‘Favourable to have somewhere to go’

From Nelson:
“Under #24 it says, favorable to have somewhere to go. What does this mean?”

LiSe, bless her, has explored the etymology of this ‘somewhere’ or ‘direction’ to go. The Chinese word is made of a hand and water, or hand, staff and water, and it means (according to the online etymological dictionary) to sound a ford. In an oracle that constantly uses the idiom ‘crossing the great river’ to indicate committing to a risky project, this is very interesting. Perhaps the best translation would be ‘having a direction to explore‘?

Harmen has been writing away about this character in Dutch:
http://www.i-tjingcentrum.nl/serendipity/archives/33-De-verre-plaats-1.html
and
http://www.i-tjingcentrum.nl/serendipity/archives/34-De-verre-plaats-2.html
– and I seriously hope he might see his way to translating this! (Harmen?) But between my German and Babelfish’s Dutch I’ll try to summarise.

The word for ‘direction’ is actually the name of a particular town, and it was used in Zhou inscriptions to mean ‘far away’. So Harmen’s translation for ‘have a place to go’ is ‘undertake a tour of the border regions’ – usually a royal tour. You only want to do this if you have the ancestors’ blessing, and a secure centre.

(This fits well with the message Steve Marshall found in 25, line 2: if you are reaping the benefits of your forefathers’ work, then you are in a very good position to expand further, to venture out to the borders. In fact you’re probably expected to do so.)

Looking at Hexagram 23, Harmen points out that it wouldn’t be politically wise to make a show of strength with a royal border tour if things were falling apart back home. I find this very convincing, as it meshes extremely well with a broader theme of hexagram 23, that shows up in both the Sequence and the trigrams: it is not good to keep investing more energy in maintaining outward appearance if the centre is crumbling away from neglect.

Freeman Crouch, in his intriguing Chameleon Book translation, suggests that having a direction to go might be a nomadic habit, in contrast to the settled ways of the farmers. This does seem to be one of those inner tensions in the Yijing: is it better to be nomadic or settled? And this gives you an idea of what it might be like when you don’t have ‘somewhere to go’: probably you are busy ‘cultivating your garden.’

More on hexagram 24 tomorrow…