Hexagram 61, Inner Truth

The Judgment says:

Inner truth: Pigs and Fishes

Good Fortune

It furthers one to cross the great water.

Perseverance furthers.

The Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching says that Pigs and Fishes are dumb animals and difficult to influence, then says that inner truth must grow to influence them. It is about relationships, “not simple intimacy or a secret bond” if it is between thieves and can turn into hate. But, when it is based on what is right it remains steadfast.

THE IMAGE then talks about criminal cases and delaying executions.

Random Page from my I Ching Journal

HEXAGRAM 6 ䷅ CONFLICT. But there is more to it than this.

Hexagram 6, Conflict/Strife. The image of Heaven ☰ and Water ☵ go in opposite directions in one translation, while Margaret Pearson, The Original I Ching, translates it "The sky with water pouring down: the image of strife. You [Superior Person] should take on a new direction only after careful consideration of its beginnings."

Oh my, the on-going legal conflict, my lawyer and I had planned for the next hearing?

Pearson's translation of the Judgment.

If you are sincere in your regrets, take the middle way, and you will have good fortune. If you persist to the end, you face disaster. You ought to seek the advice of someone greater than you are. Crossing the great river [attempting a major change] is ineffective.

Going beyond the ladder of emotional interactions, those attachments to outcomes, and reaching for the spiritual world put all of those fears and doubts to bed.

I write a little American Haiku for my previous cast when I do the next one, often knowing the outcome. Just before the hearing:

Duck swimming against

Wind and wave, stopped. Must wait.

See a better way.

The Earth ䷁ Lies Asleep

The Law of Change that is ever-present in the I Ching is rooted in the relationship between The Earth, Hexagram 2 and the Heavens, Hexagram 1, The Creative. In addition to the 64 Hexagram Readings that someone casting coins will receive, the I Ching contains The Great Treatise, an essay which discusses the principles upon which the I Ching operates for example:

The Creative, Heaven knows great beginnings

The Receptive, Earth, completes things....

The Creative is easily understood.

The Receptive is easily followed.

When someone asked to describe Earth in as the solstice nears, this came to my mind:

Earth/Kun/I Ching Hexagram 2 — all broken/divided lines.

It is the Receptive, which can only be activated by The Creative, Heaven, Qian.

The heavens are mostly dark, giving its light only briefly.

Thus, the earth lies quiet, cold, resting, waiting

for the Yin-Yang cycle to turn toward sunlit heavens

knowing the time will come

when the Heavens activate it, wake it,

so, together they will renew.

So The Earth lies almost still,

its preparations for the wakening hidden from view.