These offer on-going discussions of divinations of interest selected by our Reading Panel. You can submit a reading for consideration through the Contact Us page.
Question:
How do we best manage our Gu (inner corruption)?
The Inquirer:
The Group participating in the 2007 Vallecitos Yijing Retreat Mirror of the Heart.
The Situation:
The question was posed after we had established the ritual space of the Opened Heart). This was the second Group divination. It focused on the task that had been imposed upon us there – confronting and renovating our own inner “corruption” (gu) within the process we had entered.
Result: 30, 9/6 ≈ 55
Reading Matrix
The Primary Figure
The Primary Figure sets the stage:
30 Radiance / Bright Omens Li
The old character shows the bright bird of omen and a net, a pattern of words and symbols through which we capture and reflect on what it represents.
Light, warmth, awareness, brightness; illuminate, discriminate, articulate, see clearly and spread the light; join with, adhere to, meet with, encounter partners by chance; a mandate, omen or sign from Heaven, the Bright Omen that reveals the presence of the spirit in all things; a powerful Wu or Intermediary who helps establish the Inner Axis of Change within the individual. Core theme: 28 the Great Transition and emergence as an individual.
This is a Realizing Figure and Engine of Change that recharges experience with meaning and energy. It acts as a Transition from initiation and the search for an image of the deeper Self to the stage of the Symbolic Life when we struggle to found an individual dwelling, family and career.
We were to think of this critical moment as a time full of the Inspiring Force of the Dragon that connects us to Ancestral energies and leave all sense of personal need for recognition and approval behind:
Ideal (1) and Shadow (35): Think of this as a time full of inspiring force. You will be entangled in the shadows if you focus on your need for personal recognition now. If you let go of the need, this recognition will come of itself.
Creative energy, dynamic power that guides and inspires; persist, endure, untiring; the shape-changer, the rainmaker, the yang force awakening life, the daimon who brings the protection of the Ancestors, the power of the inner images; the key, the male sexual organ. The old character shows the sun at dawn, a three-leafed sprout meaning lush vegetation and vapors, rain, breath, energy flowing from Sky that disperses and spreads to nourish the All-Under Heaven.
Contact with this Inspiring Force would ripen the inner fruits:
Season: Summer, ripening the fruits, maturity and a successful sacrifice; fathers and mothers, South, noon, Fire, red.
We were to focus directly on the inner guidance provided now, guidance that summed up all of the themes of the process we had seen:
Trigram Interaction: Fire and Brightness doubled. The Bright Omens appear again and again. Accepting inner guidance now leads to finding real directions in life. Brighten and illuminate all that is hidden. This is not the time to think of danger that is past.
This pair displays the fundamental powers of Fire and Water as they establish the Inner Axis of Change within the realized individual. It is a Primary Site of Radical Transformation, an Engine of Change that recharges our existence with meaning and energy. Core themes: Passing through the Tiger’s Mouth (27) and emerging as a true individual (28) connect you to the Primal Powers of Realization (2) and Inspiration (1).
Charge to the Inquirer: Make the sacrifice at the Earth Altar (29) and you can create a place where people congregate and the Bright Omens emerge. Accept it and use the energy of Radiance. Call on this as a spirit helper. This means congregating with others.
Li, Radiance is the Bright Presence of things, a numen that surges from the depths and turns them into omens that reveal the spirits. It is associated with birds, nets and victims taken for sacrifice, the rituals of the bird dancers who call the spirits down and the creation of an oracular language, the symbolic openings through which they can speak. It is the yellow lia-bird whose song makes the silkworms appear and who sponsors lovers and the dance of the pheasant drumming the earth to call to her mate, a dance that wakens the thunder in spring. Li, Radiance and the Bright Omens makes people go in pairs. She suggests extraordinary happenings that separate people from the conventional and evokes stringed instruments, a bride’s veil and a woman’s decorated girdle. She is associated with brightness, fire and the light of the heavenly bodies, midday sun, summer, the south and the beauty and splendor of things. Radiance or Bright Omens is part of the Axis of Change, the “burning water” or prima materia. She leads through her warm clear light, the radiance of living beings holding together. She is nets and soft things with shells, a bright pheasant, a bird of omen. Radiance works in the Heart, master of the organs, commanding the pathways and the blood, bringing the spark of life and offering a quiet center in which the spirits find a voice.
Our Core Theme was once again 28 Great Traverses, the Great Transition through which each of us must pass:
The old characters show the Great People and their power to protect and shelter and three footsteps at a crossroads, a decisive moment expressed as a mountain ridge or boundary and a closed mouth.
The Relating Figure 55 Abounding was both a goal and possibility and the way the inner abundance that flowed from this work could be spread:
Time Cycle: Fall: Harvest the crop through 56 Sojourning and setting off on your quest; Winter: Find the seed of the new through 62 Small Traverses, making careful moves to create something that can pass to the next generation; Spring: Rouse the new growth through 55 spreading Abundance to all.
55 Abounding/Receiving the Mandate Feng
The old character shows a ritual cooking vessel, a cornucopia or a big war drum, ears of grain and a threshing floor
A time of plenty, copious, rich, generous, profuse, overflowing with blessings; culminating point that activates creative energy, give freely to all; the time when the New King receives the Mandate of Heaven, omen or sign of a great renewal; name of King Wu’s military capital when he was in the Mourning Hut for his deceased father, King Wen. The old character shows a ritual cooking vessel, a cornucopia or a big war drum, ears of grain and a threshing floor. Core theme: 28 the Great Transition and emergence as an individual.
This is an Inspiring Figure, part of a Zone of Radical Transformation when the Bright Omens that guide people’s lives become Flying words that carry the across the threshold of life and death. It is an experience of Centers of Power in the stage of the Symbolic Life when we must deal with power and our responsibilities to the human community.
The 55:56 Pair formed the Fall-Spring Axis of our Time Cycle:
Benkei in the Boat shows the hidden connection between the New King who receives Heaven’s Mandate (55) and the Wandering Sage (56) who sojourns in the Shadow Lands to make the new connections. It is a Great Transition that connects to the Inspiring Force of the Dragon.
Our Inner Operator here is 23 Stripping. This is our attitude toward the inner world.
23 Stripping the Corpse Bo
Strip away old ideas and habits, eliminate the outmoded or worn out; remove, uncover, take off, cut into; wound, diminish, reduce to essentials; rituals of second burial, exposing and stripping the corpse; divination through examining the body of a sacrifice. The old character shows an inscribed oracle bone, the knife used to carve the characters that express the words of the spirits and the sign for a winch used to draw water for irrigation. Core theme: 2 Field, the Dark Animal Goddess and Primal Power of Realization.
Our Outer Operator is 44 Coupling/Enter the Lady of Fates. This is our stance toward what we will confront to realize the process in the outer world.
44 Coupling/The Royal Bride Gou
Meet, welcome, encounter, open yourself to; act through the yielding and the feminine; strange encounters, intense contact and emotion, gripped, overcome; all forms of sexual intercourse, mating, magnetism, gravity; a meeting of minds, win confidence; encounters at the Autumn Marriage Festivals; the Lady of Fates who arrives at the borders of awareness carrying a new fate. The old character shows a pregnant woman and a woman giving birth, sign for the Royal Bride who arrives at the borders and will give birth to an heir. Core theme: 1 Inspiring Force of the Dragon.
The Pathway opened by the Transforming Line was there in front of us. It was the first step we saw in the overall reading that described the Mirror of the Heart (see Reading 18) and the potential culmination of dealing with our inner corruption.
Nine Above
Radiance. The Bright Omen. The King sets out on campaign. There will be excellent results.Sever the heads, offer the rebel chiefs in sacrifice. Put them to the question. This is not a mistake.
Use this to correct the balance of power. This is a time to take aggressive measures. Something harmful has occurred and you must deal with it. Be determined. Seize what is truly important. Offer the old in sacrifice. This is not a mistake.
The Pathway connected the act of Dispersing our old identity directly to the possibility of rousing new Abundance.
The old character shows the Ghost River, hands making sacrifice and a person at the entrance to a cave or abyss with a knife in his hand.
Culmination and Communication (29.6 [59.6 : 55.6] 30.6): If you go on in the old ways now you will be bound, judged and imprisoned. Disperse the bad blood. Send it away and then you can come forth. Fix this omen and you will receive the blessing. Do not stay in mourning for the past. Your melancholy and pain will trap and cut you off. A time of abundance is coming. You are coupled with a creative force.