Has this ever happened to you?
The afternoon was rotten, joyless, and just about everything was out of control. I decided to fling the Ching, anesthetize myself, and see what wanted to come out of the void. No tequila first, because I wanted full intensity for connecting. Definitely before reading, however, because the freaking thing is brutal.
I picked up the dog-eared book I’ve had for over 40 years, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and threw the coins. After drawing the lines on a scrap of paper, I went to get some orange juice chaser, messed around in the kitchen a bit, and then came back to my hexagram on the bar. Only it wasn’t a hexagram, it was a quintagram, because I was so rattled, I’d only tossed the coins five times! At first I thought, no sweat, I’ll just toss them again and get the last number. But then I decided that the moment had passed, and I’d better do it all over again. You know how this is going to go, right?
The next five coin tosses produced exactly the same result as before. A sixth toss completed the hexagram, and there it was, my old nemesis: “Keeping Still, Mountain.” I’ve been getting that one for decades. It’s all about the difficulty of achieving a quiet heart, and the judgement is basically sit down and shut up. Having this hexagram is like getting a pair of socks for Christmas when I was a little boy. “I hate that hexagram,” I told my wife, and she practically chunked her dinner at me. She thought I’d tapped directly into something resembling the Almighty Wisdom of the Universe and damn well better pay attention, since it was obviously aimed right at me. (The I Ching is a treacherous beast. I wonder why it is legal.)
“I don’t WANT a quiet heart,” I said, not quite believing. “I want to ‘cross the great water’ and all that.” It was true. I never feel I’m good enough, that what I am has sufficient validity, so I never get to rest anyway.
“OHHH!!!” she exploded. “It’s all predicated on LIMITS!”
She”s allergic to stubbornness because she grew up with it. I’m stubborn because I’m afraid.
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Greetings. I haven’t understood anything you just wrote. My wife is an expert with tarot cards, but I don’t understand those either. I hope the afternoon was not too profound for you, though. Have a have a better day today.
The I Ching is an ancient Chinese method of what you might call divination, in the manner of tarot cards, although most people misunderstand such things. It’s not that anyone is predicting the future, far from it. But the I Ching, tarot cards, ink blots, things like that, elicit an unconscious response that bubbles to the surface, often as if in reply to a question (stated or unstated).
After “flinging the Ching,” I did feel oddly better, although as I wrote, I tend to resist that kind of advice. Someone who should know responded thusly in an email to this post:
Keeping still and being quiet are not my idea of how to live the good life. These are the mantras of school marms. I wasn’t very good at following those instructions then and reckon I won’t be very good at it ever until the spark goes out of me. Soon enough will come the time for stillness and quiet. Until then, beat heart and burn mind! No sleep for me until the big sleep.