I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe

  Yi Jing, Oracle of the Moon

Hexagram 54

Guī Mèi, Marrying maiden

  Make the place where you live to be your place, even if it was not your own choice. And make yourself an essential part of this place and the people in it. So you belong. Your life is the entire life. If the grass is greener somewhere else, then you let your life get lost. And the people you live with, lose you.
  Make thís grass green, fill in your place, give coordinates to your life. An unlimited life does not make you exist, but a limited one makes a big presence.
  Whatever you do, "be" what you do, live in its center and embrace it. It is the advice of the old Indian: if you want to hunt deer, then think deer.

Hex.54

  GUI: the character at the top. Its meaning is 'return to your home', like the maiden who goes to the home which will be hers. It is often used for dying: returning home. But there is more to it: go back to, return, return sth. to, put in sb.'s charge, come together, belong. It is what makes the family of man to a family.
  The part at left (1) is mound, or rolling, waving, or it might be some ceremonial object, but the meaning is not certain. It can also mean buttocks or testes, it is also part of 'shi', hex.7, and there its meaning is 'military'. Later a foot was added (2), for the meaning 'return'. Its right part, fu (3), looks like a broom, but its meaning is 'lady of nobility', so probably it is some kind of ornamental attribute. Maybe indicating her rank or descent.
  It gives a nice image for 'marrying': a procession from her home to his, he with his attributes and she with hers.
   GUI: return, go to, bring to, go as a bride to the new home, die.  MEI: the left side is Wei4: (3 and 4) a picture of a luxuriant tree. Its original meaning was 'abundant', and it is also the 8th Earthly Branch (late summer, animal is sheep). Now its meaning is 'not yet' and my opinion is, that it indicated the time of year when everything was at its maximum development, but fruit were not yet ripe. Also a very good description of a young girl who is almost a woman. The right side is a kneeling woman (5), sometimes with emphasis on the head (6).
  MEI: younger sister. A secondary wife is also called thus.

  The trigrams: Thunder above Lake:
  Thunder over the lake, a maiden marries. The noble one, through the eternity of the end, understands the transitory.

  Inner Lake: this is about me and my (own) social relations and ways to deal with the human world. It is a happy trigram, because this kind of contact is meant to be nice. But I will have to make it that way, it isn't like that by default. Lake is the place where happiness can be found - if you work at it.

  Outer trigram Thunder. Here things might germinate, there is a huge lot of potential. Lake is a good place for Thunder, a fertile and supportive place where seeds can start growing.

  Ok, so where I am now, I can help with that. Get those seeds and make them grow. I am the new wife who is a fertile lake for the thunder of her husband. In China (and lots of other cultures) thunder is a symbol of impregnating.

  Or simply the one who helps something grow by dedicating herself to it. Anything, an idea, a firm, a work of art, a play. It is a creative hexagram. But you have to forget your own ego, and give it your full dedication, if you want to create something which lasts for a long time.

More about hex.53 and 54

last update: 01.12.2020

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