13 Fellowship >< 44 Intercourse, interpenetration
Wilhelm translates Tong Ren as Fellowship with Men, and Blofeld translates it as Lovers, Beloved, Friends, Like-Minded Persons, Universal Brotherhood. In Chinese, tong means similar, alike, the same. Ren means person or people. When the two characters are put together as a unit, it means to treat people alike. In ancient China, tong ren also meant people with the same interests. Herein, Tong Ren is translated as Seeking Harmony. It has the connotation of forming alliances. To break through a tough situation, people need to work together in harmony, as in an alliance.
The ideograph of the first character, tong, consists of three parts. The first part looks like an upright rectangle without the bottom line, symbolizing a door frame or a house. Within the house, there is a single horizontal stroke representing the number one. Underneath this is a little square symbolizing a mouth. In ancient China, people were counted by mouths. For instance, if someone wanted to know how many people there were in your family, they would ask “How many mouths are there in your family?” The three parts of the ideograph come together to depict a group of people gathered together as a single unit. Here, the mouth indicates that they are thinking or speaking as one. The Chinese can feel the harmony in the group. The ideograph of the second character, ren, suggests a person standing.
The image of this gua is Heaven above, Fire below. Heaven suggests ascension. The flame of fire moves upward. Fire approaching Heaven gives an image of people with the same interests working together in harmony. There is only one yielding line, at the second place. The ancient sage saw this as a picture of harmony; the one at the second place treated the other five elements at different places equally, with the same attitude. An ancient Chinese maxim says, “People in the same boat help each other, sharing weal and woe.”
According to the I Ching, however, there is no absolute sameness. The ancient sages passed on the secret of obtaining harmony, that is, seeking common ground on major issues while reserving differences on minor ones. Tong Ren teaches that the wise classify people according to their natures, not for the purpose of treating them differently, but to seek common ground. If there is common ground, each one is able to act in harmony with the others. The ancient Chinese dreamed day and night that the world would belong to the majority and the government would serve the common interest of its countrymen. This is Seeking Harmony. [Huang Complete I Ching]
The above description from Huang’s Complete I Ching clearly dances around ‘Golden Age’ issues. The term has no precise meaning, of course, but generally indicates a period of peace and plenty for a society, or perhaps even the entire world given how knit together we all now are.
This Cast seems to answer the question in the affirmative but as always the Yi provides both warnings and counsel. Warnings in that the internal dynamic of #44 has to be dealt with, and counsel in that the very nature of #13’s Fellowship shows leadership of the entire society coming from the Second Line, which is the Line of the Householder or Family. This is from depicting lines according to rank or role in society.
Line 1: Individual.
Line 2: Family- Household (often several generations and several families together)
Line 3: Local Official, still local but what goes on outside one’s immediate household.
Line 4: National or regional official serving the highest authority.
Line 5: The Ruler principle, either an individual, committee or whatever.
Line 6: The Line of the Sage, one who has gone beyond worldly concerns.
The Chinese emphasize that their policies, and indeed entire vision of how to be and organize a civilization, are based on timeless principles which center around benefiting all. I pray they are being truthful and this is not the same sort of rhetoric we get in the West about ‘saving Democracy’ and being a ‘beacon of light and hope’ for the world. People hearing such things are cheered and inspired, but that doesn’t make them truthful.
That said, whether or not our leaders are sincere, the Will of Heaven which is the Creative Force and Intent behind everything we experience inner or outer is essentially aligned to goodness in that Creation is fundamentally marvelous. Individual beings may be temporarily or apparently separated from the One which contains All – such as all particularities, aka The Many – but deep inside we all know we are part of the same overall drama and as such can feel warmth and connection with each other, which is the Fire trigram principle ruling the entire #13 Fellowship / Harmony dynamic.
This is a good result for the question and although intellectually cynical these days, my heart keeps telling me that things will work out well. Whether this is boilerplate wishful thinking or insight remains to be seen. For now, though, I take comfort in this Cast and Reading for it appears reasonable to conclude, especially given its forthright, stable, no changing lines nature, that we are indeed at the Dawn of a Golden Age.
The Toltec I Ching version of this Hexagram is included in the pdf Reading document attached below. As you can see, it is quite a different perspective which essentially depicts that of a spirit warrior’s developmental journey to master living in this relative world whilst aligning his spirit with that of the One so that the world of spirit and matter, always inseparable, are unified in his or her person instead of being seemingly sundered, as is often the challenge for most human beings, but especially so in this hyper-materialist age which insists that anything to do with spirit or mind is ‘unscientific’ and therefore ‘not real’ and therefore not worth even considering let alone making it an important part of our individual and collective lives. The Toltec I Ching offers a reorientation for the individual to attune to the higher soul which in turn is an emanation of the One, from which, and as an ongoing part of which, each and every Particular, aka the Many, aka ‘us’ are primordially joyful, creative emanations. Or: Horden’s languge and approach helps the individual consulting the Oracle enter the realm of the sacred, a timeless reality always present but often unwitnessed. The most immediate way to access it is by spending time in Nature which always conveys natural sacredness which is its fundamental nature. Spreading that into our daily lives, given how tricky and complex humans are compared to plants and stones, is an art, but one which I believe all of Horden’s works have been crafted to help engender.
baronbrasdor.art 
Let’s hope so..
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