I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe
Yi Jing, Oracle of the Moon
Bì, hexagram 22
Flower Power
Beauty is Qi showing. When life-energy is present,
colors become living and warm, proportions become like the golden
section, balance will be created. All coming from out the inner life. A
beautiful face or a rich fur, lustrous leaves and flowers, a splendid
stream or forest or landscape, they all talk about their inherent
health. Energy and beauty belong together.
Bi is the manifestation of the spirit of life. Thunder - electricity - in the earth wakes life energy up. Seeds wake up, growth accelerates. Life spirit is visible as beauty.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
< Leonardo da Vinci>
Bì: The character represents a plant in a pot, which means brilliant, ornate, to honor. Pronounced 'ben' it is
ardent, energetic. Truly "flower power". At left a small-seal version.
BÌ: bright, decoration,
brilliant, luminous, ornate, to honor,
adorning. Pronounced bēn: ardent,
brave, energetic, strenuous, to forge ahead,
to blossom out, zest. Pronounced fén:
great, defeated, and loan for 'to express, to make visible'. Also in an inscription used for a kind of sacrifice.
Decoration is not negative. A person of merit or a hero is 'decorated', the emperor wears his decoration: his regalia. But like every good thing, when it is hollow or shallow, it has little or no value.
The trigrams: Fire below Mountain.
Fire at the foot of the mountain: appearance.
The noble one has insight in many people's affairs without daring to judge in legal cases.
The energy of 22 is inside. Important is the outward appearance of this energy, and Yi talks about where it is visible in daily life. The hexagram is not about the appearances themselves, but rather an advice how to use them, or recognize them, how to be led by the inner value and not to stumble over the apprearances themselves.
Everything which happens has an expression, an appearance. Not necessarily beautiful, not always according to reality, but it does tell a kind of story. The man who looks trustworthy and then rolls your wallet, the girl who behaves badly and is inside just lost and insecure, the horse with a lame foot – is it seriously injured or does it only need a new shoe… Every day, maybe every moment, we have to judge something. We have to be careful not to go by appearances only, how useful they might be, but to see the reality behind them. Appearances tell about the inside, or they can obscure what really goes on.
So 22 has two sides: one is to give things their right appearance, or how you present yourself or your opinion in such a way, that the other person can accept and understand it. The other is to look carefully at appearances of others and "everything".