Mar 10 26
The Hierophant (reversed)
29. The Abysmal (Water)
24. Return (The Turning Point)
24. Return (The Turning Point)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
Question from “I.I.”: A simple and common issue — if you can’t get along with someone, but have to (because of mandatory familial, societal, or professional overlap) what is the best advice?
Oracle reply: To get along with others, you must, on some sincerely discernible level of your character, be free of affiliation. That is real modesty, that is, you can’t believe you are totally right. Affiliation makes us believe in closed systems. If you identify as a Democrat, a Republican, a Christian, a Muslim, if you identify as one who knows you are correct, or what have you, your logic is closed — that is, your powers of discernment are “locked up within your body, the principle of light enclosed in your dark...” You are not sincere, but protecting yourself. You will not be able to get along with someone you don’t like. You must “love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.”
Also, distraction or escape is not rest — and you must rest.
Complete Reading:
This week we pulled the The Hierophant (reversed). Here we have a break with doctrine and communities of conformity — for the purpose of establishing personal dimension. Conformity has its indisputably important employments but it is not complete, it has an internal physics of ease (over self criticism) like all closed systems of self relation. As is oft said here, things must separate in order to appear — that includes the varied forms of truth.
Our first hexagram this week is #29, The Abysmal (Water). Reason is “the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the principle of light enclosed in the dark...” “...the hexagram is intended to designate an objective situation to which one must become accustomed, not a subjective attitude...” Reason is internal logic; it is good when situations are familiar but when true novelty comes into play, one must be open to being outside of their logic, or disaster might overtake them. But... out of the constant confrontation with internal reason (logic) and external novelties, can emerge a new mode — SINCERITY. “...if one is sincere when confronted with difficulties, the heart can penetrate the meaning of the situation. And once we have gained inner mastery of a problem, it will come about naturally that the action we take will succeed. In danger all that counts is really carrying out all that has to be done — thoroughness — and going forward, in order not to perish through tarrying in the danger.”
There were three changes this week of which the specific notes are: 1: do not grow used to evil (bad habits, etc.) as you will become evil, 2: when in severe danger it is important not to panic, and 3: sometimes the achievement is simply to extract oneself from danger, not to accomplish a further goal (doing the latter in a dangerous situation can be deadly).
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #24, Return (The Turning Point). A belief promoted by the I Ching is that everything happens in accord with the time — therefore one cannot force change and movements, but only be in agreement (or discord) with larger forces. In this hexagram the time pointed to is that after darkness and decay: “After a time of decay comes the turning point... The time of darkness is past. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force.” But there are stages to positive renewal, and one shouldn’t act prematurely; one must wait to act on positive forces until they achieve positive momentum. So, the optimal state for the beginning of positive renewal is rest: “Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be strengthened by rest so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely.”
- One must regularly break from communities to regain dimension.
- Distraction, or escape, is not rest — and you must rest.
- Sincerity is an adaptive advance out of failed logic.
- “If one is sincere when confronted with difficulties, the heart can penetrate the meaning of the situation.”
- All happens in accord with the time — one cannot force change and movements, but only be in agreement (or discord) with larger forces.
Question from “I.I.”: A simple and common issue — if you can’t get along with someone, but have to (because of mandatory familial, societal, or professional overlap) what is the best advice?
Oracle reply: To get along with others, you must, on some sincerely discernible level of your character, be free of affiliation. That is real modesty, that is, you can’t believe you are totally right. Affiliation makes us believe in closed systems. If you identify as a Democrat, a Republican, a Christian, a Muslim, if you identify as one who knows you are correct, or what have you, your logic is closed — that is, your powers of discernment are “locked up within your body, the principle of light enclosed in your dark...” You are not sincere, but protecting yourself. You will not be able to get along with someone you don’t like. You must “love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.”
Also, distraction or escape is not rest — and you must rest.
Complete Reading:
This week we pulled the The Hierophant (reversed). Here we have a break with doctrine and communities of conformity — for the purpose of establishing personal dimension. Conformity has its indisputably important employments but it is not complete, it has an internal physics of ease (over self criticism) like all closed systems of self relation. As is oft said here, things must separate in order to appear — that includes the varied forms of truth.
Our first hexagram this week is #29, The Abysmal (Water). Reason is “the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the principle of light enclosed in the dark...” “...the hexagram is intended to designate an objective situation to which one must become accustomed, not a subjective attitude...” Reason is internal logic; it is good when situations are familiar but when true novelty comes into play, one must be open to being outside of their logic, or disaster might overtake them. But... out of the constant confrontation with internal reason (logic) and external novelties, can emerge a new mode — SINCERITY. “...if one is sincere when confronted with difficulties, the heart can penetrate the meaning of the situation. And once we have gained inner mastery of a problem, it will come about naturally that the action we take will succeed. In danger all that counts is really carrying out all that has to be done — thoroughness — and going forward, in order not to perish through tarrying in the danger.”
There were three changes this week of which the specific notes are: 1: do not grow used to evil (bad habits, etc.) as you will become evil, 2: when in severe danger it is important not to panic, and 3: sometimes the achievement is simply to extract oneself from danger, not to accomplish a further goal (doing the latter in a dangerous situation can be deadly).
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #24, Return (The Turning Point). A belief promoted by the I Ching is that everything happens in accord with the time — therefore one cannot force change and movements, but only be in agreement (or discord) with larger forces. In this hexagram the time pointed to is that after darkness and decay: “After a time of decay comes the turning point... The time of darkness is past. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force.” But there are stages to positive renewal, and one shouldn’t act prematurely; one must wait to act on positive forces until they achieve positive momentum. So, the optimal state for the beginning of positive renewal is rest: “Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be strengthened by rest so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely.”