Light on 56, line 1

Every once in a while there’s a Yijing line that brings a quotation to mind, or a quotation that brings a line to mind, and suddenly comprehension bursts in. It just found its way in for me, to a quartet of lines.

Hexagram 56, line 1:

‘The wanderer: fragments and bits,
Splits off from her place and seizes calamity.’

This is generally held to be about someone who fixates on trivia to the exclusion of anything important, maybe out of a desire to be liked. Balkin says:
‘Don’t waste your time on trivial or base pursuits in the hope that they will make you popular or help you fit in. Life is too short to waste it on trivialities. If you devote your energies to what is irrelevant, you will make your life an irrelevancy.’

But this is the line that leads to hexagram 30. The Wanderer looking towards Clarity and bright omens, capturing the bright bird, really ‘getting the message’. How come?

The paired line is 55,6:

‘At Feng, in his hut,
Screening off his dwelling place,
Peeping through his door.
A solitary one without people,
For three years sees no-one.
Pitfall.’

King Wu as he might have been: overwhelmed by the task thrust upon him of leading the campaign against the Shang. Hiding away in the mourning hut for the ‘normal’ length of time; not wanting to know about signs from heaven. And of course this is Feng’s Clarity: no more darkness now, but the full light of day – and someone still shut up in the dark. Again – how come?

Then there are the fan yao:
30, line 1

‘Treading, hence confused.
Honour it,
Not a mistake.’

and 30, line 6

‘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.’

Looking at these four lines together gives you a kind of underground pathway – what Stephen Karcher calls ‘cross line omens’ and LiSe Heyboer calls ‘Square Games’. (They are the two (re)discoverers of the idea – I just follow along behind.)

The Wanderer, in the full glare of the bright omens, fixates on trivia. Why? Well, according to 30, line 1 (as we travel below the surface of the line), there are confused footsteps here. Maybe her own, just venturing out into the light. Maybe she is looking at footprints left by the ancestors in the night (a form of divination still in use) and unable to read their message. Now if she could just honour the fact that there are signs of presence there at all…

…then she might attain the full heights called for here, of regal and martial decisiveness, ability to see past the clutter and go straight to the real issue. (30, line 6)

But look back to where she’s been, maybe dreaming of such powers – still cowering in the mourning hut. (55,6)

The quotation that casts the light? That famously-quoted one by Marianne Williamson:

“…Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Wu’s power beyond measure, sealed by omens from the heavens; the full frightening light of hexagram 30, making manifest; playing small like 56, line 1. Maybe 55,6 is even shrinking away from other people. It’s all there.