what have i asked the yijing?
a record of all the questions i've asked the yijing, the answers it gave and what this meant to me (if anything), each post dated at the time of the reading, rather than the time of posting.. xThursday, April 07, 2005
how do i proceed with "harmonic experience" - the book & my practise ?
place: JB's house in walthamstow
over the next few weeks i'd bought a copy of the yijing (the wilhelm-baynes translation) and another book by jou tsung hwa about divination, i'd asked JB (the friend/authority on yijing) to meet for a cup of tea and he'd invited me to his, just before i left mine i went through some old coins i had in my room and selected three 5G coins from the netherlands for my yijing divinations, for use until i get myself some chines coins...
i'd held off doing another reading until now, i had mixed feelings about it all..
the question:
how do i proceed with "harmonic experience" - the book & my practise ?
which is a beautiful book on music theory that i've begun but haven't yet done the singing practise necessary to moving forward, i haven't opened it for several months...
JB offered the use of his chinese coins but i wanted to use the coins that i'd selected, we talked for awhile before the reading, just as i was formulating my question, JB making another cup of tea, the sky darkened and there was thunder, it was a very stormy afternoon in the end, intense showers followed by nice sunshine followed by more showers...
i wrote down my question and threw the coins (deciding on tails=2, heads=3):
7 7 8 7 8 8
no moving lines, just hexagram 54
54 The marrying maiden
The Marrying Maiden.
Undertakings bring misfortune.
Nothing that would further.
we sat for a little while, slightly awkward, we spoke about it, he had a copy of nigel redmond's the language of the lines which we consulted as well, giving a slightly different interpretation of holding back / breaking through, where all the other commentaries were focussing on the holding back... JB eventually drew my attention to the commentary which says:
If we permit ourselves to drift along, we come together and are parted again as the day may determine. If on the other hand a man fixes his mind on an end that endures, he will succeed in avoiding the reefs that confront the closer relationships of people.
presenting the view that if i go forward now i need to be really sure of it and not just drift along...
the fact that there were no moving lines seems to mean the situation isn't dynamic, after all i haven't touched the book for months, and i'm going to follow the yijings advice and hold back from the book in this time,
i have wondered also about my relationship as a composer having my own experience of harmony, to this body of knowledge that represents the book, i feel a little threatened by it i suppose, the image of a young maiden marrying an older man and being inhibited by this... i'm the maiden, the book is the older man...? just a thought..
one further thought concerns the ruling line in this hexagram that i haven't read yet, as JB warned against it, it being a largely negative heaxagram with a positive ruling line, it didn't seem appropriate to him and he knows more about it than me, but i guess now i'm writing about it (several days later) i'm intrigued as to what the ruling line says...:
54/5:
The sovereign I gave his daughter in marriage.
The embroidered garments of the princess
Were not as gorgeous
As those of the servingmaid.
The moon that is nearly full
Brings good fortune.
should i choose to move forward then in the future - where maybe this reading will have no relevance anyway, i have two ways of looking at it, that i need to really do it properly, but also this, that i'm giving myself to this relationship with this work - this book, like a princess who marries below her station, but willingly, which actually is close to something i love in the book itself, about the relation of theory to music creation, and here i am reaching for the book that i've just said i'll leave for now, strange how these things come about...:
The Sufi mystics say, "The mind is the willing slave of the heart." The key word is willing. The intellect that wills to be in service of the intuition is powerful and mature - the kind of mind a musician needs in order not to be paralysed by knowledge...
i look forward to the time when i take on this book again, it is beautiful...
x
over the next few weeks i'd bought a copy of the yijing (the wilhelm-baynes translation) and another book by jou tsung hwa about divination, i'd asked JB (the friend/authority on yijing) to meet for a cup of tea and he'd invited me to his, just before i left mine i went through some old coins i had in my room and selected three 5G coins from the netherlands for my yijing divinations, for use until i get myself some chines coins...
i'd held off doing another reading until now, i had mixed feelings about it all..
the question:
how do i proceed with "harmonic experience" - the book & my practise ?
which is a beautiful book on music theory that i've begun but haven't yet done the singing practise necessary to moving forward, i haven't opened it for several months...
JB offered the use of his chinese coins but i wanted to use the coins that i'd selected, we talked for awhile before the reading, just as i was formulating my question, JB making another cup of tea, the sky darkened and there was thunder, it was a very stormy afternoon in the end, intense showers followed by nice sunshine followed by more showers...
i wrote down my question and threw the coins (deciding on tails=2, heads=3):
7 7 8 7 8 8
no moving lines, just hexagram 54
54 The marrying maiden
The Marrying Maiden.
Undertakings bring misfortune.
Nothing that would further.
we sat for a little while, slightly awkward, we spoke about it, he had a copy of nigel redmond's the language of the lines which we consulted as well, giving a slightly different interpretation of holding back / breaking through, where all the other commentaries were focussing on the holding back... JB eventually drew my attention to the commentary which says:
If we permit ourselves to drift along, we come together and are parted again as the day may determine. If on the other hand a man fixes his mind on an end that endures, he will succeed in avoiding the reefs that confront the closer relationships of people.
presenting the view that if i go forward now i need to be really sure of it and not just drift along...
the fact that there were no moving lines seems to mean the situation isn't dynamic, after all i haven't touched the book for months, and i'm going to follow the yijings advice and hold back from the book in this time,
i have wondered also about my relationship as a composer having my own experience of harmony, to this body of knowledge that represents the book, i feel a little threatened by it i suppose, the image of a young maiden marrying an older man and being inhibited by this... i'm the maiden, the book is the older man...? just a thought..
one further thought concerns the ruling line in this hexagram that i haven't read yet, as JB warned against it, it being a largely negative heaxagram with a positive ruling line, it didn't seem appropriate to him and he knows more about it than me, but i guess now i'm writing about it (several days later) i'm intrigued as to what the ruling line says...:
54/5:
The sovereign I gave his daughter in marriage.
The embroidered garments of the princess
Were not as gorgeous
As those of the servingmaid.
The moon that is nearly full
Brings good fortune.
should i choose to move forward then in the future - where maybe this reading will have no relevance anyway, i have two ways of looking at it, that i need to really do it properly, but also this, that i'm giving myself to this relationship with this work - this book, like a princess who marries below her station, but willingly, which actually is close to something i love in the book itself, about the relation of theory to music creation, and here i am reaching for the book that i've just said i'll leave for now, strange how these things come about...:
The Sufi mystics say, "The mind is the willing slave of the heart." The key word is willing. The intellect that wills to be in service of the intuition is powerful and mature - the kind of mind a musician needs in order not to be paralysed by knowledge...
i look forward to the time when i take on this book again, it is beautiful...
x
posted by longyijing # 4:30 PM 
Archives
March 2005 April 2005 April 2006 October 2006 August 2007
