Susan M. Frey

Dad and I cast coins. It was always fun and often challenging. I cherish those times with him. Funny -- Dad was a staunch republican -- a white-collar civil servant... more

Dad and I cast coins. It was always fun and often challenging. I cherish those times with him. Funny -- Dad was a staunch republican -- a white-collar civil servant who disapproved of women in trousers and the welfare state. But he was a bit of a closet mystic. The coins we cast belonged to him, as did the copy of the I-Ching we consulted. No matter; neither of us cared to debate the legitimacy of divination. For us, the castings provided foci for our marathon chinwags. One casting resulted in a four-hour conversation about hexagram 58 and “life, the universe, and everything”. That afternoon with him is a gift, and that casting has become a leitmotif to me: 58 Tui/ Lake over Lake The trigram Tui is symbolized by the smiling lake and its attribute is joyousness. Contrary to appearances, it is not the yielding quality of the top line of the trigram that accounts for the joy. A yielding quality accounts for melancholy, not joy. It is the two strong lines within the hexagram that indicate joy, expressing themselves through the medium of gentleness. True joy, therefore, rests on firmness and strength within, manifesting itself outwardly as yielding and gentle.