Do you know the feeling of being actually thirsty for readings? It’s a little like the need to talk with someone you love, a little like the need for soul-nourishment that you might satisfy by walking in woods, or making music, or creating something. There’s an inner pull towards the Yijing as Well, often felt long before it takes shape as a question.
If there’s a distinctive difference to reading-thirst, though, it would be the need for rehydration right in the centre of what you’re doing. Like a retreat into life, needing to feel connected and enriched in the middle of all the daily stuff. It’s not that you want to go outside to find fresh energy and bring it back in; you want to go in and find what you need already there. Tradition says the Well was placed in the centre of the grid of fields.
Talking with Yi is a way of watering the driest and most dusty of activities. Just by asking for practical advice, I find I get not only the answers about what to do, but also the depth of reasons why I’m doing them.
For instance, I just asked about marketing the I Ching Class. I’d be very happy if I never had to think about marketing again, and could just spend time cooking up what people want and need, and enjoying the way they enjoy it. (You can see how naturally it comes to me by the elephantine subtlety with which I keep inserting links.) But I’ve got to do something about this, if I want anyone to arrive at the table in a few week’s time. I need to spend most of my time in the kitchen (odd, how a single call’s ‘handout’ morphs into a 3,000 word exploration all by itself), which means I have to decide where to concentrate my efforts. Techie stuff or human connection? Reaching out beyond the borders of Clarity, or talking to the people I already know here?
Yi responds with 37, People in the Home, changing to 24, Returning. I have a practical answer – no doubt the same one any ‘business guru’ would have given me – and I’ll act on it. (And oh what a relief, as there really are limits to the emotional satisfaction you can get from link-building.) But I also have the image of Home, and the story of meeting people on the path, and the whole idea of ‘marketing’ becomes infinitely warmer and more alive.
And talking with Yi is also a way of watering life when you don’t have any practical issue uppermost in your mind, but only a general sense that things are getting parched and colourless and in need of renewal. ‘What to be aware of?’ is a superb pitcher to bring to the well, as often as you like: sound, simple, and of great capacity.
Three other ways at looking at the “thirst for reading” are “addiction,” “obsession,” and “avoidance”.
I’d say those were valid ways of looking at obsessive, repeated consultation – not the same thing at all.
Jack, you speak of beeing filled with an urge you need to get rid of, while Hillary speaks of stretching out empty, yielding like a vessel ready to be filled.
Different feeling altogether.
I hadn’t thought of it that way… strikes a chord, thank you.
Another way of describing the difference: obsessive consulting desperately wants to get away from something, be that the state of uncertainty, or the state of knowing and not wanting to know (and hoping the oracle will say something different this time…). ‘Thirsty’ consulting comes of a desire to get further and closer in to experience, instead of living ‘on the surface’. And so it tends to lead to long, meditative, exploratory readings – also unlike the obsessive variety.
Thank you for the observations on ‘thirsty’ vs. ‘obsession, addiction, avoidance’. I think all the negative stuff comes from fear (of the future, of pain,of loss, of not having enough strength or wisdom or courage or resources to handle or endure overwhelming difficulties. Once I realize that I am motivated by fear (the Yi is awfully good at getting hidden motivations out into the open), I can request guidance on the best way to deal with the fear and that little hamster on a wheel that lives in my head and can’t seem to stop itself from running in circles. At least that’s what obsession feels like to me. I think I’ll go try it right now….
Yeah, sometimes I just feel like I need a reading, and am eager to do one.
Other times, I am reluctant to do it for an unknown reason, and sometimes I don’t want to know the answer.