I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe
For the meaning of Eminent - expansion. Harvest - determination click HERE
'Woman power. No benefit of grasping the woman' might be: Woman magnificent or: The queen is a magnificent woman. See the excellent article in 'The Oracle' Vol.2, nr.11 (Sept.2000). Another meaning of 'power' zhuang: 30 years old - too old to marry.
Line 2 and 4. Fish is also a name for fetus, and the wrapping can also be a womb. The Bin rite is the ceremony where a new wife is introduced to her husbands family and formally accepted into the household (Marshall, Mandate of Heaven). According to Marshall bao is a willow-wand fishtrap. When a fish is caught: good luck. If not: ominous.
Line 3. 'Might be the journey had an inferior start', is another translation for: One moves haltingly moreover. The character 'moreover' is an ancestral tablet or a roadside sacrifice before a journey.
Line 5. Different translations are possible: With a willow basket and melon, or: willow-wrapped melon. The wilow-wrapped melon: good conception of healthy fetus. 'Fall' or a meteorite. Composition from heaven: in Taoist myths a writing falling - a divine inspiration. In SanShan a beautiful one too: 'He uses willow branches to carry melons. He conceals his brilliant qualities. He possesses what drops to him from heaven'.
Line 6. 'Horn' can be aggressiveness or defensiveness, blowing one's horn, or a phallus-symbol. Hex.44 and 28 both mention the willow, a symbol of spring, the season of erotic awakenings.
More about hexagrams
43 and 44
Back to hex.44
Back to the story of hex.44