Ever since I was a lad in the seventies I have turned (albeit very occasionally) to the I Ching, or Book of Changes, for inspiration in times of duress. Which are most times, at least for me. Back in the day I used three coins (hardcore hippies used actual yarrow stalks, hard to find at the corner bodega) and painstakingly mapped out each hexagram to reveal… whatever happened to be changing at that moment. For the unitiated, someone throwing the I Ching is supposed to keep a question or problem in mind while consulting the oracle. Not that the answers necessarily make that much more sense when you know what you’re wondering about. Thanks to the I Ching site — same Wilhelm translation as the Bollingen book — you don’t even need coins anymore. The site “tosses” virtual coins for you, US or Chinese.
The point-and-click manner of consulting the book makes it slightly more addictive and probably prophesies a future of carpal tunnel syndrome for me. Plagued about my book (I am halfway through the first draft of a novel and losing spirit, heart, and faith) I asked the I Ching if I should continue, just this afternoon. A short answer, ala Sam Johnson’s observation that “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” probably could have saved me and others countless hours (and pages) of agony but the oracle delivered something all together different.
Number 29 is a water hexagram, aka The Abysmal (funny, that’s one editor said about my manuscript), and is one of only eight “doubling” hexagrams, repeating the trigram Kan. The Judgment seems pretty encouraging
The Abysmal repeated.
If you are sincere, you have success in your heart,
And whatever you do succeeds.
Though Richard Wilhelm, who translated the book from the Chinese into German and then into English, notes: “In man’s world Kan represents the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the principle of light enclosed in the dark – that is, reason. The name of the hexagram, because the trigram is doubled, has the additional meaning, ‘repetition of danger.'”
For someone who has tried publishing a novel before, only to be told it just wasn’t good enough, the notion of repeating past mistakes is alarming. Though as Wilhelm goes on to note, “Properly used, danger can have an important meaning as a protective measure. Thus heaven has its perilous height protecting it against every attempt at invasion, and earth has its mountains and bodies of water, separating countries by their dangers. Thus also rulers make use of danger to protect themselves against attacks from without and against turmoil within.” Lord knows, I’ve got plenty of inner turmoil — and my ms. has already been attacked from without. Like the long distance runner in the middle of a marathon, I realize there is nothing to do but perservere. If that doesn’t work, I can always go back to tossing coins.