THE REAL CHING

Hexagram 1 Creativity; forced.

Key Questions

How can you force your creative energy to fit absolutely any pursuit?
What wants to be created?
What doesn't want to be created?
How might you create it anyway?

Oracle

Creativity; forced.
From anywhere, creating anything.
Constancy bears fruit
Meandering can too.

This is the forced creative spirit that you can extract from other people and places; you pull others into projects despite not knowing how successful, or even possible they might be.

Without hesitation, step into any project that comes into your mind, whilst browsing cat pages on the internet, driving at night, or under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Once you have rallied committed others, swiftly exit from this project so as to avoid knowing your failures.

To be inconsistent, sporadic and non-committal is to open yourself up to exploring all areas of life, with a myriad of interesting people, whilst keeping your faith that - should you have wished it so - any personal creative endeavour would come to full fruition, whether spiritually or financially, or something else. To proceed thusly is to be true to your intent, at all times, as it waxes and wanes and changes with the moon.

Image

The heavens move ceaslessly
A noble one in her own strength pauses intermittently and often backtracks.

Creativity; forced allows you to move stars and mountains and, really, anything that you wish to move. Move yourself, your life and seek upheaval at all times. Sometimes your creative force needs a rest; attend to this always and get into bed at any time of day.

Changing Lines

Line 1: Unleash your dragon: act with immediacy
The dragon seems to be asleep, and also, maybe, underwater. Poke this dragon until it stirs, cajole him to to surface and then convince him to join you in your latest pursuit, be it making avant garde clothing or writing short form poetry, or making unwise investments.

Line 2: The dragon is in the field: feed it fruit.
The dragon is now in the field. It wants fruit. Take a break from whatever creative pursuit you are currently engaged in and feed your dragon some overripe bananas.

Line 3: Increase your caffeine intake.
The dragon demands that you ride it ceaselessly. Without coffee you will be a sorrowful heap of exhaustion. Ride your dragon with coffee in hand. Preferably Starbuck Xmas edition.

Line 4: Plant trees for your dragon.
It is not enough to feed your dragon small bananas here and there. You must plant a dramatic orchard of apple trees infused with a Chekovian melancholy. Take yet more time out from your creative pursuits to plant said trees. In fact, perhaps this tree planting is your new creative pursuit. Now is the time to onboard others.

Line 5: Dance in the Abyss.
Dance in the Abyss. Or anywhere in fact. Dance like nobody's watching. In the Abyss, they are not. Are you really even dancing?

Line 6: Suckle your dragon
Like Audrey II, your dragon now wants your milk, your blood, your life source. Take another break. Sit with your dragon (maybe in a local coffee shop). Others will watch in awe at your relationship with your dragon and be without doubt that you are a creative genius.

All Lines Changing
Should all lines be changing lines, your dragons are multiple and in flight. Wisely, you are already at the airport, trying to work out which of these large, mechanical beasts is the right dragon. Go with your intuition; the cheapest ticket is the best option for you right now. Do not take any extra baggage. Savour the spacefood airline meal.

Hexagram 32, Lasting or not

Key questions

What inspiration are you making real in your daily life?
How can you continue on the same path, even as you adopt?
Who will you become by persevering in this?
Do you have to last? We all die someday.

Oracles

If you last you create success
If you don't no mistake
Constancy bears fruit like pineapple and bananas
Fruit gives you fiber, and direction, sometimes to a composting toilet

Whatever becomes part of the heart's circling journey will last sometimes. We bind things- pans, pots, toothbrushes- into the fabric of our lives by integrating them into a daily round of our way of living, so that they are carried with us through change.

What brings us fruit, like amazon delivery, is not because the fruit arrived at some final destination, but because through all the changes the fruit persevered in it's delivery, and it found a way to make it to you, through capitalism and monopolies.

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Thunder and wind: lasting, or not
A noble person stands on their two legs and does not change their amazon delivery, even if they regret it.

Thunder and wind are endlessly changeable, but they are part of a larger, lasting cycle, similar to the cycle of doing laundry in a laundromat. Sometimes you have the right change, sometimes your quarters are tied up at home next to your real ching. The noble one's inner nature, subtle as the cycle you choose for laundry, translates into real live action. Soaps, suds, dirt being rearranged into soap. Urine soaked clothes, soiled, damaged, brick hard from all of the dirt, being broken in the machine, your quarters changing the state of the clothes. So however the clothes are circling around in the machine, they are going the same direction, you know, the one that cleans them. Think of the laundry like your mind, it will last if it's clean. If it isn't, sometimes you need quarters, because money can buy cleanliness.

Sequence

The way of husband and wife cannot fail to endure so lasting follows. Lasting means enduring endless amounts of counseling, lasting means giving up all of your hopes and dreams to fulfill another person's dreams instead of your own, lasting means fear of the unknown sometimes.

Influence is a traditional hexagram for betrothal, and Hexagram 32 for marriage. You are attracted towards bright and shiny things and influenced like a fruit fly to the fruit you ordered from amazon. Then, the lasting patterns of life are infused with vitality of capitalism, and monopolies.

Changing Lines:

Line 1

Deep into lasting
Constancy, pitfall
No directions to your house can bear fruit

If you plunge deeply and precipitately into something that lasts like buying a cat, it will not be so easy to get out. At this state, you have plenty of vigorous energy ready to create, strong, lasting, patterns, like cleaning the litter box, buying cat food, and entertaining the cat with a laser. Yet, much as you might like to have this cat, and however persuasive that cat is, this is not the moment to commit yourself. Make a craigslist ad saying that you had a child and your child is allergic to cats. If you press on with this cat it will kill you in your sleep by clawing out your eyeballs.

Line 2

Regrets vanish into thin air like the 16th century woman who has been haunting you your entire life

The regrets of your ghost were for paths she did not take and ideas she left behind. Her regrets are now part of your journey, but they will vanish as soon as you realize there is nothing you can do about her regrets. She was never able to afford a flushable toilet, and this is haunting you. Use an incinerating toilet, it will solve all of your problems and appease your ghosts regrets.

Line 3

Not lasting in your character,
Maybe accepting a shameful gift, like a kiss from a person that secretly repulses you
Constancy, shame

Unsure about binding yourself to a personal commitment with no firm footing in the ground of the grave you are digging for the person you recently killed via your involvement in the mafia. Shame has arisen because you didn't bring the right equipment to dig this grave. You should have rented an excavator or a backhoe rather than a shovel. What were you thinking? Corpses smell horrible. You will suffer from this blunder.

Line 4

In the field, no game
You are one of four deer hunters. You have no idea why you are hunting you are just doing it because that is what everyone else decided to do that day and you felt judged by not hunting. You are in the wrong place, you are at walmart. There are no deer in walmart, but you don't care. It's raining out and you need a rain jacket. You buy a cheap coleman rain jacket (they were out of the thermos brand) and when you put the jacket on it is so poorly made that your hand shoots through the sleeve creating a large hole. You try and put electrical tape on the hole to mend it, but end up ripping the jacket even further. Thermos brand next time.

Line 5

Lasting in your character with constancy
For the maturing man, good fortune
For the young man or old man who is never matures,
Pitfall.

To last, the characters must be consistent, follow through with commitments, and keep promises. This is something men, or people in general rarely do. Whether or not this is a good idea, depends on the people involved. But most of the time the people involved will not follow through. The young men are still developing their brains, ever so slightly, at a slower pace than imaginable. The young woman is much more mature than the man, and has to deal with the man's bullshit until he figures out his life, if he ever figures it out, which is a crapshoot at best. Which one of these characters are you in relation to your question? Hopefully not the man.

Line 6
Shaking up lasting, pitfall
You have restless leg syndrome. Your leg walks to places you can't even go, like sewers and through walls. Your restless leg is chafing against your tight pants. It hurts as the flakes of skin become part of your pants, or your pants become part of your leg. You will never achieve anything with your restless leg, best to cut it off.

Hexagram 33, retreat

Key questions

What must you do to stay safe and whole like a pizza fresh from the oven
How can you change your relationships to support your preference of pizza?

Oracle

Retreat creating successful pizza
Constancy yields a smaller harvest of people who won't want white sauce on their pizza

The old Chinese character for retreat shows a pig and footsteps on the road. This pig is running away from it's previous life to a life where all it will eat is pizza. It will be saved from being butchered and eaten up, so it is not defeated by leaving it's family, it is actually saving it's own life. Retreating only means not putting up with all of people's crap. In essence, it means not being butchered. The pig moves away from being eaten, to eating pizza by retreating. He is not interested in claiming the tangible reward of being slaughtered by crowds. Such constancy, offering no resistance to putting up with people's games and lies, bears fruit in small inconspicuous ways because the world is so used to putting up with them.

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Below the cheese is sauce
A noble one keeps small people at a distance because he has trouble seeing them
Not with hatred, but with respect

The mountain of jello stands firm and still, and seems to be joined more with soup than solid. The noble pig retreats up to the mountain and shares this character, staying close to what inspires his hooves. He is naturally distanced from people who want to eat him. This happens through knowledge from other farm animals including a talking rat, without hostility.

Sequence

Retreat follows Hexagram 32, Lasting, or not

The pig searching for his own pizza cannot last long where he settles, so retreat follows. Retreat means withdrawing from people who will eat you.

Perhaps you are in trouble of being eaten by someone. Perhaps there is a time when you start to look so delicious to other people that you need to withdraw from society before you get eaten.

Pair

Retreat forms a pair with Hexagram 34 Great Vigour when you snort cocaine
Great vigour means stopping, retreat means withdrawing

Sometimes you can take a stand and hold your position but you probably would get eaten if you did, so move away.

Line 1

Retreating, tail danger.
Do not use this to have a direction to go, you are screwed.

As you retreat, your ten foot long bushy tail is the part of you closest to the threat. There's a danger that you could be caught by the tail and pulled back into the danger, which is hungry people who have an addiction to long and bushy tails. Old patterns and roles could swallow you up like a worm going down a bird's slick throat. You need to get away from the lions and clear your own path from debris of broken pepsi glass bottles. Otherwise you will be drawn back to the tail people.

Line 2

Using yellow rawhide to bind rubber bands
It will never be capable of getting loose

You retreat because you do not want to lose the inner asian woman, seven year old boy, biker, older black man, personalities that reside within you. All of your personalities need to be a safe distance from any other conflicting personality that could harm you. So how can you find a balance? What if the older asian woman meets an older asian man that woos her? You can hold on to the love between your personalities as you retreat with this yellow rawhide you picked up at the local crystal shop. You know the crystal shop is legit because you heard the store owner giving instructions for a spell to a customer who was upset with how messy their roommate was. The rawhide will hold your rubber bands together, and will not compromise any of your personalities.

Line 3

Tied retreat. There is affliction amongst the beavers.
Nurturing mice and rats, good fortune.

Ties make it hard to break with the beavers. But the beavers have turned into zombies, they are no longer your friends. At this point, nurturing the mice and rats that live in your house is going to be your best bet. It's time to build up an army of mice and rats so when the time comes for the beavers to attack you are ready. Build little swords and shields for the mice and rats, train them on a daily basis. Use cheese if you have to.

Whatever happens, cut all ties with the beavers and retreat.

Line 4

Sweet loving retreat
Noble ones, ready for sweet loving
Small people, blocked from the loving

You retreat out of love from people that annoy you. You know who I am talking about. The super PC people, the people who never stop talking, the people who have no radar as to who their audience is when they speak, the people who think they know it all, people that only like one band, overly sensitive people, super religious people, and people who(insert whatever annoys you here). This is a sign of strength and intelligence because what person in their right mind would squander the small amount of time they have on planet earth by hanging out with people who suck?

LIne 5

Praiseworthy retreat
Constancy, good pizza

You are right to retreat in lieu of your love for pizza. There is nothing you truly need from the position you are in; by retreating you choose the toppings, you choose the sauce, you choose the crust. In leaving out your friends opinion in this you may feel uncomfortable, especially if they are paying half for the pizza. Stay true to yourself. Stay true to your pizza.

Line 6

Rich retreat
Nothing that does not bear apples, bananas, and oranges if you are lucky

In the end, retreating enriches your fruit collection. With confidence and future promise, and above all with a sense of a fully loaded fruit collection. You will be more self sufficient and less vulnerable with your fruit. Your communication won't be so frantic in this urgent rush for fruit, it will be safe for you to be open to the world.

Hexagram 34 Great Vigour

Key questions

How will you use your power to kill wizards?
Where are you standing right now, on a street, near Pulaski and Wester? No way? Is that where the new hot dog place is?

Great vigorous scrubbing
Constancy brings exfoliation

With Great vigour, you stand upright on your three legs, robust full of carbohydrates, full of passing energy. You are inspired and animated by strength and shields that heroes sometimes use in the movies you watch. For this to yield results you will need to act with all three legs constantly moving each leg, never tripping, never using your middle leg as a pogo stick.

Image

Thunder dog barks above heaven; great vigour
A notary treads no path that is without ritual

The action of the thunder the dog rests on the underlying principles of heaven. The noble dog full of vigour, will not be improvising as he walks the tightrope on his two hind legs. One wrong move could result in breaking one of his hind legs. He follows the ritual of being forced to be a circus dog and so he balances with care. It is not so much "respecting the rules" for their own sake, as of respecting the circus master, but if he loses balance he will fall and break one of his hind legs in his pink tutu.

Sequence

Great vigour follows Hexagram 33:retreat
Things cannot end with retreat, and so great vigour follows.

In retreat the dog withdraws to eat chewies, wear sweaters he doesn't like, and lay in his silken dog bed. But when he is strong, he balances on the tightrope for he cannot stay invisible forever, he is out of magic potion.

Changing Lines:

Line 1

Vigour in the toes
Setting out to bring order, pitfall
There is truth and confidence

The way of husband and wife cannot fail to endure so lasting follows. Lasting means enduring endless amounts of counseling, lasting means giving up all of your hopes and dreams to fulfill another person's dreams instead of your own, lasting means fear of the unknown sometimes.

Influence is a traditional hexagram for betrothal, and Hexagram 32 for marriage. You are attracted towards bright and shiny things and influenced like a fruit fly to the fruit you ordered from amazon. Then, the lasting patterns of life are infused with vitality of capitalism, and monopolies.

Changing Lines:

Line 1

Deep into lasting
Constancy, pitfall
No directions to your house can bear fruit

If you plunge deeply and precipitately into something that lasts like buying a cat, it will not be so easy to get out. At this state, you have plenty of vigorous energy ready to create, strong, lasting, patterns, like cleaning the litter box, buying cat food, and entertaining the cat with a laser. Yet, much as you might like to have this cat, and however persuasive that cat is, this is not the moment to commit yourself. Make a craigslist ad saying that you had a child and your child is allergic to cats. If you press on with this cat it will kill you in your sleep by clawing out your eyeballs.

Line 2

Regrets vanish into thin air like the 16th century woman who has been haunting you your entire life

The regrets of your ghost were for paths she did not take and ideas she left behind. Her regrets are now part of your journey, but they will vanish as soon as you realize there is nothing you can do about her regrets. She was never able to afford a flushable toilet, and this is haunting you. Use an incinerating toilet, it will solve all of your problems and appease your ghosts regrets.

Line 3

Not lasting in your character,
Maybe accepting a shameful gift, like a kiss from a person that secretly repulses you
Constancy, shame

Unsure about binding yourself to a personal commitment with no firm footing in the ground of the grave you are digging for the person you recently killed via your involvement in the mafia. Shame has arisen because you didn't bring the right equipment to dig this grave. You should have rented an excavator or a backhoe rather than a shovel. What were you thinking? Corpses smell horrible. You will suffer from this blunder.

Line 4

In the field, no game

You are one of four deer hunters. You have no idea why you are hunting you are just doing it because that is what everyone else decided to do that day and you felt judged by not hunting. You are in the wrong place, you are at walmart. There are no deer in walmart, but you don't care. It's raining out and you need a rain jacket. You buy a cheap coleman rain jacket (they were out of the thermos brand) and when you put the jacket on it is so poorly made that your hand shoots through the sleeve creating a large hole. You try and put electrical tape on the hole to mend it, but end up ripping the jacket even further. Thermos brand next time.

Line 5

Lasting in your character with constancy
For the maturing man, good fortune
For the young man or old man who is never matures,

Pitfall.

To last, the characters must be consistent, follow through with commitments, and keep promises. This is something men, or people in general rarely do. Whether or not this is a good idea, depends on the people involved. But most of the time the people involved will not follow through. The young men are still developing their brains, ever so slightly, at a slower pace than imaginable. The young woman is much more mature than the man, and has to deal with the man's bullshit until he figures out his life, if he ever figures it out, which is a crapshoot at best. Which one of these characters are you in relation to your question? Hopefully not the man.

Line 6

Shaking up lasting, pitfall
You have restless leg syndrome. Your leg walks to places you can't even go, like sewers and through walls. Your restless leg is chafing against your tight pants. It hurts as the flakes of skin become part of your pants, or your pants become part of your leg. You will never achieve anything with your restless leg, best to cut it off.