I was working on a reading for a client. And the gist of the answer was unmissable: what she’s asking about is a very good idea. I didn’t understand why it is, though – it’s hard to connect these particular positive images with her question or her situation – and I do like to do more than provide just the ‘good idea’/’bad idea’ reading. The oracle does more than that, after all, so I’d feel I was letting people down if I didn’t go deeper.
So I thought of ways one of the moving lines could apply to her story, and asked Yi about what I thought was the better one. I received 13 with line 3 changing to 25. People in harmony, without entanglement: the line about hiding weapons in the thickets and climbing a high mound, forestalling ‘uprising’ for three years.
That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, so I asked about the only alternative application I could think of – though this really was more of a stretch. This time I received hexagram 2, the Earth, changing at lines three and six to 52, Keeping Still. That sixth line talks about dragons struggling and bleeding in the wilderness.
At this point I was given pause for thought. (After receiving 52, that’s probably just as well.)
Hexagram 2, line 3.
‘Containing a thing of beauty, this can endure.
If maybe you follow the work of a king,
Without accomplishments, there is completion.’
I’m ‘working for a king’ in the sense that I’m working for a perspective that’s much greater than my own personal sense of ‘achievement’, or even my sense of having done a good job. Without that, there can still be completion. Maybe the beauty and structure of the reading is ‘contained’ because it doesn’t become explicit, or not to me.
I saw that I’d received line 3 twice now. The third line of 13 was advising me to put my weapons away: stop fighting for a clear answer, and aim for a higher perspective. Line three is just on the inside of the ‘threshold of manifestation’ between the trigrams. Maybe it is good, sometimes, to stop here, one line before committing to a position. Certainly moving out as far as line 6 would not be good. Grappling and struggling with the reading, trying to defend a position, arguing a case – a terrific waste of energy, I think, and a waste of creative potential. Better to leave the beauty of it stored up inside, this time, for the querent to unfold.
(Afterword:
She did, and in ways I couldn’t have foreseen.
As for the line I was asking about: it works on multiple levels, but one of those turns out to be a very straightforward, literal one. Note to self: climbing that mound in 13,3 is about the perspectives you gain by talking to people…)
I am new at this, but already I feel discouraged. I do not understand many of my own readings. Now I see experts like yourself do readings about readings, or about how to do readings. Why does it all have to be so hard?
I’ve been a beginner at other things, and worked to learn them too. But I wonder why the Yi is so difficult to follow. Is life really such a puzzle that we have to scratch our heads and wrack our brains to understand what is going on? Why is the oracle so reluctant to answer our questions in simple terms?
If something – let’s call it the oracle – is willing to talk to us at all about ourselves, our situations and problems, the future – why doesn’t it address us more directly, why all the metaphors and indirect references, why not speak to us in our own language? Reading the Yi sometimes seems like taking an literature examination, entirely dependent on our cleverness with words and associations and intuitive insight. I’m not very clever. I’m literal-minded. Why won’t the Yi speak to me?
Is that what life is about, being clever enough to see layer upon layer of text-based interpretation? Do I have to be the brightest kid in school to get it? Are all my problems just gigantic onions, endless labyrinths? Is understanding one’s life like reading James Joyce or T.S. Eliot, all footnotes and no direct discourse? The Yi seems to cast everything into the form of a puzzle. Is that what life is all about?
And yet, I feel like something really is there responding to my questions. It just won’t talk to me like my friends, my brother, my mother.
Aleyn (confused)
Thank you for a terrific comment, Aleyn. Very good question.
Actually, it can be devastatingly simple.
‘What about starting up a new business as an astrologer?’
(This from someone with no business experience.)
‘Vigour in your leading foot.
Going on, not in control, action means mistakes.’
‘Where’s this relationship going?’
‘A bird burns its nest.
Travellers laugh at first, afterwards they cry out and weep.
Losing cattle in Yi.
Pitfall.’
(I expect you’d like to know the story of the man who lost his cattle in Yi, but you get the gist, don’t you?)
‘How can I find my lost book?’
‘Look.’
‘What if I buy this expensive, top of the range software?’
‘With truth, this is impressive.
In the end, good fortune.’
Anyone who can describe problems as gigantic onions should have no problem with these.
As for why metaphors and references, why did you talk about onions, labyrinths, footnotes and puzzles? Maybe because I wouldn’t have understood what you meant half as well if you hadn’t?
Yes, there’s definitely an onion aspect to it all. You can work through as many layers as you like, discover hidden motives, archetypal figures, core issues and so on. Or you may choose not to: I never did explore the core issues at work in my software purchases, though it would probably be good for me. But it’s harder not to notice when you’re hit by a very large vegetable.
Thanks, Hilary. Maybe I’ll stick with it and see what happens. I guess you’re right about metaphors – we tend to use them everyday without realizing it. Maybe I need to learn the language of the Yi a little better. Somebody smart should put together a dictionary of I Ching symbols and metaphors, explaining what they mean. Not a commentary, but a handbook for reading the text yourself. I hate being told what I should or should not do based on a reference I don’t understand. I’d rather figure it out for myself.
One more thing. One reason I tend to give up on my readings rather than work them out is that I don’t “believe in” the Yi yet. You know, I’m really not sure about it. It’s hard to put a lot of effort into something you don’t trust. That’s why it’s really helpful to look at your site and read your blog. You have confidence in the Yi. Maybe I will too someday – but right now I don’t have much conviction, just a lot of hope and faith.
Thanks, Aleyn
Hello
Regarding the issue of whether one can ask the IC any question.
To my humble opinion, the answer is YES, AND THE REASON IS:
The IC contains within him all the answers to all the known questions on any subject. IS ALWAYS one on one. from the IC to a person. A group may ask A question and will get one answer at a time. Difficulties may rise when an answer is not well understood/interpet/or desired.
It is always the understanding of the answer, often enough of misput or ill intended question then one must confront the consequences.
IC AND PEOPLE have mutual relationship.
Thanks,
Nili