Yesterday was the solstice; today is the first full day of summer. Like clockwork, the Earth has returned once again to that place in its orbit where the Northern Hemisphere is most tilted toward the Sun. And then this morning, one of the clues in the NYT crossword puzzle was "Practices cleromancy" (spoiler alert: the answer is "casts lots"), reminding us, now that the solstice has come and gone, that it's time to cast the I Ching again.
Practicing cleromancy (throwing the coins) today, the first three lines formed the trigram for "thunder," with no moving lines. Thunder down below in the lower trigram, and as the lines are all unmoving, thunder before and thunder later. The next three lines, the upper trigram, were all yin lines, the trigram for "earth." But lines four and six were both moving lines, the yin becoming yang, and our "earth" trigram is changing to that of "fire."
The full hexagram, all six lines, is Hexagram 24, Fù, or "Returning." The returning that the hexagram contemplates involves the cyclic nature of the earth's orbit around the sun and the ebb and flow of tides. Everything that rises eventually retreats, and everything that fades, eventually returns. To the creators of the I Ching, the entire cosmos ran as a sort of intricate clockwork, wheels turning within wheels, and everything eventually ran the whole circle and came back around again.
Interestingly, considering that we cast the hexagram while contemplating the summer solstice, Fù is usually associated with the winter solstice. It consoles us that the shortest day of the year, if nothing else, is a reminder that days will start getting longer and nights start getting shorter. The same, or rather the inverse, could also be said of the summer solstice - the longest day of the year, when the world is most out of balance between light and dark, marks the beginning of a return to equanimity, to a balance between day and night. That's not to say that the forces of darkness are taking over - the still quiet of the nighttime can be taken as a metaphor for contemplation and meditation. Following the summer solstice, the frenetic activity of the daylight hours gives way to the deliberate stillness of the evening. That seems a fairly apt metaphor as we leave our busy career behind and head into the twilight years of our impending retirement.
Everything comes around again. That is the lesson of Fù - do not despair at defeat, for the defeated shall rise again, and do not triumph in victory, as there is nothing gained that lasts forever.
Our two moving lines - lines four and six, offer us a consolation and a warning. Line 4 is an example of a good return - one who is alone but walks in the middle of the road (the path of moderation). The text states that a wise game player keeps his pieces in the middle of the board; in modern terms, a cagey basketball player knows that by staying in center court, more possibilities are open than along either sideline.
Line 6, on the other hand, is a warning to those who return in disorder. As is the case for an army with no exit strategy or a force too distant from its command, disastrous mistakes can be made, and the people suffer misfortune as a consequence.
The key to understanding Fù is said to lie in Line 4 and its implication of a Middle Way, the thunder in the center of the earth. As long as the thunder is there at the center, no action is needed until returning begins. And with no moving lines in the lower trigram (thunder before, thunder ahead), our center seems secure.
Applying all of this to the here and now, to our current life one week before we retire from a long career, we are advised to keep all options open and to stay close to our center. The unmoving lower lines indicate stability and that it's an auspicious time to make our move, but warns us not to commit to any particular new line of action. Instead, we should just take things as they come, let our new life open up and reveal itself to us, and accept the changes as the occur.
Further advice against blundering ahead and trying to force our new life to fit some preconceived notion of what retirement should be is provided by the new hexagram that's formed from Fù by changing the moving lines: Shì Kē, Hexagram 21. This hexagram advises us that it is always beneficial to carefully investigate when encountering something unexpected. The term Shì Kē refers to biting something and then cracking it between the teeth, like one does with seeds. But in this action there is always the risk of forcibly biting on something that is very hard or something decayed, so one needs to first carefully investigate what one is biting on.
Ominously, the warning of what may be in store for us if we don't heed the advice of Fù and Shì Kē, that is, if we don't allow things to come of their own accord and then carefully examine the possibilities when they do arrive, is the realization that the our emerging hexagram, Shì Kē, is generally associated with . . . criminal prosecution.
Yikes!
No comments:
Post a Comment