Men and The Goddess

As I’ve been doing for some time now I cast an I Ching Gua just after the New Moon (and we had one, in Libra, this past Friday at 8:34 pm Eastern Time). These hexagrams, or gua, always seem to come up pointing in the right direction for the time. I especially find this to be true when I look back over the past month and reread the meaning of the gua cast for that month on the previous New Moon. You may want to do this for yourself, and look back on the I Ching I cast when the New Moon was in Leo last month. Then review the past month to see if any of the direction the gua indicated actually had a bearing on the way the month unfolded.

But now let’s look ahead to this remaining time for us in Libra and what the next four weeks ahead might have in store. Here is the hexagram I cast:

This is Xiao Guo, which means Little Exceeding according to Master Alfred Huang in his The Complete I Ching. This is composed of two trigrams, zhen, or Thunder over Gen, or Mountain. My first reaction to this picture is that the sound of thunder can be dampened or muffled in the mountains. And in keeping with the picture the meaning of this gua points to a time of reduced activity, a time of holding back and reserving energy for a more auspicious time.

I also like the image offered in the Decision of this gua written by King Wen; here is part of the decision:

The flying bird leaves a message;
Not appropriate to ascend,
Appropriate to descend,
Great good fortune!

It is said the gua resembles a flying bird with the middle yang lines as the body and the upper and lower pair of yin lines as the wings.

So the message here is “take it easy.” Don’t over-do anything at this time. This does not mean to not take any action. But when you do be cautious of over-doing it. Or, extending the image of the flying bird, don’t fly too high; there is good fortune in flying low, maybe “under the radar.”

And we are in the astrological sign of Libra, in this month of October between harvest time and winter. It is a time of balance. In the Celtic cycle we are approaching the end of the year when activities begin to wind down for the long rest during winter months. It is an auspicious time to begin to “muffle” outer activity and begin to take time for inner reflection.

This gua is also about “the middle way.” It advises to neither over-do nor under-do. I look at this as the Buddha Way, the path between the extremes of over-indulgence and excessive asceticism.

There were no changing lines when I cast this gua. It is a whole month of “little exceeding.” So, I plan to take it easy, to reflect on the middle way and assess how things stand in my life. This time between seasons as the year winds to a close may be an opportune time to shift gears and begin the inner work of the long, dark winter months ahead.