Hexagram 18 -- HEALING
Healing Weight, by Daniel MinterHexagram 18 is known by many names: Work On What Has Been Spoiled -- Decay -- Regeneration -- Corruption -- Addressing Neglect -- Restoring -- Tending -- Convalescing -- Needing Repair -- Undoing A Bad Legacy ...
I awoke this morning with a poem in mind, and a need to move. A need to de-silt the river of mocking thoughts and habits; an urge to scale away old stupidities that revel in their own dead weight.
As always, the oracle spoke to me. "Mary Oliver," it said; "Wild Geese." Here is Mary's poem:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Comments
I just found your blog via "Clarity's" post. I love the image you used here for Hexagram 18. I searched your blog for an email because I wanted to write more to you but can't find one so hope you read this. I was delighted to see that you listed my old, "I Ching Meditations" that is on my web site. I have been re-working this for the umpteenth time and have posted it here in a Blogger blog at:
http://ichingmeditations.blogspot.com/
I just added your link to that Blog. I am in process of learning how to blog and in the Fall plan to move that page - will let you know. When you get a chance check out what I've been doing with it. Will I live long enough to finish this? I hope. I have so much more to do.
I see that we both include ourselfs with a cat. I worship cats.
Nice to see you here.
Adele
Thank you for this poem and the image. It's not the first time a Mary Oliver poem softened my heart. Probably not the last, either. Thank you.