Oracle for the week of 9.20.21
The I Ching is a book of Chinese wisdom, the accumulated experience of over 2,500 years of diviners and sages, and beyond that of unimaginably ancient oral traditions; it’s a guide to an ethical life, a manual for rulers, and an oracle of one’s personal future and the future of the state. The book of divination is based on eight symbolic trigrams and sixty-four hexagrams.
The oracles have been offering people help and wise, genial guidance for generations. It will tell you what challenges and opportunities you are likely to face if you take a particular path, and how you can negotiate the obstacles you meet. This is the opposite of 'fortune telling'. Being told what will happen, as if your own choices had nothing to do with the outcome, is deeply disempowering. The I Ching tells seekers what effects their choices will have, and helps them to develop strategies to achieve their goals.
One needs to apply wisdom received in this post to upcoming events as they unfold during the coming week. The developing oracles will be posted for your convenience every week on Sunday evening.
Shih
The Army
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THE JUDGMENT
THE ARMY. The army needs perseverance
And a strong man.
Good fortune without blame.
An army is a mass that needs organization in order to become a fighting force. Without strict discipline nothing can be accomplished, but this discipline must not be achieved by force. It requires a strong man who captures the heart of the people and awakens their enthusiasm. In order that he may develop his abilities he needs the complete confidence of his ruler, who must entrust him with full responsibility as long as the war lasts. But war is always a dangerous thing and brings with it destruction and devastation. Therefore, it should not be resorted to rashly but, like a poisonous drug, should be used as a last recourse.
The justifying cause of a war, and clear and intelligible war aims, ought to be explained to the people by an experienced leader. Unless there is a quite definite war aim to which the people can consciously pledge themselves, the unity and strength of conviction that lead to victory will not be forthcoming. But the leader must also look to it that the passion of war and the delirium of victory do not rise to unjust acts that will not meet with general approval. If justice and perseverance are the basis of action, all goes well.
THE IMAGE
In the middle of the earth is water:
The image of THE ARMY.
Thus the superior man increases his masses
By generosity toward the people.
Ground water is invisibly present within the earth. In the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends he goes back to his plow. He who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.
THE LINES
Six in the third place means:
Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon.
Misfortune.
Here we have a choice of two explanations. One points to defeat because someone other than the chosen leader interferes with the command; the other is similar in its general meaning, but the expression “carries corpses in the wagon” is interpreted differently. At burials and at sacrifices to the dead it was customary in China for the deceased to whom the sacrifice was made to be represented by a boy in the family, who sat in the dead man’s place and was honored as his representative. On the basis of this custom the text is interpreted as meaning that a “corpse boy” is sitting in the wagon, or in other words, that authority is not being exercised by the proper leaders but has been usurped by others. Perhaps the whole difficulty clears up if it is inferred that there has been an error in copying. The character fan meaning “all,” may have been misread as shih, which means “corpse.” Allowing for this error the meaning would be that if the multitude assumes leadership of the army, (rides the wagon), misfortune will ensue.