Apr 23 24
The Empress (reversed)
46. Pushing Upward
18. Work on what has been spoiled [Decay]
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 “A.P.”: What to do when you feel that you’ve run out of rope?
You need to reframe but you need a break first. A break to sufficiently create space around your old ways; to see and define them and to breathe at a distance from them.
And then, when sufficient differences can be seen and weighed and valued, all efforts must take the form of a new and dedicated project — there will be no thriving otherwise.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Empress (reversed). When in upright aspect, the intimation is fertility, health, and primordial productivity — “C”reativity and “N”ature writ large. However when the Empress arrives reversed (as it is here) the attention or production or care, is being overdone. As in, loving care has become surveillance or mothering has become smothering.
Our first hexagram this week is #46, Pushing Upward. Here, one of the most useful/lovely metaphors/proverbs in the entirety of the I Ching: “Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest. Thus too the superior person is devoted in character and never pauses in their progress.” It is not easy but it is a polestar for sure, that is, to improve and work without haste and without rest.
There was one change this week, of which the specific note is: the confidence to accomplish comes from experiencing the strength of a few strong steps built on a strongly built foundation.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #18, Work on what has been spoiled (Decay). “What has been spoiled through one’s fault can be made good again through one’s work.” The subject is stagnation/decay — the suggestion is that only through pointed effort and a kind of new beginning, can this state be righted. Perhaps this is best initiated by trying to “cast out all that is degrading”. (A tall order these days.)
- Be careful that perseverance doesn’t degrade into empty habit (and risk confused bitterness).
- Whatever you are trying to improve, try to do so without haste and without rest.
- A new beginning is necessary, try to initiate it by seriously limiting that which is degrading.
From “A.P.”: What to do when you feel that you’ve run out of rope?
You need to reframe but you need a break first. A break to sufficiently create space around your old ways; to see and define them and to breathe at a distance from them.
And then, when sufficient differences can be seen and weighed and valued, all efforts must take the form of a new and dedicated project — there will be no thriving otherwise.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Empress (reversed). When in upright aspect, the intimation is fertility, health, and primordial productivity — “C”reativity and “N”ature writ large. However when the Empress arrives reversed (as it is here) the attention or production or care, is being overdone. As in, loving care has become surveillance or mothering has become smothering.
Our first hexagram this week is #46, Pushing Upward. Here, one of the most useful/lovely metaphors/proverbs in the entirety of the I Ching: “Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest. Thus too the superior person is devoted in character and never pauses in their progress.” It is not easy but it is a polestar for sure, that is, to improve and work without haste and without rest.
There was one change this week, of which the specific note is: the confidence to accomplish comes from experiencing the strength of a few strong steps built on a strongly built foundation.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #18, Work on what has been spoiled (Decay). “What has been spoiled through one’s fault can be made good again through one’s work.” The subject is stagnation/decay — the suggestion is that only through pointed effort and a kind of new beginning, can this state be righted. Perhaps this is best initiated by trying to “cast out all that is degrading”. (A tall order these days.)