I Ching - the "What" & "How"
The I Ching is an ancient Chinese work encapsulating Taoist wisdom in a series of diagrams. Each diagram has six lines, either solid (yang) or broken (yin) and each such "Hexagram" corresponds to an aphorism or scenario. More often than not there will be one or more "moving" or "changing" lines, and applying those changes results in a second hexagram.
Though it is often used for divination, prediction or fortune-telling, it need not be. When read, traditionally, the first hexagram represents the "present", a present of unknown duration, wherein lies the potential for the "future" into which it could or should change, represented by the second hexagram. How distant or immediate this future, like the duration of the present is contextual, situational and personal.
Naturally, one reads and ruminates as needed or desired upon both the present and future as they may apply to one's own situation and personal reality. In addition, the meanings assigned to the changing lines leading from or inherent in the present and as a component of the future are also given to be read and considered.
Each day and moment is unique and fraught with both realization of past potential and potentials of its own. I do not consult the Ching for divinatory purposes, but simply to see what it has to say about today as a whole. I use electronic software, enter today's date and instruct it to emulate the selection method using yarrow stalks. The software's explication, from Legge, sometimes accompanied by further explication, is presented below the squiggle.
To quote the illustrious Robert Hunter in "Box of Rain":
Believe it if you need it, and leave it if you dare"
Legge Version
Present: Hexagram 54 -
The Marrying Maiden (Kwei Mei (Kui Mei))
Kwei Mei indicates that (under the conditions which it denotes) action will be evil, and in no wise advantageous.
Future: Hexagram 40 - Deliverance (Kieh (Hsieh))
In (the state indicated by ) Kieh advantage will be found in the south-west. If no (further) operations be called for, there will be good fortune in coming back (to the old conditions). If some operations be called for, there will be good fortune in the early conducting of them.
Changing line = Row 1:
Present: The first line, undivided, shows the younger sister married off in a position ancillary to the real wife. (It suggests the idea of) a person lame on one leg who yet manages to tramp along. Going forward will be fortunate.
Future: The first line, divided, shows that its subject will commit no error.
The Street Corner Ching
Present: Hexagram 54 -
A Backstreet Girl. There isn't really a phrase in English to express the non-person status of a secondary wife in ancient China, unless you were to call someone a slave-wife, or something like that.
By arrangement or due to a shotgun-type wedding, the subject here has no independent status of power in the situation, no resources of her own, ... . Nothing furthers at this time.
Nothing, that is, except the ever-resent reality of change itself, and to avoid ruin now could set the stage for later gain.
Row 1 The lame can walk, and to make the best of a bad situation, it is best to get going.
Future: Hexagram 40 - Relief. The way a good rain relieves a drought, the way a hiking companion might release us from a thicket of brambles into which we have stumbled, we are about to be freed from former troubles that held us hostage.
Escape, quickness and a return to safe haven (traditionally in the southwest) are indicated.
Row 1. Victims frequently feel guilty about their former misfortunes. Don't. You have done nothing wrong.