48 Community Well > 24 Turning Back > 17 Following > 26 Merit < 2 Interdependent Society
Fu Turning Back
Responding represents the tenth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. During this period of time, the yang element seems to disappear. Actually it is brewing quietly beneath the surface. At the winter solstice, the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, the yang energy emerges. In northern China, people can actually feel the yang energy begin to surface at the turning point of that specific day. There is an ancient saying handed down over thousands of years: “At winter solstice, yang begins to surge.” This idea is vividly expressed in the structure of this gua. For this reason, during the Zhou dynasty the Chinese New Year began with the winter solstice. The yang energy starts a new cycle.
This gua is the inverse of the preceding gua, Bo (Falling Away). Falling Away and Turning Back complement each other, reflecting the idea of going around and beginning again.
Wilhelm translates Bo as Splitting Apart and Fu as Return (the Turning Point). John Blofeld translates Bo as Peeling off and Fu as Return.
The ideograph of Fu is formed of two parts. On the left side are three strokes representing three footprints going away. On the right side is the ideograph fu, which provides the sound as well as the significance of the character. At the lower right, three strokes represent three footprints returning. It was an ideograph of the remote past. At the upper right, there are two oval circles standing for two suns. In fact, the ancients employed the image of two suns to represent two yang elements. The upper sun shows that the yang is falling away, as it is at the top of Bo. The lower sun signifies that the yang is returning, as it is at the bottom of Fu. The horizontal stroke on the very top represents the number one. The whole picture of the upper right side of the ideograph explains that one yang is falling away and the other yang is turning back, going around and beginning again, in endless cyclic motion. This is the way of the Book of Changes.
[Alfred Huang The Complete I Ching]
Another political Yi Reading. Hexagrams #24 and #26 are generally positive, with #17, according to Taoist Master Alfred Huang, one of the most positive in the entire canon. So perhaps the answer is that, yes, Biden will remain in the saddle until 2029 as per the Query, being re-elected anew (#24) around January 2025 (in accordance with the election cycle) having attracted a great Following (#17) and resulting in ‘Heaven within the Mountain’ of #26 which indicates the storing up of great merit consisting of ancestral wisdom. Mountain denotes dignity, calm, finality, wisdom, meditation. Heaven denotes powerful leadership, connection with the creative forces, what is right and profound. So #26 is a very strong hexagram suggesting the tranquil containment of great power and wisdom.
So that is one possible interpretation of this Cast, albeit we might have to struggle with the sixth changing line. The first two seem fine:
1 Quiet Return, good fortune might mean an easy, no fuss re-election
2 Repeated return. Danger. No blame. (If one is involved with the Return dynamic again and again it is fine – this could refer to the re-election process.)
6 Wilhelm: Missing the return. Misfortune. Misfortune from within and without. If armies are set marching in this way, one will in the end suffer a great defeat, disastrous for the ruler of the country. For ten years it will not be possible to attack again.
Now many people ignore this many changing lines and will pick the middle one. In which case, Biden, seemingly, after running again, will get elected. No big deal.
But I have not chosen to select this interpretation. Partly out of bias, and partly for the following reasons, some of which are expressed in the attached pdf text. Simply put, most of the hexagrams involve the power dynamic coming from below in the lower trigrams with no leadership in the upper trigram where Biden, as President, now dwells. This Cast, therefore, doesn’t seem to be about Biden. If we assume – as my interpretation does – that he is part of the Old that goes away to make way for the New during the time around the Winter solstice which starts on December 21st – then most likely he will leave after the next election (his last day in office being January 21st 2025) though it is possible he could fall ill or be impeached and have to leave before then, such as possibly around the time of the December 21st 2023 winter solstice. Time, as always, will tell.
If we assume that #24 indicates that a New President will come in (and given the number is #24 perhaps we can assume 2024 ?!) and the rest of the hexagrams are mainly depicting the nature of the New Cycle about to unfold at that time.
#17 shows Thunder below indicating change and forward momentum shaking things up from below and creating Lake/Joy above. The combination is #17 Following which indicates a time of everyone really coming together joyfully enjoying all four major virtues described in Hessey’s Shambhala I Ching as ‘profound, brilliant, just and all-powerful.’ The fruition of all this (#26) is a society which is stable (Mountain Above) and aligned with Heaven’s primordial goodness and creative spirit (Heaven Below).
Also in #24 is impetus from below, from the very bottom. So there might be a revolt of some sorts from the working classes in the States. This Thunder, still present in #17 results in Joy above which contains yang lines in both 4th and 5th places. So this impetus from below creates leadership above which in turn becomes two yin lines flanked above and below by yang lines in #26, this Cast’s fruition. The people are protected, honoured and also filling the two main leadership positions (4 & 5).
In any case, it’s a long time between now and a US election. This Cast was made in response to an interview read today with one of the January 6th political prisoners in the US who just received an 18 year sentence even though he did not go near the Capitol and had no weapons on his person nor communicated to anyone to do either. And yet he is still regarded as so dangerous and beneath honorable consideration that he will be locked up until his mid 70’s. He has also mainly been in solitary confinement since early 2020 and is now in solitary again after sentencing though not for any bad behavior on his part whilst incarcerated. He predicts that Trump will be found guilty of leading an Insurrection preventing his re-election at which point I had the thought of asking the Yi if Biden was going to remain in office until January 2029.
The Yi indicates a change in the late December to late January time frame (usually his last full day as President would be January 21st 2025 or 2029), but it also suggests – at least to this particular, and by no means Master, Diviner – that change will be coming from below, in which case it seems unlikely that Biden, a sitting President, will remain. Change is coming which will involve strong, inspired following from those below and ultimately a very meritorious dynamic at the end. It seems hard to imagine that Biden’s remaining in office will involve any such dynamics.
Time will tell.
PS. Note a little echo: when we inquired about RFK Jr the Yi yielded #26 as the Derived as well. I would say this sort of resonance increases the chances that he will be the one to effect joyful followership from below and a new type of leadership resulting in #26 Great Merit for his nation and people in January 2025.
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