Diminishing. A connection to the spirits will carry you through.
Wise Words! The Way to the Source is open. Without fault.
This is an Enabling Trial. Advantageous to have a direction to go.
How to make use of this? Two vessels allow you to make the presentation.
Decrease greedy desires and aim at a higher goal. Curb anger and passion. Do not be carried away. Beware of showing off, stealing, greed and unjust use of resources. Be simple, sincere and transparent.
The Image
The old character shows two open hands, a reverential bow and a sacred vessel with a circle above it that indicates empty, hollow, nothing, zero.
Circle of Meanings
Decrease, loss, take away, make smaller; sacrifice, concentrate, criticize, depersonalize; diminish passions, decrease compulsive desires, reduce things to the essence; aim at a higher goal, see the significant pattern. Heart Theme: 24 Return of the spirit.
Spirit Helpers
Mountain over Lake. Youngest Son and Youngest Daughter, the Gatekeeper and the Mediator, are setting an outer limit that stimulates inner ideas. Concentrate on inner ideals. Decrease personal involvements and compulsions. Curb your anger and inquire into motives. Ask yourself why things are being done they way they are. Augment the receptive and diminish the aggressive. Diminishing makes things smaller and closer to the spirits. This is an enabling divination, so have a plan and follow it. The outer limit will bring inner development to expression. Something significant is returning so repair and adjust your connection to the Way. This is heavy at first, but lets you become versatile and adjust to the time. Act this way with confidence. This is the origin of great good fortune and meaningful events.
Voice of the Mothers
Aim at a higher goal. Curb your anger and restrain your passions. Examine your motivations. Inner self-reflection now reveals the patterns that mark real ends and beginnings. Release the energy now bound up in the past (40). Do not focus on protecting and nurturing your own spirit (24).
Sun, Diminishing, and Yi, Augmenting, offer a paradigm of sacrifice and its results. Diminishing is the offering: What is below gives to what is above. The root of the term is hand and a sacrificial vessel, pouring out the libation. It is the food and wine, the cooked grains in the vessel, the objects and victims offered in sacrifice or put into the tomb, the waning moon, the victim, the old king, all that is offered. It suggests making a reverence, a full ritual prostration and includes the meanings to lessen, harm, destroy, lose or weaken, for the things offered are truly destroyed. It is biting or mordant speech, criticism and self-reproach, a gift that costs much effort. Philosophically, this is the cultivation of power and virtue (de), what keeps harm away by reducing things to the essential, eliminating the useless or outmoded and thus revealing the Way.
Summer (41): Ripen the fruits through surrender of personal ambition. Clean up mistakes of the past. Do what you have to do.
Fall (4): Harvest the crop by stepping back. Don’t attack the very processes that will give you what you need. Stop and establish your foundations and the fruit will fall into your hands.
Winter (7): Find the seed of the new. Make sure the rules you set don’t obstruct your real power. Follow your real goals.
Spring (19): Rouse new growth through stripping away the past. Find a new guiding image. Rise and activate your great purpose.
Voice of the Fathers
This is an Inspiring Figure, a site of intense mediating activity that connects the primary powers to personal life. It is part of a Zone of Radical Transformation where we pass through the Tiger’s Mouth to Open the Heart anew. It is a Gate to the stage of the Symbolic Life that confers higher levels of empowerment in culture and a new ritual status on the fully individualized being.
The Situation: A downswing, a time to accumulate and store energy for the creation of future wellbeing
Caring for Others: Focus on learning, growth and the inner prosperity of the family. Do not try to maintain current levels of activity. Emphasize inner cultivation, morale, transparency of motives and practices, storing resources. Preservation is the keyword now. Use real sincerity and integrity of purpose.
Setting Intentions: Slowing down, cutting back, re-grouping and re-direction of resources. Settle unresolved issues. Use resources to support the inner development of the family. Postpone new endeavors. Engage only in the priorities and ideas that sustain fundamental needs. Economize and preserve.
Communication and Interaction: Make sure all promises and agreements are fair and equitable. Note ideas that come up. This is a time to develop and sharpen your intuition. Be fair. Listen, evaluate, and remember.
Change from the Inside Out: Cut back on all levels. Inner development now will bring greater wellbeing in the end; outer actions will be wasted. Only ideas and things that are visibly and obviously useful can be developed successfully. You cannot control the situation; you can adapt successfully.
- Immediate Future: difficulties and losses that reveal a hidden pattern.
- Personal Development: diminish your passions and focus on real ideals.
- Working within the Family: help others see blessings in their sufferings.
- Expanding the Circle: concentrate on inner work. Build the base.
- Partnership: shift from emotional to spiritual to clear the feeling field.
Pairing: Bringing Change to Life
Each hexagram is part of a Pair that that activates hidden paths of transformative energy through the interaction of the trigrams or Spirit Helpers, connecting phases of Inspiration and Realization. You are in the Inspiring phase of this Pair.
The transformative process of the Pair 41:42 Diminishing and Augmenting inspires you to give up old patterns of aggression and need and open yourself to the blessing that results.
Outer to Inner: The process turns the Gatekeeper trigram in the outer world of 41 into the Groundbreaker trigram in the inner world of 42. This turns your abstract awareness of boundaries and patterns into inner enlightenment.
Inner to Outer: This interiorisation transforms the Mediator trigram in the inner world of 41 into the Matchmaker trigram in the outer world of 42. This turns inner self-reflection into the ability to find a place where you can influence the world you live in.
Transforming Lines
Mothering Change presents Transforming Lines as Steps of Change that show you where and how to focus your energy. Click on the links to connect with the Relating Figure generated by each line.
Inner World
Complete this. Go swiftly.
This is not a mistake. Discussing Diminishes it.
Make the connection quickly. Do not let discussion diminish your resolve. You have to correct a far-reaching error. Punish those who must be punished and set your spirit free. Do not sit there while weeping blood is coursing down all around you. Something significant is returning now. Be open and provide what is needed. (4 Enveloping)
Advantageous Trial. Chastising closes the Way. Trap!
This Diminishes nothing, it Augments it.
This is a very advantageous connection. Everyone will benefit. Do not try to discipline people or set out on an expedition. Shake up the source of nourishment. Reject the rules and clear the channels. You have a kind, generous heart and a noble spirit. Act through this virtue and kindness. You can create something that endures. Be open and provide what is needed. (27 Jaws/Nourishing)
When there are three people moving, they will be Diminished by one.
When one person is moving, they acquire a friend.
If you are involved in a triangle, it will soon become a couple. If you are alone, you will soon have a friend. You are pursuing a great ideal. Do not lose heart. This drudgery will bring you profit and insight in the end. The center of life is moving and you are an important part of it. Putting your ideas to the trial lets you disentangle yourself from the past. If you let yourself be led you can realize the hidden potential. Co-operate with the on-going process of change. (26 Great Accumulates)
Outer World
Diminishing your affliction. Commission someone to carry it swiftly.
There will be rejoicing. This is not a mistake.
This connection is seriously harming you. Diminish your involvement. Send someone quickly to give the message and you will soon have cause to rejoice. In your isolation you encounter a powerful friend who will help you. Make sure your house is in order. Honestly repent your past mistakes. What seems like an unfortunate happening will soon turn out to your benefit. The center is moving and you are part of it. Co-operate with the on-going process of change. (38 Diverging)
Someone Augments you. The Way to the Source is open.
Ten pairs of tortoise divinations cannot control or contradict this!
This is a blessing and a message from above. Nothing can interfere with your plans and your desires. There is a hidden spirit calling to you, the call of the inner self. Do not hesitate to answer. This will bind you to others on a deep spiritual level. Be open and provide what is needed. (61 Opened Heart/Connect to Center)
This sacrifice does not Diminish you, it Augments you.
This is not a mistake. Wise Words! Trial: The Way is open.
Advantageous to have a direction to go. You acquire servants, not dwellings.
You will not be diminished but augmented by this. It will bring good things to everyone involved. Have a plan. Be sure of yourself. You will get considerable help but this will not be a sedentary affair. You need a great idea around which you can organize your passion. Generosity and wealth are nearing. Be generous with what you acquire and all your desires will be fulfilled. It is definitely the right time to act. Something significant is returning. (19 Nearing)