Psychic Readings from The
Psychic Internet often feature images drawn from the
I Ching Oracle. To offer supplementary
information about these images for our clients,
and for the public, we have provided this archive
of brief articles.
For general information on
the I Ching Oracle, click here.
The
abstract images of the I Ching Oracle (usually
called "hexagrams") symbolize all of
the related and interacting aspects of reality.
In the following excerpts from actual Psychic Readings, the images of the I Ching
are discussed.
Click here for links to all
of the images.
Decrease
The
period ahead of you, say six months, does NOT
seem to us to offer a prospect for a new
relationship of the kind that you need.
Therefore, it is very important that you
understand the message that comes to you through
the image of Decrease, from our I Ching Oracle.
First, I want to quote an ancient saying that has
been attached to this image. It says,
“Through release of tension something is
sure to be lost. Hence there follows the image of
Decrease.” Tension in this instance refers
to something like muscle tone. What a chore it
may seem constantly to have to maintain our
muscle tone. We land creatures can’t have as
much fun as the dolphin who floats through life,
who has a frolic of a time every day of the year.
We have to lug these bodies about on dry land,
and that isn’t easy. One always has to
maintain a certain degree of tension in the
muscles to keep the skeleton upright.
It’s
the same in our moral and spiritual life. A
certain tension is required – NOT TOO MUCH.
If you tighten the violin string too much it
won’t vibrate and sing. But as you release
the tension, a point comes where you’ve gone
too far, and there is no resistance. In a sense,
you lost your tension and resistance in your last
experience of love, and a certain kind of
diminishment, or decrease, came out of it for
you.
But you
mustn’t think that Decrease is a negative
image in its essence. Something very good also
comes out of the experience you have had, or at
least, it can come out of it if you approach it
in the proper way. In fact, in typical Chinese
fashion, the image of Decrease is more portentous
of good fortune and positive growth than the
image of Increase with which it is paired. In
another old verse, the oracle says, “The
images of Decrease and Increase are the beginning
of flowering and of decline.” Decrease
always follows on Increase, and Increase always
follows on Decrease. People do not often think
about it, but surely it is obvious that we often
have to decrease something in order to provide
the right conditions for growth and progress.
Don’t we prune our trees, and pinch our
tomato plants, in order to bring them to their
fullest potential?
In the
central verse associated with the image of
Decrease, the oracle says, “Thus the
superior person controls her anger and restrains
her instincts.” This refers precisely to the
kind of excessive forcefulness that I described
above. Decrease is all about restraint. It is an
intensely spiritual image that describes the
process of pairing yourself down to essentials.
Your determination to achieve your ideals is the
essential thing – not momentary loneliness,
or frustration at work. Those are superficial
feelings that come and go, and Decrease is all
about removing that frustration from your life.
It may
interest you to know that I have always regarded
the image of Decrease as one of the most
beautiful in the entire collection – an
image that perfectly mirrors the beautiful scene
where we have been able to live and work, a
mountain overlooking Lake Tahoe. As the oracle
says, “At the foot of the mountain, the
lake: the image of Decrease.” I can tell you
that it is a great blessing for you to draw the
image of Decrease in this Reading.
More on Decrease
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