Adorning. Make an offering and you will succeed.
Work through the Small. Advantageous to have a place to go.
Let outer appearance reflect inner worth. Brighten people’s understanding. Don’t be severe or confine your feelings. Beware of confusing ideas and hasty plans. Create an atmosphere in which agreement can occur. Emphasize beauty, color, attractiveness, culture.
The Image
The old character shows a flowering plant important as a restorer of energy growing from a cowry shell, sign of worth and a symbol of the feminine.
Circle of Meanings
Beautify, embellish, and ornament the presentation of things; let your appearance reflect your inner worth: display courage, grace, elegance; female initiation when a girl becomes a woman, a wedding procession. Heart Theme: 40 Deliverance from past suffering.
Spirit Helpers
Mountain contains Fire. Youngest Son and Middle Daughter, the Gatekeeper and the Visionary, create an outer limit that articulates inner awareness. This is a time to decorate, beautify and embellish things. Be elegant. Be brilliant. Display your valor. Create a festive public face. Let the way you present yourself signal the changes in your life. Have a direction but do not impose your ideas. This builds intrinsic value and lets inner changes be seen. If you adapt to things and do not seek to impose your will directly, you can make successful plans now. Do not cut things off that are already underway. Reveal the strength of the underlying design. Use gradual change to accomplish what you want.
Voice of the Mothers
Give things a beauty that reflects your inner worth. Display courage, grace and elegance. Let your appearance reflect the changes in your life. Accepting inner guidance now reveals the patterns that mark real ends and beginnings. This is a time of invigorating strength that drives you forward (34). Do not focus on parting from the past (43).
Adorning means to decorate, beautify or ornament in magnificent, resplendent, many-colored beauty. It is a flowering that refers to a marriage procession, when the groom and his horsemen go to fetch the bride and escort her back to the ancestral home. It is a festive procession that crosses the river to the paradise time, surrounded by the Bright Omens and the presence of the spirit and is the formal Initiation Ritual for young women. Adorning points at vigorous measures to establish harmony through a display of beauty and courage that reflects inner worth. Medically, it is the process that clears away stagnation of yin energy and opens the yin channels. The root of “bi, adorn” is cowries, shells used as money and presented as ritual offerings that suggest the vulva. It connects the signs for heart, bamboo strips used for writing and the act of revealing and making the omens manifest. The wedding procession itself reflects this. It would have been striking, the horsemen plumed and decked out, the sleek horses plunging through the river, bamboo screens and red leather harness tossing many tassels, all surrounding the beautifully adorned bride. “You came for me with horses to take me and my dowry away”, she says. “The River Wen is swollen, the escort a great band. Treading this road is easy. The bride goes to pleasure.”
Summer (22): Ripen the fruits. Be brave and independent. Don’t run after impossible desires. Do the inner work.
Fall (52): Harvest the crop by meeting others with generosity and care. Cut through pride and complication. Learn from the lessons of the past.
Winter (15): Find the seed of the new. Work hard at this and keep your pride out of the way. If you master your words you can influence people. Work on quietly to prepare the future.
Spring (36): Rouse new growth by hiding your talents and accepting the difficult journey. Though you feel held back, have no fear. You are connected to others through a network of spiritual beliefs. Be clear and simple.
Voice of the Fathers
This is a Realizing Figure, part of a Zone of Radical Transformation where we pass through the Tiger’s Mouth to receive the Bright Omens of a new life. It is a Gate to the stage of the Symbolic Life that centers on initiation, finding a relation to culture and the search for an image of the deeper self.
The Situation: Focus on the outward manifestations of inner realities.
Caring for Others: Emphasize creative judgment and artistic expression. Focus on illustrating ideas, illuminating thoughts and giving things shape and form. Deal with cultural issues. Make the home environment pleasant and harmonious. Maintain a high standard of quality.
Setting Intentions: Present ideas but make no important decisions. Direct your energies into developing ideas on all levels. Emphasize process, not results. Communicate your ideas to others.
Communication and Interaction: Emphasize quality. Clarify and express your ideas. Give positive feedback but do not rush to implementation. Create a harmonious and cooperative atmosphere.
Change from the Inside Out: This is a very auspicious atmosphere for results of high cultural quality. Your creative judgment is sound. Choose original and unusual ideas. Present your ideas directly and do not expect support yet. New initiatives require more groundwork.
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 Realizing phase of this Pair.
The transformative process of the Pair 21:22 Biting Through and Adorning develops the determination to face all obstacles and joy in the renewal that results.
Outer to Inner: The process of the pair shifts the clarity and awareness of the Visionary trigram from the outer world of 21to the inner world of 22. This turns abstract awareness of patterns into a real source of inner guidance.
Inner to Outer: This interiorisation transforms the Groundbreaker trigram in the inner world of 21 into the Gatekeeper trigram in the outer world of 22. This turns the shock of inner enlightenment into the awareness of the patterns that mark real ends and beginnings.
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
Step 1 Beginnings: This return of the spirit attracts a new fate.
Adorn your feet. Leave the chariot and go on foot.
Adorn yourself with courage and independence. Make your own way. You have been seriously punished. Try to hear the lesson. Do not be infected by other people’s fear and confusion. Do the inner work and do not keep running after impossible things. Stabilize your desires. There is an ever-flowing source of energy available now. Co-operate with the ongoing process of change. (52 Bound/Gatekeeper)
Step 2 Inner Center: This inner re-organization leads to harmony with others.
Adorning your growing hair or beard. Have patience.
You have a connection to a superior that will lift you into a better life. Biting through the obstacles is an arduous task but in the end you acquire something of great value. Disentangle yourself from the unexpected affliction. Take it as a spiritual problem and not a literal one and you will soon have cause to rejoice. Let yourself be led and you can realize the hidden potential. Co-operate with the ongoing process of change. (26 Great Accumulates)
Step 3 Threshold: This inner re-balancing lets you make your way in life.
Adorned and sleek, impregnate yourself with this.
Trial: Wise Words! This is an ever-flowing Way.
This can open the way for you and all your descendents. Biting through the obstacles is a long, arduous task but the drudgery will be worth it in the end. Eliminate corrupt old patterns and pursue your real desires. Do not reject this opportunity or you will be cut off for years. This can open the way for you and everything you wish for. Be open and provide what is needed. (27 Jaws/Nourishing)
Outer World
Step 4 Arrival: This inner preparation leads to what is greater.
Adorned and venerable, they ride the soaring white horse.
Those you encounter are definitely not outlaws. Seek the marriage alliance.
Attribute great wisdom and worth to this connection. It can be an ever-flowing source of energy and inspiration. Bring out what is hidden. Beat your drums now or you will end up lamenting your life. Any distress you might feel will flare up and disappear. Do not be afraid to act alone. You are connected to a creative force. (30 Radiance/Visionary)
Step 5 Outer Center: This inner re-grouping lets your real purpose shine.
Adorning in the hilltop garden. The marriage gifts.
The roll of plain silk is little, little. Distress.
Wise Words! Completing this opens the Way.
You are asked to become a member of a great organization. Though you feel you have little to offer go through with this. Do not be afraid of your enthusiasm. If you confront the situation you can find the hidden power that will lead to what you desire. Use what you receive for the good of all. Gather energy for the decisive new move. (37 Dwelling People)
Step 6 Culmination: This inner stripping leads to a breakthrough.
Adorned in white. This is not a mistake.
Bring out the essentials. Be clear and pure. Adorn yourself in real virtue. Trying to control the situation prematurely, you were locked up and could not move. This was for your own good. Have no fear. The time of darkening is coming to an end. You will soon emerge and be recognized. These goings and comings release the energy now bound up in the past. Co-operate with the ongoing process of change. (36 Hiding Brightness)