It's been so long

It's been so long since I have done anything, I have forgotten a good portion about the I Ching that I used to know, and so I am starting over, so to speak from scratch. It is also a long time since I have posted here. Now I have my heart set on publishing a book about the I Ching, but it may take more time, even years, to publish than there is time for, not only because I am getting older, but because war between the United States and Russia is now almost inevitable. We are truly in the end times. Of course, I am sure I have also lost a lot of my readership base since I post so intermittently. I am interested in too many things, and have a hard time keeping up with half of them. Not only am I interested in the I Ching, but in Gnostic and Esoteric Christianity. In Buddhism and Hinduism. In Taoism and Tai Chi Chuan. In astrology and to a lesser extent numerology and gematria. It is so unfortunate that as humans we only have so much time because all of those subjects are extremely important and they need to be integrated, but how is that possible?

So, in the first line of hexagram one, a nine in the first, it says that a great man is still unrecognized. On one level the I Ching is talking about itself. The I Ching itself is in a sense the great man, or at least, the great teacher, the great law giver, the great dispenser of wisdom. And how much of that do we recognize even if we think we already know the I Ching. At the same time all of us probably feel that we have an area of expertise that goes unrecognized by and large. And we probably feel so rightly. For how can we get our message out to others? No matter how great or how valuable our message is the majority of the people will not be able to get to your message as they have their own area of interest, and are limited as we all are, by time. It is only when we start making effects in the outer world, ( the nine in the second of hexagram one) that people sit up and take notice. When what we produce shows itself to be of benefit. Therefore we have to be patient. And we have to study and constantly increase our own knowledge base in order to pass that knowledge, the part which is of real value anyway, to others.

If we are unrecognized, then our message is not ready to go out to the world. And in the same way, if the value of the I Ching is not recognized, it cannot be properly used. The I Ching is a deep well. It has a reservoir of knowledge and wisdom that cannot possibly be fully tapped even in several lifetimes. As such, it cannot be fully recognized even if it is partially recognized. We must each do our own work. We must 'chop wood and carry water.' And only when our necessities are provided for can we sit and take the time to intuit deep wisdom. But until the depths of the I Ching is recognized, it is only a well where one, "shoots fish." The first line of each hexagram represents a beginning step. But in the first hexagram the beginning step is the most beginning of all steps because at first we have not even recognized that there is a step to be taken. As such no important actions can be taken here because we are not even aware of our situation, and any step we take may lead to the chasm, (hexagram twenty nine). So here we do not act. Because any action would be born of naivete, and we can be destroyed by the hidden dragon.