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◈ Primary hexagram: 28—Rigidity.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Rigidity.

Lines

Image created from the lines

In our inner being, line 6, we accept the activity of change that is available in our circumstances (line 1 is yin), but our intuitive feeling in line 2 is inactive and so is our outer world in line 3; identity is not interested in changing any of this (lines 4 and 5 are yang). This is a picture of stress where there is inner pressure for change but no response from the outer, manifesting self. It is too still, too rigid, has no flexibility.

Image created from the trigrams

The energy emerges formed and structured by the trigram Sun, is inactive throughout its manifestation as Ch’ien both for identity and the outer world, and has just a hope of change in Tui for our inner being. Here is a flow only at the very borders of our awareness, everything manifest is held rigid and cannot move, yet the activity of the inner is pushing it to move. When rigid structures are forced to change shape something gives way suddenly.

The Chinese Oracle

> Excess.

> The ridgepole sags.

> Movement is favourable.

> Success.

Comments

We recognize excess by the stress it creates, without stress excess is felt as abundance. So here we are in a situation of stress pictured as the ridge of a roof about to give way; the ridge is where the two sides of the roof meet, and the roof is what separates us from the elements—a picture of our duality which “protects” identity from being engulfed in the great unknown reality. This “protection” is threatened, and keeping the polarities of our choices apart is threatened when they become excessive, when we or our society becomes too polarized for the flow of manifestation to happen, for the flow of manifestation is interchange between polarities.

Manifestations

The pattern

From the inner there is no flow.

Action is all inactivity,

Making return a beginning.

For humans

When firm and inflexible,

the only way of moving is to break.

When so gentle it changes nothing,

the only way of living is to die

into a beginning.

In nature

The wood is too ripe for budding,

too rigid for change

until it returns to earth.

In forms we make

No longer supported, must fall.

Falling, finds support.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yang — life force shows less change

The stress in this tao is created by the force of the life energy from the inner acting upon rigid form in our lives (in ourselves). Here the activity is lessened and the stress limited.

> Spreading white rushes underneath.

> No error.

This is protection by the inner being, rushes are put under something to soften the contact, they are white because there is no selection in this action (white light is all-coloured light).

❧

Line 2 goes yin — intuitive feeling more active

Here the rigidity itself is loosening, we are starting to feel the life force again and this is the beginning of new feeling.

> The wizened willow tree

> puts out new shoots.

> An old man has a young wife.

> All is favourable.

The old finds a way to flow again, and it was the lack of flow that caused the excess of pressure.

❧

Line 3 goes yin — outer world changes more

In this tao identity has excessively structured duality; to act out from this projects the stress into our circumstances.

> The ridgepole sags to breaking point.

> Misfortune.

The ridgepole giving way is like our giving out the stress from within us, we give way to it and the consequences to our environment are unfortunate.

❧

Line 4 goes yin — accepting the outer state more

What we are accepting here in this moving line is the inactivity of our outer world, so there is less stress because we are not struggling with our rigidity. This does not change the rigidity but makes it more manageable and may mask the basic problem.

> The ridgepole has support.

> Good fortune.

> Reliance on weak support

> is unfortunate.

Reliance on masking the stresses we have would be a weak support.

❧

Line 5 goes yin — more awareness of intuition

Becoming aware of intuitive feeling that is inactive is to be more aware but not to have more feeling.

> The wizened willow flowers.

> The old woman takes a husband.

> No praise. No blame.

This is widening awareness, opening up, flowering; then old feeling (from memory) comes to thought, to consciousness. These do not change things, the flowering does not change the tree and the old woman cannot have children, in other words there is no new growth.

❧

Line 6 goes yang — our inner being accepts less

Here we give up the struggle and become unaware of the activity pushing us towards change. When we become unaware of forces they overtake us.

> Fording a river, the water rises over his head.

> Misfortune. No error.

To give way to the flow is no error, only uncomfortable; it overcomes the rigidity and so changes us.

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