A few weeks ago, I went to stay with Mum for a while, helping her out after a stay in hospital. First thing after we arrived, I asked Yi for advice for the next week or so, and received Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, changing at the fourth line to Hexagram 2. I discovered what it meant to be the ‘source of motivation’ and to ‘gather friends together as a hair-clasp gathers hair’ – and it most definitely had its foundation in the paired line, 15.3, which is about hard work. The feeling I get from these two lines now is that there’s a mysterious realising force that is somehow invoked by simple, authentic work. It seems to create inner change that sends out a ‘ripple effect’, travelling through something other than the ordinary lines of communication.
Anyway… thinking of Hexagram 16 – enthusiasm, motivation, the inspiration of big images, the power of the elephant… – I naturally also thought about Hexagram 15 as its secure foundation. Before you can weave elephant-power into life, it helps to have met the ‘uniting rodent’, the grey rat (OK, strictly speaking it’s a giant hamster, but it does look exactly like a rat), so you don’t develop an inflated self-image. And as we crossed the threshold, I saw Mum at once as an image of myself.
Oddly enough, this had never quite sunk in before – no matter how many people mistook me for Mum over the ‘phone. But now the reading had woken me up a little, I could see myself in her as if in a mirror. Some enforced self-awareness followed.
Apparently Someone wanted to be sure I didn’t miss the point, though. Walking into Mum’s room, the first thing I saw looking out at me from her dresser – woolly-whiskered, orange-eyed – was a home-made, stuffed toy, grey rat.
My boy friend and I broke up one Month, he will come back or I will meet somebody else ?
Hi Jenny,
I don’t think divination is really about just predicting what’ll happen to you, as if you were nothing but a passive thing, and stuff just happened to you, like it just happens to a rock. Have a look at the introductory article, What can I achieve with the I Ching? for some alternative ideas.
cultivate oneself and the rest will follow, its all about the inner being within yourself, trust your instincts.
At the same time, shouldn’t we be willing to take a shot at making such a prediction, if asked? Even if we turn out to be wrong? I don’t feel that platitudes help the situation; a little concrete advice might on the other hand. We have a much better chance of being hit by a car when we are in a crosswalk than we do when we’re on a mountaintop–same is true of relationship–if we’re at a crossroads, or visible in some metaphysical way, or projecting our availability and interest, we’re more likely to attract a romantic partner than not. The Ching should be able to tell us whether we’re in that crosswalk (crossroads) or not, in my opinion.