After many years of unchecked self-indulgence, reframing the alcoholic mindset to total abstinence can be like walking in a featureless landscape where, if one is not mindful, there seems to be little progress and ruminating on the past aimlessly becomes a vicious cycle. To me, 'folk religion' (whether Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, etc.), though are themselves comprised of solid principles for living, provide little if any comfort otherwise because they do not really provide realistic psychology insights.
So I turn to tarot card and I Ching readings not because I believe in them (I try and avoid magical thinking if at all possible) but because they encapsulate certain archetypes and commentary that I'm familiar with and are excellent tools for a more insightful self-reflection. Here is my I Ching reading today:
Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:
Hexagram 40, Release (no changing lines)
Key Questions
If nothing could bind you, where would you go?
Do you 'have to'? Who says?
Which path leads to where you want to be?
Oracle
'Release. Fruitful in the southwest.
With no place to go,
To turn round and come back is good fortune.
With a direction to go,
Daybreak, good fortune.'
To 'release' is to liberate, to solve problems, to untie knots. The first step towards release is a move 'southwest': no longer battling on to pursue the mission, but going back to your roots and reconnecting with home and allies. When you know where you're coming from, it becomes a lot easier to be clear about where you're going.
If your path has no real destination, turn back; if it has purpose, start your journey as early as you can. If you have no good reason to continue on as before, come back to your starting point and let that cycle reach its end; if you have a goal in mind, why not start exploring ways to attain it right away?
This would be such simple advice, if only we didn't spend our lives being 'pulled' down paths that lead nowhere, as if by invisible strings.
Image
'Thunder and rain do their work: Release.
A noble one pardons transgressions and forgives crimes.'
Sequence
Release follows from Hexagram 39, Limping:
'Things cannot end with hardship, and so Release follows. Release means letting things take their time.'
