The I Ching teaches us what is important in life. It gives us insights into the fundamental issues of our lives and instructs us on how we can nourish the virtues necessary to connect with the spirit and to manifest its ways within our lives and in the world. You can access Louise’s I Ching hexagram essays at wayofhumanity.net.
We asked the I Ching what it wanted to share in its fourth Meat, Complicity and Thou reading. We received from the I Ching Hexagram 12 with moving line in the 4th and 5th places. This appears below, using Louise’s hexagram essay.
Hexagram 12 – Drawing Apart
Image: The hexagram represents a time of disintegration, marking the 7th month in the Chinese calendar (August to September). The Book of Changes holds that the union of spirit and Earth produces life. When the season for growth has ended, autumnal decline sets in, an unstoppable withdrawal of the conditions for growth.
This seasonal change illustrates the hexagram image of the Creative and Earth Interbeing moving apart, numbing all things. In such a time within the world, confusion and disorder prevail. Those lacking a spiritual path dominate others harshly.
When selfishness and hostility increase, the ways of the spirit decline. The life-destroying forces prosper and oppress all. In this disadvantaged time, the selfish and powerful increasingly produce more dangers as they willingly harm others for self-benefit without limits, creating ever greater imbalances and marginalizing the wise. The declining human devotion to the spirit makes it difficult to discern the path toward restoring harmony and balance.
Self-cherishing and hostility disrupt the flow of life and sever our communion with the sacred and Earth Interbeing. When we value wealth, power over others, materialism, and indulgence more than the spirit, we become an object among objects and subject to external influences . We suffer and cause the suffering of others. Mistrust prevails in community life. The influence of the sage dwindles within the world.
Those who benefit from domination and exploitation of others and the Earth resist and deny the sacred. When entangled with what harms, the false dominates and the real departs. Wisdom has no influence over those whose unchecked self-cherishing and willingness to seriously harm the Earth Interbeing degrades the conditions upon which all life depends.
When the destructive forces of oppression block sages from benefiting all, they do not allow themselves to be turned from their principles. If conditions prevent them from exerting their influence within the world, sages retreat. While waiting, they further develop their spiritual being and preserve the spiritual path. By not yielding to what harms, they succeed. When the times change, the path forward reemerges. Read more.
