{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3977", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3977, "subject": "The Orcle, The Excession, The Outsider", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-05-05T19:16:22+00:00", "last": "2003-05-06T04:50:01+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Che Monro", "address": "flirt at technologist.com" }, "date": "2003-05-05T19:16:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Orcle, The Excession, The Outsider", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wise Ones,\n\nIn my simple curiosity I sought to enqire of the Oracle of Changes about \nit's own existance and spirituality. I used this oracle:\n\nhttp://www.mdani.demon.co.uk/para/iching2.htm\n\nto ask the question:\n\nAre you well? Are you happy? I would like to know about the sprititual \nstate of the Oracle of Changes.\n\nTo which I received the reply of Hexagram 28 or Great Excess, with no \nchanging lines and thus no second hexagram.\n\n~*~\n\nBeyond the great pass\n\nCrossing the great pass: the ridgepole is sagging\nHarvest: to proceed probing Expansion\n\nThe great image says:\n\nThe marsh submerges the tree: Great excess\nThe noble one stands alone without fear, leads a life of recluse without \nmelancholy\n\nLife is a cycle, it is circular. It begins, it grows, and it goes down \nagain. To make life a straight road to a distant future is a desperate \nattempt of human mind to make it never-ending. It will not help him – \ninevitably he will go down some day.\n\nBut if man accepts going down as a substantial, important and good part of \nlife, not as a decline but as a indispensable phase, then he makes his \nliving days twice as many.\n\nDo not live as an old man or an old woman, live as a grand old man, a grand \nold lady. Without regret or fear, but with the riches of wisdom and experience.\n\nThis applies to everything, to enterprises, feelings, popularity. In \neverything all phases are important.\n\n~*~\n\nIt seems to me that the oracle is saying that it is beyond the completion \nof the cycle, that it is old beyond age (and young beyond youth?). It \nexceeds all expectations, and yet at the same time, it is a broken stick \n(yarrow stalk?). It is a contradiction, a mystery, an exception to the \nrules. It is beyond the Great Pass. It comes from the other side.\n\nThis description reminded me of two things.\n\n1. The Outsider from The Book of the Long Sun\n\n2. The Excession of Iain M Banks - that paradigmn shifting outside event \nwhich changes the entire system and, eventually, reveals new understanding.\n\nCould it be that the Outsider and the Oracle are one and the same? Perhaps \nsomeone with greater insight and understanding could help me to interpret \nthis conundrum.\n\nThanks,\n\nChe\n\nChé Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com\nche at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joshuafalchion", "address": "joshuafalchion at aol.com" }, "date": "2003-05-06T04:50:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Orcle, The Excession, The Outsider", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I doubt if Wolfe would see much of a connection between the Oracle of Changes \n(the I Ching, I presume) and the Outsider, who seems a fairly clear \nChristian/Moslem take on the Supreme Being or Increate. But who knows ... I \nam no expert on the subject of the I Ching, and a connection could have been \nimplied (although where I am not certain.)\n\nJosh the Falchion" } ] } ] }