It is now into the third week since the beautiful and talented woman I used to share my life with departed. My emotions this morning are strong. My building shakes with reverberations from a pile driver two blocks away. My heart and mind grow still, blanketed in wet suffocating sadness.
TS'UI: to collect. Sixth line of change. I have used this copy of the I Ching since it was given to me thirty years ago. Off and on, it has offered inspiration and guidance. At the least, it has surprised and shocked me with its applicable wisdom.
Ts'ui, to collect...let's see. I've read it once and my mind being the slippery fish it is, I'll read it again so I can recall it. "To collect. Success(not necessarily a sign of success for the particular line of change...yet I am hopeful). The king approaches the temple.(this points to a spiritual shift in my mind, perhaps this time it doesn't just have to be about money). It is good to see the great man.(I've read this more than a few times and I guess when desiring success of a type that might emulate someone else's it is good to see someone who could serve as a sensei, a mentor, someone who has gone before down the same path with the aforementioned success...but I do go on). There will be success.(Again with the success! Stop already, I'll get a big head).
It is good to behave properly. The use of large offerings brings good fortune.(I guess I've been behaving properly, but as for large offerings...does that mean I have something largish to offer?). To move forward in any direction will also bring good fortune." At this point, I'll paraphrase the next bit. K'un and Tui make up the hexagram in it's lower and upper trigrams, combining the marsh and earth(it was raining like crazy this morning...still wet out, but the deluge has eased for the moment)."The trigrams are naturally compromising and cheerful. The Fifth Nine is virtuous and obstinate and will work happily with the yielding and virtuous Second Six."(my nature is generally compromising and cheerful but I'd say I've been suffering too much perhaps as a result of too much compromise, and being cheerful has brought some incredibly negative energy my way this lifetime...at the least, along with the positives I've received, there have been some highlight reels of negatives to make me question the value of this innate "cheerfulness" I possess. I have no idea what the fifth nine stuff is about, although I have thrown a high percentage of fifth line of changes lately...as for the virtuous and yielding 2nd 6, ha, I never use numbers...always words for the numbers...it looks weird..."the water flowing over the earth collects in lakes and marshes and nourishes the land. It is a good time to join others and work for a common cause." I couldn't agree more.
Now on to the specific line of change...the sixth line in this hexagram. Is it the yielding one? Am I more yielding and less obstinate this morning? "Top Six: He sighs and weeps a flood of tears. There will be no mistakes." I couldn't go back to sleep this morning, I think the water spilling took the place of actual tears today although three weeks ago they flowed easily and often..."Do not expect continued success." Sheesh. Will you look at that? Perhaps this doesn't mean what I instantly assume it to mean, which is "You're gonna fail!" No, it doesn't say that. It says, don't EXPECT continued success. Hmmm...and? "One day you may be rich and popular, the next poor and without friends. Try to understand that this is the way life goes."
And that's the end of today's reading. I'd really like to find out more about the 'rich and popular' part. Poor and friendless I've explored...although relative to the majority of the planet's people my poor is still incredibly lucky--always with a place to sleep, always fed...with minimal compromise...still, given I'm in Western Canada, Vancouver British Columbia you'd think that rich and popular might allow me to ....I've got to stop myself here. Last year I went to Europe. I've got thousands of pictures I haven't even sorted from that trip. Maybe I'll spice things up a little and put one in here.
Well, I've made my first real blog entry. I've included some images...not exactly where I wanted them, but they're there. I'll finish with a bit of poetry I wrote when I was twenty...twenty-nine years ago.
'Of all things that one does,
examining what was;
least affects what happens next,
unless, of course,
it does.'
In light of the courses I was taking back then, The EST training being all about transforming your experience of living, getting out of your head, being present in the now...that poem was written as a bit of tongue in cheek backlash. Even today, the time spent going over the past doesn't change anything...unless you count the time spent going over the past that could have been spent doing something else...and calculate in whether during the time spent going over the past resulted in any new insights or convictions that indeed affect what happens next. All I know is I feel pretty good about getting some stuff out of my head and onto my blog and now I can get on with my day relatively unfettered. My next entry may be about "gilding the lily". Meanwhile, I managed to shift the pictures more or less to where I want them. So there. Now if someone would just pay me to write this stuff I wouldn't have to move.
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