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Part One

GOU - Hexagram 44: One powerful Yin encounters or comes to meet the Yang in the Sixth month of the Gregorian Calendar, on the Sixth of June onwards – having associated with five (meaning any number) of them. The symbol of Sun, the eldest daughter, under Qian, the father; Sun, the wind, raging under Qian, the sky. the soft underside of the solid strong edifice: one broken line under five unbroken ones, a veritable open and free orifice that sucks, topples and breaches the closed Yang fortress.

When the encounter takes place on the sixth of the sixth month in the century’s sixty-sixth year, for instance, of the last century, then anything may be possible: a whole people’s mores suffer, and general decline sets in through slow rot.

According to Richard Lynn and Richard Wilhelm’s translations: It would not do to marry such a woman. It must be brought swiftly under control by tying it to metal brakes, the Fourth Yang. The Yijing’s commentators: Confucius, Wang Bi - take the broken line to signify “woman” as Yin in their male-oriented society. Here, “Yin” may be of either sex, though the “sow”, the “lean pig” rests the book’s cherished image. One such lesson – among many – then would be:

Beware beware of the Sixth of June
   When everything begins to go out of tune
Though it be but the fifth month of the moon
   On which the Yijing decides Yang’s semesterly swoon

The dark abusive days diminish at the winter solstice
Fresh buds push inexorably under the icy parapet
Once again the earth awakens to right itself
After the skies close their eyes
                        To take a short nap
During the months of leisure
When work slows down
When Qian withdraws in August
         Wrong-doers wreak havoc
Under the guise of hard-earned reprieve

Days lengthen to expose the Yin’s covert covetous doings
Under cover of six long rollicking months of shenanigans

In June the lean pitiable sow
Begins her enticing solo
             The boars close-eyed ignore
And gore

This’s the day on the wretched creature
                                                       sidles up
Both pity and compassion
           nourish her
The poor defenceless shivering thing
Fatherless misunderstood
     Victim of strict meanness
Faking blind discrimination
Unjustly broken
                 forsaken
The oddly fascinating Yin
        willing to be folded within
     Protective wings

(Continued on the next page)
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