Hexagram 12 – P’i / Standstill

The Image of Heaven Over Earth

The flower of creation dies and I fall from peace into stagnation.
This natural process follows the decay of the product of union.
I die to the world and go inward.
I am numb. I am a shadow.
I am hidden and confused.
I am unconscious and see no light.

It would help me at this time to know that I am a seed
at the beginning of a new awakening.
Yet . . .
I am so much a part of this experience I cannot see.
In the blackness of transformation
I stand still.

Six in the First Place

I am the roots and the earth created by the decay of my past blooms.
Only time creates the illusion that soil and flower are not one.
I die to the senses and find inner light.

Six in the Second Place

I do not know who or where I am.
I force myself to trust isolation as necessary to a new awakening.

Six in the Third Place

I am ashamed of my weakness,
Fear in isolation . . . Crisis in the dark!

Nine in the Fourth Place

The time is right.
My highest essence guides me to the light again.
I open and find I am not alone awakening.

Nine in the Fifth Place

Moving from darkness into light
I am blind in fear that I have not the strength to flower.
Slowly . . . I become aware and realize
My soul is as organic as all life,
My re-birth  as mysterious and inevitable as death.

Nine in the Last Place

I  work consciously to return to creativity.
In that darkness of standing sill I discover stagnation and creation
Are two parts of the whole, each always moving into the other.