buy a coffee or something, you delinquent.)"

I have a lot more of these but mostly just wanted to add the one about Waiting for Godot.

A few days ago I booked an appointment at a hairdresser's I've long wanted to try. For today.

Soon after booking it I asked how it would turn out - last two times I went to have my hair cut (different hairdressers) it was a disaster!
It gave me 5

Today I was about to go but the bus wouldn't arrive, I waited for so long that I realised that if I had gone I would have missed all my other appointments of the day.
So I cancelled the appointment (well actually postponed it for the next week)

I like Arabella's idea that there is waiting involved however there are things going on in the background. Wheels are in motion so to speak, Its a good thing usually, its best to just get on with things.
I also liked Yasmin's comment.

The hexagram could also be called patience

Steve

I just want to add that that hairdresser turned out to be the most useless.
So 5 UN was probably a suggestion not to go.

I asked Yi today about a person's psychological diagnosis, that is, if my guess is corrtect.
5uc to me is Wait and see - as in the case mentioned above about the famous couple -- so I will have the opportunity to somehow have a confirmation of that.
OK, or a rejection of it, but will have the answer (which seems quite uncommon as it's private info about a close-mouthed person).

This 5uc had me thinking, I wasn't sure at the time how to take it.

I ordered a pair of leather boots online and they seemed okay. Then I walked a fair distance in them and they were not okay, they hurt. Hmm they also seemed to have weird lumps, bumps and indentations inside. I was torn between keeping them and returning them and asked Yi if I should return them, 5uc. I took it that I should wait and see. My thinking was perhaps the leather would stretch a bit, or perhaps my feet would get a little bit smaller or they would just be alright - yes I even did consider perhaps my feet were a bit swollen The next day I put them on again and it was then revealed to me that they were in fact too small and that was an undeniable fact. They also did have some odd ridges inside that didn't help. Now I had gained clarity that actually my toes hurt at the end because they were hitting the end of the boot plus they had ridges I made a clear decision and returned them.

So 5 here wasn't saying 'wait and see if your feet shrink or the shoes expand' really I feel it was more like indicating time would pass and the inevitable would happen when I was bright enough to understand the shoes were too small. I think 5 uc can show itself in unusual ways, as I said further up the page sometimes simply time passing until you do what you will do.

Interesting twists and turns with 5uc

Trojina said:

Interesting twists and turns with 5uc

62.3, 5 uc. job search & a warning

Posting to check my interpretation of this line out of a bundle of readings. Context: The Yi has been quite insistent for awhile in my interpretation that I learn to relax, and the job that I seek will take a long time to arrive. I find my finances getting further and further destabilized...

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

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Yes this is my thread, and 5 uc seemed to have many layers of possible meaning. Regarding a job.

In the end I'm sort of feeling that it came down to doing a bunch of stuff while waiting for some kind of truth or big change to arrive. I pinned a lot of hope on this job being a good fit, bringing satisfaction, etc. but like many other things in my life it just ended up highlighting certain patterns more than anything (in my case, communication and preparedness around my own limits)

Sort of like if you were still not over a toxic relationship, but imagined the next shiny, seemingly better person you meet will 'solve' your problems....then realizing you're not quite up for a relationship, are going to have a new set of problems, and besides they aren't as loving as you had hoped anyways.
So maybe its something to do, a little lesson to learn but once you learn it just move along. Nothing lasting.

Maybe 5 has some "do the cleanup and practice, you don't know the meaning of patience yet kiddo" or "you're wasting your time but eh might as well practice your powers of perception while you're at it"

Especially sandwiched between 4's youthful ignorance and 6's internal conflict.

Imagining a kid (akin to the Tarot's fool) running off on a big adventure through the hexagrams:


1 - big idea! off to try it out
2 - looking for a window of opportunity, a fertile chance...
3 - the runaway has a rough start
4- but you ain't seen nothin yet/don't get big ideas
5 - at the bus terminal...
6 - ah there it is, the struggle bus has arrived! which line will you take? did you study the map? getting trampled in the hubbub
7 - pick yourself back up, get your sh*t together and get ready to...
8 - find some travel companions along the way! trust your gut