I Ching and the Staff of Life

So I threw the I Ching for seven days, to see how it would go. The part about throwing the coins was fun. And the part about figuring out whether the throw meant one solid line or a broken line. And the part about looking through all 64 of them to identify the hexagram I'd thrown with my six throws. All nice visual exercises, like what is wrong with this picture stuff.

However, the leading I got was pretty minimal, being somewhat identical, as far as I could tell for every one I threw. Maybe it's so Chinese that it's inscrutable to me. At any rate, more often than not it resisted my scrutiny. So I have gently retired it and returned to yoga practice and breadbaking. I have actually been baking bread regularly since last August, haven't bought a bit of it since then. Different recipe every time, and not a one has failed to come out well.

All these deals are ways of focusing on the immediate, and in the case of the bread doing something good, very elemental. Like that lovely day last year when I went out to shop, and on the list was: wine, wood, boots! very medieval. All I needed was a pargeting tool or a new donkey or something, to complete the picture.

And until the labyrinth is weather free again, yoga practice and breadbaking are not the worst way to practice meditation. That and the weights, which are starting to yield some modest reduction in hand pain. It's like the US gov's budget cuts: not really cuts, just reduction in the rate of worsening...but for the moment I'll take it.

Good thing I never ran up an I Ching Throwing Gown, as Lucia no doubt would have, as Ari astutely pointed out. Of course if I had, it could have been an About To Do Yoga Practice after I Get Out of This Thing Gown...