Semantic Restructuring is the pursuit of enlightenment, enlivenment, empowerment through the creative re-arranging of the building blocks of meaning. For a better description, Start Here.
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Deliverance or loosening. The chords of karma, the web of fate, the Gordian knot, they need not be hacked or slashed for this is the time when they simply loosen up and we are delivered from what has bound us. When newly freed we either finish what was interrupted by our binding or we return to our home to enjoy our new found liberty.
This is also a time for forgiving; having found liberty again, we do not dwell on past transgressions, but rather wipe the slate clean, forgiving intentional and unintentional wrongs alike.
The trigram of the mighty water flowing in a deep ravine is below the trigram of thunder. This is a clear and easy progression from the repeated thunder of the previous hexagram to the beginnings of the rainfall. The life giving storm is not yet over, it has only begun, but it will bring the water that opens the buds in their time. Enjoy loosening deliverance. Soon it will change.
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Thunder repeated, and doubling of the principle of the eldest son, he who assumes rule with force. But although the thunder comes once, frightening all within a hundred miles, and then again, relieving the tension and sparking laughter in the release, still the wise one's concentrations are not broken and the rituals are carried out without bobble, the sacramental implements handled with unbroken skill. So know, drink deeply of the startling arousing energy, while keeping your concentration. Soon it will change.
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Enthusiasm. The three solid lines of Ch'ien, on the bottom of the hexagram Tai, have given up their power, reverted to the receptive principle, in order to make way for the one strong line now in the top trigram. Sound the call, strike up the band, stir the hearts and call the country to arms; rouse the country side...or your own inner heart. Soon it will change.
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Peace; or so say the more traditional analyses. Mawangdui says, "Greatness: The little go and the great come." I have a preference for the Mawangdui wherever I can make any sense of it at all. This one is easy. The trigram of Kun, the receptivedarkconcave principle is above, or presenting as the public face of the trigram and thus is "outer", Ch'ien, the creativelightconvex principle, is below or "inner". Where Kun is the earth and Ch'ien is the sky then neither is where they belong, but both are naturally en route to their proper place. There is a sense of equilibrium here, because the two trigrams are primal and juxtaposed; this hexagram is surely a stronger signal strength for the untrained eye, perhaps even for the trained eye neurologically, with its easy division of solid lines below the broken ones. But the equilibrium is perhaps only apparent, not any more real than any arrangement of three yin and three yang; the forces are equally represented in many other arrangements.
These complementary forces are juxtaposed and manifest in their easiest to recognize forms. But they are in motion. Typically we view the hexagrams from the bottom up, looking at what has entered from the bottom, but readings for this hexagram refer to Kun as moving downward. That is something to consider; perhaps there is a matter of relative point of view here. It is uninformed physics to say, "Heat rises," for in truth it is the more dense cold matter, gas or liquid, which, being more dense, settles to the bottom, is drawn closer to Earth's gravitational center. As the colder, denser liquid or air is pulled down, falls to the bottom, the lighter water or air is displaced. Tai, then, shows the forces in juxtaposition, and evenly matched, but the cooler dense Kun will be pulled down and the lighter airy Ch'ien will be pulled up.
It just so happens that the inverse of this hexagram is called, in the Wilhelm/Baynes system, "Standstill." But, consistent with my strictly personal explorations of the hexagrams it seems to me a great mistake to make this hexagram "good" and it's complement "bad"; permitting names with such strong semantic attachments as "Peace" and "Standstill" is a mistake. Even the Mawangdui's "Greatness" is dangerous, for too many people attach that term to valuation rather than merely size. In the reading, "Great things come, small things depart," in that context "Greatness" is valuation free. Big things are moving in; little things are moving on. The sage controls all because he treats small things as great and great things as small. This will apply to this hexagram and its complement.
But the question is still raised, then, what distinguishes this hexagram from its complement? One would expect simply that then it will be "Great things leave, small things come." And neither of these is particularly more auspicious than the other, for as there is a time to rest and a time to run, there is too a time for great things and a time for small things. Today's hexagram is a time for big things. Be at peace with great and small, coming and going. Soon it will change.
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Wood beneath or within the earth; pushing up. The readings seem to point toward an almost inevitable growth, but in the slow steady stages of an acorn on its way to being a mighty oak. Heaping up small improvements; the steady change of the shoot or sprout that can only be seen in retrospect...or time lapse photography. It might even look like standing still to some, but it is moving, upward, toward the goal of fruition. Sheng can also speak to strategy, as in chess, where the accumulation of small advantages yields victory, and that is the principle we ride today. The readings also refer to seeing the great man, as an imperative rather than merely a suggestion for increasing fortunes. While in the process of heaping up these steady incremental accretive improvements we must avail ourselves of guidance from the primal yang; building up all these small changes must be lead by the active principle rather than passively letting things happen. This is a principle of early rocketry, where a small amount of force spent on course correction at lift off means miles of difference in reaching the target, where the same amount of force spent just before reaching the target would make almost no difference at all. So building up these small changes must be guided by the activelightconvexyang principle; they must point toward a goal rather than simply passively receiving. Soon it will change.
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The Mawangdui simply says "Crying Pheasant." The others seem to talk a lot about light being darkened or wounded or lessened; it bothers me. One thing the yin/yang set is not is simple "good versus evil." Good and evil are judgments of men not forces of nature. When we like the results of the influence of a force we call it good; we call bad that which we do not like. But yin and yang are above our liking or disliking, above and far far beyond our judgments. Inhale, exhale. Convex, concave. Light, dark. Man, woman. And while it might be fashionable in patriarchal societies like that of Confucius to cast woman as evil, like that of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition of Eve being fooled by the snake, yin and yang are above and far far beyond such petty myths. There is evil aplenty in the lightmaleyangconvexactive principle; there is good aplenty in the darkwomanlyyinconcavepassive principle. And both principles are always waxing, always waning. There are birds which signal the coming of the new day; there are birds that signal the coming of the new night. Neither night nor day is free from evil; neither is bereft of good. Knowing which prevails is the key to working your own magic on the world, to manifesting the good you were meant to bring to the world.
When we had one light line entering the bottom it was a turning point. When that line achieved the center of its trigram we had the army, stored power under strong direction. A new light line at the bottom again was a turning point, and the stored power of the army became manifest in an ordered prospering society. Then those two lines gave way to create one at the top of the inner trigram, giving us modesty, the accomplished sage who need not lord it over anyone. But now we have a new light line entering at the bottom again, this seems to be a constant reversal, and now we have the crying of the pheasant, the sun going behind the earth, the sweet calming coolness of the first inklings of nightfall. The light is lessened, and we can come out and do the things which the scorching sun forbade only hours ago. The light is lessening and it is time to prosper in the energy between night and day. Soon it will change.
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Apologies that the naming conventions shifts; I am using Professor Balkin's book as my primary source, but sometimes end up falling back on the more familiar Willhelm/Baynes.
Modesty, humility, humbleness, but no humiliation; rather the modesty of the great and strong who need not boast, need not brag. The modesty of the zen archer, pulling a 60 pound bow "effortlessly," except they would never use the quotes, such a one would truly be effortless, quiet, modest. Decreases and increases to make things equal, so says the text. But there is an image too from Lao Tzu, of the Ocean ruling the rivers by remaining always below them, and the sage likewise remaining humble before all and thus having the most to give them. This is the spirit moving with you today if you will let it. Soon it will change.
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Where Shi is water dwelling in the earth, this is the next manifestation of that water, no longer a torrential spring bursting forth surprisingly from nowhere but rather having prevailed and now collected into a lake; the image is Kun, earth, the trigram of three open lines, above Tui, the lake. This is the mother energy overseeing the youngest daughter's energy and all the good that can come therefrom. Still we have the theme of subordinate and superior; the standard texts refer to social organization of leaders and followers. But the energetic principle here is one of a kind of culmination after a kind of risky break. The single solidmalelight line that first entered with Fu, returning, took the big step of breaking so the second line could become solidmalelight. But now the yang of the second line is joined by a new yang in the bottom position. We have here the beginnings of organized positive action, as contrasted with the purely passive potential of the starting hexagram of Kun. Soon it will change.
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The Army. Well, this one I don't get quite so well. But the idea of water stored up in the earth I get. And I follow the travel of the first light line into the field of dark. The readings suggest the line can be seen as a general commanding an army, the one solid energy giving structure to the unstructured. Well, I am supposed to be *learning* through this process. And I *am* seeing this is a different order than usually presented. The superior man brings order. Soon it will change.
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returning
coming back
beginning again, beginning anew
the
first light after the dark night
the first life lying under the deep
snow of winter
the solstice, heralding the coldest months
and
the beginning of shorter days, so easy to miss
in the bitter
cold
From our perspective of starting with nothing this represents the first something entering into the void. It is the first word, the first light, the first thought, the first will of God on the formless, the first use of the receptive which can support all things. Returning makes less sense in this context, but starting and conceiving and the beginnings of change apply. On an otherwise uniform circle one can only navigate by arbitrarily setting a mark for reference. Returning is that first mark, from which we can measure off the degrees of the circle...or the remaining 126 hexagrams of the cycle. Where Kun is zero, Fu is one, the first one, the primal one, weakest in that it is unsupported against five lines of zeroemtpyreceiving but strongest in that it can exists thus unsupported despite its solitude. And there really is no opposition; the six yin lines of Kun are thirsty to receive this first line of yang on the way to building Qian in 62 more days. The spirit has just begun to wax. Soon it will change.
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We start with nothing, at zero, empty. This is the greatest power, for here we are ready for anything, ready to receive anything. From the outset it is important to remember that the pairs in Eastern thought, yin and yang, are not polar opposites in eternal conflict as the Judeo-Christian God and Satan, but rather as simply complementary principles, like convex and concave, inhale and exhale, sleep and waking, man and woman. Kun is woman, that which recieves and makes life with what was recieved. Kun is earth, solid, grounded. Kun is supportive, as the Earth supports all things. But Kun is not "female" in the limited Western sense of gender roles; a man cannot be healthy if he cannot receive air through his nose or food through his mouth or light through his eyes. All living things manifest and are manifested in Kun. Be receptive to the power of receptivity. Soon it will change.
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Professor Solum of Legal Theory Blog has re-posted his write up on the Prisoners' Dilemma; my 1996 response to the wrongheadedness of the Serendip implementation is here.
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