A MOVIE WITHOUT END
chapter 1 and 2. INITIATING AND RESPONSE #1
THE IMAGE: twice the trigram of Heaven. Heaven above and Heaven below.
THE IMAGE: twice the trigram of Earth. Earth above and Earth below.
The Book of Change contains 64 chapters. Each odd-numbered chapter forms a pair with the subsequent even-numbered chapter. Starting with 1. Initiating and 2. Response. Together, they form the blueprint of the incessant undulation of change that resonates throughout the rest of the book.
The hexagrams of the first two chapters - 1. Initiating and 2. Response - are each other's mirror images. One consists of six continuous yang lines, the other of six interrupted yin lines. They are both perfectly symmetrical and represent the purest of the pure. Nothing less than immaculate. But does pure actually exist in reality? 100% chocolate? Way too strong. 100 per cent commitment? Really? Never a daydream? 100% made in the Netherlands? Do you believe that? 100% enjoyment? But without the thought that one day this enjoyment too will be over.
In any case, the pure irresistibly attracts its pure opposite, which is then considered pollution. Without a lid, the next day the salt in the keg is wet. Generosity and kindness evoke distrust. High fever makes you sweat and chill. 100% authentic turns out to be full of imports. On closer inspection, native and non-native always turn out to be completely intertwined.
The hexagrams of chapters 1 and 2 do not describe absolute and independent values. The book in no way attempts to delineate separately the creative capacity and the supporting matrix described therein. Their proposed purity is too unstable for that because, as in any true love affair, they yearn to absorb the opposite, embodied precisely by that unattainable other. The text of the first two - essential - chapters recounts salt in relation to water, and water in relation to salt, dissolution versus contraction, and the idea-fixe of purity.
Everything starts with an idea, in the beginning sounds a word, it is waiting for an initial spark - but without a response, that initiation is meaningless and there is no progress at all. It therefore makes no sense to study Chapter 1 separately from Chapter 2. This fact sets the tone for the subsequent 31 pairs of opposites, complements and shapeshifts in the Book of Change. Each two successive chapters should be read simultaneously, one with the left eye, the other with the right.
Besides the mirroring of the six yang lines of Chapter 1 in the six yin lines of Chapter 2, there are 6 more hexagrams that have a symmetrical construction of lines, and which do not change when reversed, the palindromes of the I Ching: 27. Jaws, 28. Great Exceeding, 29. Darkness, 30. Light, 61. Inner Truth and 62. Little Exceeding.
Eight symmetrical hexagrams, in four pairs, are each other's mirror image. The remaining 56 hexagrams form 28 pairs and are each other's inverse. The order of the lines is inverted in its entirety and then forms the hexagram of the paired chapter. Together, they describe the front and the back of the same situation, the appearance and the inner being, the good intention and the unintended consequence, the heads and tails of what is offered.
To fathom the fabric of the I Ching, it is not necessary to become acquainted with 64 phenomena - 28 pairs and eight separate chapters suffice.
… Confucius did not tire of explaining it in minute detail. According to him, Qian and Kun are the gate of I, which means that if one intends to understand the I Ching one should first understand Qian and Kun; then the gate of I opens for understanding the rest of the gua.
The Complete I Ching - Alfred Huang
Qian - Initiating. On the left side of the ideogram, you can see the symbol of the sun æ—¥. Above the sun the leaves of a plant. Below the sun the roots of the plant penetrating the earth. On the right, the energy of the sun spreading out. Taken together: the image of vital force in optima forma.
Kun - Response. On the left side of the ideogram is the symbol of the earth 土. On the right side the one of a field 田. A long vertical line penetrates that field. Taken together: the image of surrender and receptivity in its purest form.
Shortly after it was discovered
that Homer was not the author
of the Iliad or the Odysssey,
that, in fact, the Iliad was written
by another poet of the time named Homer
while the source of the Odyssey
remained unclear,
it was also discovered that God
did not create the universe.It turns out that the creator
of this whole mishmash
was the identical twin brother of God,
even though no one in heaven
had ever been able to tell them apart,
even on weekends, when they
never wore the same outfit.
…
Identity - Billy Collins
In my childhood in The Hague, I remember the Cineac, in full Cinemá d'Actualité. The film programme shown had no beginning and end, it was continuous. For the price of a ticket, visitors could stay as long as they wanted - watch a film, shelter from the rain, kiss a new girlfriend or boyfriend, play hooky or take an afternoon nap. The concept of a cinema with an endlessly repeating show was fascinating and still is.
The meadow overlooking our kitchen window is full of dandelions in spring and summer. Last January, the meadow was flooded - water had seeped through the Vecht dike due to high water levels. Then the winter frost had turned the meadow into an ice plain. The dandelions seemed to have disappeared forever - drowned and frozen - but with the first spring breeze they reappeared as if by miracle, as they do every spring. Scorched in summer, trampled and ruminated by cows, sprayed away by man with poison, the fluff in diaspora by the wind, the roots undercut by moles, so it has been since time immemorial, but the dandelion's will to live is truly ineradicable. The idea 'dandelion'- tenuous and not of this world - chooses an earthly form - tangible and vulnerable exposed to the elements. The idea clothes itself with a green leaf rosette, a slender stem and a radiant yellow flower head. The immaterial phenomenon from Chapter 1 takes physical shape in Chapter 2.
Something that wants to live has no choice but to assume an earthly contour. Despite the prospect of freezing, desiccation, trampling and drowning, the dandelion returns again and again, fearless. Again and again the rosette, the hollow stem with white sap and the yellow intense flower. And when the temporary life is done, again and again the disintegration into black earth. An endless series of appearance and disappearance.
Next spring when I will encounter an ordinary dandelion, I will pause for a moment and realise, that what I see represents just one frame, one frame of a seemingly endless film.
The cold in January, when frost turns the meadow into an icy plain, does not leave the dandelion untouched. It will not shudder, but its leaf rosette may thicken a fraction to keep the frost away from the root. In another season, it is gnawing insects, stimulating the production of bitter fluid in its veins. Whether it's another flood or a gale force wind, the poison spray or scorching sun, local soil type or what plants have sprung up as immediate neighbours - all these earthly conditions make the dandelion disappear from the scene slightly differently when it appeared on it in early spring. That makes that after hundreds of thousands of earthly comebacks and just as many retreats to the world of mere idea, the dandelion by now has infinite variations and micro-variations.
The impetus and restless will to live from Chapter 1 found receptivity in Chapter 2. The challenges and purging from Chapter 2 made a predictable and safe return to the exact origin impossible. Each life another minuscule change. A film without end.
etc.
To be continued soon ...
The dandelion revelations are such a fresh inspiration. Makes me trust the wisdom of form and life!