Tag: Laoism

Casting the Beauty Platform for a Third Party

Its been quite a while since I have cast the Beauty Platform at Docudharma ~ nearly four years since Casting the Beauty Platform for the Afghanistan Quagmire (that cast for that one was “Retreat”, by the way … with no moving lines. Just Retreat. Pretty good call for $0.03).

But this morning I saw that Robert Reich had called for a Third Party.

Well, not really, what Robert Reich said was,  

Democrats can’t be trusted to control Wall Street. If there were ever an issue ripe for a third party, the Street would be it.

This is “Calling for a third party!” like saying “ever stronger hurricanes would suck” is “Calling for action NOW on climate change!”. Saying that the Democrats can’t be trusted to control Wall Street is one of those “The Sky is BLUE!!!” statements that is only to any degree controversial to the extend that people have been following an American media debate whether the sky is red or green (complete with supporting daily kos essays about how is it OBVIOUSLY green and anyone who thinks its red is a traitor to the country).

Its an observation of the obvious, rather than actually arguing that a Third Party would be a solution for what ails us.

Still, it got me thinking … what is the reading on the question? Is it time for a third party? As stuck in their various ruts the various established positions on the question are, this seems like an excellent question to reach for a response from the Book of Changes and reflect on the answer that results.

The Seeds of Development Strategy

The seeds of development strategy is for a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, trapped between a massive, oppressive debt burden left it by a preceding less than legitimate regime which grabbed power with both hands but left responsibility on the table for someone else to pick up, with collapsing infrastructure, and a far less than progressive head of state working with an even weaker governing majority in the legislature.

So, nothing like the US situation, after all, but still …

… build from the bottom up. Create local producer cooperatives, to ensure fair markets in the central market town for a set of villages. Give jobs to a cadre of mostly younger people looking to establish themselves to serve continuing education, primary health care, local credit union, local cooperative work on maintaining paths for transport to the central market town and transport beyond. Trial fields to prove out crops fitted to local conditions and then make seeds and cuttings available to local farmers.

Minimize hard currency purchased inputs, maximize leverage of local resources, to keep the official value of the activity low, to stay off the radar scope of the locusts known as International Aid Agencies.

Cooperatives will fail. Some of the young cadre will be incompetent. Some of the field trials will be failures.

BUT, as opposed to the United States Agency for Locust Deployment, the low external resource cost and high leverage of abundant local labor means that instead of having to put all the resources into one trial, there are thousands of trials spread around.

Casting the Beauty Platform for Resiliant Suburbia

Move toward a Resiliant Suburbia?

moving solid line | stable divided line | moving solid line … fire moving to earth

stable divided line | stable divided line | stable divided line … earth

The hexagrams …





36. Wounded Brightness

Wounded brightness.

Beneficial is laborious persistence.

Being weakened. It is good to work diligently on the situation. (The brightness is the light of consciousness, one’s aliveness, one’s energy. It being injured means that one’s aliveness is diminished, one is being weakened.)

2. Land

Land.

A foundation for progress.

Beneficial is the persistence of a mare.

The noble one has a goal to move to.

Being confused at first,

later acquiring mastery.

It is beneficial that companionship is gained in the southwest,

companionship is lost in the northeast.

Calm persistence brings good fortune.

There is a new potential, for you to develop. At first you’ll not know your way, but you’ll gain a handle on the situation and eventually master it. Just calmly proceed. It is beneficial to make partners and allies, and not to move on with people who have different interests. (At the original place and time of the Yijing, allies were in the southwest, territory they wanted to conquer was in the northeast.)

Casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar Peace

A world of one dominant power is an imperial world … to maintain its dominance that one dominant power must interfere with the affairs of those outside the boundaries of the metropole. It is an intrinsically imperial project, whether proudly so or, as in our case, it is an imperial project that must be pursued while paying lip service to self-determination and democratic expression.

A world of one dominance power is a world, therefore, of war.

But a multi-polar world is not necessarily a world of peace. It can be, under a balance of power, but there is no necessity that it shall be.

So today, it is casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar world at Peace. A lot of weight for one shiny and three tarnished copper coins to carry … I hope they do not get deformed under the stress, like the pennies that “those mischievous kids” used to put on the railroad tracks.

Casting the Beauty Platform: Peak Oil

Question: Peak Oil?

stable solid line | stable divided line | stable solid line

stable divided line | moving divided line | moving divided line

Earth over Fire evolving into Wind over Fire


36. Wounded Brightness

37. Family Members




Wounded brightness.

Beneficial is laborious persistence.

Being weakened. It is good to work diligently on the situation.

(The brightness is the light of consciousness, one’s aliveness, one’s energy. It being injured means that one’s aliveness is diminished, one is being weakened.)

Family members.

Beneficial is the women’s dedication.

People are there for each other.

Moving Line 5:

Viscount of Ji’s hidden brightness.

It is beneficial to persist.

Tactfully feigning ignorance, in order to avoid being hurt by someone. It is a good idea to persist doing that. (The viscount of Ji feigned madness, in order to escape the abuses of a king.)

Line 6:

Not brightness, but darkness.

At first ascending to heaven,

then going into the earth.

Things seemed so bright at the start, but are turning unlucky.

Casting the Beauty Platform: Peace in Our Times

“Peace in our times?”

Moving broken line | stable broken line | stable broken line

Moving solid line | stable solid line | stable solid line

Trigrams: Heaven over Earth moving to Wind over Thunder


12. Obstruction

42. Benefiting




Obstruction.

This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence.

Much goes, little comes.

One cannot continue, one is being obstructed. This is frustrating. There is more loss than gain. This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.

Benefiting.

It is beneficial to have a goal to move to.

It is beneficial to cross the big river.

Benefiting from the situation. It’s a good idea to have a plan for undertaking something, to make good use of the opportunity.

Moving line 1:

Pulling out grass and entangled roots because of its accumulation.

Persistence brings good fortune.

Progressing.

Removing something that has accumulated and is now in the way, weeding it out by the root. Under the surface, things may be more entangled than one thought. Things go well by persevering with this. There is progress being made.

Moving line 4:

Having a higher purpose.

Without fault,

but it is a category separate from happiness.

Working on something that’s important to you, perhaps regarding your personal or spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no pleasure to go through this development, but it really needs to be worked with.

Casting about for the Beauty Platform


The days go by, the years flow away

The oceans run dry…

But you are alone, in your soul and your eyes

These tears, these wounds…

But don’t you look, don’t look around

Stay the way you are

Stay yourself

The whole world lights up [in] your eyes

If the love lives in [your] heart.

You watched all the movies about love

But there’s also a lot of fairytales in real life

Don’t hurry, wait and you’ll see –

Everything will happen, just not right away.

But don’t you look, don’t look around

Stay the way you are

Stay yourself

The whole world lights up [in] your eyes.



Casting the future of Docudharma remains …

… impossible. Whether this is dangling copper fingers in the stream … or just random reframing to nudge our thinking into possibilities that are regular habits of thought obscure … well, its not that crucial a question to me.

First line: divided line

Second line: moving solid line

Third line: divided line

Fourth line: divided line

Fifth line: solid line

Sixth line: moving divided line

Ah, I love symmetry, and this is doubly symmetric … it is both symmetric around the middle, and consists of two identical symmetric trigrams.




29. Abyss

Getting accustomed to the abyss.

Have confidence and hold on to your heart.

For progress, taking action has value.

A situation that is unfamiliar and dangerous, that one needs to get into and get accustomed to. Have confidence, and keep in touch with your feelings. Feeling fear is natural in this situation. Taking action is needed in order to have progress.

Casting the Future of Docdharma …

… is, evidently, impossible.

So this is either dangling copper fingers in the stream, to catch the drift, or randomly reframing to see what it sparks.

Broken Line

Solid Line, moving

Solid Line

Solid Line, moving

Solid Line, moving

Broken Line

Man, I love symmetric ones … lessee what that adds up to. With this many moving lines, I am just going to put up the before and after hexagrams.


28. Too Much.

Too much.

The roof-beam is sagging.

It is beneficial to have a goal to move to.

Progressing.

Something is too much for this situation. One better make a plan to do something about it, and make it more robust. There is progress.

moving to

15. Humble.

Humbleness.

Progressing.

The noble one brings things to a conlusion.

Humbleness helps progress and bringing things to a good end. By not being humble, one might overestimate oneself and be satisfied too soon, not making the effort to actually finish the job.