There’s something about writing on the Yijing – it’s not like other books, that just sit there mutely and allow themselves to be translated. I think people who’ve worked through the hexagram-by-hexagram threads over the years have had similar experiences, as the line of the day just happens to show up in their experience.
There was the time I was dithering over the name of Hexagram 8, and asked Yi about maybe changing it from the name I’d been using for years. Yi said 8, unchanging.
There was the time I had to stop working and go out just as I was trying to get a sense of the essence of 31.1, ‘Influence in your big toes.’ So I left my desk – reluctantly! – and got ready, and then I had a few minutes of hovering and pacing around the hall, ready to go, with nothing to do but wait for my husband. I caught myself thinking,
‘Come on – while I’m waiting for you I could be getting into the experience of 31 line 1.’
…chortle…
And there was the evening meal where I was just about to start raving happily about the beauties of 61.2 to my (blessedly tolerant) husband when he suddenly pushed his wine glass towards me saying, ‘This is really good, you should try it.’
And – not quite the same thing, but still creating that sense of being altogether out of my depth here – the other day, I was finishing working through the sample readings I’d gathered for Hexagram 64, line 6 – and finding myself so caught up in imagining what it’d be like to have finished (sleep featured heavily) that it was incredibly hard to concentrate – and found that the very last example on the (very last) page of notes was a reading about someone working on a book.
Who’s writing whom here, anyway?