56. Lu / The Wanderer

rosada · May 26, 2009

56. Lu / The Wanderer

_____
__ __ above LI THE CLINGING, FIRE
_____
_____
__ __ below KEN KEEPING STILLL, MOUNTAIN
__ __

The mountain, Ken, stands still; above it fire, Li, flames up and does not tarry. Therefore the two trigrams do not stay together. Strange lands and separation are the wanderer's lot.

The ruler of the hexagram is the six in the fifth place. Therefore it is said in the Commentary on the Decision, "The yielding attains the middle outside," and also, "Keeping still and adhering to clarity." The fifth line is in the outer trigram; this symbolizes the wanderer in foreign parts. It is in the middle place as ruler of the trigram Li; this symbolizes attainment of the mean and adherence to clarity.
-Wilhelm

Sparhawk · May 26, 2009

rodaki · May 26, 2009

56 always seemed to me an unclear hexagram . . fire on the top of mountain doesn't light very far . . it works mostly so that someone is to be seen from afar rather than to light far along the way. Like spotlights, they work better when facing a wall which diffuses their light (which reminds me of the discussion on 22).
Anyway, in greek myths (bear with me, I grew up reading these, it's a habit difficult to cut

) they usually made offerings before any journey . . so here are some images form one of my favourite calligraphers, Hassan Massoudy

'The perfect travelers don't know where they're going', Lao Tse (http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/art/massoudy/hm171.shtml)

Instead of damning the darkness, it's better to light a little lantern. (Chinese proverb)

fkegan · May 26, 2009

Li isn't just a campfire such as in hex 22, it is also the Sun itself (as in hex 30 cf. Wilhelm Image). Hex56 can be the sun rising behind a mountain. There is a while as the sun is over the sea level horizon but not the mountain top when the night is replaced by the dawn's light but not yet full daylight.

Then there a moment, a single, short moment when the disk of the sun crown's the mountain peak looking as though the top of the mountain is on fire, brilliant as a huge diamond. Then in the next moment the disk of the sun rises above the peak and suddenly the sun is distant high up in the sky and it is simple day light.

That is my image of hex 56--and I experienced such a special moment while I was at Stillpoint, walking a bit on the Barr Trail up Pike's Peak.

Frank

meng · May 26, 2009

photo by LiSe
traveler is Carin

my_key · May 27, 2009

The Wanderer. Hmmmmmmm. That rings a bell

Take your pick. You can skip between them if you like.

Johnny Cash / U2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3YFmpSFJ40

Mickey Mouse and Friends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLi_TwwaDGk

The Obernkirchen Childrens Choir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK28MpUepa4

Dion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux_iLehtT_w

Mike

rosada · May 27, 2009

THE SEQUENCE

Whatever greatness may exhaust itself upon, this much is certain:
it loses its home. Hence there follows the hexagram of THE WANDERER.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

He who has few friends: this is THE WANDERER.

This hexagram is so organized that the two primary trigrams tend to pull apart. Li, flame, goes upward, Ken, the mountain, presses downward; their union is only temporary. Ken (mountain) is a hostel, Li (fire) is the wanderer who does not tarry there long but must push on. This hexagram is the inverse of the preceding one.
-Wilhelm

rosada · May 28, 2009

THE JUDGEMENT

THE WANDERER. Success through smallness.
Perseverance brings good fortune
To the wanderer.

rodaki · May 28, 2009

a blast form the past . .

my dad did a lot of his traveling thru music, passed by irish folk, peruvian traditional, flamenco, fados and in the way, he had a Willie Nelson phase
this song played a lot during night driving -I had completely forgotten it till now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUM7V6Ku_8

Frank, that image hadn't crossed my mind . . :bows:

but what happens after the moment of brilliance?
I'm thinking of how in summer days, the higher up the sun goes, the shadows on earth grow all the more darker, their edges sharp as papercuts . .
maybe sth like that?

fkegan · May 28, 2009

Hi Rodaki,

I never thought of that image either until at Stillpoint I experienced it. The only insight I have from later in the day was the meaning of Yang and Yin in terms of a single mountain peak on a partly cloudy day.
On a day with bright sunshine and puffy cumulus clouds, if the clouds are blocking the sun, the Mountain is clearly lit by hazy sunlight. If a cloud passes partly over the sun, there is a line of shadow across the landscape. If only the peak is brightly lit while the rest of the mountain is in shadow, the peak glistens like a brilliant diamond while the rest of the mountain is quite black. The cloud moved a bit more and both the dark and the brilliant peak disappeared leaving just a normal mountain on a sunny day.

I have never experienced that before or since, but it is my illustration of hex 56 overall.

Frank

ravenstar · May 28, 2009

Hi everyone!

Hex 56, seems to speak the word Change.

Every one of us has felt the passage of change. Even as we live, we change. Change is living, stillness is death. But through it all it's in the hearts of most people to expect, somewhere a penultimate stillness - achievement, success, happiness, fulfillment, wisdom, etc., however we choose to see it or name it.

We certainly do hope to 'arrive' some day....but in the meantime we live and look....searching becomes a way of living. Or perhaps we could say a quest for life, a voyage a journey.

We also know the cycle of 'light' has its dark side and sometimes we've had to take a courageous leap into the unknown. And these leaps have had positive effects as well as negative effects. But the positive ones helped to expand our courage, give us purpose...and the leaps become bounds!

ravenstar

rosada · May 29, 2009

When a man is a wanderer and stranger, he should not be gruff nor overbearing. He has no large circle of acquaintances, therefore he should not give himself airs. He must be cautious and reserved, in this way he protects himself from evil. If he is obliging toward others, he wins success.
A wanderer has no fixed abode; his home is the road. Therefore he must take care to remain upright and steadfast, so that he sojourns only in the proper places, associating only with good people. Then he has good fortune and can go his way unmolested.

COMMENTARY ON THE DECISION
"THE WANDERER. Success through smallness": the yielding attains the middle outside and submits to the firm.
Keeping still and adhering to clarity; hence success in small things.
"Perseverance brings good fortune to the wanderer." The meaning of the time of THE WANDERER is truly great.

The ruler of the hexagram is the sixth in the fifth place. It is yielding, hence it represents reseve and unpretentiousness. It is in the middle, hence it cannot be humiliated, though it is outside, in a strange land. It submits to the strong lines above and below, hence does not provoke misfortune. The lower trigram Ken indicates keeping still, inner reserve, while the upper trigram Li indicates clinging to outside things. A wanderer in a foreign country cannot easily find his proper place, hence it is a great thing to grasp the meaning of this time.
-Wilhelm

rosada · May 29, 2009

I thought I would try to put what Wilhelm has said about the trigrams/ lines in a more visual format:

The Upper trigram {Fire}

_____
__ __ The ruling line is yielding, hence it represents reserve and unpretentiousness, It is in the middle,

hence it cannot be humiliated, though it is on the outside in a strange land.
_____ It submits to the strong lines above and below, hence it does not provoke misfortune.

rosada · May 29, 2009

_____ The lower trigram {mountain} indicates keeping still, inner reserve.
__ __
__ __

While the upper trigram indicates clinging to outside things.

A wanderer in a foreign country cannot easily find his proper place, hence it is a great thing to grasp the meaning of the time.

____
Okay, I just know that sometimes for newbies talk like the above seems so obtuse as to cause a person to just skip it so I thought it might be helpful to break things down a bit.

What does Wilhelm mean by "It is a great thing to grasp the meaning of the time"?
rosada

my_key · May 29, 2009

rosada said:
What does Wilhelm mean by "It is a great thing to grasp the meaning of the time"?
rosada

Something like......We do not always believe / accept the circumstances that we find ourself in. It would be a great thing if we did.

Mike

rosada · May 29, 2009

Hmm...yeah.. maybe it's saying it's a great thing to have the CLARITY on the outside while still being able to maintain RESERVE within. That is, as it's difficult to fully understand what's going on as an outsider, usually you have to get involved and most likely end up taking sides. It's a real skill to be able to grasp the significance of a situation without getting caught up in it.
r

rodaki · May 29, 2009

training games . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErTidPH3VUg

rosada · May 29, 2009

LOL, rodaki! My book club is reading The Odyssey this month. Perfect book to be reading in sync with The Wanderer but I hadn't seen the connection till you posted these Greek sailers!
r.

rodaki · May 30, 2009

hi all

Janice good to see you back!

the Odyssey IS perfect for 56, all those twists and turns (

)
not sure if those guys in the vid are Greeks but they sure are in Greece -right in the middle of the Aegean!

rodaki · May 30, 2009

come to think of it . . maybe the Wanderer's mindset is not very different from that of kids when they listen to a story . .
there's always this question coming up, again and again: 'and then, and then . . then what? what happened next??'

jilt · May 30, 2009

my_key said:
Something like......We do not always believe / accept the circumstances that we find ourself in. It would be a great thing if we did.

Mike

yes, that's indeed true, but separation, being away from love and your loved ones, is the fate of the wanderer. Some say, that a permanent process of separation is what we call growing up: we begin with attachment to mother, then comes birth: the first separation. Then comes the separation form mothers breast, then comes the realization that we are not the only one, then separation from the family, then the separation from our first love (the first cut is the deepest) And gradually, in the process of permanent separation we become a loving adult that does not need attachments for life and love...... I think this is what Wilhelm meant with this.
The 3 books from the psychologist Bolby are very instructive on this: "attachment", "Separation" and "Separation and loss" if I remeber well.
Something like "if we know how to mourn our losses ( the fast fires on the hill) and stay with our deepest love (mountain) we will grow.". We realize we own nothing and have no possesions, we are only passengers in this life.
Perhaps, also, a basic for meditation is not giving energy to your ever occuring thoughts: you sit still like a mountain and your thoughts go like fast fires on the mountainslopes. All you do is watch your breath and let thoughts think themself out untill their energy/fire is gone.

ravenstar · May 30, 2009

To seek a deeper meaning of this hex, I had to change my perspective of how I saw it as well as go back to where I originally started.....

I think the wanderer has a hard time being a follower or a conformist to the behaviors of society. Instead, the wanderer is alert to subtle shifts in the environment, he follows a calling, driven by some unseen force of nature, searching for something but not quite sure what it is.

Leaving for parts unknown the wanderer travels light, wandering from town to town, not quite sure why he’s there or what he’s seeking. Years could pass as he tries to find the answer…..slowly a transformation of his old ways undergo a change…..he climbs the highest mountain in hopes the view might give him some direction, an answer. The view is utterly magnificent, breathtaking…..a view from the top of the world. The uneven land below flows effortlessly in every direction…above the sky an endless blue. The wanderer begins to understand the spiritual passage he’s been on…

“We have come a long way together, you and I, since first we set out upon this strange uncertain pilgrimage. We picked our way through the Slough of Despond and found that the bogs and quagmires were but figments of our imagination; we have visited the City of Despair and found it walled in only by its own fantasies of Space and Time; we have confronted the Lions of Automata and discovered them to be ephemera, the mirror image of our own minds; we have traveled the valley of Paradise and eaten of its strange Fruit, Leisure. Now we have but a little further to go and our Pilgrimage will be at an end. We must cross the Delectable Mountains. They may seem far away, shimmering there; but that is an accident of our eyesight. They really are right here under our feet, if we will but look. Like the Chinese journey of a thousand miles, we shall approach them one step at a time. Shall we go! Now?
Don Fabun: Dynamics of Change

ravenstar

rodaki · May 30, 2009

Janice

. . did I say it feels good to have you back??
:blush:

my_key · May 30, 2009

rodaki said:
Janice

. . did I say it feels good to have you back??

Hmmmmm.....The wanderer returns ?

rosada · May 30, 2009

Where do you get the idea that the image of the fire on the mountain is sunRISE, Frank? I would have thought that after 55, the sun at mid day, 56 would point to sunset. Sunset would also fit in with the idea that there isn't much time to linger, tell your story now because the sun is setting.
Maybe 56 is pointing to both sunrise and sunset. If it is indeed sunrise, then the wanderer also knows from his previous experiences that this day too shall pass and although nightfall isn't quite as eminent as it is at sunset, even so we know it is coming.
rosada

ravenstar · May 30, 2009

rodaki said:
Janice

. . did I say it feels good to have you back??

Aw,

thanks rodaki and meng, I love learning from you both!

I wandered back cause I have a question.

= rosada -Whatever greatness may exhaust itself upon, this much is certain:
it loses its home. Hence there follows the hexagram of THE WANDERER.

Could the momentum of the wanderer be ushered in by internal and/or external means?

The internal is as we know a drive or need from our core, pressing us from within to change, to grow, take risks and of course evolve. It is felt as a compelling need or desire to become.

But how does this mysterious movement evolve? What is the catalyst? Is it a relationship, family, job, etc., that somehow puts us at the crossroads, signalling we are going in the wrong direction? Or could it be an illness, allergies, addictions, trauma, grief.....things that happen externally to us?

Could it be from finding ourselves overwhelmed by abundance? Too much pressure too may things to do. We find ourselves rushing around like crazy, being forced (pushed) to do things we don't want to do and feeling not in charge of our life anymore...missing out on opportunities?

How does a wonderer become The Wanderer? What impells or forces him to broaden his search? What intiates, opens the Gate to the journey?

ravenstar

rosada · May 30, 2009

Hi ravenstar,
If the sequence can tell us why now the man becomes The Wanderer, I think it would be because in 55.5 Abundance he has reached the acme of his planned success and whether things turned out as well as hoped for or whether the highlight of his career wasn't all that great, there is a feeling that you had your chance to take your shot. Did you when the lottery or didn't you? Doesn't matter, once the winning number has been drawn there's no point in hanging around. Time to move on.

So maybe it's an instinctive sense that there isn't anything more to be gotten out of the moment. To try to hang on is to get stuck in 55.6. So even though there may not be any new goal at this point, still, knowing when to leave is the smartest thing to know.
On a personal note, now that my grandson has been born, my husband and I are heading out to meet him next week. I'm not sure where all we'll be going or when we'll get back. The big focus for the last 8 months was just that the baby was going to be born. Now that he's here (sunrise?) we don't really have any new goal, just taking things one day at a time. Well, actually, we do have a goal, to see the baby. Is that like The Wanderer going off to seek the guru? Anyway, it's a sense that there is no further reason to be staying at home, maintaining stability. Life beckons..
rosada

my_key · May 30, 2009

jilt said:
yes, that's indeed true, but separation, being away from love and your loved ones, is the fate of the wanderer. Some say, that a permanent process of separation is what we call growing up: we begin with attachment to mother, then comes birth: the first separation. Then comes the separation form mothers breast, then comes the realization that we are not the only one, then separation from the family, then the separation from our first love (the first cut is the deepest) And gradually, in the process of permanent separation we become a loving adult that does not need attachments for life and love...... I think this is what Wilhelm meant with this.
The 3 books from the psychologist Bolby are very instructive on this: "attachment", "Separation" and "Separation and loss" if I remeber well.
Something like "if we know how to mourn our losses ( the fast fires on the hill) and stay with our deepest love (mountain) we will grow.". We realize we own nothing and have no possesions, we are only passengers in this life.
Perhaps, also, a basic for meditation is not giving energy to your ever occuring thoughts: you sit still like a mountain and your thoughts go like fast fires on the mountainslopes. All you do is watch your breath and let thoughts think themself out untill their energy/fire is gone.

Hi jilt

Yes I can see your point here. Well made. When Wilhelm says"It is a great thing to grasp the meaning of the time"? The time is the time of the wanderer. The meaning of the wanderer is to be still and mature as we search for new experiences in our outer world. We seek, we find and change. Remembering all the time that the real search is to look within.

Could it be from finding ourselves overwhelmed by abundance? Too much pressure too may things to do. We find ourselves rushing around like crazy, being forced (pushed) to do things we don't want to do and feeling not in charge of our life anymore...missing out on opportunities?

How does a wonderer become The Wanderer? What impells or forces him to broaden his search? What intiates, opens the Gate to the journey?

Hey Ravenstar
It is good to have your input again on this thread. Welcome back. :hug:

To try and answer your question.
There are perhaps two things that force us to do something which are to satisfy our wants and our needs. Looking to satisfy the wants tends to be the things that rush us around like crazy. Changing our focus to satisfy our needs takes us to a completely different place altogether.

The wants are the material things we strive for, perhaps motivated by or coming from the ego. The needs come from a higher place, that we can find only by moving beyond the wants and arriving at the place of finding our truth. There is link I feel to Jilt saying " We realize we own nothing and have no possesions, we are only passengers in this life."

Mike

Trojina · May 30, 2009

my_key said:
There is link I feel to Jilt saying " We realize we own nothing and have no possesions, we are only passengers in this life."

Mike

now look what you've done, triggered the soundtrack in my head with word 'passenger'...thats all it takes, one word ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEY6_jcrzI8

but yes we are only ever passing through. I heard a quote from a poet on TV the other day, Stevie Smith, she said as a child she realised "being alive is like being on enemy territory"

my_key · May 31, 2009

Hey Trojan
If we are off into poetry now. How's about this one........

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

56. Lu / The Wanderer

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