Always holding space for the other
The forest path at this time of year, in late autumn, is almost soundless. The leaves give softly underfoot, and thin, silvery light filters down between the trees.
Hexa walked slowly, alone; he wasn't expecting a visitor now. He had just stopped at the edge of a clearing when he noticed that someone was approaching. A woman, Ildikó, was walking along the path with calm steps. Hexa saw in her someone who spends a lot of time in silence and is used to having silence for company.
"Good day," said the woman, stopping. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You didn't," Hexa replied. "I was just thinking that in this forest everyone walks as if they were looking for something."
The woman smiled. "I lead meditation groups, and every now and then I come here for a walk. It's when I put things in order inside myself, so that I can be with my group with a clear head." Then her smile faded a little. "But I didn't come out today because of them. For something else. I'm looking for an answer."
"I can help you find the answer. Let's see what the I Ching has to say to you today." With that Hexa sat down on a fallen tree trunk and pointed to the place beside him. Ildikó sat down too.
"I've been living with someone for years," she began, and looked at her hands for a while. "We love each other, that's not in question. Still, there's a fear in me that sometimes comes up unexpectedly, that I could lose this person. And I have no tangible reason for it."
"How long have you had this fear?"
"Longer than the relationship." Ildikó laughed quietly, but there was something tired in her laughter. "I know that too, because all day long I teach others to observe their thoughts and feelings. I observe too. I feel it coming. It's just that it's still there."
Hexa nodded. He said nothing. Sometimes the greatest gift is letting someone say out loud what they have so far only observed.
"My question is," Ildikó said at last, "why am I afraid of losing my true partner?"
Hexa put his paw on the tree trunk. On the bark, where the light had just touched it, six lines slowly appeared.
"Here is the first part of the help: hexagram 2," he said. "It shows you that you adapt too much to the other, and instead of your own center you put all your energy into keeping the relationship going. The fear comes from there too: you feel that this relationship is your everything, and that is what can be lost."
Ildikó breathed out deeply. It was as if something she had been holding for a long time had shifted, just for a moment.
"The third line is changing," Hexa went on. "This is the turning point. Here the hidden forces come forward and break the habitual, passive pattern."
"What does that mean for me?"
"That you let go of the convulsive clinging, and see that real security doesn't come from possessing the other, but from your own inner stability. Don't look at what is missing; let go of the constant anxiety about a loss you believe to be inevitable. With this inner shift your fear can transform, and instead of excessive worry, the real experience of the moment comes to the fore."
Ildikó looked into the distance. Between the trees a squirrel ran across the path and disappeared among the branches.
"Hmmm... Is there anything else?"
"Yes. The transformation points toward hexagram 15, Modesty, which, as the energy of the future, brings you dignity, balance and contentment. Modesty doesn't mean that you should shrink yourself, or that you are small. It means that you have no need to keep proving your worth, or to let it depend on others whether you feel valuable."
"Inner balance," Ildikó said softly.
"Yes. That is the key to this draw. A person who is content with themselves doesn't dread someone leaving. Not because they don't care, but because they know their own worth doesn't depend on it. The relationship is then not clinging but a choice. Two people who choose each other again, day after day."
Ildikó sat in silence for a long time. Above the path a bird called to its mate, and the answer came.
"You know," she said at last, "I've been occupied with balance since the beginning of the year. From several sides, in several areas. As if they were the pieces of a puzzle, and now they're about to come together."
"And is this the last piece?" Hexa asked.
"Maybe not the last. But an important one." Ildikó looked up. "It's as if you'd been sent here from above, so that we would meet today on this path."
Hexa smiled faintly. "I don't know who sent me. But on the path we never meet anyone by chance."
Ildikó stood up. She straightened her coat, looked once more at the lines slowly fading on the bark, and set off along the path.
Hexa took out his journal. Next to the 2 he drew a small mark, beside it a tiny circle at the third line, and an arrow toward the 15. Then he paused and wrote something underneath that no one could see: a mountain whose peak lies beneath the earth.
The mountain doesn't cling to the earth, he thought. Yet it stands deep within it.
Whoever finds a home within themselves cannot lose anyone.
Which area of your own life have you pushed into the background because of someone, and could take back for yourself today?