Mar 26 24
Two of Pentacles (reversed)
49. Revolution (Molting)
5. Waiting (Nourishment)
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.)
From “K.S”: I’ve gone through many series of upheaval recently, though I see that my grief hinges upon perspective. I couldn’t afford my apartment anymore so I moved back home: I see an opportunity to save, and connect with my incredible mother, yet I feel failure and lack of choice. I'm proud of the efforts I’ve been making in a new career, but they've as of yet been fruitless. I ended things with a long-term love interest: I see dodging a bullet with an emotionally unavailable musician, and I feel crushed, etc etc.
I’d love a fresh take that might transmogrify my intellectualising of these changes/losses into deeper, embodied recognition. I'm just looking for a talisman. I feel empty and down lately.
A river’s shoring ripples
Repeat a floating foam cup’s unintentional retreat.
Failing at landfall it proceeds sideways.
These lines are from a poem we wrote a long while ago. The metaphor came from reality; we saw a bit of tiny trash not able to get ashore when standing on the bank of a brackish river — to us it mimicked how we were feeling: quite pathetic, deeply sad, gross with self loathing, and transcendentally ineffectual. At that time we had moved back home after college — not really by choice, there were a lot of proverbial psychological chickens coming home to roost and a lot of “failure” generally — we are not saying that this is your situation, but while considering your question under the oracle’s influence, the lines, and personal era they are connected to, resurfaced and feel relevant.
Looking back now, we just want to lovingly smack ourselves, and the little bit of debris, onto the sand with a big splash! But of course that is not how anything works — there is never any going back, and there is no hindsight from the future in any present moment (often just fatigue).
But know opportunities will occur.
This is what the oracle is saying to you: everything is always changing (somewhat cyclically) if you pay attention you can prepare and get ahead of unfavorable conditions. Getting ahead of unfavorable conditions is Opportunity. Revolution (big changes) are always arriving — being able to recognize advantageous ones is of the utmost importance. So in fallow times you must prepare. How do you prepare? With the nutrients of inner truth. What is inner truth 🙄? The most light giving thing that you are attracted to. What do you love? You are disorganized emotionally and structurally — which is 100% ok. Give yourself a break — but then watch closely for your repeated misfires, you will eventually be able to get ahead of them. When the personal revolution comes you will be ready.
Our “failures” are really just the neurotic, shadowed end of our talents.
As well, if you don’t seriously and continually connect-with/pursue an aspect that you love deeply, how can you expect to thrive?
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Two of Pentacles (reversed). Lack of organization. “Forced gaiety.” “Simulated enjoyment.” Perhaps a failure of love as relates to Life broadly speaking?
Our first hexagram this week is #49, Revolution (Molting). In various ways the I Ching expresses the notion that everything happens in its own time and is always changing — that is, in a very literal/real way Change and Timing are the earth’s fundamental attributes. “Times change, and with them their demands. Thus the seasons change in the course of the year. In the world cycle also there are spring and autumn in the life of peoples and nations, and these call for social transformations… in the course of the year a combat takes place between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, eventuating in the revolution of the seasons. Humans master these changes in nature by noting their regularity and marking off the passage of time accordingly. In this way order and clarity appear in the apparently chaotic changes of the seasons, and one is able to adjust themself in advance to the demands of the different times.”
There were two changes this week, of which the specific notes are: revolution is necessary — one’s inner attitude to meet the revolution is of utmost importance and if a revolution’s impetus is not from inner truth the results will not be strong or good.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #5, Waiting (Nourishment). Here the relation of patience and anticipation. Since much of life cannot be forced or willed — we have to wait to see what happens. But waiting need not be impotence — it can (and should) be preparation. If you can’t take your boat out for a journey, clean it! Get it ready! “Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal. Such certainty alone gives that light which leads to success. This leads to the perseverance that brings good fortune.” When “one is faced with a danger that has to be overcome… weakness and impatience can do nothing.” “We should not worry and seek to shape the future by interfering in things before the time is ripe. We should quietly fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer. Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready.”
- Perhaps there’s a failure of love as relates to Life broadly speaking? (If you don’t love something deeply about life, you can’t thrive.)
- Avoid “forced gaiety” and “simulated enjoyment.”
- “Times change, and with them their demands.”
- Learn to adjust yourself in advance of different times and scenarios.
- If the time is not ripe for action or change, use that time to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more.
- Waiting need not be impotence.
From “K.S”: I’ve gone through many series of upheaval recently, though I see that my grief hinges upon perspective. I couldn’t afford my apartment anymore so I moved back home: I see an opportunity to save, and connect with my incredible mother, yet I feel failure and lack of choice. I'm proud of the efforts I’ve been making in a new career, but they've as of yet been fruitless. I ended things with a long-term love interest: I see dodging a bullet with an emotionally unavailable musician, and I feel crushed, etc etc.
I’d love a fresh take that might transmogrify my intellectualising of these changes/losses into deeper, embodied recognition. I'm just looking for a talisman. I feel empty and down lately.
A river’s shoring ripples
Repeat a floating foam cup’s unintentional retreat.
Failing at landfall it proceeds sideways.
These lines are from a poem we wrote a long while ago. The metaphor came from reality; we saw a bit of tiny trash not able to get ashore when standing on the bank of a brackish river — to us it mimicked how we were feeling: quite pathetic, deeply sad, gross with self loathing, and transcendentally ineffectual. At that time we had moved back home after college — not really by choice, there were a lot of proverbial psychological chickens coming home to roost and a lot of “failure” generally — we are not saying that this is your situation, but while considering your question under the oracle’s influence, the lines, and personal era they are connected to, resurfaced and feel relevant.
Looking back now, we just want to lovingly smack ourselves, and the little bit of debris, onto the sand with a big splash! But of course that is not how anything works — there is never any going back, and there is no hindsight from the future in any present moment (often just fatigue).
But know opportunities will occur.
This is what the oracle is saying to you: everything is always changing (somewhat cyclically) if you pay attention you can prepare and get ahead of unfavorable conditions. Getting ahead of unfavorable conditions is Opportunity. Revolution (big changes) are always arriving — being able to recognize advantageous ones is of the utmost importance. So in fallow times you must prepare. How do you prepare? With the nutrients of inner truth. What is inner truth 🙄? The most light giving thing that you are attracted to. What do you love? You are disorganized emotionally and structurally — which is 100% ok. Give yourself a break — but then watch closely for your repeated misfires, you will eventually be able to get ahead of them. When the personal revolution comes you will be ready.
Our “failures” are really just the neurotic, shadowed end of our talents.
As well, if you don’t seriously and continually connect-with/pursue an aspect that you love deeply, how can you expect to thrive?
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Two of Pentacles (reversed). Lack of organization. “Forced gaiety.” “Simulated enjoyment.” Perhaps a failure of love as relates to Life broadly speaking?
Our first hexagram this week is #49, Revolution (Molting). In various ways the I Ching expresses the notion that everything happens in its own time and is always changing — that is, in a very literal/real way Change and Timing are the earth’s fundamental attributes. “Times change, and with them their demands. Thus the seasons change in the course of the year. In the world cycle also there are spring and autumn in the life of peoples and nations, and these call for social transformations… in the course of the year a combat takes place between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, eventuating in the revolution of the seasons. Humans master these changes in nature by noting their regularity and marking off the passage of time accordingly. In this way order and clarity appear in the apparently chaotic changes of the seasons, and one is able to adjust themself in advance to the demands of the different times.”
There were two changes this week, of which the specific notes are: revolution is necessary — one’s inner attitude to meet the revolution is of utmost importance and if a revolution’s impetus is not from inner truth the results will not be strong or good.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #5, Waiting (Nourishment). Here the relation of patience and anticipation. Since much of life cannot be forced or willed — we have to wait to see what happens. But waiting need not be impotence — it can (and should) be preparation. If you can’t take your boat out for a journey, clean it! Get it ready! “Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal. Such certainty alone gives that light which leads to success. This leads to the perseverance that brings good fortune.” When “one is faced with a danger that has to be overcome… weakness and impatience can do nothing.” “We should not worry and seek to shape the future by interfering in things before the time is ripe. We should quietly fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer. Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready.”