I ching

I Ching Hexagram 64
Wei Chi (Before Completion)

Action: Prepare

Hu Gua (hidden influence) 63 After Completion: Renew

Zong Gua (underlying cause) 63 After Completion: Renew

You are always on the threshold of change; how you approach it will determine your success.

We sometimes get all of the information,
but we refuse to get the message. –Cullen Hightower

Reading at a Glance: The idea of ‘not embroiling’ is a cornerstone of Taoist philosophy. Anytime we find ourselves worked up and exasperated, we can be certain we are embroiling in something.

Someone is pushing our buttons because we have made those buttons important. Retreat is a message to disengage.

In dreams we see how all symbols and even the characters mirror aspects of ourselves that we are examining and either adopting or discarding. It does no good to fight or cast blame if you'd like to learn more about yourself.

Because the hidden influence is Coming to Meet, we can see that a situation calling for Retreat is a heavily charged one. We give ‘charge’ to a situation that pushes our buttons but Coming to Meet always brings us face to face with the transformative opportunity of the Shadow.

The fact that there is so much charge makes the object of your enquiry an important one. However, you cannot force your will on the situation because it is teaching you something. It is better to step back and reflect on what it is that you are learning.

‘Not embroiling’ means not to throw more fuel on the fire. Emotional reactions between people stoke a fire that can burn out of control.

The underlying cause of Advance shows the opposite of what you need to do in this situation. Now, it is time to Retreat or disengage.

In the story you are telling about conflict with another, try owning why you are giving it so much energy. When you notice a recurring pattern of negative or limiting thought, pause.

Ask yourself: Is this thought serving my highest potential? Bringing awareness to these moments can gradually dissolve unhelpful conditioning.

When you engage an obstacle you only give it more power. The same holds true for negative thinking because you give these ideas credibility due to the charge you carry with you.

You can actually stalk adversity by looking for it. Backing down does not mean you fail because it can lead to greater success.

If you can step back, perhaps you can discover a win/win solution. Retreat is not a sign of failure, but of a well thought out pathway to authenticity and success.

When the end

unfolds,

open

to the new

beginning.

“Things cannot exhaust themselves. Hence, follows at the end, the principle of before completion.” In Chi Chi or After Completion, the highest order inevitably led to the onset of disorder, symbolized by the highest display of summer that transforms into swirling winds of autumn.

Wei Chi embodies the opposite condition where disorder will lead back to order. Like the chaotic storms of early spring, the landscape of spring is being composed.

Disorder can suggest how circumstance appears beyond your ability to control. Left to develop as it will, life always works out. While uncomfortable not knowing where the changes are leading, disorder is the letting go, like leaves during autumn, which always precedes the springtime of your blossoming.

Within disorder, is a dormant seed, which will inevitably lead back to order. Where complacency often leads to stagnation, the tension of change is already at play and it is better to follow where the changes might lead you. There is great power in knowing how situations evolve, moving back and forth.

The master said: "Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold." In Wei Chi, you are standing at the threshold of change and have the opportunity to learn from the past. How you approach the changes will determine your success.

Chi Chi presented Water over Fire, and as its opposite, Wei Chi portrays Fire over Water. It would seem that since Fire burns upward and Water flows downward, there will be no connection between the two and the situation is hopeless. The fact that these two elements are moving in opposite directions is what makes the situation interesting and new.

Anytime opposites appear, there will be a transformation.

The image of Fire moving upward portrays how you can lose your sense of connectivity to your current situation, looking for answers in the skies, as if your fate is in the hands of something arbitrary. Since the Abysmal is releasing its profound wisdom below, observe how life is speaking to you daily, in a thousand different ways.

The master said: “How do we know that what we call heaven is not actually man, and that what we call man is not actually heaven?”

Fire below gets water moving energetically yet, even without heat, water will still form itself into perfect crystals. In life, at some degree, everything is in continual motion.

Wei Chi is the image of outward disorder that can lead to a sense of hopelessness, yet within it, you can already see how order is pre-arranging itself out of apparent chaos.

Regardless of the form that chaos takes, life has a special predisposition for generating disorder; it is a prerequisite in its pursuit of a better way. At the same time, it has a fondness for generating order from disorder. Perhaps that is why everything always seems to work itself out, whether you choose to worry about it or not.

“Although the lines are not in their proper places, the firm and yielding correspond.” Like electricity, the firm or positive energy and the yielding or negative energy interact in force and fields that binds atoms, generate molecules and animate life. At all levels, life is regenerating itself from the chaotic dance of what appears to be disorder.

Since nothing can reach completion, the trend moves toward the opposite condition: renewal. Life reveals its enormous power to sustain and strengthen its creatures to those who would follow its ways.

Although disorder ends the Book of Changes, we know that it is a necessary pathway to renewal.

As the transition arrives, we see the image of the tree before it begins to branch. In between the stagnation of winter and the great fullness of summer is spring: a rebirth. It comes from 'nowhere,' although we know it will come again, because it has come before.

The situation is strange and new, the past is a world away, and you are ripe for a transformation. Once things reach the end, you can approach the opportunity to blossom anew.