The Mystical Marriage

The I Ching has much to say about the nature of marriage, of how to create the conditions of attraction, and how to maintain permanence in relationships. Right now we are concerned about the allegorical implications of the concept of marriage; for hexagram eleven has a close relationship with the Biblical story of the wedding at Cana.

In hexagram eleven, the yin power, although higher in rank, subordinates itself to the yang power, while the yang power, though stronger, supports and enhances the yin power.

There is much speculation that the marriage at Cana was actually Jesus' own wedding. The church, later, of course, didn't want females to be seen as having been allowed that much power in society, and they did not want to allow any speculation that Jesus may not have actually been "God in the flesh," as that would tend to diminish the religious aspect of their chosen dogmas, and make the story more human, that of a master teaching disciples how to pray, how to meditate, and how to become one with God. They were far more concerned with Religion and control than they were about the deeper allegorical, and very human teachings of the man called Jesus. Nevertheless, there is a very real chance that at the marriage in Cana, Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Whether or not, the real concern is whether this is truly a mystical marriage, or signifies one, and what is involved in that mysticism. It is interesting that during the marriage they ran out of wine, and Jesus did the miracle of turning the water into wine. Water here is a symbol of the ordinary, day to day experiences when we are not in touch with that higher or inner being. The wine can be a symbol of a more mystical state of being, and the drinking of wine can be a symbol for moving into a higher spiritual state where indeed miracles are possible, though perhaps not with immediate activation, but over time. The drinking of wine can in time put us into a semi drunken state that is symbolic of a spiritual state of being in which the hard physical world is seen for the illusion that it is, and the mind can open to truly spiritual influences. The marriage at Cana is a symbol, on one level of the story, for the union of high and low, inner and outer, and man with universal consciousness, which could be termed as God.

"The sovereign I gives his daughter in marriage." The universal subconscious mind gives its daughter, the physical world, to whomsoever he will as that person has drunk of the spiritual wine which allows one to go past the illusionary material world. When we unite yin and yang, "the sovereign is giving his daughter in marriage." In the same way, when a marriage is performed, and the vows are taken, a union is created that is meant to be a merging that creates one person, the union creating an individual in which the parts are greater than the whole. If we understand the concept of union, or of marriage, in its deeper state, we create a harmony that cannot be broken easily.

The idea of a mystical marriage here is further confirmed by the fact that the nuclear trigrams make up the hexagram called "The Marrying Maiden." The "Marrying Maiden" is hexagram fifty four which also happens to be the eleventh hexagram from the final hexagram. When lines two and five change, which are the central lines, the new hexagram becomes sixty three, in which all things are completed, we have only to maintain the connection that it be not lost. When we truly have a mystical marriage, then we experience "After completion," when all things are in harmony, and as the Psalmist said, "He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him."